Full text of "Mind"
BINDING LIST JUL 15 1922
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
ABERDEEN : THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
M
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
EDITED BY
G. E. MOORE,
WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF PROFESSOR E. B. TITCHENER, AMERICAN
EDITORIAL REPRESENTATIVE, AND OF PROFESSOR WARD, PROFESSOR
PRINGLE-PATTISON, DAVID MORRISON, M.A., AND OTHERJMEMBERS
OF AN ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
NEW SERIES.
VOL. XXX.-I92I.
LONDON:
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED,
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, W.C.
1 92 i.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXX.
(NEW SERIES.)
ARTICLES.
PAGE
ALEXANDER, S. Some Explanations 409
BROAD, C. D. Prof. Alexander's Gifford Lectures (I.) .... 25
,. >, >, (H.) ..- 129
.The External World 385
FIELD, G. C. Faculty Psychology and Instinct Psychology - - 257
GEEGOBY, J. C. Realism and Imagination 308
HICKS, G. DA WES. Prof. Ward's Psychological Principles ... 1
LEON, P. Literary Truth and Realism (I.) 287
. (II.) 429
MONTAGUE, W. P. and H. H. PABKHUBST. The Ethical and ^Esthetic
Implications of Realism - 172
PABKHUBST, H. H. See Montague, W. P.
SHARP, F. C. Hume's Ethical Theory and Its Critics (I.) 40
.. ., ., (H.) - - - 151
SIDGWICK, A. Statements and Meaning 271
DISCUSSIONS.
BOSANQUET, B. The Basis of Bosanquet's Logic 191
DUDDINGTON, Mrs. N. A. Do we know other minds mediately or im-
mediately? 195
HALE, E. Plato's " Misconception " of Morality - - 57
SCHILLER, F. C. S. The Meaning of " Meaning " - - - - 185
. ,, .... 444
STRONG, C. A. .... 313
CRITICAL NOTICES.
Aristotelian Society, Proceedings of the, Vol. XX., 1919-20 (H. Barker) 220
CAMPBELL, N. R. Physics : The Elements (A. D. Ritchie) - - - 207
DBAKE, H., etc. Essays in Critical Realism (A. Dorward) - 339
DBIESCH, *H..Wirklichkeitslehre (Miss H. D. Oakeley) 346
EDDINGTON, A. S. Space, Time, and Gravitation (A. E. Taylor) - - 76
EINSTEIN, A. Relativity, the Special and tlie General Theory (A. E.
Taylor) 76
FAWCETT, D. Divine Imagining (J. S. Mackenzie) .... 455
HALDANE, VISCOUNT. The Reign of Relativity - - 462
HANDYSIDE, J. The Historical Method in Ethics (Miss E. E. C. Jones) 88
HOEBNLE, R. F. A. Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics (J. Laird) 71
JOHNSON, W. ~E. Logic : Patt I. (J. Gibson) 448
LAIRD, J. A Study in Realism (R. F. A. Hoernle) .... 333
VI CONTENTS.
PAGE
LEVI, A. Suite Interpretazioni Immanentistiche della Filosofia di
Platone (A. E. Taylor) ... 214
LEVI, A. II Concetto del Tempo nella Filosofia di Platone (A. E.
Taylor) 214
McDouGALL, W. Tfie Group Mind (B. Bosanquet) 63
McTAGGABT, J. McT. E.The Nature of Existence (C. D. Broad) - 317
RICHARDSON, C. A. Spiritual Pluralism and Recent Philosophy (H. V.
Knox) , 83
RIVERS, W. H. R. Instinct and the Uncomcious (J. W. Scott) - - 198
WHITEHEAD, A. N. The Concept of Nature (A. E. Taylor) - - - 76
NEW BOOKS.
ALIOTTA, A. L'Estetica del Croce e la Crisi dell' Idealismo Moderno
(H. W. C.) - - - 488
Aristotle, The Works of, trans, into English under the editorship of
W. D. Ross, Vol. X. (A. E. Taylor) 488
Baconi, Rogeri, Opera Jiactenus inedita, Fasc. V. (A. E. Taylor) - - 369
BOHME, J. Six Theosophic Points and Other Writings (B. Bosanquet) 111
BOIRAC, E.- The Psychology of the Future (F. C. S. S.) ... 243
BRIFFAULT, R. Psyche's Lamp (L. S. S.) 479
BROWN, W. Psychology and PsycJwtherapy (W. Whately Smith) - 476
CAJORI, F. A History of the Conceptions of Limits and Fluxions in
Great Britain from Newton to WoodJwuse (C. D. B.) 372
CARLINI, A. La Filosofia di Giovanni Locke (H. Wildon Carr) - - 234
CARR, H. WILDON. The General Principle of Relativity in its Philoso-
phical and Historical Aspect (W. D. Ross) 232
CASOTTI, M. Introduzione alia Pedagogia (B. Bosanquet) - 481
,, . Saggio di una Concezione Idealistica della Storia
(B. Bosanquet) 104
CASSIRER, E. Zur Einstein' 1 schen Relativitats-tJieorie : Erkenntnis-
iheoretische Betrachtungen (W. D. Ross) 232
CAZAMIAN, L. L'Evolution Psychologize et la Litterature en Angle-
terre (I. A. Richards) 483
CHIOCCHETTI, E. I/a Filosofia di Benedetto Croce (H. Wildon Carr) - 107
CULPIN, M. Spiritualism and the New PsycJwlogy (F. C. S. Schiller) 247
CUNNINGHAM, 'R. Relativity, the Electron Theory and Gravitation
(C. D. B.) 490
DES BANCELS, J. LARGUIER. Introduction a la Psychologic (J. Drever) 478
DREVER, J. The Psychology of Industry (B. M.) - 486
DUNLAP, K. Mysticism, Freudianism and Scientific Psychology
(J. W, S.) 487
DWELSHADVERS, G. La Psychologic Francaise Contemporaine (B.
Edgell) 246
FERENCZI, S., etc. Psycho-analysis and the War Neuroses (E.
Prideaux) 486
FINDLAY, J. J. An Introduction to Sociology for Social Workers and
General Readers (W. McD.) - 242
FREUNDLICH, E. The Foundations of Einstein's Theory of Gravitation
(C. D. Broad) - - 101
GABELLI, A. H Metodo d'Insegnamento nelle Scuole Elementari
d'ltalia (B. Bosanquet) - 481
GATTI, P. L'Unitd del Pensiero Leopardiano (A. E. Taylor) - - 489
GEMELLI, A. Religione e Scienza (H. Wildon Carr) .... 107
GENTILE, G. Discorsi di Religione (B. Bosanquet) .... 98
f , .Giordano Bruno e il Pensiero del Rinascimento (J. L. M.) 489
,, . Teoria Generale dello Spirito come Atto Puro (B. Bosan-
quet) 96
GENTILE, P.L'Essenziale della Filosofia del Diritto (B. Bosanquet) - 10&
CONTENTS. Vll
PAGE
GILSON, E. Le Thomisme : Introduction au Systeme de S. Thomas
d'Aquin (A. E. T.) 115
GODDARD, H. H. Psychology of Normal and Subnormal (F. C. S.
Schiller) 106
Guzzo, A.IPrimi Scritti di Kant, 1746-1760 (A. E. T.) - - - 243
HOBHOUSE, L. T. Tlie Rational Good : A Study in the Logic of Prac-
tice (J. Laird) 360
James, William, The Letters of (H. V. Knox) - - - - - 354
JABTEOW, J. Tlie Psychology of Conviction (C. W. V.) - 485
JONES, W. TUDOR The Making of Personality (F. C. S. S.) - - - 490
The Training of Mind and Will (F. C. S. S.) - - 490
KBEMEE, E. Le Neo-Realisme Amencain (F. C. S. S.) - - - - 244
LADD, G. T. Knowledge, Life and Reality (M. Lebus) - - - 239
LALO, C.L'Art et la Vie Sociale (I. A. B.) 491
LEIGHTON, J. A. The Field of Philosophy (F. C. S. S.) 244
LEVJ, A.Sceptica (A. E. Taylor) 470
LINK, H. C. Employment Psychology 113
Louvain, Universite de, Annales de rinstitut Super ieur de Philoso-
phic : Tome IV. (A. E. T.) 240
MACINTOSH, D. C. Theology as an Empirical Science (G. Galloway) - 103
MACPHEBSON, W. The Psyclwlogy of Persuasion (W. McD.) - - 243
MARETT, B. B. Psychology and Folk-lore (J. Drever) - 114
MARSHALL, H. B. Mind and Conduct (J. Drever) .... 94
MAXWELL, J. CLARK Matter and Motion: reprinted with notes by Sir
J. Larmor (C. D. B.) 372
McCABE, J. Spiritualism: A Popular History from 1847 (F. C. S.
Schiller) 371
McDowALL, S. A. Beauty and the Beast (B. Bosanquet) ... 110
MENTRK, F. Les Generations Sociales (B. Bosanquet) - - - 363
MULLER-FREIENFELS, B. Das Denken und die Phantasie (J. Laird) 228
O'CALLAGHAN, J. Dual Evolution (L. J. Russell)- - - - 480
OLTRAMARE, P. Vivre : Essai de Biosophie Theorique ct Pratique
(F. C. S. S.) 114
PARKER, DE\V. H. Tlie Principles of ^Esthetics (I. A. B.) - - - 491
PILLSBURY, W. B. The Psychology of Nationality and International-
ism (C. C. J. W.) 237
PRATT, J. B. The Religious Consciousness : A Psychological Study
(J.W.S.) 368
PUTNAM, J. J. Addresses on Psycho-analysis (E. Prideaux) - - 474
BEAD, C. The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions (J. Drever) - 230
RIGXANO, E. Psychologie du Raisonnement (F. C. Bartlett) - - 468
BOBB, A. A. The Absolute Relations of Time and Space (C. D. B.) - 490
BOYCE, J. Lectures on Modern Idealism (C. C. J. W.) 227
SCHJELDERUP, H. K. Hauptlinien der Entwicklung der Philosophic
von Mitte des 19 Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart (J. L. M.) - - 245
SCHLICK, M. Space and Time in Contemporary Physics (C. D. Broad) 245
SCHOFIELD, A. T.The Mind of a Woman (F. C. S. S.)
SPAVENTA, B. La Liberia d'Insegnamento (B. Bosanquet) - - - 481
SPIRITO, U. II Pragmatismo nella Filosofia Contemporanea (F. C. S.
Schiller) 362
STEIN, L. Philosophical Currents of the Present Day : Vol. II. (J. L.) 113
TANSLEY, A. G. Tlie New Psychology and its Relation to Life - - 115
TURNER, J. E. An. Examination of William James's Philosophy
(H. V. Knox) 244
URWICK, E. J. The Message of Plato (A. E. T.) 235
WAHL, J. Les Philosophes Pluralistes d'Angleterre et d'Amerique
(L. J. Russell) 366
WALKER, C. T. H. The Construction of the World in Terms of Fact
and Value (0. C. Quick) 109
WALLAS, Or. Our Social Heritage (P. V. A. Benecke) 472
WARD, S. Tte Ways of Life : A Study in Ethics (B. Bosanquet) - 112
Vlll CONTENTS.
PAGE
WELTSCH, F. Gnade und Freiheit (J. Lindsay) 484
WICKSTEED, P. H. The Reactions betiveen Dogma and Philosophy,
illustrated from the Works of S. Thomas Aquinas (A. E. Taylor) - 357
ZERVOS, C. Un philosophe Neo-platonicien du Xle Siecle, Michael
Psellus (A. E. T.) - 116
PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS.
British Journal of Psychology (vol. x., Part I. ; Nov., 1919) 375
' (vol. x., Parts II. and III. ; March, 1920) 495
,, Medical Section (vol. L, Part I.; Oct.,
1920) 376
Journal of Philosophy, Psyclwlogy and Scientific MetJwds (vol. xvii.
(1920), 9-15) 119
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods (vol. xvii.
(1920), 16-26) 250
Journal of Philosophy (vol. xviii. (1921), 1-2) 251
" (vol. xviii. (1921), 3-10) 494
Logos (vol. iii., 3-4, July-Dec., 1920) 380
Philosophical Review (vol. xxx., 1-2) 495
Revile Neo-Scolastigue de Philosophic (85 and 87 ; Feb. and Aug., 1920) 120
(88; Nov., 1920) 252
(89 ; Feb., 1921) - - - 378
(90; May, 1921)- - - - 496
Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica (xii., 5; Sept.-Oct., 1920) - - 381
(xiii., 1-2; Jan.-April, 1921) - - 498
Scientia (vol. xxxviii., 9-12 ; xxxix. 1-2 ; Sept. 1920 Feb. 1921) - - 377
NOTES.
ANGLO-AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FOR CENTRAL EUROPE - - 255
FAWCETT, D. Dreams - - 122
HOOPER, C. E. " Common Sense and the Rudiments of Philosophy " y_ 254
Kfll
> > > i
MIND ASSOCIATION : List of Officers and Members .... 125
,, : Notices of Annual Meeting - 256, > 384
,, : Report of Proceedings at Annual Meeting - - 504
OBITUARY NOTICES : A Meinong 124
: F. Picavet 502
: W. Wundt 123
RUSSELL, L. J. " Common Sense and the Rudiments of Philosophy"
SOCIETE FRAN^-AISE DE PHILOSOPHIC, INVITATION DE 255-
TAYLOR, A. E. " The Message of Plato " 384
URWICK, E. J. 383;
NEW SERIES. No. 117.] [JANUARY, 1921.
M IND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
I. PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL
PRINCIPLES. 1
BY G. DAWES HICKS.
THE twentieth volume of the ninth edition of the Encyclo-
p&dia Britannica, containing the article on " Psychology,"
appeared in 1886. Alexander Bain, who wrote on it in that
year's October number of MIND, was among the first to
acknowledge its importance, and characterised it as " a signal
achievement of philosophical ability ". "When," he said,
" the matters excluded by the narrow limits are filled in,
when the illustration of the whole is duly expanded, and
when, finally, the exposition of subtleties is transferred from
brevier to pica, Mr. Ward will have produced a work entitled
to a place among the masterpieces of the philosophy of the
human mind." After an interval of thirty-two years, the
desiderata thus specified have been made good, and it can
now unhesitatingly be said that the prediction then recorded
has been fulfilled. The article has developed into an impos-
ing book, and serious students of the subject everywhere will
wish to congratulate the author upon the completion of a
work that will assuredly rank as a classic in psychological
literature. Of the real greatness of the book one becomes
conscious at well-nigh every turn. The originality and
acuteness of its leading ideas, the thoroughness with which
they are worked out and applied, the comprehensive insight
which is brought to bear in the treatment of special problems,
1 Psychological Principles. By James Ward, Sc.D., LL.D., D.Sc.,
F.B.A., Professor of Mental Philosophy, Cambridge. Pp. xiv., 478.
Cambridge Press, 1918, 2nd ed., 1920.
1
2 G. DA WES HICKS :
the wealth and freshness of illustration, drawn from the
most varied fields of inquiry all combine to confirm the
impression that we have here a monument of careful, pro-
found and resolute thinking and research, a product of true
genius in the sense in which Prof. Ward himself distin-
guishes genius from mere talent.
Bain's reception of the article was, as is observed in the
preface to the present volume, generous ; and no doubt would
still have been so, had he actually gauged its revolutionary
character. There is, however, in "his running commentary
no indication that he in the least suspected the extent to
which the associationist psychology had been undermined.
The time, indeed, was ripe for a new departure. The
younger workers in psychology were casting aside one after
another of the traditional doctrines. Adamson, in his
lectures at Owen's College, had been gradually developing a
view of the mental life and of its growth and evolution
altogether unlike that of any of the current text-books, and
which was only briefly hinted at in the very significant review
he wrote of Sully's Outlines in the volume of MIND for 188-4 ;
even Groom Robertson, as is apparent from the posthumous
Lecture Notes, had been deviating widely in his own teaching
from the teaching he had imbibed in his studenfc-days in
Aberdeen. The Encyclopedia article came at an opportune
moment and signalised a complete revolt from the school of
which Bain was the last representative. No sooner was it
published than it was at once recognised as a contribution to
the science of first-rate value ; it laid the foundation, in fact,
of the best psychological work that has been done in this
country during the last quarter of a century. 1 Although based
upon the article, the book contains a large amount of fresh
matter, the last seven chapters, dealing with experience at the
self-conscious and social level, being almost entirely new.
There are certainly some differences, and these not altogether
unimportant, between the article of 1886 and what we have
now before us ; yet the slightest comparison of their contents
will enable it to be seen that the root conceptions have
remained the same, and it is a sufficient indication of the
thoroughness with which those conceptions were originally
thought out that now, after thirty-two years of subsequent
research, Prof. Ward finds little to modify and is mainly
1 A supplementary article was prepared for the tenth the Times
edition of the Encyclopedia and was published in vol. xxxii in 1902.
Finally, the two articles, with omissions and additions, were amalgamated
into the new article of the present or eleventh edition, and this appeared
in the twenty-second volume in 1911.
PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 3
concerned to expand and carry forward the principles he had
formulated in early life.
The Encyclopedia article has become, as its author is fully
entitled to feel, " the common property of students " ; and on
that account a review, in any ordinary sense, of the work
before us would, in these pages at least, be no less superfluous
than difficult to write. One may be permitted, therefore, to
make the appearance of Psychological Principles the occasion
for referring here to certain fundamental issues which Prof.
Ward's treatment of the mental life forces to the front,
his own position in regard to which we now have stated in
the form that seems to him, after long reflexion, to be the
most adequate.
1. "It is the sole and the whole business of the psycho-
logist to trace the history of the conscious life of the individual
subject, and it is in the notion of the individual subject that
he will find the limits of his treatment." So Adamson wrote
in 1884. And no less emphatically Dr. Ward has consistently
maintained that the standpoint of psychology is ' individual-
istic,' that psychology is ' the science of individual experience,'
and that it ' never transcends the limits of the individual '
(p. 27). Probably it is doing little more than re-stating in
other words the position thus characterised to assert that " it
is the exclusive business of psychology to analyse and trace
the development of individual experience as it is for the
experiencing individual" (p. 104), and not, that is to say, as
it might be supposed to be displayed to an external spectator.
But the really vital consideration receives in the latter mode
of statement explicit recognition. There is nothing, of
course, to preclude the psychologist making use of all the
help he can get from the study of animal behaviour, physio-
logical conditions, and the various other sources to which he
is wont to have recourse ; but in so far as psychology claims
to be the science of the actual life of mind there can be no
question as to the soundness of the contention just indicated.
I would urge, however, that Dr. Ward does injustice to the
standpoint he has so convincingly put forward as the right
one when he apparently identifies it with that of Locke,
Berkeley and Hume, and declares theirs to be ' the proper '
standpoint for the science of psychology. It is true that he
guards himself from any implication of giving countenance to
their method; but the question is whether their faulty
method was not due, at any rate in part, to an erroneous
standpoint. And I believe such can be shown to be the
case. " There is no denying," we are told, "a steady psycho-
logical advance as we pass from Locke to Hume and his
4 G. DAWES HICKS:
modern representatives " (p. 26). Yet when, for instance, in
violent antithesis to what Dr. Ward finds to be the case,
Hume alleged that " all our distinct perceptions are distinct
existences," and that "the mind never perceives any real
connexion among distinct existences," is it not manifest that
he was trying to survey conscious experience not from within
but ab extra, as though it were itself an object to be observed,
and that consequently he was compelled to reject whatsoever
did not present itself as so much matter of objective observa-
tion ? Surely, it is here the standpoint, and not merely the
method, that is verkehrt a standpoint from which it was
inevitable not only that any real connexion among so-called
' perceptions ' should be missed, but that also the being of an
experiencing subject as more than a succession of discrete
perceptions should evince itself as an unwarrantable assump-
tion. I would venture, therefore, to claim for the standpoint of
Psychological Principles that it implies, as, indeed, I have
already indicated, an entire inversion of the standpoint of Hume
and his modern representatives an inversion that was im-
peratively necessary if psychology was not to remain stationary
before an impasse that blocked the road of further advance.
The author's emphatic repudiation of the view that presenta-
tions are * subjective modifications ' ought, at any rate, to ob-
viate a kind of misunderstanding to which the Encyclopedia
article frequently gave rise. 1
In point of fact, the radical divergence of the new stand-
point from the old becomes apparent at the start in
determining, namely, the definition of psychology. The
empirical psychologist cannot, it is contended, follow the
procedure of the natural sciences, just because the two stand-
points are utterly different (whereas according to Hume and
his modern representatives they are essentially similar).
The physicist asserts simply : there is this or that. But were
the psychologist to give expression to the facts he is con-
cerned with merely in the form : there are such and such
presentations or feelings or movements, as though these were
independent entities, he would be mutilating his data in a
way that would render dubious every subsequent step he took.
Either explicitly or implicitly he is bound, at any rate, when
dealing with the mature mind, to express himself in the form :
the individual experient has such and such presentations,
feels thus or thus, acts in this wise or that. And this 'form
1 E.g., Mr. Pilchard's criticism (MiND, N.S., xvi, p. 27, sqq.) was to a
considerable extent misdirected, because he supposed Dr. Ward to be seek-
ing "to vindicate the possession by psychology of a standpoint which may
be or rather must be philosophically false".
PROF. WARD S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 5
of consciousness ' cannot be eliminated except by ignoring
what is, or has become, characteristic of concrete experience,
and accordingly deserting the ground that is peculiar to
psychology. So-called ' states of consciousness ' are not, that
is to say, independent entities ; they are states of a subject,
modes in which that subject lives and acts. And so-called
"' contents of consciousness,' though not necessarily actions or
affections of a subject, must be contents for a subject. The
reference of what is experienced to a subject experiencing
may be said, therefore, to be an inexpugnable postulate of
psychology; the concept of a 'self,' or conscious subject,
cannot be banished from psychological treatises it is to be
found " not more in Berkeley, who accepts it as a fact, than
in Hume, who treats it as a fiction ".
Bam, observing how, as it seemed to him, in the course of
the exposition, the scope of the subject gradually extended,
until finally it absorbed all the three elementary properties
-cognition, feeling, and conation and left only presentations,
sensory and motor, outside its range, declared not unnaturally
that ' this aggrandisement of the subject ' staggered him.
No doubt the shock in his case was partly due to a suspicion
that he was here confronted with a * nucleus and hiding-place
of mysticism '. The suspicion was, however, an unfounded
one. For in the article it had been expressly insisted that the
psychological concept of a self or subject is in no sense
coincident with the metaphysical concept of a soul, and
might be kept as free from the implications of the latter as
the concept of an organism in biology. So far from intending
to postulate, as Bain supposed, "an entity distinct from
feeling, knowing, and doing, and having a common relation to
all three, " the author had rather been showing grounds for
assuming an entity of which feeling, knowing and striving
are modes or activities modes or activities that, in fact, go to
constitute the very entity which had been taken to be distinct
from them. What the contention amounts to is, I take it, that
wherever we have a state or mode of consciousness, there we
have what may otherwise be called, using Lotze's terminology,
a mode of ' being for self,' a mode of self-expression on the
part of a subject that in and through such act is in some
measure and to some degree aware of, or experiencing, itself.
The awareness in question may be confused and indefinite
to any extent, it may be no more than the first dim obscure
stirrings of feeling; but the point is it is always there, and
were it not the gradual development of self-consciousness
would be inexplicable. The objection that the notion of
* subject ' has no legitimate place in an empirical science
hardly requires serious refutation. There is surely nothing
6 G. DAWES HICKS :
' metempirical ' in the argument that on the one hand the
mature self-consciousness would be impossible if the earlier
phases of the mental life did not possess, as part of their
n >ture, this admittedly crude self-reference, and, on the
other hand, that neither the primitive self-reference nor the
mature self-consciousness indicates an entity which is distinct
from the inner states themselves.
2. Everything experienced is, then, referred to a subject ex-
periencing. Not only so, Prof. Ward is emphatic in contending
that for psychology the antithesis of subject and object is
primordial ; absolute beginnings are beyond the pale of
science, and, so far as it can be handled psychologically,
experience already implies, or is constituted by, the duality
in question. The relation of object to subject is, psycho-
logically conceived, the relation of presentation, in the sense
of that term which Prof. Ward has made familiar. More-
over, the relation is so fundamental in character as to justify
' the resolution of psychological facts into two entirely distinct
categories the subjective faculty or function of action-under-
feeling, or consciousness, on the one side, and a field of
consciousness, consisting of objects, ideas, or presentations,,
on the other' (p. 70).
The subject has the one 'capacity' of feeling i.e. r
susceptibility to pleasure or pain, and the one ' power/ that,
namely, of attending to, or of variously distributing attention
upon, given objects. The term ' attention ' is used as
practically synonymous with what has usually been called
* consciousness,' or, at any rate, so much of what has been
meant by ' consciousness ' as answers to being mentally
active, active enough at least to 'receive impressions ' (p. 49).
Inasmuch as it is only objects that sustain the relation
of presentation, such objects, it is maintained, may safely
be spoken of as 'presentations'. That is to say, it is pro-
posed to use the name ' presentation ' as a designation both
for the relation and for one term of the relation. It is worth
noticing that in the passage explaining the latter usage
some significant changes have been introduced. 1 In dis-
1 Formerly the passage ran as follows : " All that variety of mental
facts which we speak of as sensations, perceptions, images, intuitions,
concepts, notions, have two characteristics in common : (1) they admit
of being more or less attended to, and (2; can be reproduced and
associated together. It is here proposed to use the term presentation to
connote such a mental fact, and as the best English equivalent for what
Locke meant by idea, and what Kant and Herbart called a Vorstellung.'*
Now the passage reads: "All the various constituents of experience
spoken of as sensations, movements, percepts, images, intuitions, concepts,
notionb, have two characteristics in common : (1) they are more or less-
PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 7
carding the phrase " mental facts," Prof. Ward wishes,
if I mistake not, to avoid any suggestion that, because they
are ' in the mind ' in the sense of being present to the mind,
presentations are necessarily mental in nature. He would,
I take it, allow that, from an epistemological point of view,
presentations are appearances to the subject of entities
other than the subject, 1 while insisting, at the same time,
that the being and character of such appearances depend in
part upon the being and character of the subject to whom
they are presented. A presentation has then a two-fold
relation (a) directly to the subject, and (6) to other
presentations. Following in this respect the Herbartian
tradition, Prof. Ward sharply severs the presentation from
the act of apprehending the act which he calls the act of
attention. The presentation is that which is attended to,
that which in and through attending the subject is aware of ;
and, consequently, it may with propriety be described as an
object, or better perhaps, in order to differentiate it from
objects conceived as independent of any particular subject,
a psychical object. Within the region of experience,
presentations constitute the objective factor, and from them
must be distinguished as heterogeneous whatsoever attaches
only to the subject and the subject's 'attitude towards
presentations.
That it is possible on this basis to offer a psychological
account of experience which is fairly coherent Prof. Ward
has sufficiently shown. Nevertheless, the theory of
presentations requires, I venture to think, to be much more
radically dissociated from its Herbartian prototype before it can
be regarded as a satisfactory principle of psychological ex-
planation. I am ready to admit that the objections one
would press are mainly objections of an epistemological kind ;
but on a matter so fundamental as this I do not see how any
hard and fast line can be drawn between psychology and epistc-
mology, and, in any case, despite what has sometimes been
urged to the contrary, Dr. Ward does not think that a position
epistemologically untenable can be sound psychological doc-
trine. The query I would raise is that which was raised many
years ago by Adamson, ' 2 whether, namely, ' presentations ' are
rightly described as objects, even of the kind called ' psychical '
or 'immanent '. And, on this matter, I am constrained to differ
attended to, and (2) they can be variou ly combined together and
reproduced. It is here proposed to denote them all by the general term
presentation, as being the b?st English equivalent for what Locke meant
by idea and what Kant and Her! art called a Vorstellung " (p. 46).
1 Cf. C. A. Richardson, Spiritual Pluralism, p. 110.
- Development nf Modern Philosophy, ii, p. 173.
8 G. DAWES HICKS:
from Dr. Ward. The difficulties which the treatment of
presentations as objects occasions seem to me to be many,
but it will suffice here to single out two of them, (a) A
presentation, so regarded, occupies the position of a tertium
quid; and, after the manner of an 'idea,' as conceived by
Locke, stands in the way of any direct apprehension on the
part of the cognising mind of an external object, in the
ordinary sense of the term, or of what Dr. Ward has
designated a ' transsubjective object'. Dr. Ward's conten-
tion is that it is only in so far as we in common experience
relate numerically different but qualitatively similar im-
manent objects of various individual experients to a single
reality that there comes to be for us awareness of common
or transsubjective objects. But, not to mention the em-
barrassing circumstance of having thus to allow that the
awareness of other minds must in some form or other be for
the individual prior to the awareness of external things, it is
peculiarly perplexing to be driven to assume that our belief
in external things rests ultimately upon an inference, and
upon an inference moreover that is logically invalid. 1 (6) The
theory precludes, so far as I can see, the possibility of giving
an intelligible account of the nature of the act of cognition or
attention. For in what precisely does the activity of
attention consist ? Is it merely a process of contemplating
the presentation offered to it, of accepting it as given, after
the manner in which, according to another theory, we are
supposed to be ' acquainted ' with a datum ? Certainly I do
not imagine Dr. Ward to be intending to suggest anything of
the kind. He frequently speaks of * concentrating attention '.
And by that he cannot mean a merely gesteigertes Hinstarren
aufden Gegenstand, which, as Lotze urged, would be perfectly
fruitless, if there were nothing either in the object or around
it to compare and bring into relation. For he represents the
conscious subject as, through the act of attention, differentiat-
ing and distinguishing the parts of the presented object, as
gradually becoming aware of its several features. Now, any
such process of gradual discrimination presupposes (assum-
ing that the presentation is the presented object) that what
the conscious subject is at first immediately aware of is not
1 Logically invalid, because clearly the presence of similar features in
numerous immanent objects would justify only the formation of general
notions of those features and not the thought of a real external thing of
which they are properties. It is no doubt the case that true beliefs
often are attained psychologically through processes of reasoning that are
logically vicious. But that we have, even from an epistemological point of
view, no other ground than that indicated for the fundamental antithesis
in knowledge is a conclusion in which, at any rate, one would only reluct-
antly acquiesce.
PEOF. WAED'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PKINCIPLES. 9
the presentation as it really is in its completeness of detail
but the presentation as it appears to be when much of its
detail is obscure or unrecognised. In other words, there
breaks out within the field of presentation just that very
contrast between appearance and reality which has usually
been taken to subsist between the presentation and the external
object. So far, then, as apprehension of it is concerned, an
object derives no advantage from being a ' presentation ? ;
whether the object be ' subjective ' (in what Dr. Ward would
call an epistemological sense) or ' transsubjective,' the pro-
blem which the cognitive relation forces upon us is in either
case precisely the same.
To put the matter briefly, I conceive there is an alternative
to the ' theory of presentations,' as here interpreted, and an
alternative other than that which in the work before us is con-
sidered. This alternative may perhaps be brought into view
by the suggestion that under the one term ' presentation ' two
essentially different factors are liable to be confused factors
which, for want of better technical terminology, one may be
allowed to designate ' awareness of a content ' and ' the content
of which there is awareness '. What is meant can best be
made clear by an example. Take Prof. Ward's own classical
illustration of bestowing in the course of a few minutes half a
dozen glances at a strange and curious flower. Let us, how-
ever, for the sake of the argument, suppose that the act of
attention is directed, as it would certainly seem to be, upon
the actual flower, and not upon a ' presentation ' of it. Then,
following Prof. Ward's account, we may assert that the
attending subject will gradually discriminate a multiplicity
of features at first the general outline, next the disposition
of petals, stamens, etc., afterwards the attachment of the
anthers, position of the ovary, and so forth that is to say,
his state of mind will become by degrees a state in and
through which he may fairly be said to be aware of the
features of the flower. Now, this awareness of the features
of the flower is not, it will be agreed, something that can be
severed from the act of being aware, the act of attending.
If one describes it not as the content of which there is
awareness, but as the content of the act of attending at a
particular stage of its progress, or as that which gives to the
act in question its specific character and enables it to be dis-
tinguished from other acts of the same cognising individual,
one will be doing no violence either to the facts or to
language. No one would .wish to maintain that awareness
of the flower is that which is in this instance attended to,
that it is the object upon which the act of attention is
10 G. DAWES HICKS :
directed. No one, I should suppose, would wish to deny that
such awareness is a characteristic of the act of attending,
when that act has reached a certain degree of completeness.
Consider, now, the other factor ' the content of which there-
is awareness '. Again, meanwhile, we are, for the sake of
the argument, taking the object upon which the act of
attention is directed to be the actual flower. That object
the conscious subject gradually comes to recognise has a
variety of characteristics a definite shape, a definite size,
definite colours, and so on. The sum of the characteristics
which the conscious subject will be aware of at any given-
moment will be different from the sum of characteristics-
which he will be aware of at another moment, and either
of these will only be a fragment of the much larger sum
of characteristics which there are good grounds for believ-
ing the flower itself possesses. Furthermore, the sum of
apprehended features (='the content of which there is
awareness ') is clearly distinguishable from the larger sum
of characteristics just mentioned. But just as clearly there
is no reason for supposing that the former constitutes an?
existent fact, be it called a 'presentation,' or 'sense-datum/
or what not. What, on the contrary, we do seem entitled to
affirm is that it only comes to be in virtue of the act of
attention having been first of all directed upon the actual
flower and that apart from that act it would have had no
' being ' of any sort. If, then, it be described as a presentation
of the flower, it is surely imperative to avoid any implication
of the ' presentation ' being there, as an existent fact, prior to
the act of attention and in some way calling forth such act. As
Prof. Strong concisely puts it, "when I present a lady with a
bouquet of flowers, I do not present her with the presentation
of the flowers, but only with the flowers". l
Such, then, expressed in a few words, is what I take to be a
tenable alternative to the theory we are considering, and I hope
enough has been said to make manifest where the roads
diverge. Dr. Ward still retains, though it is true in a
modified form, the old notion of the individual mind as a
reacting essence, and of sensory presentations as the results of
such reaction. I am far from saying that the view in question
is not entitled to respect. Lotze's adherence to it is alone
sufficient to elicit that. All the same, I believe it to be a mis-
taken view, and that a more resolute working out of our author's
own theory of attention would compel its rejection. For,,
after all, the really significant feature of the last mentioned,
theory is not a mere matter of terminology, but the distinct
1 The Origin of Consciousness, p. 37.
PKOF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 11
recognition of the truth that cognitive apprehension is, so to
speak, from first to last of one piece, that its later and more
developed phases differ in degree but not in kind from its
earlier and more rudimentary phases. Once allow that
cognitive apprehension is from the beginning a discriminative
activity, and the doctrine of ' presentations ' as themselves-
objects is, it seems to me, undermined.
3. "Psychologists have usually represented mental ad-
vance as consisting fundamentally in the combination and
re-combination of various elementary units, the so-called
sensations and primitive movements " (pp. 75-76). By no
writer has this notion of 'mental chemistry' been more
effectively disposed of than by Prof. Ward. It would not be
untrue to say that his entire work is one sustained refutation
of it. He has shown convincingly how impossible it is to-
proceed on the hypothesis of numerically distinct sensory
units without attributing to such units a species of independ-
ent existence for which experience furnishes no justification
and which cannot be brought into conformity with any really
scientific conception of the development of mind. On the
one hand, those who have attempted to work out the view
have had in point of fact to admit that in the composite for-
mations of actual experience the assumed units do not maintain
their independence, that the complex formations cannot be in-
terpreted as merely aggregates of the units supposed to make
them up. Appeal, therefore, has had to be made to some
other and indeterminable feature to explain the obvious fact
of composition in the content apprehended. And on the
other hand, experience supplies no warrant for the assumption
that under any conditions the supposed units are independent
facts capable of appearing to consciousness in isolation. The
very reverse is suggested by the slightest inspection of the
course of conscious experience. Conscious experience, taken
collectively, resembles rather a continuous process than an
aggregate of independent parts. In this process we can
indeed effect distinctions of qualitative and other aspects.
But what is thus distinguishable does not thereby establish a
claim to be considered as an independent fact, and ought not
to be thought of as having a separate mode of being. It is
an aspect rather than a part of an aggregate or collective
whole. In other words, it is an error to take for granted that
the phases of experience which are the less developed and
which, on that account, may be described as the more simple,
exhibit a simplicity of ultimate elements which, as evolution
proceeds, merely enter into more and more complicated
combinations. What, on the contrary, does characterise
the earlier stages of experience is specially the want o
12 G. DA WES HICKS :
definiteness and of precision in the apprehension of relations
among the contents discriminated. And the contents them-
selves appear as vague and obscure, wanting in sharpness of
outline and loosely connected with one another. Objects are
apprehended by a mental life containing but small preparation
for the apprehension of them. Consequently, the awareness
of them is crude and confused, and the confusion is aggravated
by the circumstance that what then constitutes the general
point of reference in the inner life consists for the most part
of a vague fluctuating mass of organic sensations and feelings
connected primarily with physiological changes in the body.
No steady background of ' self ' has yet been formed against
which the successively apprehended contents can stand out,
and accordingly the mental life betrays a certain want of
continuity, an aimless and easily distracted character.
All this Prof. Ward enforces with a wealth of argument
that is irresistible, and unquestionably we have here one of
the most far-reaching advances ever effected in the history of
psychological theory. Let me not, then, be thought to under-
estimate its importance if, in the light of what I have been
urging with respect to ' presentations/ I confess to mis-
givings in regard to the notion of a 'presentational con-
tinuum,' a totum objectivum that is gradually differentiated.
My difficulty is this. It seems to be implied that the con-
tinuum, holding, as it were, its manifold elements in solu-
tion, is already there for the individual subject from the outset,
either as awaiting the exercise of the activity of attention that
its various factors should be disentangled or else as gradually
becoming differentiated through some inherent tendency
of its own. ' The presentational continuum as a whole, as
totum objectivum, is,' Dr. Ward writes, ' for the subject, so to
say, all there is, is the universe ' (pp. 117-118). Yet he would
agree that in mature experience we do come in point of fact
explicitly to contrast what he understands by the phrase
' presentational continuum ' with what is that is to say, the
universe. The external world we certainly do, in ordinary
common-sense experience, take to be independent of any
such ' presentational continuum ' as is here conceived ; and
if, in this respect, common-sense experience be, as I believe
it is, logically justified, a perfectly intelligible analysis can, as
I have tried to show, be given of the way in which such
experience is psychologically developed. How far the term
* continuum ' is applicable to the real world of fact is, of course,
another matter. In any case, the real world of fact is not a
'presentational continuum'; and its parts are already differ-
entiated, whether the individual conscious subject be aware of
the differentiation or no. The stamens of the flower are, in
PEOF. WAED'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 13
rerum natura, different from the pistils, although these to a
casual observer may appear as confused. Moreover, no amount
of attention to the confused appearance, in and for itself,
would bring about its differentiation, still less would the con-
fused appearance differentiate itself ; it will only be through
direction of attention upon the actual flower that, in the in-
stance supposed, the parts in question will come to appear
different, or to be presented as different. However true it
may be, then, that " at any given moment we have a certain
whole of presentations, a ' field of consciousness,' psycho-
logically one and continuous"; and, at the next moment,,
" not an entirely new field but a partial change within the
old field," yet one may fairly doubt the appropriateness of
describing the change as coming about through the differen-
tiation of a ' presentational continuum '. Nor will it do, I
think, to reply that the description is appropriate from the
point of view of the experiencing subject. It will not do, be-
cause, as already noted, the experiencing subject does come
himself to distinguish between the confused appearance, the
blurred presentation, and the object upon which his attention
is directed, which object he does not then take to be in fact
blurred, however much it may appear to be so.
4. The chapters on Imagination and Memory, the handling
of which Bain took to be a good test of psychological ability,
are full of original and valuable work. Prof. Ward ques-
tions, and evidently with justice, the sufficiency of ' force or
liveliness ' as a criterion for distinguishing ' ideas ' or ' images "
from 'primary presentations'. Intensity alone, he urges, is
clearly not enough to account for the discrimination, nor will
the further characteristic of ' strikingness ' serve to render
Hume's explanation of it adequate, for we are familiar with
' striking ideas ' as well as with striking, but not necessarily
intense, ' sensations '. The author is himself inclined to lay
the chief stress upon the superior steadiness of percepts.
" Images are not only in a continual flux, but even when we
attempt forcibly to detain them they are apt to vary continu-
ally in clearness and completeness, reminding us of the illum-
inated devices made of gas jets, common at fetes, when the
wind sweeps across them, momentarily obliterating one part
and at the same time intensifying another " (p. 171). On the
other hand, what we perceive is not liable to this perpetual
' flow and flicker '. Now that it has been pointed out, no
psychologist would, I suppose, doubt the importance of the
feature thus admirably specified. I am disposed, indeed, to
go further in the direction here indicated, and to contend
with regard to a certain definite class of so-called ' images *
14 G. DAWES HICKS :
that the attempt to ' concentrate attention ' upon them results
not in their increased clearness and distinctness but in their
gradual fading away and disappearing a consequence we
should, it seems to me, naturally expect on the view of atten-
tion I have been defending. At the same time, Dr. Ward
would allow that there are other circumstances likewise of
moment in this connexion. One is that which Stout and
others have emphasised the more or less fragmentary charac-
ter of ' imagery ' as compared with what is perceptually appre-
hended. And another, which has not often been noted, is, I
think, the difference in amount of feeling-tone that is con-
comitant with a percept and its ' image ' respectively. 1
It is coming more and more to be realised, and I am sure Prof .
Ward would concur in the statement, that the crucial problems
of the psychology of cognition centre round that of the
nature of imagination. What is it that in and through an act
of imagining is presented to the conscious subject ? What is
the character and status of the content thus apprehended?
In answer to that question, it is, as Dr. Ward insists, useless
to say that what is perceived is present, and what is imaged
is past or future. " The images may have certain temporal
marks by which they are referred to what is past or future ;
l>ut as imaged they are present " (p. 172). And it is in re-
gard to the nature of this present something that psychology
still finds itself almost wholly in the dark. Mr. Bradley once
poured ridicule upon the ' pious legend ' of the ghosts of
former ' impressions ' waiting in disconsolate exile in some sub-
conscious Hades, till association announces resurrection and
recall ; and Dr. Ward is no whit less severe upon the thought
of images or representations being accumulated and " some-
where crowded together like shades on the banks of the
Styx" (p. 81). What, then, is it that persists? Not, Dr.
Ward replies, the particular presentation as an isolated unit,
but the continuum as differentiated. Waiving, however,
meanwhile such objections as I have been pressing to the no-
tion of a continuum, the reply would obviously carry us but a
short way. If it enables us to understand to some extent the
presence, in the later stages of a process of attention, of the
traits first attended to, it throws little or no light upon the
appearance of a memory-image, in the ordinary sense of that
term. So far from being an outcome of the continuum's
progressive differentiation, a memory-image would seem
1 Dr. Ward does in one place note the fact, but not in this connexion.
I may perhaps here refer to a paper of mine written twenty years ago
published in the Proc. Aris. Soc., N.S., Vol. I., 1901, p. 200 sqq.
PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 15
rather to imply a reverting on the part of the continuum
to a former condition of its being. Dr. Ward is un-
questionably on the right lines in pointing to the necessity
of taking into account the intermediate forms after-sensa-
tions, recurrent sensations, and memory-after-images, as
Fechner called them between the original presentation
and the image. Yet, when all this has been recognised,
the real problem remains, obstinately refusing to be solved.
"Images as a whole are," it has to be admitted, "distinct
from the presentation-continuum " (p. 173), and it is
found needful to postulate the formation of a ' secondary -
or memory-continuum,' which in some way gets split off
from the primary continuum in consequence of movements of
-attention. " The precise connexion of the two continua is,"
we are told, " very difficult to determine " (p. 177); and in
spite of much resolute wrestling with the situation, has in
the end to be left undetermined. At the root of the whole
difficulty is, I take it, the fact that we are not in a position to
offer any psychological explanation of retention or revival,
and are, therefore, compelled to accept it as, for psychology,
an ultimate characteristic of mental life. But the notion of a
memory-continuum seems to encumber us with an additional
embarrassment namely, that such a continuum is in no
sense parallel to the continuum from which it is said to be
derived. That is to say, it does not appear to be a con-
tinuum that can be intelligibly thought of as undergoing
differentiation.
Prof. Ward considers the genesis -and development of
ideation from two sides, which he designates the subjective
and the objective respectively. The discussion of the former
of the manner in which familiarity and facility are gradu-
ally acquired both in the process of apprehension and in prac-
tical activity seems to me especially valuable, and to follow
a line of reflexion along which one may hope a clue may
some day be obtained to the nature of retention or revival.
I am persuaded that the distinction I have laid stress upon
between * the awareness of a content ' and ' the content of
which there is awareness ' is here of vital significance ; and
that it is the former alone that 'persists,' while "the inept-
ness of the atomistic psychology with its 'physical' and
' chemical ' analogies " is nowhere more apparent than in its
taking it to be the latter. But this is too big a theme to
attempt to develop now.
5. No part of Prof. Ward's psychology is more distinctive
than the theory he has propounded of the nature of feeling.
Feeling, as he views it, is sharply contrasted, on the one
one hand, with presentation and, on the other hand, with
16 G. DA WES HICKS:
attention. (a) Strict accuracy would oblige us to say, he
would contend, that there is a feeling subject rather than, as
in ordinary parlance, there is a subject that has feelings.
Feeling, in other words, is never itself an ingredient of the
objective continuum; it is always a purely subjective state
or condition. Presentations stand in the relation of objects
to the subject, but that is not the only relation in which they
stand; they affect the subject, and this affection is feeling.
Since, then, all knowledge is concerned with objects, we can-
not be said to know feeling, any more than we can be said
to know attention, immediately in itself. Feeling is immedi-
ately experienced, but only mediately known known, that is
to say, through its effects, through the changes it brings
about in the presentational continuum. Furthermore, it
follows from the opposition thus constituted, that the features
most generally characteristic of presentations that they
can be attended to, revived, and associated must be absent
from feeling, (b) Not only is feeling not known as objects
are known. It is not a mode of knowing. We do not ap-
prehend in and through feeling. Feeling is a condition of
being rather than a condition of doing ; it is a receptive atti-
tude on the part of the subject, not an exercise of activity.
In a complete psychosis, feeling, then, occupies an intermedi-
ary position. On the one side, it follows the act of attention ;
it is the effect of non-voluntarily attending to changes in the
presentational continuum. On the other side, it precedes
the act of attention ; it prompts to, and is in that sense the
cause of, that voluntary attention which produces changes in
the motor-continuum.
Despite the efforts of Stumpf and others to sustain a
contrary view, there can, I think, be little doubt that in the
mature mental life feeling does evince itself as being in con-
trast with presentations markedly subjective in character,
and as being in contrast with modes of apprehending and
striving a way in which the subject is affected. The doubt
one would entertain turns upon the question whether we
are justified in assuming this to be a primordial contrast, a
contrast characterising the life of mind from the beginning..
Whoever holds recognition of the distinction between subject
and object to be derivative, to be gradually attained in the
course of the development of conscious experience, will be
bound to answer that question in the negative. For my part,
I find it well nigh impossible to assign any meaning to the
phrase ' awareness of an object ' which does not involve
applying to that of which there is awareness a number of pre-
dicates e.g., independence of the act of apprehending (cf..
PEOF. WAED'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES. 17
. 417) that even in their crudest forms must obviously
e altogether beyond the range of the primitive mind.
Dr. Ward apparently considers an argument of this sort
to be vitiated by a confusion of the standpoint of a given
experience with the standpoint of its exposition. "The
infant who is delighted by a bright colour does not of
course," he writes, " conceive himself as face to face with
an object ; but neither does he conceive the colour as a
subjective affection " (p. 48). Quite so ; but the observation is
scarcely relevant. The whole point of the contention against
which it is directed is that recognition of what is subjective is
just as much a derivative fact as recognition of what is objec-
tive. And if "it is the exclusive business of psychology to
analyse and trace the development of individual experience
as it is for the experiencing individual" (p. 104), is it not
imperative to avoid using terms in our description that im-
pute to the experience we are describing features which we
have every reason for thinking it does not possess ?
So far as I can see, then, the term ' subjective ' expresses
a characteristic which can only properly be said to belong to
feeling as it is for the experiencing individual when that
individual has attained a certain stage of mental develop-
ment. And it is not, I think, difficult to point to the positive
features that account for feeling acquiring the characteristic
in question. For instance, apart from the opposition in-
dicated by the terms pleasurable and painful, the several
states of feeling exhibit no definitely qualitative differences ;
relatively to even the crudest kinds of sense-apprehension
they are uniform in character. So too, and in virtue of this
uniform character, feeling serves as a constant accompani-
ment of the variety of presented factors, and in regard to the
latter there is no necessary connexion between any one of
them and a specific degree of pleasurable or painful feeling.
This relative uniformity and constancy of the feeling ex-
perience would in itself suffice to explain how it comes to
be marked off from ' presentative ' experience, and to be
connected in a special manner with what eventually develops
into the consciousness of self. But, in addition, there gradu-
ally comes to be established a close juncture between the
pleasure-pain of feeling and the body ; the body comes to be
regarded as the locus of, or centre of reference for, pleasurable
and painful feeling. And, to mention only one other con-
sideration, those experiences which are beyond all others
instrumental in defining for us the division between subject
and object, the experiences of movement and of resistance
to movement, are, as Dr. Ward has conclusively shown,
2
18 G. DAWES HICKS :
intimately associated with feeling as that which initiates and
sustains them.
From the point of view I have indicated, one would not
take the antithesis between presentations and what are
ordinarily called feelings to be primitive and psychologically
ultimate. In reply to one of the arguments on which the
contention I am calling in question has been rested that,
namely, which points to the qualitative differences and dis-
tinctness exhibited by presentations a's contrasted with feel-
ings it has often been urged that what is thus assigned as a
characteristic mark to presentations is in fact, even in mature
experience, a very varying one, that while it is prominent
in visual and auditory presentations, it 'becomes less and less
prominent as we descend the scale, until when we come to
organic sensations, so-called, it appears hardly possible to
discover a qualitative content describable in any other terms
than those of feeling. I have no desire to insist upon this
counter-argument as being in itself satisfactory. But it is
worth while noting that it in no way depends upon the
assumption that increasing indistinctness of content ulti-
mately merges a presentation into mere feeling. One need
not intend by it to imply that if two things approach one
another so nearly as to be indistinguishable they become
identical (cf. p. 43), but only to draw attention to certain
facts which throw a doubt upon the primordial character of
an opposition the reality of which in the mature inner life
one would not dream of denying. Moreover, if bodily pains
be admitted to be presentations, the significance of the term
' object ' as applied to them must be stretched to the breaking
point. They exhibit no trace of that reference to the outer
world which is characteristic of visual and auditory pre-
sentations ; and, although in our mature experience they are
vaguely localised in the body, no one, I imagine, would
maintain that even the faintest localisation is necessary in
order that there should be experience of pain.
The truth is that the terms cognition and feeling carry
with them, as familiarly employed, a connotation that renders
them peculiarly inappropriate for delineating rudimentary
phases of conscious experience. "Absolute beginnings are,"
it may be admitted, " beyond the pale of science," but still
psychology is not on that account debarred from reasoning
backwards to a stage of psychical existence that is prior to
the emergence of either feeling or cognition as its differen-
tiated aspects. There is no possibility, certainly, of deducing
one of these from the other. But there is a possibility of
forming some conception of a common root, so to speak,
PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 19
from which the two diverging stems have originated. And
when Prof. Ward insists upon the notion of experience as
being wider than that of knowledge (p. 378), is he not laying
stress upon a consideration that followed out genetically must
lead very much in the direction to which I am pointing ?
6. From what I have been saying I am afraid I may be
thought to differ more fundamentally from Dr. Ward than
as a matter of fact I do. Happily with regard to his masterly
treatment of the thorny topic of conation I have no other
duty to discharge than that of emphasising its great value.
While strenuously maintaining that activity is for psychology
ultimate, and that the mental life is only in being active, Dr.
Ward refuses to look upon the specific mode of activity called
conation as a unique or unanalysable faculty. Activity in
consciousness, be it cognitive or conative, is what he desig-
nates attention (p. 344) ; conscious activity is, therefore,
wider than and inclusive of conative activity (p. 262).
Conation, so conceived, is, of course, complex ; it involves
the conscious subject's activity, but it involves much else
besides. In the first place, it is dependent on feeling ; feel-
ing, particularly painful feeling, initiates that change in the
direction of attention to which conation is due. In the
second place, feeling enters in more ways than one into the
conative complex itself. And, in the third place, movements
or, as is here said, motor-presentations or re-presentations
form part at least of what is attended to. 1 Moreover, in
view of his well-known contention that conscious action,
either in the experience of the individual or of his ancestors,
preceded automatic or habitual action, it should be noted
that Dr. Ward is no less strongly of opinion that even the
simplest purposive movement must have been preceded by
some movement simpler still. For there could have been
no ideal re-presentation of a movement without a prior ex-
perience of the actual movement. Movements, then, must
be conceived as immediately expressive primordially of
1 Stout supposes Prof. Ward to agree with him in holding that "the
conative complex contains a simple and unanalysable element uniquely
characteristic of it " an element to which he gives the name of 4 felt
tendency' (Brit. Journ. of PsychoL, vol. ii., p. 4). I do not find in Psy-
chological Principles any warrant for attributing this view to its author.
On the contrary, 1 believe he would maintain that what Stout calls 'felt
tendency ' is not an unanalysable element, and that the subjective activity
involved in it is fundamentally one in kind with that also involved, for
example, in the non-conative attention of which feeling is an effect. '* It
is," he says, "difference in the objects that makes all the difference in
our attitude, but it is not a difference in the psychical activity concerned
with them " (p. 68).
20 G. DA WES HICKS :
pleasure or pain, and voluntary movements as elaborated out
of these.
Why it has so often been thought that injustice is being
done to the volitional side of experience unless conation, or
some element in conation, be regarded as unique, and as
alone strictly entitled to be spoken of as ' activity,' has long
been a puzzle to me. Dr. Ward, at any rate, cannot be
charged with overlooking the importance of the conative
aspect of mental life. Psychology he defines as " the science
of individual experience understanding by experience not
merely, not primarily, cognition, but also, and above all,
conative activity or behaviour" (p. 28). And he expresses
his full agreement with those who hold that we are primarily
conative and became intellectual, because knowledge proved
subservient to action (p. 262). With this position, which in-
more places than one he strongly enforces, his rejection of
the view that conation is a specific faculty is, in no way, in-
consistent.
7. The two remarkable and intensely interesting chapters
with which the volume concludes throw a considerable amount
of fresh light upon the author's point of view T as a whole.
Hitherto Prof Ward had been making use of a working
conception that enabled him. for the time being, to set aside
the troublesome question of heredity. After the manner of
Hegel in the Phanomenologie, he had assumed himself to be
dealing with one individual, a typified individual, whose de-
velopment had been continuous from the beginning of psychi-
cal life, rather than with a series of individuals, each of
whom except the first ' inherited ' certain capacities from its
progenitors. At the end, however, when in particular the
formation of character calls to be considered, and when the
emphasis will have to be on the experient rather than on the
experience, a device of that kind can no longer be adhered
to ; instead of the ' psychological individual,' the concrete in-
dividual must constitute the subject-matter of investigation,
and, instead of an analysis of mind, it will be a process of
mental synthesis with which the inquirer will be mainly con-
cerned.
But, by way of transition from 'general' to 'special'
psychology, an extremely suggestive survey is taken of mental
synthesis or development as a whole, to which all the partial
processes depicted in the earlier chapters contribute. To the
psychological observer, the prominent fact is a unity that is
differentiated but never disintegrated ; but, as the differen-
tiation proceeds, the work of synthesis within the whole
becomes to him more and more apparent. Starting with pro-
nounced homogeneity, plasticity, potentiality, rather than with
PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 21
definitely distinguished features, he reaches at the close pro-
nounced heterogeneity, structure, actuality, such as are ex-
emplified in a person. At every stage of the development,
the two factors the subjective and the objective, function
and structure, the experient and the experienced have been
mutually involved. Yet, while in the analytic study, the
objective results were the more obtrusive, here in the syn-
thetic study it is the subjective process that is paramount ;
here ' the good which every soul pursues ' becomes the chief
clue to the intricacies of psychical evolution.
Regarding, then, the genesis of experience structurally, as
the self-made property of the psychological individual, Prof.
Ward now introduces the notion of ' psychoplasm/ in con-
tradistinction to that of a ' manifold of sensations ' or ' mind-
stuff/ and corresponding to the notion of bioplasm in biology.
The notion implies the evolution of a psychical organism, a
gradually articulated system. Functionally, this organism is
the work throughout of the feeling and active subject. The
material, no doubt, is ' given ' ; but it is not merely on the
ground of presentation that the synthesising supervenes.
The objective differentiation progresses on subjectively deter-
mined lines ; not only concentration of attention but interest
is from first to last operative. And interest secures that sta-
bility and progression are correlative conditions of psychical,
as of all other, evolution. Besides subjective selection, there
is, however, implied in this psychogeny an objective factor
understanding now by the latter term not the psychoplasm
but the common-sense world that each one comes to know
and distinguish from himself, the epistemologically objective
factor. Herein is included all that we collectively describe
as circumstances, everything, in short, that is an antecedent
condition or occasion of the successive syntheses which dif-
ferentiate and articuiate the psychical organism. This objec-
tive factor is, in fact, the environment of the psychological
individual on the one hand, the natural environment, which
plays in the main a negative part in the individual's develop-
ment, and, on the other hand, the social environment, which
has none of the impassivity of nature, and is not subject to
the rigidity of mechanical laws.
Passing, at last, to ' special ' psychology, to the concrete
individual, Prof. Ward is face to face with the problem of
heredity, and propounds the view that all that can be said to
be psychologically heritable is merely the psychoplasm which
the conscious subject elaborates, not the conscious subject or
* psyche ' itself. Just as for the biologist the organism given
to the concrete individual is a more differentiated stage of the
22 G. DAWES HICKS :
bioplasm from which the series of ancestral organisms began ^
so for the psychologist the organism given to the concrete
individual is a more differentiated stage of the psychoplasm
with which the psychological individual began. Presuming,
now, that acquired qualities are inherited, the broad difference
between the organisms of two generations would be that what
were functional modifications in the earlier would be struc-
tural modifications in the later ; habit in the individual life
would be the ground of heredity in racial life. Accordingly,
what is inherited is not individuality or character but a par-
ticular Anlage i.e., psychoplasm as modified by heredity
which the concrete individual has to elaborate.
My rapid sketch has done the theory scant justice, but has
perhaps made manifest its singular acuteness and suggestive-
ness. That it contains much that is both true and significant
I should be among the first to insist But that certain
portions of it bring into prominent relief the difficulties in
Dr. Ward's general position to which I have been alluding
can hardly, I think, be gainsaid.
I will touch, first, upon a minor point. Dr. Ward is quite
aware that in certain respects the analogy between psycho-
plasm and bioplasm breaks down. I do not know that this
is a matter of any consequence, but it is perhaps worth while
pointing out that it breaks down in one important respect to
which he does not refer. The bioplasm of the biologist is made
up of elements similar in kind to elements of the natural
environment. The elements of which psychoplasm consists
presentations, ideas, concepts, and the like are toto genere
unlike the elements of the natural environment ; they are, as
he here puts it, contents of 'rnind,' and in the natural world
" as common sense understands it " their counterparts are not
to be found. The relation, therefore, of the psychical organism
to the natural environment must obviously be a relation very
different from that of the biological organism to the same
environment.
I pass, however, to a much more fundamental matter. The
psychoplasm which experience is said to differentiate and to
organise is repeatedly identified by Prof. Ward with the pre-
sentational continuum, and is, I take it, regarded by him as,
at any rate, including the latter, though it may include more.
It would, therefore, appear that the psychical organism, in-
stead of being, as the bodily organism is, " diaphanous for its
own subject and opaque to all subjects besides," l must, on the
contrary, be said to be opaque to its own subject and dia-
1 Kezlm of Ends, p. 466.
PROF. WARD'S PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 23
phanous for all subjects besides. As the objective continuum
which is gradually differentiated, the psychoplasm is that
upon which the subject's power of attention is throughout
directed ; as totum objectivum, it is for the subject " all there
is," that is to say, " is the universe " (p. 118). The concrete
individual starts, so it would seem to be implied, with an
inherited psychoplasm already differentiated up to a certain
level ; and his conscious activity is then devoted to further
elaborating that psychoplasm, which in consequence gives
rise to an ever increasing variety of more or less distinct and
clearly denned presentations. And yet this cannot be what
Prof. Ward really intends. For the presentational con-
tinuum of any concrete individual at each successive stage
of his history can obviously not have been elaborated out of
the psychoplasm with which he started. At every moment
of his being, it is dependent for its material upon the environ-
ment ; and the great mass of the presentations that ex hypo-
thesi come to be distinguished can evidently not have been
contained, even implicitly, in the inherited Anlage.
If, therefore, by ' psychoplasm ' be meant the presentational
continuum, the obstacles the theory has to encounter would
appear to be insuperable. But in working out his conception
of Anlage, of the psychoplasm with which the concrete
experient starts invested, Dr. Ward departs more and more
from that view of its nature. When he proceeds to scrutinise
the contents of a concrete individual's A nlage, they turn out to
be quite other than the contents of the objective continuum, as
these have previously been determined in the main body of the
book. Temperamental attitudes, moods resulting from coen-
sesthesis, instinctive emotions and appetites and actions, the
constituents of talent, native endowments or capabilities
these are singled out as instances of the various facts which
the term Anlage covers. Yet none of these can be described
as ' objects,' extend the significance of the term how we may ;
they are said to be " tendencies to develop certain ancestral
characteristics" (p. 428), and tendencies or dispositions,
whatever else they may be, can surely not be classed under
the head of ' presentations '. Once dissociate the notion of
psychoplasm from that of a presentational continuum, and I
believe it will prove to be a valuable and fruitful notion. I
think, indeed, that even then the psychical structure would
have to be thought of as far more intimately connected with
the conscious subject whose structure it is than Dr. Ward seems
willing to allow. Sometimes he appears to speak of it as a
kind of clothing, which the individual puts on at birth and
divests himself of at death (cf., e.g., p. 442) ; at any rate, the
24 G. DA WES HICKS :
soul or ' psyche ' has in his view an origin quite different
from that of its Anlage, the latter being transmitted,
apparently through the instrumentality of physiological
factors, from parent to offspring, while the former may be a
new creation (pp. 423-4-25). But, to mention no other reason,
on account alone of its being largely composed of feeling,
admittedly an affection of the subject, it is hard to understand
how the psychoplasm can be so "essentially distinct"
(p. 443) from the subject that controls it as it is thus taken
to be.
8. It will be seen that almost everything I have pressed
by way of criticism has had reference either to the theory of
presentations or to what is bound up with it. Eepeating a
statement of his in a well-known article in MIND, Prof.
Ward expresses the opinion that ' presentationism ' is able to
account for nine-tenths of each of the facts, but that for the
remaining one-tenth it requires to be supplemented by
recognition of a dominating subjective activity or function
(p. 411). I venture to urge that thoroughly as he has
exposed the weaknesses of ' presentationism ' he has yet been
too lenient with it, and that the conception of the conscious
subject, which he has himself done so much to develop, can
not, in truth, be brought into coherence with the remnant of
that doctrine which he retains. In the later portions of his
book, I seem to discern indications of an interpretation of
experience that has left presentationism in its entirety a long
way behind. For example, in the concluding paragraph of
the very valuable chapter on " Self-consciousness," it is argued
that we are driven to regard experience as reciprocal inter-
action or mutuum commercium, which implies two agents,
and not merely two kinds of phenomena (p. 382). It is true
that here just as he conceives the self is only 'known
reflectively in the phenomenal "Me" which is constructed
by it, so he seems to imply that the external agent is only
knoivn reflectively in the phenomenal presentation-continuum
which is partly, at any rate, constructed by it. But yet, in
other passages, he speaks unhesitatingly of this external
agent as the world we each of us come to "know," and to
know as object of our contemplation (p. 417 sqq.). This
" transsubjective level " of apprehension has no doubt to be
attained ; we do not start with it. But the question is
whether it ever could be attained were our conscious activity
directed always on ' presentations ' that are intermediary
between the transsubjective and the subjective.
II. PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD
LECTURES 1 (I.).
BY C. D. BROAD.
PROBABLY few of the courses delivered under the Gifford
bequest have been so eagerly awaited by philosophers as
Prof. Alexander's. We all knew that he had an extremely
ingenious and original system ' up his sleeve ' ; his scattered
articles and his synopsis had served to whet rather than to
slake our curiosity ; and reports from those who listened to
the lectures at Glasgow encouraged the hope that England
was at length to produce a comprehensive system of con-
structive metaphysics in which the speculative boldness of
the great Germans should be combined with the critical good
sense of Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. On the whole, Prof.
Alexander's readers will not be disappointed ; they will feel,
whether they agree with his conclusions or not, that he has
at least produced a work in the grand manner.
The book is of stupendous size, occupying nearly eight
hundred pages. It is therefore quite impossible to treat it
with anything like adequacy. What I propose to do is to
start by giving a neutral account of Prof. Alexander's general
conclusions, and then to discuss in somewhat greater detail
the arguments by which he supports certain of these.
SYNOPSIS.
Everything in the universe, according to our author, is a
differentiation of one fundamental stuff, called Space-Time.
Space without time and time without space are abstractions,
legitimate enough when properly denned and used, but con-
tradictory if taken in isolation. S.-T. is really Motion, but
we have to remember that it is not the motion of things in
space during time. Let us call it Pure Motion, and defer for
, Time, and Deity, S. Alexander, vol. i., pp. xii., 347 ; vol. ii.,
pp. xiii. , 437. London : Macrnillan & Co. , 1920.
26 c. D. BROAD:
the present the question whether such a thing be really con-
ceivable. All things are complexes of motions of various
kinds, which persist within more or less constant contours.
(I think the vortex-atom theory provides a helpful analogy to
this view of Prof. Alexander's, though it would certainly mis-
represent him if pressed too far.) There are certain features
which characterise, in some form or other, all possible bits
of S.-T. ; these are called Categories. They are in no sense
mind-dependent. Different bits of S.-T. will exhibit these
general characteristics in different special forms ; thus every-
thing will have some shape and size, but one thing will be
circular and another square. The particular forms in which
a thing exemplifies the categories are the primary qualities of
the thing. On the other hand there are qualities which only
belong to complexes of a certain degree of complexity ; they
appear in different lorms among different complexes of the
right degree of complexity, but they do not belong in any
form whatever to those of lower degree. These are called
secondary qualities. They are in no sense mind-dependent,
nor are they in general dependent on the physiological
peculiarities of a percipient's body. Thus any set of motions
of the right degree of complexity, when illuminated by the
right sort of light (itself a form of motion), is red; and its
redness is independent alike of the presence of a percipient
mind and of the presence of a normally constructed eye. If
either of these be lacking the red colour will not be seen, but
that is the whole difference that will be made. Secondary
qualities form an hierarchy in the sense that those which
come higher in the scale belong to motion-complexes which
also possess all the lower qualities. Thus the highest second-
ary quality that we know is mentality ; this only belongs to
motion-complexes such as brains; but brains also have the
secondary qualities of life, chemical affinity, colour, and
inertia to mention them in descending order. Prof. Alex-
ander further holds that a motion-complex with a higher
secondary quality is always a distinct part of a larger com-
plex, specially connected with this part, but possessing only
lower secondary qualities. Thus our brains, which have
mentality as well as life, etc., are specially differentiated parts
of our bodies. The remaining parts have life, etc., but not
mentality. Similarly he holds that in a blue body the peculiar
motions that are blue are merely dotted about the contour,
the interstices being filled with simpler motion- complexes
which have only mechanical properties. At each new stage
in the hierarchy something genuinely new appears in the-
universe. There is no possibility of predicting that such and.
PKOF. ALEXANDERS GIFFORD LECTUEES. -27
such a type of motion-complex will have such and such a
quality until you have actually found that this kind of com-
plex does in fact have this kind of quality. Such novelty is
clearly compatible with complete obedience to law ; it i&
a law of nature that such and such a complex has such
and such a quality, but it is an irreducible law and cannot
be discovered until instances of its operation have been
met.
On Prof. Alexander's view, then, there is nothing sacrosanct
about mind. It is just one stage in the hierarchy of qualities,
as closely bound to brain as colour is to certain types of vi-
bration. It happens to be the highest quality that we know ;
but, in the first place, even if there be higher qualities we could
not know them, and, in the second, even if there be not now
higher qualities there certainly will be such in course of time.
Nothing in the world depends on mind, either for its existence
or for even the most trivial of its qualities, with the single
exception of value. Prof. Alexander takes an obvious pleasure
in 'dressing down' and 'telling off' the exaggerated claims
of mind, and I suspect that he secretly cherishes a hope that
in the New Jerusalem, whose charter is the Treaty of
Versailles and whose streets are paved with paper-currency,,
this journal may be rechristened SPACE-TIME. The main
importance of mind for philosophy is that in it we can read
in large and familiar letters types of relation which are
common to all orders of existence, but are obscure to us from
the very simplicity that they assume in lower orders of reality.
There is nothing peculiar about the cognitive relation ; there
is one common relation in which any part of S.-T. stands to
any other that affects it. Exactly the same relation of
' compresence ' unites me to a book that I read, and a plant
to the soil that it grows in. But the quality of the reaction
differs, because my brain is so complex as to possess mentality
while the plant is only complex enough to possess life. It is
for this reason that my relation to the book is called cogni-
tive, whilst the plant's relation to the soil is not. A com-
plex of a given order can stand in this relation to any
complex of a lower order, but not to itself or to any other of
the same order or a fortiori to one of a higher order. A mind
' enjoys,' but does not ' contemplate ' itself and its states ; a
plant ' enjoys ' its own life, it cannot ' contemplate ' it, though
in a wide sense it can contemplate the soil that it lives in
and the purely mechanical processes that go on in its own
structure.
Now, knowing that I come at a certain stage in a hierarchy
of complexes, I can understand that complexes may arise in
28 C. D. BROAD :
the future, or may even exist now, which stand in the same
relation to me as that in which my brain stands to the rest
of my body. Brain is a highly differentiated part of living
matter with the new quality of mentality ; so there might be
complexes whose constituents are brains, and these might
possess a new quality. A being so constituted would con-
template minds as minds contemplate life, and would enjoy
its own peculiar quality as minds enjoy themselves. Such a
being would be for us a god or angel, and its peculiar new
quality would be deity or godhood. In this sense we are
gods to plants ; for they only live, whilst we think as well as
live. But our gods would not be gods to themselves ; their
gods would be hypothetical beings of the next stage in the
hierarchy. The world, considered as the matrix which is going
to produce beings with godhood, is what we mean by God.
If this stage be ever reached there will not be God but gods,
and their God will be the world regarded as the matrix of
the next stage. Thus wie may sum up Prof. Alexander's the-
ology in two parodies: 'God never is, but always to exist,'
and ' There is no God but gods '.
The one place in Prof. Alexander's system where minds
come into their own is in connexion with values. These he
calls Tertiary Qualities. Truth, goodness, and beauty would
not exist if there were no minds. This does not mean that
they are subjective in the sense that there is no question of
right or wrong judgment about them. It means that the
only entities that have these qualities contain minds as con-
stituents. Truth, e.g., belongs neither to minds as such nor
to objects as such, but to the complex mind-contemplating-
object. And it is perfectly possible to believe that such a
complex has the tertiary quality of truth when, in fact, it has
that of falsehood. Moreover, these values are essentially
social ; they arise out of the intercourse of minds, some of
whom are right and others wrong in their judgments or
actions. There are analogies to the tertiary qualities at levels
below mind. Thus adaptation, or the lack of it, of a plant to
its environment is a value, and it is an attribute of the whole
situation plant living in environment.
There is one other feature in the system that must be
mentioned. Prof. Alexander, in common, I suppose, with
most philosophers, is concerned to maintain that the actual
is logically prior to the possible. Universals for him are
types of pattern in S.-T., and are meaningless in any other
connexion. And it is owing solely to the actual constitution
of S.-T., which is homoloidal, that universals are possible at
all. He has therefore to devote a good deal of argument to
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 29
apparent exceptions, such as four-dimensional and non-
homoloidal spaces, which seem, on the face of them, to be
other possible instances of universals which, instead of falling
within S.-T., are genera of which actual S.-T. is merely one
possible specification.
I have now, I hope, given a fair and intelligible account of
the main outlines of Prof. Alexander's theory. The book con-
tains, in addition to what I have mentioned, many very valuable
discussions about particular categories such as substance >
cause, intensity, etc. But space forbids entering into details.
I propose therefore to devote the rest of this article to a fuller
account and some criticisms of the doctrines of Space-Time,
Mind, the hierarchy of Qualities, the nature of Universals,
and Deity.
A. SPACE-TIME.
It is idle to pretend that S.-T., as introduced to us in this
book, is easy to understand. We must of course distinguish
between the doctrine itself and the arguments for it ; the latter
might be false or inconclusive, whilst the former, if we could
understand it, might still be a valuable alternative in terms
of which to construe the world. Let us first try then to get
some idea of S.-T. For Prof. Alexander the proximately
fundamental thing is the event-particle. An event-particle,
is the limiting case of a motion ; moreover there is a motion-
quality presumably what one is aware of when looking at
an object that moves quickly enough but it is not, like
genuine qualities, correlated with certain motions, it just is
the motion. (Cf. Vol. L, p. 321.) Now motion does not imply
something that moves ; it is anterior to things and is the stuff
of which they are made (L, 329). So it would seem that
ultimately the fundamental thing is pure motions. These will '
differ from each other, of course, in direction, in the place and
time where they happen, and so ,on. But we leave these
matters aside for the moment. The intrinsic difference
between them will be their swiftness ; and if you ask how
you are to understand a motion which is not the motion of
something, I suppose the answer would be that e.g., you can
see a difference between a swifter or slower motion, and that
this is independent of what happens to be moving. We are
told that the best way to think of an event-particle is to
start by thinking of a very simple qualitied event e.g., a flash
of red colour. Then think away the quality of redness ; the
residuum is an event-particle. (Cf. L, 48, note.) Similarly
30 c. D. BROAD:
I suppose that the best way to think of a pure motion is to
compare the jump given by the second hand of your watch
with that given by the minute hand of a big public clock ;
then think away the other qualities of the moving object and
just bear in mind the observable difference in the perceived
jumps. The important point to notice is that for Prof.
Alexander the pure motion is not an abstractum incapable of
actual existence ; it is a real particular, which in the special
case of the watch-hand happens to have other perceptible
qualities. Such pure motions are to be taken as fundamental
and unanalysable; space and time are abstracta derived
from them by a legitimate process. The event-particle is
a kind of half-way house between motions and space or
time. It is a limit which has spatial and temporal character-
istics, and I imagine, also something corresponding to the
swiftness of the motion whose limit it is. I think Prof.
Alexander might have made all this very much clearer if he
had known of Whitehead's work on Extensive Abstraction.
It does not seem to me that his- exposition of the nature of
S.-T. is particularly clear. I have had to gather my notions
of it from hints scattered all over the first volume, and my
interpretation may quite well be wrong.
Now of course it seems extremely odd to the reader at first
sight to take pure motions as fundamental and to analyse
space and time out of them. For our normal procedure is to
regard motion as analysable into the successive occupation of
points of space by a bit of matter or by a recognisable quality
or state of affairs. Still we know from experience in other
branches of knowledge that it is often equally legitimate to
regard A and B as fundamental and to construct C out of
them or to regard C as fundamental and construct A and B
out of them. Geometry offers many examples of this fact.
Hence we ought to regard the possibility of Prof. Alexander's
procedure with an open mind. But he holds that we ought
to go much further than this ; for he thinks he can prove
that there are contradictions in space and time taken by
themselves, and that these only vanish when they are taken
in connexion with each other as characteristics of pure
motions. Thus two questions arise : (i) Does Prof. Alexander
succeed in constructing space and time from his S.-T. of pure
motions ? and (ii) Is it necessary to proceed in this way ; is
there really any objection to the more usual course which
makes motion derivative ?
The derivation of space and time occurs in the chapter on
Perspectives and Sections of S.-T. Once more I must put the
matter in my own words, and it may be that I have mis-
PKOF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 31
understood the theory. Take any event-particle e lt . If I am
right, this will have a spatial characteristic s, a temporal
characteristic t, and a ' quality ' corresponding to the swift-
ness of the motion of which it is a limit. We must not sup-
pose that the s and t factors are really separable ; they are
essentially bound up with each other and I suppose that the
intensive quality of swiftness is the way in which the two
are combined. Now (a) we can consider all the event-particles
contemporary with e st . These constitute a section. We
might be inclined to say that the s-factors of all such particles
is what is meant by space at the moment t. This would be
a mistake according to Prof. Alexander. The reason ap-
parently is that even by space at a moment we do not mean
instantaneous space. Nothing instantaneous would have the
properties of a space, for reasons which we shall have to con-
sider later. I would remark at this point, however, that it is
not obvious why a section should not be at least as legitimate
a notion as an event-particle. Doubtless a space of con-
temporary points is a conceptual limit, but then so is an
event-particle. However, there is another way of classifying
points with respect to a given event-particle, and this provides
another and according to Prof. Alexander more legitimate
meaning of space at an instant. We can consider (b) the class
of all event-particles, which are either (i) intrinsically con-
temporary with e, t , or (ii) are earlier stages of motions of
which the assigned particle is a stage, or (iii) are later stages
of such motions. This class is called a perspective with
respect to e st . It obviously includes event-particles of various
dates. The s-factors of all these constitute space at t from
the point s. Such a perspective of course includes many sets
of contemporary event-particles, but many event-particles
contemporary with any such set will fall outside the per-
spective to which the set belongs. E.g., two flashes of light
and a sound might start at the same moment from points
equidistant from e st and the flashes might pass through s at t.
The three initial events would then be intrinsically contem-
porary ; but the starting of the two flashes would be in the
perspective while that of the sound would not, because it
could not owing to its smaller velocity be on a course of
motion that contains e 8t .
A difficulty that I feel about this notion of perspectives is
the following : We are here supposed to be at the level of
pure unqualitied space-time. But all examples of perspectives
have been in terms of definite qualitied events with character-
istic rates of transmission, such as light or sound. Now the
question is : Could one attach any meaning to perspectives
32 c. D. BEOAD:
without these characteristically different velocities of trans-
mission, and are not these velocities merely empirical, i.e.,
characteristic of special complexes of S.-T. and not of S.-T.
as such ? I question the legitimacy of the notion of per-
spectives at the level of pure S.-T. If Prof. Alexander answers
that there are differences of intensive magnitude even among
pure motions, there is another question that I must raise.
An event-particle is a limit, a kind of mathematical device,
bene fundatum indeed, but not a genuine part of S.-T. Is it
supposed to represent in some way, not only the spatial and
temporal characteristics of a certain stage in a pure motion,
but also the intensity of the motion (i.e., its velocity) ? On the
one hand this seems necessary if there be intrinsic differences
of intensity even among pure motions, and if event-particles
are to be an adequate device for dealing with such motions.
But, on the other, in the doctrine of perspectives a single
event-particle is assumed to belong to various motions of
various degrees of swiftness, e.g., to the course of a wave of
sound and to that of a wave of light which arrive at the
same time. I confess that I find this very puzzling. If
pure motions do not differ intrinsically perspectives seem out
of place at the level of pure S.-T. But if they do then I da
not see how you can talk of a single event-particle com-
mon to a number of intrinsically different motions; it would
rather seem as if we should need a plurality of event-
particles with the same spatial and temporal factors but some
difference in quality to represent the different intrinsic swift-
nesses of the different pure motions of which they are the
limits.
To proceed. Two different kinds of sections and perspec-
tives are possible with respect to a given event-particle e st .
We might consider the class of event-particles co-punctual
with e t t, and say that the ^-factors of all these constitute
time at the point s. Again Prof. Alexander will not allow
this, because in his view it is essential that time even if it be
in a certain sense time at a point shall not have all its
instants confined to one point. Accordingly, instead of such
a section, we take a new kind of perspective. We include in
it (i) all event-particles co-punctual with , ? , and (ii) other-
wise include the same event-particles as in our previous per-
spective. We now consider the temporal factors of all these
particles. Thus the * temporal perspective ' from e st includes
event-particles of the form e s t' but none of the form e t > t , whilst
the ' spatial perspective ' includes particles of the form e t t
but none of the form e sV ; for the former refers to a centre
with fixed spatial characteristics and the latter to a centre,
PBOF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFOED LECTUEES. 33
with fixed temporal characteristics. This, at least, is how I
interpret the rather difficult statements in I., 75-76.
S.-T. as a whole is just all the pure event-particles. Any
perspective is a selection of event-particles. In any per-
spective every position in space and every instant of time is
represented by some event-particle, but there are many event-
particles absent from any given perspective. Perspectives
are inter-connected and include between them all event-
particles. 'Points of space which are simultaneous in one
perspective may be successive in another . . .' (I., 77).
I take this startling statement to be a Pickwickian way of
asserting that the perspective ~P 1 may contain the event-
particles e xt and e yt , whilst the perspective P 2 may contain
e xt and e yt >.
I find some difficulty in following Prof. Alexander's account
of total space and total time, and their connexion with
sections. His view seems to be the following : Total space is
the space-factors of all event-particles, and total time is their
time-factors. But if s be any point there are event-particles
of the form e s t, where t ranges over all possible values. Simil-
arly if t be any moment there are event-particles of the form
e gt f where s ranges over all possible values. Thus, whilst a
section is not what we mean by space, because space confined
to a moment is impossible ; yet, since every position is in
fact correlated with any moment, such a section does contain
every position in total space. Similar remarks apply to tem-
poral sections and total time. Thus momentary spaces and
punctual times, though fictions, do possess respectively all
the geometrical properties of total space and all the chrono-
logical properties of total time.
I must confess, however, that I am highly doubtful of the
above interpretation, because there are statements that seem
to imply and others that seem to conflict with it. We are
told (I., 81) that ' in total S.-T. each point is in fact repeated
through the whole of time, and each instant over the whole
of space '. This certainly seems to mean that for any s there
are e gt 's in which t ranges through all possible values, and
mutatis mutandis for any t. But we also read on the same
page that ' at any moment of its real history Space is not all
of one date, and Time is not all at one point '. And on (I.,
82-83) we learn that '. . . in their combination Space is
always variously occupied by Time, and Time spread vari-
ously over Space '. This certainly seems to mean that if t be
any moment the s values of the e st 's do not range over all
possible values. I take it that the odd statement that at any
moment of its history Space is not all of one date must be
3
34 C. D. BROAD :
regarded as analytical. It simply tells us what Prof. Alex-
ander intends the phrase Space at such and such a date to
mean. It tells us that he means by it the spatial factors of
the event-particles in a perspective taken from an event-
particle with the assigned date. These factors of course
belong to particles of various dates. The only way that I can
see to reconcile the apparent flat contradiction between the
quotations from I., 81, and L, 82-83 is to substitute in the
latter for the words Space and Time the phrases : The space
of a perspective and The time of a perspective. I may be
very stupid, but I feel that more light is badly wanted
here.
On I., 217 occurs the statement "... every point differs
from any other by its instant, and every instant by its point ".
Such assertions are common, yet (a) the phrases its point and
its instant seem to imply a one to one correlation between
points and instants. This is elsewhere vigorously denied.
Each point belongs to a plurality of instants and conversely.
We might then (b) be tempted to substitute its points and its
instants, and to suppose that what is meant is that if ^ and t*
be two different moments, then some at least of the s's in the
class of event-particles of the form e gtl are different from the
s's in the class of particles of the form e 8t . 2 . But this seems
incompatible with the statement that each moment is at
every point and each point at every moment. Again (c) we
are repeatedly told that there are intrinsically contemporary
points, i.e., that there are event-particles with the same time-
factor and different space-factors. A pair of such points can-
not differ from each other by 'their instants,' for 'their
instants ' i.e., those of the event-particles of which they are
the space-factors are identical.
It seems to me then that the doctrine of S.-T. and its con-
nexion with space and time is by no means clear, and that,
as expounded, it contains inconsistencies. These may be
merely verbal ; they certainly need further elucidation from
Prof. Alexander; and, until this be given, I do not feel
certain that S.-T., as offered, is even a possible way of
analysing the world. But our author thinks it not merely
possible but necessary, because of the failure of all alternatives
that try to do without it. Let us then consider his arguments
for this view.
The argument substantially is that time without space and
space without time involve contradictions which vanish only
when the two are regarded as intimately linked factors of
pure events. Before discussing this view in detail it is well
to note that the time and space which are convicted of these
PKOF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 35
faults are assumed to be neither qualities of things or events
nor relations between them. Now, it is at least possible that
if the difficulties that arise be genuine, they are due not to
the separation of time and space, but to the initial assump-
tion that time and space are not merely relations between
events.
Time is a continuous duration of successive instants. If
time were alone this combination of attributes would be
impossible ; it is only because time is essentially connected
with space that successive instants can form a continuous
duration. The argument is that a duration involves some
kind of togetherness. But the essence of successiveness is
that, when one moment exists, all earlier moments have
ceased and no later ones have begun to be. Hence time
would be a series of isolated noios. This argument seems to
me to be wholly invalid. All that has happened to the past
moments is that they have ceased to be present a purely
psychological matter, as Prof. Alexander admits not that
they have ceased to be. Togetherness, as Prof. Alexander
himself points out, means merely connexion and not simul-
taneity (I., 46). Nothing has been proved except the trivial
proposition that successive moments cannot be together in the
sense of being contemporary. It does not follow that they
cannot be together in the sense of forming a whole of related
terms, which whole is a duration. A tune is a whole of
related notes, and these notes are successive ; why cannot a
duration be a whole of related but successive moments ?
How is connexion with space supposed to heal the imper-
manence of time? This is explained in I., 44-49. Each
moment must be correlated with several points, and each
point with several moments. A point has permanence
because correlated with many instants. And successive
instants are ' together ' as parts of a duration because they
are correlated with these persistent points. It would, perhaps,
be fair to put Prof. Alexander's argument as follows : There
can be no duration unless something endures. The moments
of time do not endure, therefore something is needed other
than time to give a duration. This something is the point
or points correlated with all the moments of a series. And
these points endure because each of them is correlated with a
number of moments. The argument rests on the fallacy that
a complex of related terms cannot have a property not
possessed by any of the terms. No instant endures ; the
terms of duration are instants ; but it does not follow that a
complex whose terms are instants related by the relation of
succession is not just what we mean by a stretch of duration :
36 c. D. BROAD:
e.g., Trinity College has certain attributes which belong
neither to the Master nor to any of the Fellows ; yet it just
is a complex composed of the Master and Fellows in certain
mutual relations.
Space, according to Prof. Alexander, is under reciprocal
obligations to time. Were it not for time space would be a
blank undifferentiated unity, and consequently not a con-
tinuum at all. This argument seems to rest on some form of
the Identity of Indiscernibles. It is assumed that if p^ and p z
be two different points there must be some qualitative differ-
ence between them. Pure space cannot supply these differ-
ences; we are not allowed to appeal to qualitied things or
events because of the preliminary rejection of the relative
theory of space and time ; hence time itself must be called in
to provide the qualitative distinction. How does time per-
form this service for space ? In I., 49-50 we learn that each
instant must be correlated with several points of space if time
is to differentiate space. This is apparently necessary in
order that time should be successive; otherwise it would
' be infected with bare blank extendedness ', But once the
successiveness of time is secured it is able to discriminate
points of space, presumably because different points are correl-
ated with different instants or sets of instants.
Now I confess that I find all this most difficult to follow
and still more so to believe. It does look as if space and time
were attempting, like the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands,
' to gain a precarious livelihood by taking in each other's
washing '. For let us put together the various statements
about the mutual services of time and space : (i) There are
stretches of time, in spite of the fleeting character of instants,
because each instant is connected with an enduring point ;
(ii) points endure because each point is connected with a
plurality of different instants ; (iii) instants differ because
each is connected with a (partially or totally ?) different set
of points ; (iv) points differ because each is connected with a
(partially or totally ?) different set of instants. To these pro-
positions we have to add the puzzling statement, already
quoted, that ' each point is in fact repeated throughout the
whole of time, and each instant over the whole of space'
(I., 81). How the first four statements can escape cir-
cularity and how the one just quoted can be reconciled with
(iii) and (iv), passes my wits to understand.
I suppose Prof. Alexander would take the line that this
circularity just shows the intimate connexion of time with
space. But this seems to me to be no answer. We were
given to understand that time without space and space without
37
time involved contradictions, but that these were healed when
the two were taken together, and that this contradiction in
the separate factors and its disappearance in their combination
was the great argument in favour of the doctrine of S.-T.
But it seems (a) that the contradictions do not exist and (b)
that, if they do, they only vanish to make way for vicious
circles.
Prof. Alexander is not content with the general connexion
between space and time which is supposed to be established
by the above arguments. He thinks he can prove the more
detailed proposition that the characteristics of temporal order
depend on the connexion of time with a space of three dimen-
sions. If space had but one dimension time would not be
irreversible ; if space had but two dimensions there would be
no betweenness in time. I cannot follow these arguments,
in spite of the very kind and courteous help that Prof.
Alexander has given me by letter. I shall try to give an
account of his argument to prove the first point, and shall
state the difficulties that I feel, although he holds that I ought
not to feel them.
The argument begins on I., 52 ; I shall put it in my
own words. If ^ and t 2 be two instants and ^ precedes t 2
then t 2 cannot precede ^. It is required to prove that if
space had only one dimension t 2 might precede ^ although ^
precedes 2 . Take two event-particles e Sltl and e s ^- Prof.
Alexander says that ' the points s l and s 2 suffice to distinguish
the instants . . . but not to determine whether ^ is prior to
2 as posterior '. (I have altered the notation, but made no
other change.)
Before considering his proof there are two points to be
noticed : (a) The statement that the points Si and s 2 suffice to
distinguish ^ and t 2 seems inconsistent with other statements
that he makes. The same instant can be, and is, according
to him, connected with a plurality of points. Hence the
mere fact that the points s x and s 2 differ does not suffice to
distinguish ^ and t 2 . If he means that the difference of
points would suffice to distinguish the moments if space had
only one dimension, this is surely one of the things to be
proved. (6) There is a defect in the conclusion of the argu-
ment, which is, I think, merely verbal. Prof. Alexander
claims to prove that if space had only one dimension t l might
be either before or after 2 . This would be an irrelevant con-
clusion ; what he wants to prove is that ^ might be both
before and after t 2 if space had only one dimension. The
defect is only verbal, because if his argument proves anything
at all it does prove the latter proposition. Let us now
38 c. D. BROAD:
consider the argument. It runs as follows : t lt like all instants,
must be repeated in space. Hence there must be an event-
particle e Satl as well as 6 Mi . Now, if space had only one dimen-
sion, and thus reduced to a line, s 1 might be on one side of s 2
the point connected with t 2 whilst s 3 was on the other
side of it. Indeed this must be so, for ' if s } and s s were on
the same side of s 2 their dates would be different/ whereas
they are assumed to be both ^. And if Si and s 3 were on
different sides of s 2 > ^i which is connected with both s l and s 3
would be both before and after t 2 , which is connected with
s 2 . Put in terms of event-particles the argument is : There
must be at least two event-particles in different places both
with the date ^. If space be one-dimensional these places
must be on the same line as any other event-particle e s , t ^
They cannot both be on the same side of this particle, for, if
so, their dates would differ. But if they were on opposite
sides of it their identical date ^ would be both before and
after the date 2 of e S2 t 2 .
It is, of course, evident that this very obscure argument
rests on the fact that event-particles are limits of pure motions.
If space were of one dimension all motions would be in one
line. If we conceive of Sj and s 2 as being successive points in
the course of a single pure motion from s l to s ? , it is, of course,
obvious that any point between Sj and s 2 will be correlated
with a date between ^ and t 2 , and that any point s 3 on the
opposite side of s 2 to s l will be correlated with a date later
than s p On this assumption it is no doubt true that t l
cannot be connected with two different points ; if there is only
one motion there must be a one to one correlation between
space and time, whilst it is of the essence of the theory that
every point is connected with many instants and every
instant with many points. But I do not understand why
the one-dimensionality of space implies that the universe
consists of a single motion. In the first place are there or
are there not supposed to be intrinsic differences of velocity
among pure motions? If so, the present difficulty does not
arise. But if not, how can the doctrine of perspectives be
as it is apparently meant to be a doctrine about pure S.-T. ?
Again, even if all pure motions were in one line and of one
velocity what prevents some from traversing the line in
one direction and others in the opposite direction ? And
what prevents a succession of pure motions with the same
velocity from traversing the line in the same direction, and
thus passing through the same point at different dates?
Lastly, what prevents a plurality of pure motions of the same
velocity from starting in the same direction at the same
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 39
moment from different points on the line and thus passing
through different points at the same date ? I conclude from
the note on L, 53 that there is probably some objection to all
these suggestions ; but I find the whole conception of pure
motions so radically obscure that I do not know what pro-
perties I may and what I may not ascribe to them.
(To be continued.)
III. HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS
CRITICS (I.).
BY FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP.
A WELL-KNOWN professor of philosophy in a German uni-
versity a generation ago used to advise the students in his
course on Kant to read Locke's Essay by all means, but to
read it " furchtbar schnell ". There is reason to believe that
many students of ethics read Hume's ethical treatises in con-
formity with this point of view. It would not be remarkable
if this were the case. Hume's works on ethics, particularly
the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, appear
at first sight like Locke's Essay to be simplicity itself.
One or two readings would seem to be sufficient for getting
out of them everything of importance which they have to
offer. Nothing, however, could be farther from the truth.
The Treatise on Human Nature presents a special set of
difficulties of interpretation which seem to be due largely to
the fact that Hume's thought grew as he wrote, and its ex-
pression was not subjected to a sufficiently careful revision
when the end had been reached. What has contributed to
miscalculation of the difficulties of the subject and to many
forms of misinterpretation is a false appearance of system in
the treatment contained both in the Treatise and the Enquiry.
There is indeed a well-conceived plan at the foundation of
each of these works. But Hume's mind was too rich in
material to be able to confine itself within the limits of the
somewhat narrow programme which he drew up for himself.
Things of the utmost importance are said by the way, some-
times in the form of mere passing suggestions, while dis-
cussing primarily another subject ; and his entire thought on
some of these matters can be found only by putting together
a number of widely scattered statements. Finally, many
misunderstandings have been caused by the fact that he has
a habit of stating principles without giving formal recognition
to their consequences; oftentimes, no doubt, because he
failed to see them, and sometimes, apparently, in his later
work because as a somewhat disillusioned philosopher desirous
F. c. SHAEP: HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 41
of getting a popular hearing for ethical theories he was
deliberately writing down to the "plain people".
The widespread failure to get from Hume all that he has
to give is shown, among other ways, by criticisms which, in
many cases, are based upon direct misinterpretation, and in
others are due to the failure to penetrate to the real founda-
tions of his system and discover its essential character. Any
misunderstandings that tend to obscure Hume's position in
the history of ethics are a very serious misfortune. Hume is
the greatest representative of non-rationalistic theory in the
classical period of British ethics. Those who are following
him in this path to-day can learn more from him in the way
of method, of concrete facts, and of principles than from any
other writer of modern times. He has penetrated to the
truths embodied in ethical rationalism more completely than
any other of its critics, and is thus its most dangerous enemy,
an enemy who can be caricatured, as he commonly is by those
representatives of this school who undertake to write about
him, only at peril to their own cause. The following paper
is an attempt to deal with a number of serious misinterpreta-
tions which have become current, and which are concealing
the real Hume from the view of students of the moral life.
THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE SYSTEM.
Hume got his fundamental point of view, many of his data,
and his conception of what they involve from either Shaftes-
bury or Hutcheson. We must therefore begin our presenta-
tion with that map of the moral life which these two famous
travellers unrolled before the inquiring eyes of our youthful
explorer.
In the first place all three writers agree that the object of
the moral judgment is not outer actions but inner purposes,
whether by this is to be understood intentions, motives, or
character. All left unanswered questions of very great im-
portance concerning the exact point in the inner life at which
the moral judgment is aimed. But the central fact that the
moral judgment is a judgment passed on the human will,
this was presented so clearly as to leave no room for mis-
apprehension. 1
1 In Hume this view was somewhat obscured by his attempts to introduce
the Greek conception of aperq into modern ethics. I have not treated this
part of Hume's ethical theory because it was not demanded by the main
purpose of the paper. Hume's errors in this matter lie open to the most
superficial view. But it is a curious fact that its elements of truth, some
of them at once very interesting and very significant, have never been
42 FBANK CHAPMAN SHAEP I
According to Shaftesbury and Hutcheson the source of
moral distinctions is to be found in a reaction to motives or
purposes on the part of our emotional nature. Such a view,,
we are sometimes told, identifies our attitude towards char-
acter with our like or dislike for mustard. It involves, as a
matter of fact, the presence of an element which is nowhere
found in the pleasures of gustatory sensations as such, namely
thought, and this thought it is which arouses the correspond-
ing emotion. For Shaftesbury the thought is that of the
existence of such a balance between the agent's " affections
toward the public good " and his " affections toward private
good " as best " agrees with the good of his kind or of that
system in which he is included and of which he constitutes
apart". 1 The emotion aroused by this spectacle is the
emotion of the beautiful. The moral judgment is one form
of the aesthetic.
For Hutcheson, despite some differences in phraseology,
the thought in question has at bottom the same object. The
chief difference in treatment is the explicit statement that the
object of approbation is the desire for the greatest happiness
attainable for those who are within the range of influence of
the action, including the happiness of the agent himself. In
the earlier works, which were the ones that seriously influ-
enced Hume, the emotion aroused is apparently sometimes
regarded as aesthetic, sometimes as sui generis. The charm
of balance or harmony is not explicitly ascribed to moral
perfection ; and probably Hutcheson's real thought is that
the moral emotion, while possessing very important affinities
with the aesthetic, is in the last resort different in content.
In essentials Hume agrees with what is common to these
descriptions. But with regard to that fundamental problem,
the source of the moral judgment, he saw a fact which his
two predecessors had either failed to observe or had dismissed
from consideration as without significance, the fact namely
that for a being possessed of " social affections " the discovery
of felicific qualities in conduct or character must arouse direct
satisfaction. Can this satisfaction play no part in the moral
judgment ? Shaftesbury and Hutcheson assert by implication
that it does not. Hume on the contrary sees that it cannot
be thrust aside or ignored. More than this, he believes he
systematically worked out by any of the large number of enthusiasts for
Greek ethics, or, for that matter, by any one else.
1 See in particular Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, bk. ii. , pt. i. ,
sees. i. and iii. "Best" is my gloss. It is required by the whole logic
of Shaftesbury 's thought, but is nowhere introduced into the formula in,
just so many words.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 43
can describe and explain through it not indeed all phenomena,
but " the most considerable part " of the phenomena of the
moral judgment.
" THE BENEVOLENT PRINCIPLES OF OUR FRAME."
The preceding account is based upon an out and out denial
of a view which has long been popular among British writers
on ethics, the view namely that Hume's ethical theory is
based upon an all-devouring egoism. Prima facie, the case
is against these expositors, as- they themselves would probably
be prepared to admit in their moments of less intense excite-
ment. For nothing could be more obvious to even the most
superficial reading than the fact that Hume places the source
of the moral judgment and of the conduct which it approves
in what he calls " the benevolent principles of our frame ".
The only question open to discussion is therefore precisely
what he meant by the " benevolent principles" in question. 1
The Treatise finds the stimuli which arouse these prin-
ciples to action in the kindred emotions of love and esteem,
and in sympathy. Love and esteem, in accordance with an
original constitution of the mind, arouse a " calm desire" for
the good of their object. 2 This desire is called benevolence,
and in the Treatise the name is confined to the desire as thus
aroused. Sympathy is the power of reflecting, as in a mirror,
the feelings of others through the instrumentality of the
imagination. 3 Sympathy arouses what is called pity, defined
as " the desire of happiness to another and aversion to his
misery". 4 In their nature and constitution there is no
difference between the desire called benevolence and that
called pity. The only difference is in the nature of the
stimulus. The " benevolent principles of our frame " consist-"
then in altruistic desires (to use the modern term) which may
be aroused to activity, either by love or esteem, or by the
picturing power of the imagination.
Most egoistic hedonists recognise the existence of sympathy.
They could hardly overlook it, still less deny it. In denying,
1 On this subject the reader should consult the very valuable study by
Prof. McGilvary, entitled Altruism in Hume's Treatise, published in
the Philosophical Review, vol. xii., p. 272. A summary of his conclusions
will be found in MIND, N.S., vol. xiv., p. 336.
2 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. ii., sec. vi., last paragraph ; G. (Green and Grose
Edition), vol. ii., p. 154; S.-B. (Selby-Bigge Edition), p. 368; ibid., bk.
iii., pt. iii., sec. iv. ; G., ii., 363 n. ; S.-B., 608 n.
3 Bk. ii., pt. i., sec. xi. ; G., ii., Ill ; S.-B. 316.
4 Bk. ii., pt. ii., sec. ix. ; G., ii., 166; S.-B., 382.
44 FRANK CHAPMAN SHAEP :
however, the existence of a desire for another's good they
have treated sympathy, whether in effect or explicitly, merely
as so much personal discomfort of which the victim tries to
rid himself in the most economical way possible. This point
of view is expressed in Hobbes' well-known explanation to
the " divine " as to why he gave sixpence to the beggar, and
is reflected here and there in his books. According to the
Leviathan, for instance, gift as distinguished from contract,
is "when one of the parties transferreth [a right] ... in
hope ... to deliver his mind from the pain of compassion ". l
It will appear from the preceding account that this position
is as far removed as possible from that of Hume. Love and
sympathy operate by arousing the desire for the good, not of
self, but of their object. Hobbes' explanation of unselfish
action is therein rejected.
There is indeed a single passage in the Treatise in which
Hume seems to have lapsed into this view. " Benevolence
is an original pleasure arising from the pleasure of the person
belov'd, and a pain proceeding from his pain : From which
correspondence of impressions there arises a subsequent
desire of his pleasure, and aversion to his pain." 2 There are
also several passages which taken in their most obvious in-
terpretation declare pleasure and pain (apparently meaning
the pleasure and pain of the agent) to be the sole ends capable
of arousing human desire. One of them reads as follows :
" The passions [in which are included the desires] . . . are
founded on pain and pleasure, and in order to produce an
affection of any kind 'tis only requisite to present some good
or evil " [i.e., pleasure or pain]. 3 But on the very next page we
read the following : " Beside good and evil, or in other words
pain and pleasure, the direct passions frequently arise from a
natural impulse or instinct, which is perfectly unaccountable.
Of this kind is the desire of punishment to our enemies, and
of happiness to our friends; hunger, lust, and a few other
bodily appetites. These passions, properly speaking, produce
good and evil, and proceed not from them, like the other
affections." Here is a denial not merely of egoism, but of
psychological hedonism in any form. Two explanations for
these anomalies present themselves. The first is that the
passages which contradict the main drift of the system must
be interpreted to mean something different from what on the
surface they appear to maintain. Prof. McGilvary, in the
1 Pfc. i., ch. xiv.
3 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. ii., sec. ix. ; G. ii., 170 ; S.-B. 387.
3 Bk. ii., pt. iii.,, sec. ix. ; G. ii., 214; S.-B. 438.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOEY AND ITS CEITICS. 45
article referred to above, argues for this alternative. But in
the second place they may be regarded merely as lapses. The
latter explanation, which for most of the passages seems to me
to be the better, is readily believable if we accept an hypothesis
also suggested by the same author which will appeal to every
careful student of Hume as extremely plausible. " A higher
criticism of the Treatise might try to distinguish between
egoistic passages which were written first and non-egoistic
passages which were afterwards inserted without proper re-
writing of older passages in the interest of complete con-
sistency." 1 This hypothesis becomes the more probable
when it is noted that the passages which seem to teach
egoistic psychological hedonism are all confined to Books I.
and II. Book III., it may be remembered, was published a
year after the preceding ones. Hume accordingly had more
time in which to give it a thorough revision. Whatever ex-
planation of these real or apparent inconsistencies may be
adopted the fact remains that the recognition of altruism as
the motive force in extensive fields of human action is un-
equivocal, repeated, and fundamental, and therefore cannot
be interpreted away by any trick of exegesis.
T. H. Green's method of doing what we have just declared
unpermissible possesses at least the charm of simplicity. He
points out that in Book I. of the Treatise, Hume has an-
nounced and attempted to carry through a psychological
theory of atomic sensationalism. But such a theory is in-
compatible with a doctrine of altruism. Therefore, any
passages in which this doctrine appears, and any conclusions
that rest upon it are intrusions of alien matter. They are
the real lapses, and as such may properly be removed as ex-
crescences. Unfortunately, however, the argument proves
too much ; and he who proves top much proves nothing.
" A consistent sensationalism," writes Green in one place,
" would be speechless ". With this opinion I heartily concur.
In my judgment the philosophical world owes Green a great
debt of gratitude for having, in the course of a critical in-
vestigation which is, unfortunately, often grossly unfair to its
opponents and not infrequently descends to pitiful petti-
fogging, contributed very effectively to the demonstration of
this fact. But what follows ? Surely this, that Hume's
fundamental inconsistency lay in writing his Treatise ; indeed
in thinking the first thought of which it is the record. For,
as a matter of fact, a being possessing only impressions and
ideas as Hume defines these terms is on the intellectual level
of the barnyard fowl. When we have said this we have
1 Philosophical Review, vol. xii., p. 277.
46 FRANK CHAPMAN SHAEP :
like the man who prayed for the good of every creature-
covered the entire field. Now observe the consequences for
ethical theory. They are fatal not merely to the existence
of altruism, but to that of egoism as well. There is no ego ;
there is no desire in any proper sense of the term, for desire
implies the idea of an end to be obtained and this is impossible
without conceptual thought. There is therefore no egoism
properly so called. Green himself asserts this in denying
Hume the right to use the concept " self-love ". Sensational-
ism, therefore, does not lead to egoistic hedonism in ethics ;
it leads to nothing. This is certainly the night in which (to
use a hackneyed phrase) all cows are black.
What then is the student of the history of ethics to do
with Hume's speculations in psychology and epistemology ?
The answer is that he is to set them forth insofar as they are
the presuppositions upon which Hume's theory of the moral
judgment actually depends. Otherwise he is to treat them
as irrelevant to the inquiry, precisely as irrelevant as they are
to Hume's theory of the balance of trade or his opinion of
Charles I. These presuppositions are few, simple, and quite
unmistakable. They are a certain view of human motives,
including their dynamics as well as their nature ; a conception
of sympathy and its relation to these motives ; a belief in the
existence of conceptual thought in the ordinary sense of that
term, as it is implied, for instance, in an essay on economics,
but with no particular theory of its structure or origin ;
finally at one point a conception of the self related to that
stated in Book I. of the Treatise as is genus to species. With
these materials as data Hume attempts to work out a theory
of the moral judgment that is in harmony with all the ob-
servable facts of the moral life. Whether he is to succeed
will therefore depend solely upon whether the data upon
which the argument immediately rests are sound and
adequate, and whether his manipulation of them leads to
conclusions consonant with the moral experience.
We must agree then, as it seems to me, that the attempt to
read a purely egoistic theory of motives into Hume's Treatise
must be set down as a failure. There is however one im-
portant defect or limitation in his doctrine of altruism as
presented in this work which must not be passed over in
silence. It appears in the following well-known . passage.
" In general, it may be affirmed, that there is no such passion
in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such,
independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to
ourself." 1 Whether by love in this sentence is meant the
1 Bk. iii., pt. ii., sec. i; G. ii., 255 ; S.-B. 481.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 47
-emotion of affection, or, as in the English translation of the
New Testament, the desire to serve, is of no importance in
interpreting the passage because its intent is clear from the
conclusion which is drawn from it. "Public benevolence,"
or regard to the interests of mankind, cannot be the original
motive to justice, because there is no such thing as "public
benevolence." This statement appears to mean : there is no
permanent desire for the good of another person for whom
you do not feel some form of love or esteem. Sympathy
works sporadically and, apparently, in the concrete, in the
presence, that is, of a particular person or persons whose
feelings at the time are above or below the zero line. When
this particular situation is reflected in the imagination of the
spectator it tends to arouse in him the desire to preserve or
perpetuate the pleasure of the person sympathised with, or to
remove his suffering. This is unsatisfactory as a complete
description of altruism without love. It would not account,
for example, for such action as that of the volunteers who
faced the danger of serious illness and death, and, some of them,
the certainty of a most loathsome and wearing experience, in
order to enable Dr. Walter Eeed and his colleagues to test
their theories of the relation of mosquitoes to the spread of
yellow fever. 1
It is likewise a much narrower view tkan is demanded by
the premises of the system. Hume recognises that the idea
of our own good as such, apart from any love (of course) and
apart from the play of imagination in bringing pictures of our
own future before our minds, has a tendency to arouse the
desire for its realisation. 2 The logic of this position and of
his general doctrine of the self, and the concrete facts of life
which he himself observed and noted, alike urged his mind
toward a recognition of the fact that the same principle holds
for the idea of the good of others. Cumberland (if Hume
ever read Cumberland) might have taught him that egoism
and altruism are merely two different directions of the same
force, the desire for the good as such, so that what is true of
the mechanism of one is true of the other also. More than
once Hume appears to be close to this discovery, but he never
quite reaches it.
Hume's doctrine of altruism in the Enquiry seems to be
identical, in most of the fundamentals, with that of the
1 H. A. Kelly, Walter Reed and Yellow Fever, ch. vi.
2 " The mind, by an original instinct, tends to unite itself with the
;good, and to avoid the evil, tho' they be conceiv'd merely in idea, and
be consider'd as to exist in any future period of time." Bk. ii., pt. iii.,
sec. ix., G. ii., 214; S.-B. 438.
48 FEANK CHAPMAN SHARP :
Treatise. Like its predecessor it omits that careful analysis
of the nature and objects of desire which the student of ethics,
might wish to have. Wherever it exhibits any difference in
treatment, however, it will be found to present the doctrine
of the " benevolent principles " more clearly, more fully, and
more consistently than does the Treatise. A lengthy argu-
ment seeks to prove that altruism is irreducible to egoism.
Butler's conception of the psychology of benevolence is
explicitly maintained. 1 And in one of the essays the funda-
mental fallacy of most egoistic theories is exhibited in Butler's
manner. 2 Passing statements in considerable number place
it beyond doubt that sympathy is regarded as affecting action
through desire. These differences are all improvements.
But the greatest and most important change in the treatment
of the subject is the complete omission of the statement that
there is -no such thing as " a love of mankind as such ". At
one place, 3 indeed, there appears to be a repetition of the
doctrine that love and sympathy are the sole stimuli of
altruism. On the other hand, language is habitually used
throughout the essay which is without justification, and, in
fact, without meaning except on the supposition that there is
such a thing as the desire for the good of our fellowmen,
individually and collectively, quite apart from the stimulation
exercised by affection and esteem and the sympathetic play
of the imagination.
In the light of the preceding exposition we may examine
Sidgwick's argument in behalf of the egoistic interpretation
of Hume's ethics. It is stated in the following words : "At
any rate he recognises in his later treatise at least no
'obligation' to virtue except that of the agent's interest or
happiness". 4 This is a reference to the problem of section
ix., part ii., formulated as "our interested obligation to
[virtue]". In a paper in MiND, 5 1 have tried to show that
obligation meant for Shaftesbury as it demonstrably did for
Cumberland merely the sum of the motives arising from a
view of the personal rewards and punishments which the
agent may expect will come to him as the result of his
actions. With Hutcheson another step was taken in the
evolution of the term. According to him it may mean either
(1) "a determination, without regard to our own interest, to
approve actions and to perform them"; or (2) "a motive
1 Appendix ii. ; G. (Green and Grose Edition of the Essays), vol. ii.,
p. 271 ; S.-B. (Selby-Bigge, Hume's Enquiries, second edition), p. 301.
2 Essay xi., On the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature^ G. i., 155;.
3 Appendix ii. G. ii., 268 n. ; S.-B. 298 n.
4 History of Ethics, p. 206. 5 N.S., vol. xxi., no. 83, p. 395.
49
from self-interest, sufficient to determine all those who duly
consider it, and pursue their own advantage wisely, to a cer-
tain course of action 'V With Price begins the custom of
using the term solely in the first of these two significa-
tions. 2 Hume's reference to interested obligation shows un-
mistakably that he is using it in the second. Be it farther
remembered that there is not a single trace to be found
anywhere in Hume's writings of the position taken by those
redoubtable defenders of the faith, Clarke and Butler (and
Sidgwick), expressed in the famous words of Butler : " When
we sit down in a cool hour we can neither justify to ourselves
this [the pursuit of virtue] or any other pursuit till we are
convinced that it will be for our happiness, or, at least, not
contrary to it ".
Our presentation of this part of our subject would be in-
complete at an important point if we omitted Hume's
account of what we may call the dynamics of egoism and
altruism. He finds the foundation of these phenomena in
desires which are ultimate elements in human nature, the
desire for our own good as such, the desire for the good of
another or others. The latter, while it varies greatly in
strength, exists in some degree in every human being, or, at
least, in everyone who has not lost it by a long course of
crime.
Given a person's native endowment, whatever it may be,
either desire may be strengthened by certain agencies. One
of these, as we have seen, is such emotions as love and esteem.
Another stimulus of the greatest importance is the concrete-
ness and fulness of the picture of the situation in the mind.
This is determined partly by the native power of the person's
imagination. It is farther determined by one's experience.
" The prospect of any pleasure, with which we are acquainted,
affects us more than any other pleasure, which we may own
superior, but of whose nature we are wholly ignorant. Of
the one we can form a particular and determinate idea : the
other we conceive under the general notion of pleasure."
Similarly, " Any satisfaction, which we lately enjoyed, and
of which the memory is fresh and recent, operates on the
will with more violence than another of which the traces are
decayed and almost obliterated ". 3 Hume is here thinking
1 Inquiry Concerning the Original of our Ideas of Virtue or Moral Good.
Fourth Edition, p. 267 f.
2 Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals. Second
Edition, pp. 173, 198 ff.
3 See Dissertation on the Passions, sec. vi., par. 9; G. ii., 165. Com-
pare Enquiry, sec. v., pt. ii. ; G. ii., 216; S.-B. 230.
4
50 FEANK CHAPMAN SHAEP :
particularly of stimuli of egoism. But he applies the same
principle to altruism in the words : " We enter more readily
into sentiments [he is speaking of the sentiments of others]
which resemble those we feel every day "* It is these facts,
as Hume points out in one place or another, that account for
the effects upon the will of distance in time and space, of
closeness of association in social and business intercourse, of
eloquence, of vividness of style in any of its forms, and other
similar phenomena.
But this is not the whole story. There is another im-
portant factor, namely, habit. We react most easily to those
ideas which most frequently stimulate us to action. This is
regarded as partly a matter of association, repetition, within
certain limits, increases the "facility" of the associated pro-
cesses which supply the will with its aims. In addition,
the tendency to react to the idea of the situation is itself
strengthened by repetition and atrophied through disuse. 2
These facts placed in .Hume's hands the key to many
phenomena of human life. They explain others which his
mind grazed without hitting. First in importance among
the latter is the fact already referred to. Altruism and egoism
are not two distinct desires like the desire for fame and for
knowledge, but rather parallel manifestations of the same
motive force, the desire for good as such. The psychological
mechanism above described further explains in large part
at least why the egoistic desires are likely to be stronger
than the altruistic, why we are commonly more interested
in the welfare of our family and our intimate friends than in
that of our acquaintances, and in the good of the latter rather
than that of total strangers. Finally, they answer the question
put by Prof. James in the words: "What self is loved in
self-love ? " 3 The negative answer is : Egoism is not a desire
for the good of a pure ego as such, whether a permanent self
out of time, a metaphysical soul substance, or anything of
the sort. Positively, egoism is a name for a great complex
of ideas, varying enormously in range and concreteness,
which arouse an extensive group of impulses to action of
every conceivable degree of intensity and readiness of re-
sponse. The idea of the good of self as a whole that all-
embracing end of which the egoistic hedonists and the school
* Enquiry, sec. v., pt. ii. ; G. ii., 210; S.-B. 222.
2 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. iii., sec. v. ; G. ii., 201 ; S.-B. 422. (Compare
bk. iii., pt. ii., sec. x., fourth par. ; G. ii., 319; S.-B. 556; bk. ii., pt.
iii., sec. iv. ; G. ii., 198 ; S.-B. 419.)
3 Principles of Psychology, vol. i., p. 317.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 51
of Green talk so much is on this view a product of a very
considerable process of mental evolution, and as a really
living force is a comparatively rare phenomenon. The bearing
of these conclusions upon the often repeated question : What
reason is there for sacrificing the interests of self to those of
others, is not remote. We shall consider it immediately.
With Hume's account of the altruistic elements of human
nature before us the insistence on the part of many British
writers (I do not find it to the same extent among the con-
tinental historians of ethics) that Hume was at bottom an
egoistic psychological hedonist seems difficult to explain.
The most considerable single reason for the prevalence
of this interpretation will be found, I think, not in any-
thing Hume has said but rather in the general position taken
by most of the British moralists of the last half century.
Their theory of human conduct has been at bottom so com-
pletely egoistic that the possibility of any other kind of a
view has never really penetrated their minds. It is of course
a highly refined egoism. The object of the desire which lies
at the foundation of the moral life is not pleasure but char-
acter or else all-round development of personality. But the
ultima ratio of self-sacrifice is found in self-gain. This view
motivates the question asked in one form or another, again
and again : What reason is there for following the altruistic
desire ? To this the proper reply is : What reason is there
for not doing so ? The answer expected to this question in
its turn is a reference to some egoistic interest, whether it be
pleasure, or power, or the possession of a beautiful character,
or what not. The assumption that my conduct must be
irrational whatever that may turn out to mean unless there
is something in it for me carries with it the corollary that
Hume, as a man of sense, must have had some good of his
own up his sleeve all the time ; and since, according to him,
ultimate good was unquestionably describable in terms of
pleasure, he must have been some sort of an egoistic hedonist.
But now there is another way to look at this matter. It
is stated by Sidgwick as follows : " Grant that the ego is
merely a system of coherent phenomena, ... as Hume and
his followers maintain; why, then, should one part of the
series of feelings into which the ego is resolved be concerned
with another part of the same series, any more than with any
other series?" *
The implied answer represents a conclusion which Hume
was not merely entitled to draw from his general view of the
1 The Methods of Ethics, bk. iv., ch. ii. ; seventh edition, p. 419.
52 FEANK CHAPMAN SHARP:
self, it is a conclusion which follows directly and inevitably
from one of his favourite and best known doctrines. For his
famous statement, " Where a passion is neither founded on
false suppositions, nor chooses means insufficient for the end,
the understanding can neither justify nor condemn it," 1
while it contains several implications, contains among others
this : if value is determined by desire we come finally in our
search for a reason in conduct to an ultimate fact, the fact of
the fundamental constitution of our desires. To certain pro-
found minds, long fed on a diet of German metaphysics, this
may perhaps sound very shallow. Nevertheless it makes it
impossible to assert that Hume must have taken the road
towards egoistic hedonism because, with his start, no other
was open.
THE SOURCE OF THE MORAL JUDGMENT.
The preceding discussion prepares the way for an under-
standing of Hume's theory of the moral judgment. This has
already, by implication, been sketched in outline. The source
of the moral judgment, according to this view, may be de-
scribed provisionally 2 as satisfaction or " delight " in another's
good, and dissatisfaction or " uneasiness " in his evil. The
'simplest and in all respects most satisfactory way for Hume
to have conceived the facts would have been to regard the
satisfaction and dissatisfaction in question as feelings arising
from the attainment or frustration respectively of the desire
for the good of those affected. What he actually does in the
Treatise without exception and in the Enquiry probably in
most cases is to place their source in sympathy. This for
Hume is the power of feeling the reflexion of other person's
feelings. Properly speaking it gives us not merely the one
set of emotions, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, joy and
sorrow, but opens the door to the whole gamut of feelings
with which our experience has made us acquainted. In other
words to sympathise with the fear of another is properly
speaking to fear, to sympathise with his anger is to be angry ;
with his love, to love ; with his pride, to feel proud ; with his
hunger, to hunger ; with his aches, to ache. Hume actually
does define sympathy in this way in some places. But in his
account of the moral judgment he ignores these forms of
sympathy and confines himself to " delight " and " uneasiness "
1 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. iii., sec. iii. ; G. ii., 195 ; S.-B. 416.
2 This statement will be somewhat modified in the second instalment of
this paper.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOKY AND ITS CEITICS. 53
at the good or ill of others. To have done otherwise would
have been to wander off into the byways in which Adam
Smith was later to lose himself, byways which Hume, with
his deeper insight, knew enough to avoid. The facts of the
moral judgment, then, when properly examined, compel this
limitation to joy and sorrow. But these same facts spoil the
attempt to base the phenomena of moral approbation on
sympathy, whether alone or principally. For I may sorrow
or rejoice at the ill or good fortune of another though he is
experiencing no similar feelings which my imagination can
mirror. I may, for example, feel sorrow because of his
physical suffering although he himself feels no sorrow but
only a throbbing pain. And I may rejoice at that which is
likely to be of advantage to an unborn child, or at the re-
moval of a threatening evil of whose possibility the beneficiary
does not even dream. As a matter of fact the emotions laid
by Hume at the basis of the moral judgment have their
ultimate source in desires for good, and sympathy can do no
more than under certain circumstances to intensify them.
While this is in form a criticism levelled at a vital part of
Hume's theory of the moral judgment, nevertheless the
mistake, for such it appears to have been, was not a fatal
mistake. For on any theory sympathy and benevolence are
very intimately related. The former is the spur of the latter.
Therefore, where the first is, the second will be present in some
degree, as Hume's own theory of sympathy recognises. One
of the facts which makes the distinction of chief importance
is that benevolence may arise without sympathy, just as it
may arise without love or any other stimulant whatever.
This was apparently recognised in the Enquiry, though
whether the proper conclusions for the theory of the moral
judgment were drawn in this essay seems impossible to de-
termine with certainty. In any event the satisfaction and
dissatisfaction which Hume saw at the foundation of the
moral judgment are intimately related in their origin with
both sympathy and benevolence ; and any mistake in the con-
ception of the relationship of the judgment to the former or
latter will not carry with it really serious consequences for
other parts of the system.
THE MEANING OF EIGHT.
To this view of the source of moral distinctions there is an
obvious objection. It is stated by Hume as follows: "As
this sympathy is very variable, it may be thought, that our
sentiments of morals must admit of all the same variations.
54 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP :
We sympathise more with persons contiguous to us than
with persons remote from us : with our acquaintance than
with strangers : with our countrymen, than with foreigners.
But notwithstanding this variation of cmr sympathy, we give
the same approbation to the same moral qualities in China as
in England. They appear equally virtuous, and recommend
themselves equally to the esteem of a judicious spectator.
The sympathy varies without a variation in our esteem.
Our esteem, therefore, proceeds not from sympathy." 1
The reply takes the form of a farther definition or limitation
of the meaning of right. The predicate right does not cover
everything that happens to appeal to the passing sympathy
of the moment ; nor does it fail to include forms of good that
may happen to leave our feelings cold. The play of sympathy
(and we may add, of altruism) is affected, as Hume has shown
in various places, by our relationships to the persons con-
cerned, our distance from them in time and space, the nature
and limitations of our own past experience, the efficiency of
the working of the imagination, familiarity, and the pre-
occupations or humours of the hour. When we call an action
right we suppose ourselves to have abstracted from these
conditions, that is to say from all the accidental relationships
of the action in question to self, whatever their nature. The
moral judgment is the judgment of the impartial spectator.
The impartial spectator looks at the situation as a whole>
for to ignore any part would be equivalent to an arbitrary
turning of the back upon one set of interests or one side of
the case. 2 He regards equal interests as of equal value
whether they are past or future, near or distant, whether
those of his enemy, his child, or himself. 3 In other words
the moral judgment claims to represent a judgment based
upon equal concern for equal interests ; a concern for bona
proportionate to their " real and intrinsic value ". 4
In the section of the Treatise above quoted (bk. iii., pt. iii.,
sec. i.) the moral judgment (as just defined) and the vo-
, cabulary to which it gives rise is represented as a device
whereby we find a common means of communication with
others ; just as we more or less arbitrarily fix upon one visual
size or shape as the " real " one, and thereafter use this as a
standard of reference. This point of view reappears in the
1 Treatise, bk. iii., pt. iii., sec. i. ; G. ii., 340; S.-B. 580.
2 Enquiry, Appendix i., under ii. ; G. ii., 262; S.-B. 290.
3 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. ii., sec. ii. ; G. ii., 261-2; S.-B. 488-9; bk. ii.
pt. iii., sec. i. ; G. ii., 341-2: S.-B. 582-3.
4 Treatise, bk. iii., pt. ii., sec. vii. ; G. ii., 300 ; S.-B. 534.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOEY AND ITS CRITICS. 55
Enquiry. 1 But the Enquiry also presents a far more adequate
conception. " The distinction between these species of senti-
ments [' humanity ' and egoism] being so great and evident,
language must soon be moulded upon it, and must invent a
peculiar set of terms, in order to express those universal
sentiments of censure or approbation, which arise from
humanity, or from views of general usefulness and its
contrary."' In other words there being in fact two attitudes
toward human conduct, the personal and the impersonal, the
latter as well as the former will create forms for expressing
itself in language.
From this account of the meaning of right, certain conclu-
sions of the first importance follow directly and inevitably.
As Hume points out again and again, impartiality is often a
difficult position to attain. Affection creates preferences, and
the imagination tends like a searchlight to light up one side
of a situation and leave the rest of the field in just so much
deeper darkness. Now, when we call conduct right we
believe we have emancipated ourselves from the effects of
this play of chance forces, and that we have reached real im-
partiality. As a matter of fact we may have failed to do so.
It follows that in such a case the judgment which gives
itself out as a moral judgment is not really what it claims or
supposes itself to be. It is what in everyday life we call an
incorrect moral judgment. Or since claims which cannot be
substantiated are called invalid, we may pronounce such a
judgment as invalid. 3 The distinction accordingly between
the valid and the invalid moral judgment is inseparably
bound up with the fundamental features of Hume's
ethical system.
It is true that this position appears to have been denied
categorically in one or two striking passages. They have
often been quoted by his rationalistic critics who are trying
to brand him as a subjectivist. " The distinction of moral
good and evil," he writes, " is founded on the pleasure or
pain, which results from the view of any sentiment, or
character ; and, as that pleasure or pain cannot be unknown
to the person who feels it, it follows, that there is just so
much vice or virtue in any character, as everyone places in it,
and that 'tis impossible in this particular we can ever be mis-
taken." 4
iSec. v., pt. ii. ; G. ii., 214 f ; S.-B. 227 f.
2 Sec. ix., pt. i. ; G. 248 If.; S.-B. 271 ff; Cf. Treatise, bk. ill, pt. i.,
sec. ii. ; G. ii., 248; S.-B. 472.
3 Treatise, bk. ill, pt. ii., sec. ii. ; G. ii., 262 ; S.-B. 489.
4 Treatise, bk. iii., pt. ii., sec. viii. ; G. ii., 311 ; S.-B. 546-547. Cf. pt. i.,
sec. ii. ; G. ii., 247; S.-B. 471.
56 F. C. SHAEP : HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY, ETC.
An examination of the context in which this statement
appears will show that Hume did not intend it to re-
present his last word on the subject. What is far more
important, however, it contradicts not merely a stray counter-
statement or two, but the very foundations of the entire
system. At the worst, then, Hume has been guilty in these
passages of an inadvertence, for the joy and comfort of his
enemies. It may be remarked, furthermore, that no similar
passages can be found in the length and breadth of the
Enquiry, a work which by its author's explicit and repeated
declaration stands as the sole authoritative presentation of
his position wherever there is any difference between his
earlier and later formulations.
(To be continued.)
IV. DISCUSSION.
PLATO'S 'MISCONCEPTION' OF MORALITY.
MIND No. 112 contains an article by Mr. Leon, in which is disclosed
a defect in Plato's Republic, which has hitherto escaped the detection
alike of his critics and of his admirers. The discovery is not only
novel, but also leads to the somewhat startling and paradoxical con-
clusion that Plato was really a Nietzschian. To some of his readers
Mr. Leon's argument has probably appeared to be based on in-
sufficient grounds. Indeed the discovery of Plato's misconception
of morality seems to issue from Mr. Leon's misconception of
Plato. His views, at any rate, can hardly be accepted until they
have been subjected to critical examination.
It will be in the interests of clearness to preface such examina-
tion with a brief resume of Mr. Leon's main contentions. There
is, he says, throughout the ethical part of the Republic, present,
latently and implicitly at least, a fundamental misconception of the
nature of morality : though by a sort of double language the ' more
common sense and correct view ' runs alongside of it. This mis-
conception is said to consist of the ' heathen view of morality ' as
presented in the self-realisation moralists. This view of morality
is assumed without further ado to be ' entirely false '. 'A man may
have all his faculties developed and yet be a thorough blackguard.'
Mr. Leon then refuses to speak of a moral faculty, because ' morality
or character pervades the whole man and all his pursuits '. This is
a manner of speaking which is hardly distinguishable from the self-
realisation view : and what makes it stranger still is that the next
moment he is taking Plato to task for having failed to distinguish
the practical reason, <f>povr)<ri<; t in other words the moral faculty,
from the theoretic intellect, o-ofaa. In describing Plato's tripartite
analysis of the soul, he says that TO Aoyio-riKoV is (a) that <J /xavflavet
avOpw-rros and (b) the ' moral conscience '. Each of these three
elements performs a double function, being present to a certain
extent in every human being, while as each predominates it forms
a special type of character. In this second function Mr. Leon,
who, it will be noticed, persists in making TO Aoyio-TtKoV mean either
(a) or (b), urges that TO Aoyio-Ti/coV means conscienceless intellect :
for, he says, moral reason cannot be the source of special interests.
It is on this ground that Plato is accused of holding the ' heathen '
view of morality. In the definition of justice, as the state in which
<8ach part of the soul TO eavTov TrpdrTfi, TO Aoytari/cov, it is urged,
58 E. HALE:
cannot mean the practical reason which ' can never be deposed '...
' It is plain ' that Plato ' is thinking of the parts of the soul as the-
sources of different tastes and interests/ ' Plato must be in-
terpreted as telling us that morality consists in a harmony ' between
the various interests, those of theoretic intellect being given pre-
eminence. This view of morality, he says, becomes even more
prominent in Bks. viii. and ix., where ' . . . his tendency is to-
look upon deterioration of character as a gradual declension from
philosophic occupation to sensual licentiousness*. Again, the dis-
cussion of pleasure in Bk. ix. is said to show (1) that the moral life
is identified with that of the scholar, though (2) the sense of TO
Aoyio-TiicoV as <^>poVr;cris reappears when we are told that other
pleasures are best when pursued under the guidance of TO Aoyio-TtKoV,
and (3) that the bad life is the sensual lite. Against Plato's sup-
posed view it is urged (1) that ' the difference between the just and
the unjust life cannot consist in the difference of non-moral values,'
and (2) that as causes of wickedness the desires of all the elements
of the soul are on the same level. ' All this/ he concludes, 'is due
to Plato's failure to make the distinction which Aristotle made
between <f>p6vr)(ri<; and o-o</>ia. Hence it is that for Plato, apparently,
the moral question is : " Shall I be intellectual, ambitious, or a
miser?"
It is certainly a paradox to accuse Plato, the founder of the
Utopian state, the first intellectual advocate of communism, whose
aim was to form the happy state ' not by selecting a few of its
members and making them happy, but by making the whole so/ of
anticipating Nietzsche, whose dominating superman was to crush
the herd beneath his feet, and live for himself alone with a total
disregard for social duty. Plato is a philosopher whose work
glistens with so many facets that especial care is needed if any
selection of statements is to be made and put forward as the central
doctrine. Mr. Leon is himself alive to the danger of misrepre-
sentation : 'It is/ he says, 'fair to say that it would be a mis-
representation of the Republic if we did not remember that this
error (i.e. Plato's alleged conception of morals as self-development)
was only one side of the whole contention of the Republic '. What
Mr. Leon does not consider is that a conception which might by
itself be erroneous, a view of morality which in isolation might be
inadequate, is justified and transformed by being used as subservient
to a greater conception. Plato considered a full self-development
to be a necessary and essential feature in the attainment of morality
in its highest sense : he was convinced that in order to reach the
highest perfection of moral goodness, in the Christian sense, it was
necessary to combine it with what Mr. Leon is pleased to call 'the
Oxford use of the term '. To construe Plato as holding up self-
realisation as an end in itself and the sum total of morality is a
misrepresentation of the whole, and not only of one side, of the
Republic.
Mr. Leon's article starts with two very considerable assumptions.
PLATO'S ' MISCONCEPTION ' OF MOKALITY. 59
In the first place (1) he begs the question that the morality of the
well-meaning fool is higher than the morality of self-realisation,
although he later makes the inconsequent admission that * there is
much to be said for the view that an all-round development of the
faculties is essential for the perfect man '. There is : and until
such a development has been shown to be unessential, Mr. Leon
should not have assumed (2) that the conception of morality as
self-development and his own conception (whatever that may be
it is nowhere made explicit) are mutually exclusive alternatives.
That they are thus exclusive is never stated in so many words r
but the whole argument rests upon the assumption. The claim of
self-realisation to be the sum total of Ethics being rebutted, it is
assumed that self-development is ethically irrelevant, and any
attempt to treat it as relevant is regarded as an attempt to reinstate
it as the sole aim and object of morality. Such an assumption as
this leads to a complete misunderstanding of the Platonic concep-
tion of apeTtj and TO ayaOov, a conception which did not only not
regard self-realisation and the performance of social function (or,
in modern phraseology, ' duty ') as mutually repugnant, but even 1
as inseparable. All-round efficiency and harmony of character,
together with what we now call moral goodness, were as yet
undifferentiated parts of 'excellence'. The excellence of the
individual as an individual was not considered separable from his
excellence as a member of society. That a man might be good
but inefficient or again efficient but evil were possibilities as yet
included in the general antithesis of good and bad. To-day we
have distinguished the antithesis of good and inefficient from the
antithesis of good and evil, and have thereby rendered the word
1 good ' ambiguous. But the word was formerly all-embracing
rather than ambiguous, and to call it ambiguous is an anachronism ;
for you cannot have an ambiguity without the possibility of various
meanings. In Plato's day the various meanings of ' good ' had not
been distinguished : so that in using the word ' good ' he could not
have had in his mind any alternative meanings, and so was not
ambiguous. When Plato uses the word dper?) he does not mean
either ' moral ' virtue or fullness of self -development or again some-
times one and sometimes the other : he means undifferentiated
excellence of which every particular kind of excellence is an in-
separable part. Is there not much to be said for such a wide
conception of human goodness? Should not the ideal of morals
be a perfect human being in a perfect society ? Could it be said
that to such perfection any form of excellence is irrelevant? A
man who has ' all his faculties developed and yet is a thorough
blackguard ' may be a dangerous criminal : yet the social conse-
quences of his actions may be less disastrous than of those of the
well-meaning fool who ruins everything by his ineptitude. The
qualities of intellect are not irrelevant to any tenable view of
morality ; and we should only be justified in quarrelling with Plato
if he had made pure intellect the summum bonum regardless of the
attitude of his sage towards his social duty.
60 E. HALE :
Mr. Leon's treatment of TO AoyioriKoV is very near akin to his
treatment of aptrr). Just as he takes aperr/ to mean either com-
pleteness of self-development or ' moral ' goodness so he takes TO
Aoyio-TiKoV, wherever it appears, as meaning either theoretic intellect
or practical reason. Actually, however, TO Aoyio-TiKoV is the ground
of both <j-o<f>ia and ^poV^o-is. Had the distinction between theoretic
and practical wisdom been recognised by Plato, he would not have
maintained his contention that the best ruler must be a true
philosopher. Actually Plato considered that true philosophy in-
volved both the highest possible development of the theoretic
intellect and the greatest possible quickening of the moral nature.
The philosophic nature implies not only intellectual power but an
ardent love of truth, together with such qualities as temperance,
sincerity, absence of covetousness and meanness, courage, modesty,
sociability and gentleness (485 b, seq.). It may of course be objected
that philosophy does not have the moral effect which Plato was
trying to vindicate for it, and that it does not lead the soul to a
passionate love of true moral values. No one was more alive to
this defect of current philosophy than Plato himself, who delivers a
pungent attack on popular philosophers, not on the ground that
they were stupid, as he would have done had he held the views
attributed to him, but because they were, morally speaking, a
corrupting influence. Plato's conception of true philosophy is
intensely ethical. The supreme object of philosophic contempla-
tion is the Idea of Good or concept of end, the supreme principle
on which all values whether moral or ' non-moral,' depend, and
which showed the entire rationality of the system of Ethics which
Plato regarded as ideal. Plato and Aristotle alike interpreted the
universe teleologically, and held that the most hopeful solution for
the problem of Ethics lay in a search for the true end. To see this
true end is the aim of the dialectical education of the guardians.
Wisdom is not an end in itself. Knowledge is only good when and
because it is of the good. With these views, how could Plato sub-
divide the highest principle in the soul, or admit the separability of
o-o^t'o. and <f>p6vrj(ris ? The surprising thing is that Mr. Leon should
demand it after his entirely justifiable protests that 'it does not
seem right to speak of a moral faculty as something co-ordinate and
competing with the rest and like them capable of being the source
of special interests. Morality or character pervades the whole man
and all his pursuits, and transfuses and gives them value.' This is
just what Plato urges when he speaks of spirit and desire showing
their truest usefulness and winning their truest pleasure when they
follow the guidance of reason (586 b).
Again, in analysing the definition of justice, Mr. Leon makes the
same error of insisting that TO Aoyio-Ti/coV must be either practical
reason or theoretic intellect. He argues (1) that the definition of
SiKato<rvvr} cannot mean the supremacy of practical reason, because
practical reason 'regulates' the conduct of every man good and
bad, and can never be 'deposed'. The sense of 'regulates,' how-
PLATO'S 'MISCONCEPTION' OF MOEALITT. 61
ever, is not the same as that in which Plato used ' rule '. In Plato's
sense reason is deposed whenever the rcXos aimed at is the rcAos of
TO eTTLOvfjirjTLKov bodily indulgence. The practical reason of course
still regulates conduct, but does so as the slave of passion. For
Greek thought, good morality means aiming at the right end,
and this is why TO AoyurTi/coV, which has a vision of and a love for
the true good, must rule in the moral man : TO Aoyio-TiKoV is the
governor of the soul because it has the true standard of value.
This argument then rests on an ambiguity in the use of the word
' regulate '. But even had it been sound, it does not follow (2) that
SiKdioo-vvr) means the supremacy of theoretic intellect alone. TO
A.oyio-TiKoV never means this : it means reason, which sees what is
noble and just and good, and which must for this reason be the
guiding element in the good man. The argument is summed up
by saying that, according to Plato, * morality consists in a harmony
or balance between sensuous enjoyment, the pleasures of ambition
and an active life, and those of study or theorising '. It is not
observed that this is a description, not of Plato's ideal, but of the
' democratic man,' who is placed lowest but one in the scale, and
who says that all his desires are equally to be honoured, and conse-
quently figures now as the bon vivant, now as the athlete, or again
is at one time an idle trifler, at another a serious student (561 c).
This kind of balance is not what Plato meant. The only true
harmony for him is when reason sees the true TeXos, and all the
elements of the soul find their truest pleasure in seeking it in con-
formity with the true aim.
The discussion on pleasure is next summarised, and the con-
clusion drawn that Plato identifies the moral life with that of the
scholar, and the immoral with that of sensuous enjoyment. To
this Mr. Leon rejoins (a) that the content of the unjust life may be
highly intellectual pursuits, and (b) that as causes of wickedness the
desires of all the elements of the soul are on the same level. But
(a) Plato would not have denied that the intellectual may be a
blackguard. Indeed, there is nothing he fears more than the
corruption of the naturally gifted (494 b), or the ruin of the state
through the pursuit of philosophy in the wrong spirit (497 e). The
philosophy student is to be carefully selected, for dialectic may be
a cause of lawlessness, if the irresponsible young are allowed to
use it as a plaything, before their moral characters are firmly
established (536 c-539 b). If Plato's end had been intellectual
development for its own sake, these scruples would not have been
present. Only a firm conviction that philosophy was necessary in
order to enable the rulers to see the true Te'Aos and the eternal
meaning of the moral code they were to enforce, could have in-
duced Plato to allow so dangerous an implement into his state.
Other pursuits of intellectual appeal, such as drama and certain
kinds of music, are ruthlessly banned, and all the intellectual
studies are chosen with a view to turning the eye of the soul to the
true good. As to the second argument (b) that as causes of wicked-
62 E. HALE : PLATO'S ' MISCONCEPTION ' OF MORALITY.
ness the desires of all the elements of the soul are on the same
level, this would hold if the desire of TO Aoyio-TtKoV were for mere
intellectual development : but it is not : it is for truth and beauty
and goodness, and for all that is akin to it in the world : it is in
fact the nearest analogue in Greek philosophy to the Christian
love of God and Humanity; and this can never be a cause of
wickedness.
It is then a travesty of the Republic to say that ' for Plato the
moral question is : " Shall I be intellectual, ambitious, or a miser ? "
Mr. Leon reaches the conclusion he draws because he does not
realise (1) that aptrri does not mean either perfect self-development
or l moral ' virtue, but both, and that these were not conceived by
Plato as irreconcilable ideals, but as mutually dependent aspects of
human perfection : or (2) that TO Aoyto-rtKoV does not mean either
theoretic intellect or practical reason but both : and that these were
to Plato inseparable when developed aright. For Plato saw that
the highest morality is not blind blundering obedience to the
dictates of the herd, but conscious striving for a clearly seen vision
of divine perfection. Mr. Leon lastly does not see (3) that Plato
did not consider that indulgence in theorising was the summum
bonum. This was the Aristotelian ideal. For Plato philosophy was
a necessary means for producing the best rulers for the best state,
and subserved the ends of the community. Plato was aiming at the
ideal state and not at the superman, and the resemblance between
him and Nietzsche is merely superficial.
E. HALE.
V. CRITICAL NOTICES.
The Group Mind : A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psy-
chology with some attempt to apply them to the Interpreta-
tion of National Life and Character. By WILLIAM
McDouGALL, F.E.S., late Fellow of St. John's College,
Cambridge; Fellow of Corpus Christ! College and Wilde
Reader of Mental Philosophy in the \University of Oxford.
Cambridge: at the University Press, 1920. Pp. xvi, 300.
21s. net.
1. IT is a pleasure in these days to meet with a work, which, like
the present, affirms unreservedly at once the reality of the group
mind and its value. In the Preface and the Introduction the author
-expresses his position through quotations from Mr. F. H. Bradley's
Essay on " My Station and its Duties," and also from Mr. Ernest
Barker where he very closely follows Mr. Bradley, and further
-where he adopts the account of the group-person l as received by
Maitland and other jurists. The Preface, too, refers with approval
to Miss Follett's The New State. Moreover, in a discussion with
Mr. Maciver, where he skilfully turns against him that writer'^ own
presentation of the case, he insists on the actuality of the group
mind as of the stuff of mind and "surpassing the measure of any
individual mind ". And he defends its collective reality more
especially against objections drawn from the plurality and intersec-
tion of groups within it (cf. pp. 11, 14, 80, 180), pointing out how
the individual minds reciprocally imply and complement one
another, " and together make up the system which consists wholly
of them". To complete the initial view of his position, we may
mention in anticipation the all-important conclusion arrived at after
-a discussion of the crowd theory and the more elementary types of
group, that in the highly organised group an army is the primary
example considered the whole is raised above the level of its
average member (p. 53) a fact which Green has noted as tending
to appear in the civic community.
2. It will help to discriminate Mr. McDougall's view more pre-
cisely, and to lead up to its further features, if some mention is
made, at this point, of his declaration of war on the present
writer. After reading the citations and discussions above referred
to, one is apt to wonder what it is in my particular presentation of
1 Of course Mr. Barker is here partly emphasising the point that the
.^group, as real in itself, is not State-created.
64 CKITICAL NOTICES :
" German ' Idealism ' " which especially meets with his censure. It
is not the acceptance of the group mind as a real system which is
greater than its members who exist at any time, and which thinks
and wills and feels and acts. This, in discussion with Mr. Mac-
iver, the author unreservedly accepts and defends. But I think I
see what he does object to more particularly in my statement as
contrasted, e.g., with Green and Bradley, though in my opinion
there is no appreciable opposition. I am glad, of course, that he
is able to go with them and with me so far as he does. But
his language suggests that he finds in my ideas (a) too much
collective consciousness, and (b) too little consciousness of
collectivity ; with, as a corollary from the former ; (c) too lofty a
notion of the rights and authority of the State.
To the first of these (a) I do not plead guilty. The collective or
super-individual consciousness, in any sense other than that
which the author defends against Maciver, I do not accept. So
far as I know, it is a mare's nest ; I do not know of any philosopher
who believes in telepathic or magical unity in normal groups, but
I am not acquainted with the views of Schaffle and Espenas
(p. 36). There is, I think, nothing resembling it in Hegel ; (b) is
the important point, referring to the sense in which the idea of
self with the self-regarding sentiment is a sine qua non of volition in
individuals and in groups. I think more of the substantial system
of interests and dispositions; the author thinks rather of the
explicit reflective self-consciousness. I must return to this below ;
(c), the question of rights, I must also recur to later.
3. Thus for the author " it is the extension of the self-regarding
sentiment of each member of the group to the group as a whole,
that binds the group together and renders it a collective individual
capable of collective volition" (p. 56). This is the introductory
condition to the study of highly organised groups, after the
character of simple crowds has been analysed. It is noticeable that
though not organised, nor continuous in existence or tradition, a
crowd needs to be constituted by a common interest. A number of
people in the street, moving about on their normal affairs, is not a
psychological crowd. Yet a psychological crowd, though it has a
certain degree of unity, has not a collective mind. For, though a
collective mind does not involve a collective consciousness, it does
involve an organised system of relations which accounts for the
interplay of its mental forces; and a mere crowd has no such
system (p. 47). But passing through the preliminary stage of
highly organised groups, illustrated by the example of an army, in
which we approach a group whose collective volition is at a higher
moral level than that of its members taken apart, we come to con-
sider, in Part II. of the book, " the most interesting, most complex
and most important kind of group-mind, namely the mind of a
nation state" (p. 96).
What is a nation ? The answer of Prof. Eamsay Muir, that the
essential condition is a belief (compare the " splendid falsehood "
WILLIAM MCDOUGALL, The Group Mind. 65
of the Eepublic) on the nation's part that it is one, and his view
that the essence of nationality is a sentiment, does not satisfy
Mr. McDougall, for whom the answer to the riddle is as we have
seen in the conception of the group mind. It would be hyper-
critical perhaps to object to his inserting (p. 100) the phrase " national
mind and character " in the definition of a nation, as he proposes
to examine these terms at length, and he has in fact told us, in the
words cited at the beginning of this paragraph, what they are going
to mean. "The group mind of a nation is an organised system of
mental or psychical forces " he repeats on page 101. " A system of
forces" I take it, very much because the influence of the past bulks
so largely in it ; the national character is not the national type,
like a Galton photograph (Fouillee quoted, p. 107), but "that
particular combination of mental forces of which the national life
is the external manifestation ". I find this a little in need of
explanation. The traditions, I suppose, can only operate through
the living minds. The definition must mean, the individual minds
in full energy and co-operation, armed with all their resources. We
need not enter upon the elaborate and interesting discussion, in the
four following chapters (vii.-x.) of the basal conditions necessary to
a national mind a certain racial homogeneity though not " purity " ;
good means of communication ; the influence of great men, war
and national responsibility ; but we may now return to the direct
problem, what it is that makes a collective will. And here I must;
for a moment recur to the difference between Mr. McDougall and
myself.
4. He finds in my interpretation of Rousseau's general will (155,
cf. above 53 he refers to nothing of Rousseau but the same two
sentences twice over) the laissez faire doctrine- pursue your private
ends honestly, and the welfare of the State somehow results. I
will go at once to the best explanation I can give of this notion of
his, which seems to me wholly without foundation either in
Rousseau's views or mine, and really not to justify me in occupying
the reader with a detailed refutation of it by chapter and verse. 1
It is true however that I attribute, as I said above, in a way,
less consciousness of collectivity than he does to the group mind
as a collective will. The problem which fascinates and will always
fascinate me is such as this. Law is sustained by will. If will
fails, law withers. By what analysis, by what tracing of social
and ethical roots, can we justify such a statement ? The nation
wants houses to be built, Poland to be reasonably supported, but
not rashly and to the destruction of East Europe. I need not go
on with examples. How, where, in what responses of minds, do
we find guarantees that these things or others in their place are so ?
1 Mr. McDougall's statement, on page 171, that Rousseau did not draw
the distinction between the good of all and the good of the whole, seems
to rne quite incompatible with Rousseau's text, and the author's examples
of the distinction are essentially on the same lines as that which 1 have
given (Theory of State, p. 105 if.).
5
66 CEITICAL NOTICES :
Or must we say that we cannot at all tell, and nothing is collective
will but, perhaps, a loudly patriotic war programme backed by a
plebiscite ? For my part, I should say that if you confine it to
that, the interest and importance of the problem drop dead. It is
the case then, that I regard the self, identification with which
makes the collective will, rather as the substantive predominant
and coherent system of interests and values, than as a special
sentiment, originally egoistic, and expanded to become again a
special sentiment referring to the group as a whole; no longer
indeed egoistic, but an egoism expanded into altruism and bearing
traces of its origin. This antiquated opposition of egoism to altru-
ism, of the self -regarding sentiment as such to a feeling concerned
with other objects wider than the individual self, is the frame-
work in which Mr. McDougall's collective will slides beyond our
^native egoistic attitude (pp. 54, 79, 84, 263). And so with patriotism.
There are two types of patriotism which are divergent in character.
One is the daily simple spirit of communal labour, and duty ; the
other is the spirit of romantic and occasional glorification of the
Lgroup, and reflective self-sacrifice on its behalf. Hegel has warned
us of the difference and I think the warning is wise. I am speaking,
of course, only of tendencies, and, on the whole, I quite think that
Mr. McDougall's cases may be genuine, i.e., you have formally a
collective will when you will in the full light of the national con-
sciousness and form the volition through the traditional collective
institutions. But I think if you stop there you miss both the
interest of the problem and the solid reality of the fact, and you
run near to the more showy and less genuine patriotism, which is
also morally the less trustworthy as not being identified with the
sovereign human values which are not diminished by sharing. 1
5. In the two closing chapters of Part II. (whose subject in
general is the National Mind and Character) we find further em-
phasis on the importance of the self-conscious idea of the nation
as a force in national life. It is a valuable recognition that " the
nation, as an object of sentiment, includes all smaller groups
within it" (p. 180), and also that more widely inclusive group
sentiments " can only be realised by a further extension of true
patriotism" (p. 181). And attention is rightly drawn to the power
of ideas generally upon national life, when they become widely
entertained and the objects of collective emotion. Such are the
ideas of liberty, equality, progress, and human solidarity, which,
more than any other, are fashioning the future of the world (p. 185).
Now, in connexion with this subject of the collective adoption
1 Mr. McDougall hardly gives me credit for my continued efforts to eluci-
date the connexion of patriotism and the higher collective will. See Intro-
duction to Theory of State and reff., p. Ixii. And I do not accept his
interpretation of my use and Mr. Bradley's of the doctrine of ideomotor
action (Social Psychology, additional chapter, cf. this book, p. 164). He
should at least have noted Mr. Bradley's definite repudiation of the
doctrine in MIND, xiii., p. 19.
WILLIAM MCDOUGALL, The Group Mind. 67
and development of ideas, the author insists on something which
in general is acceptable but which may readily be given a dangerous
implication. This is the general tendency to freedom and a volun-
tary character in the commonwealth which is highly developed
under the influence of collective ideas, and more particularly the
question of correlative rights as between the individual and the
community. There is no question that a civilised and reasonable
commonwealth presents an aspect of convention, contract, deter-
minate agreement. The whole conception of law involves intention
and loyalty. Thus the author is led to revive Fouillee's suggestion
of the "contractual organism " (p. 175), which rightly affirms as an
ideal what as a historical doctrine (the social contract) was false.
What we further need, however, is to be clear whether the contract
is the basis of the community, or the community the basis of the
contract ; and the author, at a later point, commits himself rather
seriously in the former direction, as here, I think, he contradicts
himself on the subject (pp. 175-176). His fluctuation about the
wicked idealist philosopher, as between 156-157 and this place, is
comic. I must quote the later passage, " His position [i.e., the
citizen's to-day] is one of extreme liberty as compared with that of
any member of the ancient nations. He has definite rights as
against the State. The State claims only a minimum of rights
over him, the right to prevent him interfering with the rights of
his fellow-citizens, the right to make him pay for his share of the
privileges conveyed by its activities. And these rights it claims in
virtue of contract between each citizen and all the rest. For each
citizen is free to throw off his allegiance to the State and to leave
it at will, and his continuance as a citizen of the State implies his
acceptance of the contract" (p. 287).
First, it rushes of course upon all our minds as we read this
passage that the contrast drawn seems upside-down, when the
argument of Socrates to Crito rings in our ears (Plato's Crito, 51 D).
*' We, the laws of Athens, tell every man, when he has arrived at years
of discretion, if he does not like us, he may take his property and
depart whither he pleases," whereas in the modern world, is there
a process by which, as such, a man can divest himself of his
allegiance ? He may adopt another allegiance, and in some cases,
I believe, this annuls his previous allegiance, and in some does not.
But the author's sentence is inaccurate, I think, in fact; and in
spirit is more inaccurate still. For certainly a man cannot rapidly
or readily rid himself of his allegiance just when its obligations
come upon him.
And as to the general limitation of rights approved in the pas-
sage, would the author really maintain it to-day? The substance
of his book was written down before the war (p. viii.),and I agree
that the war has not revolutionised all our ideas. But I think it has
refreshed our view of some things ; and the truth that contract is based
on community rather than community on contract, seems to be one of
-them. Progress is not, as used to be said, " from status to contract,"
68 CRITICAL NOTICES:
but rather " from contract to community ". The author might have
learned something from the chapter with this title in "The New
State ". Contract is being standardised on the basis which relations,
inherent in the community, demand, as Durkheim long ago pointed
out. The individual's will is presupposed to be communally deter-
mined. That is no reason against the ideal of voluntary service.
But it is a reason against the affirmation of a claim to withdraw from
service or modify it at the individual's will and pleasure. The-
individual is really not constituted till his will is socialised. A
Scottish professor is compelled by Act of Parliament to join the
Scottish Widows' Fund. It is assumed that his will will recognise
the communal relation involved. But he chooses his own rate of
contribution, and so makes his own contract.
6. Part III. seems to me the most instructive portion of the
book. It discusses the influence of race and of other factors on the
development of national mind and character, beginning with the
formation of race itself. The main suggestions are ; that civilisation
does not progress by natural selection in the ordinary sense ; that
races are formed by such selection in a period prior to civilisation ;
that a very considerable element in the formation of race is the
influence of occupations the account of the Le Play school's
work is extraordinarily interesting, and parallel to suggestions to be
found in that despised volume, Hegel's Philosophy of History ;
that in the historic or civilised period, in the absence of natural
selection, the effect of social selection is mostly negative ; that
progress is rare and difficult to account for, and only becomes a
normal feature in the later ages of Western civilisation, and is
mainly due in this maturity of nations to the spread of a social
organisation based upon the principle " from status to contract," and
the abolition of the caste system the statement here is lax, I think
leading to that form of the struggle for existence which operates
not on individuals but on ideas and institutions, in a constantly
widening area of knowledge and imaginative sympathy. Ultimately,
the national self-consciousness, enriched by such a process, will
become the guiding factor of the national will, and may even react,
by better methods of social selection, on the influences now alleged
to be making for race deterioration.
All this seems plausible, and I trust that the basis of hope which
it contains is sound. I will add one or two remarks, not to contro-
vert it, but rather as an aid to removing a certain looseness of
texture which I seem to note in the argument.
It is quite well to be warned against assuming that progress is
universal, and to be reminded that it may depend on special con-
ditions, perhaps even on rare ones. Still I am not satisfied that
here we have the facts precisely and comprehensively given. I
shrink from the division of capacities and results into moral and
intellectual (pp. 206, 273). It seems to me a bad principle of
division, and one that operates as an imperfect disjunction, exclud-
ing dozens of things which ought to be considered. There is the
WILLIAM MCDOUGALL, The Group Mind. 69
advance in aesthetic achievement in Egypt, say, or in China or
Japan. I do not know what stopped it or when ; but I suppose it
was one of the great achievements of the world. There was the
rapid growth of science and of moral ideas here, surely, together
under the sway of the Greek mind, and the advance of the
Hellenistic age which led up to Christianity. Was it moral or
intellectual progress when a man first said "Homo Sum" and
the rest ? Eome progressed in nothing but law ; but that is a good
deal is it not ? The peoples of the Eoman name invented nothing,
we hear. Yet some say they invented modern architecture, and
that the unprogressive period from 500 to 1500 A.D. was " the
building-age of the world ". Christianity and religion generally are
a conservative force, and their prevalence makes society hide-
bound. Yet an important thinker of to-day writes : " Christianity
discovers the reality which is not, but creates itself a reality which
belongs to us to construct, etc.," 1 i.e., is the very ferment of pro-
gress. Things grew slowly from Christ's coming to the Reforma-
tion. But I suppose there was a good deal doing all the time,
including some of the very greatest of Greek philosophy, a high-
water mark of poetry, and the conversion of the Teutonic nations.
All this is what every one knows ; but it does a little raise the
question (and any one who is much of a student could multiply the
facts a hundred times) whether progress may not be the rule of the
human mind, though retrogression, destruction, reaction perpetually
produce a superficial appearance of stagnation. In saying this, I
do not throw doubt on the need of certain simple sine quibus non,
in whose absence human life does hardly get a start. But I doubt
whether the facts justify the denial of progress as an inherent
character of humanity as such.
I insist on the case of China, to which, as we know to-day, the
debt of the human mind is incalculable. Yet the author still takes
it as the type of stagnation and futility. It is not merely that he
thinks its progress arrested. As I gather, he does not realise that
it ever made any advance of supreme value.
Points like these prepare us for the possibility that the author's
fundamental paradox in these later pages, though it calls attention
to important facts, is presented with a distorted perspective.
The paradox is that of the fundamental opposition between our
real evolutionary achievement and the position which we prima
facie have attained. Since the beginnings of civilisation, in spite
of our immense apparent progress, we have been wasting the
first-rate human stock which the race-making period of severe
natural selection bequeathed to us. There has been no progress
of the individual mind parallel to the development of civilisation
and of nations (p. 203). Our progress has not been, in a phrase
frequently repeated, a progress in our nature, in our innate quali-
ties. It has often been arrested by the local attrition of the best
1 Gentile, Spirito, 231.
70 CRITICAL NOTICES:
stocks through negative selection, and it is threatened as a whole
by similar influences operating in modern society.
Some difficulties present themselves to my mind. The absolute
distinction between individual minds and the tradition of knowledge
and conduct which they progress by assimilating and extending, is
not easy to understand. On page 210 we are told, " Now this
traditional stock of knowledge and morality has been very slowly
accumulated, bit by bit ; and every bit, every least new addition
to it, has been a difficult acquisition, due in the first instance to
some spontaneous variation of some individual's mental structure
from the ancestral type of mental structure ". And on page 212
" the greater and more valuable the stock of traditional knowledge
and morality becomes, the more does fitness to survive consist in
the capacity to assimilate this knowledge and to conform to these
higher moral precepts " and the less in quickness of eye and ear
and the like. Here both the growth and the assimilation of the
tradition seem to depend on inheritable variations. On this basis,.
can the dissociation of the mind's nature from the progress of the
tradition be maintained? Not that I am urging either the con-
tinued operation of natural selection, or the claims of use-inheri-
tance. I believe indeed that selection through maintenance of a
social standard is a safe method on any hypothesis ; l but my
present question is narrower ; it is merely what the author wishes
us to understand about the mind's relation to the tradition. I do
not quite see how on his own ground he maintains the distinction. 2
My own tentative suggestion would not depend on convicting
the author of self-contradiction in denying the continuance of
natural selection. It would be quite compatible with the doctrine
that natural selection has practically ceased during historical times.
It would rather call attention to the point which I think Dr.
Archdall Eeid has well insisted on, that innate qualities are after
all (I use my own language) hypothetical on the environment. A
man cannot grow up without food and relevant exercise, however
fine a germ plasm he may inherit. Now this suggests that w r hat
we have, we really have ; it is all of it germ plasm plus conditions.
How far germinal variations help or hinder we could only know if
we knew the limits of variation possible within a Mendelian unit,
and more especially, the relation of Mendelian units to the general
gift or capacity of thought. For this is what a truer and more
appreciative account of progress seems to me to suggest. You
have progress wherever you have thought, except where special
conditions relatively arrest it. The variation or variations which
give us thought, are the essence of humanity. The passage cited
above from page 210, which is inconsistent with this idea, looks to
1 Cf. Selection by Maintenance of a Social Standard in Social Inter-
national Ideas. Macmillan, 1917.
2 0/. such phrases as "the innate moral disposition" (p. 266) most
superficially defined, and "our seeming intellectual superiority" (p. 263).
B. F. A. HOERNLE, Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics. 71
me, as I said, inconsistent with the author's own distinction be-
tween the mind and the tradition. If we could see history and
human life microscopically and we can so see, very much more
than the author admits we should see, I suggest, not great plains of
stagnation with here and there a stream of progress ; but an ocean
full of springs and currents, constantly no doubt turned back into
eddies which remain in their place ; but everywhere relatively
pressing upon the elements which oppose them, and often breaking
through for a space. In short, so far from believing progress ex-
ceptional, I do not believe that thought can possibly stand still ;
and to distinguish thought fundamentally from conduct seems to
me ridiculous. Thus, to return to the group-mind ; I see in the
future as in the past the two tendencies, the reflective opposition
of egoism and altruism and the association of progress with the
sentiment which unites them ; 1 and what seems to me the more
solid advance, by which thought develops, on all sides and in all
occasions and opportunities, the great values which do not decrease
by sharing, and which alone are the sound criterion of national con-
duct and human solidarity. I recognise both, but I hold the true
root of progress and guide of the will to be in the latter.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics. By E. F. ALFRED HOERNLE.
New York : Harcourt, Brace & Howe ; London : Kegan Paul,
Trubner & Co. Pp. x, 314.
Mr. HOERNLE sets out with very great advantages for the task he
has undertaken in this book. Trained at Oxford, he has also had
considerable experience in the teaching of philosophy in other
universities in Great Britain, and he wrote this book in Harvard
after some years of teaching there. He has had quite exceptional
opportunities, therefore, for seeing contemporary philosophies in
the making, and for understanding, from personal experience, how
far a set of philosophical opinions can bear transplanting from one
country to another.
The use which Mr. Hoernle has made of these opportunities is
most instructive. In changing skies he has kept his faith, and
he remains a very staunch believer in the truth of the philo-
sophical tradition which he finds expressed "at its best" in
the works of Dr. Bosanquet. On the other hand, his flexible
and assimilative mind has enabled him to incorporate much
of the spirit of transatlantic philosophy. His book, then, while
1 See page 287. The conception of progress here is so superficial that,
by a meeting of extremes, it almost joins hands with the vaguest " progress
of the species" enthusiasm.
72 CEITICAL NOTICES:
not at all eclectic, has an international smack in it, and this is the
more stimulating in view of the fact that British philosophy, in
these days, is fully aware of the dangers of insularity, and knows
that there is a New World as well as an old Europe. In saying
this, I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Hoernle's survey is restricted
to Oxford and the United States. As the reader will shortly see,
he has a very intimate and precise acquaintance with all the most
important contemporary theories of metaphysics in English-speak-
ing countries.
The various studies in the book deal with highly representative
topics, and are carefully chosen with a view to eliciting Mr.
Hoernle"'s characteristic type of response on the most critical
points in his philosophy. Still, they are relatively detached, and
the best thing I can do, I think, is to deal with them seriatim, in-
dicating their character as well as I can, and making a few running
comments.
The prologue tells us that philosophy is the quest of wisdom and
of the good life in the spirit of totality, and that it endeavours " to
employ all the resources of experience in this task, taking each
type of experience at its best, when its lesson is clearest, and
learning most from those experiences which in range and organi-
sation emancipate us most from superficial first impressions, and
lead us deepest into the heart of reality" (p. 16).
The second chapter deals with the idol of scientific method in
philosophy, and maintains that philosophers have too much insight
for this species of idolatry (pp. 25 sqq.) and too much experience to
be satisfied with merely formal argument (pp. 27 sqq.). Mr. Eussell's
theories, it contends, banish values from the world except for the
single supreme value of austere contemplation, and its conse-
quence, the renunciation of desire. According to our author
(who has taken great pains with his documentary evidence), Eus-
sell's choice of this one value is eminently arbitrary, and yet his
theory is superior to Dewey's instrumentalism precisely because
contemplation really is one of the supreme values. Instrumental-
ism, indeed, ought to become ' dialectic ' (pp. 45 sqq.). The only
comment I shall make on this chapter is that, in some passages at
least, our author seems only to pit his own temperamental many-
sidedness against what he considers the temperamental one-sided-
ness of his opponents. I cannot see that he is the less tempera-
mental on this account, but he would reply, I suppose, that his
book as a whole justifies him in this particular.
Mr. Hoernle's third chapter continues the work of his second.
" Philosophical choices turn on total impressions " (p. 59), and
science is far too "abstract " (pp. 68 sq.). The crucial instance of
the philosophy of nature compels us either to endeavour after a
synthesis of fact and value (value is ' objective ') or else to seek to
banish values under the specious guise of 'ethical neutrality'.
Our author shows quite easily that Mr. Eussell's * ethical neutrality '
in A Free Man's Worship is not neutral at all.
E. F. A. HOEBNLE, Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics. 73
Thereafter Mr. Hoernle sets out to " save the appearances," and
offers us, in the first instance, a liaison chapter which admittedly
(p. 82) gathers a great many fragments into its argumentative
basket. It deals in part with the meaning of salvation as applied
to appearances. We save appearances when we attain a true
theory of them, or when we reach " the best total interpretation,"
where " best " means " the most comprehensive and inclusive, and
the most systematic and organising" (p. 93). The chapter, how-
ever, deals more directly with its nominal subject (the world of
sense) when it argues that sense is nothing without interpretation
-{pp. 76 sqq.), and that the ' reality' of things needs interpretation
too. On the latter point, we are told that a thing is "really"
what it is " truly". I must confess, however, that the accounts of
the meaning of ' reality ' and of * unreality ' on page 83 seem to me
to treat a large number of distinctly different conceptions as if
they were indistinguishable.
The fifth chapter sets out to " save " the physical world, but is
also constrained in its turn to ask " How saving is possible?" as
well as i( What is saved?" "Saving" is possible because trans-
cendence is possible, and although the passage from the ' this ' of
perception to its ' what ' is difficult, the difficulty of transition is
much alleviated by the fact that we never perceive a pure ' this '
(pp. 131 sqq.) since perception is always judgment (p. 99) and
even theory (p. 133). This general discussion is illustrated from
the concrete case of colour and Mr. Hoernle (with a great deal of
xcellent and pertinent criticism in the course of his argument)
concludes that colour is a recognisable fact in the physical world
(p. 108), that things are coloured under conditions (e.g., illumina-
tion) and not otherwise, and that such conditions probably ought
to include " the presence of a properly functioning physiological
organism " (pp. 114 sqq.). It is a little hard to see why the pres-
ence of a mind should not also be included, and I confess I can-
not see what precisely is saved.
We pass next to Mechanism and Vitalism (in two chapters).
Here, our author pleads for the "autonomy of biology" (p. 146),
and contends that biology is teleological as well as mechanical, and
that teleology is logically dominant in this science (p. 144}. Me-
chanism, in other words, is part but not the whole of an adequate
description of life (p. 150). In all this, Mr. Hoernle, to be sure,
is quite logical and scientific. He is not at all " romantic " (pp. 174-
136), but his proofs, I think, are dubious. As he points out, very
truly, the real problem is " what in nature can and what cannot
be explained in terms of the concepts of physics and chemistry"
(p. 171). Because that is so, surely it is absolutely incumbent
-upon him to define these concepts with the utmost rigour. This
he never does, and consequently I find it quite impossible to de-
cide whether or not teleology, as he describes it, could or could not
be- a special case of physico-chemical combination. If it were,
.teleological terms, while legitimate, could scarcely be logically
74
CEIT1CAL NOTICES I
dominant. To put it otherwise, Mr. Hoernle denies that teleology
includes conscious purpose or anything analogous thereto (p. 159),
and defines it instead by the regulation, structure, organisation,
and pattern which appears when parts and whole are reciprocally
means and end (pi 160). Is it wholly impossible, then, that a.
"mechanical" collocation could exhibit an orderly pattern of this
kind?
The next pair of essays set out to " save " the mind and the
self. According to our author, the truth in these matters should be
reached by a synthesis of the Cartesian and of the Aristotelian
points of view. In a word, he offers us Behaviourism with a dash
of vovs. If this statement appears cryptic and elliptical, I invite
the reader to supplement it (if he can) by pondering over the rather
meagre summary of his conclusion which Mr. Hoernle gives us in
a couple of somewhat rhetorical pages (pp. 242-243).
Mr. Hoernle, of course, claims that he is able to displace most of
the obstacles which stand in the way of this conclusion, but some
may think that his task is less simple than he supposes, and even
that, like Nelson in the Baltic, he is most conveniently blind to-
many pertinent signals. For example, he warns us that anyone
who distinguishes act from object, must go on to distinguish the
subject from nature, the soul from the body, the 'inner world'
from the ' outer world,' that to distinguish in these matters is
always to divorce, and that " if the bull be permitted, the best way
to get out of these coils is never to get into them " (p. 206). None
the less, despite this Gordian procedure upon ' coils ' which he has
made himself by treating distinct issues as if they were identical,
he admits, in controversy, that "the English thinkers' emphasis,
on acts and awareness seems much more like what we mean, or
think we mean, when we talk of being conscious of something ""
(p. 230). Here then is an appearance. Why should it not be
saved? "Because," says our author, "I am in a position to set
forth the ' genuine problem of the theory of knowledge ' " (p. 206 n.).
He knows, indeed, that we always ought to ask, "What does X
perceive, remember, etc. " ? and never, " What is X's perceiving,,
remembering, etc." (e.g., p. 245, as I gather the sense of it). Why?
To take another point, it seems to me that Mr. Hoernle's elabor-
ate discussion concerning a mind's acquaintance with itself and
with other minds (pp. 211 sqq.) ignores relevant points in the con-
troversy. Believing, as he does, that all knowledge is interpreta-
tion, Mr. Hoernle seems to think that it can never make any
conceivable difference whether the interpretation is based upon
direct or upon inferential evidence. He seems to think, even (p.
224 n.), that there is a fallacy in believing that we can observe parts
of our own minds directly although we never observe any part of
anyone else's mind directly, and his reason is simply that any belief
in the proposition, " This is mine and no one else's " implies a refer-
ence to propositions concerning other people. How could anything
be more perverse? If, in fact, we are acquainted with our own ex-
E. F. A. HOERNLE, Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics. 75
periences and not with other people's, where is the absurdity?
And if the facts were so, how would there be a fallacy in defining
our beliefs about ourselves by contrast with our beliefs concerning
other people ?
Indeed, I should have thought this part of Mr. Hoernle's discus-
sion irrelevant, if it did not seem to be connected in his mind with
another view which I think equally perverse. As I think, Mr.
Hoernle is desperately and most unreasonably anxious to deny the
possibility of any sort of private being in the universe, even if the
' privacy ' simply means that something or other is itself and is not
some other thing. He maintains, for example, that if my processes
of knowing are really parts of me and of nothing else they are there-
fore " divorced " from everything else, so that they cannot even re-
fer to anything else without a miracle, and cannot be functionally
connected with anything else in the way of action, reaction, or in-
terest, without lamentable (and, indeed, insurmountable) difficulty.
I cannot see the difficulty. X, let us say, is related to Y. Let us
also admit, for the sake of argument, that it would not be X were
it not so related. Does it follow, on that account, that it is Y when
so related, or that it could be X if it were Y ? I am loth to sup-
pose that Mr. Hoernle seriously means to say this ; and yet, without
supposing so, I cannot understand much that he says in his most
interesting ninth chapter on " The Self in Self -consciousness "
According to him, "the truth is that, concretely, what I am is ex-
pressed, for me as well as for others, in my attitudes and behaviour
towards the world in which I exist. Every such attitude or be-
haviour, considered now from the point of view of self-conscious-
ness, is seen to be an act of identifying myself yes, quite literally
my self with something, or turning away from it ". Quite literally
my "self," I daresay, but is the identification quite literal? Mr.
Hoernle, as I understand him, agrees with James that I literally
am my wife and child and bank-account, and thence he infers that
anyone who denies this, and yet supposes that he can learn a good
deal about himself indirectly, by distinguishing between the things
that interest him and the things he neglects, " almost against his
will becomes a witness to the necessity of the view which his ex-
plicit theory compels him to reject " (p. 280). Apparently Mr.
Hoernle can sub-pcena any witnesses he likes, but his theory is
surely most surprising when he holds, as he does, that a self is a sort
of noetical body. Is a man's body identified with a door when, as we
say, h'e turns towards it? Could it not be "saved" if it were not
a door ? And what is it, on the theory, when it turns away from
the door? I suppose I should divorce my body (in its logical
aspect) from the door if I denied literal identity with the door, just
as I should certainly annihilate it (in its physical aspect) if the
identification happened. Moreover, where is the identification ,
even in an intellectual aspect, when I deny?
Mr. Hoernle concludes with an epilogue concerning religion and
the philosophy of it. In this, he sees the universe " fired with the
76 CRITICAL NOTICES:
presence of God," or perhaps (I am not sure) is more concerned to
tell us what such enthusiasm means to a true philosopher. In any
case, he bids us note that the essence of religion is the conviction
that the whole of things is worth while. It may be so ; but when
I read Mr. Hoernl6's repeated excursions into the theory of value I
cannot see why anyone should be stirred to his marrow by the
value of the universe in any sense of value which Mr. Hoernle
defines with an approach to precision. Often, indeed, he seems to
mean by ' value ' neither more nor less than order and adaptation.
In that case, there is no peculiar problem (although he frequently
says so) in the relation of value to fact ; and even when he inter-
prets value in a larger (although highly indefinite) sense, it is very
hard to believe that any appreciable trickle of human passion could
ooze from Mr. Hoernle's " value," and almost impossible to imagine
that human history should foam and eddy with this dispute, and
be flecked with the high courage of martyrs, the blessedness of
serene communion, the wreck of empires and the awful barren-
ness of despairing hearts.
I do not know how far these remarks will enable the reader to
understand the scope of Mr. Hoernle's enquiry or the outlines of his
answer, and this uncertainty would give me serious concern if the
remedy were not in the reader's hands. Let him turn to Mr.
Hoernle. I have said enough, I hope, to show that Mr. Hoernle
has given us a very careful review of a great company of contem-
porary theories. There is, perhaps, a tinge of unmerited complacency
in some of his statements as when (speaking of ' the standpoint of
the whole') he tells us that "those who have never tried have no
ri^ht to say that ' it can't be done,' and those who have tried and
failed should not stand in the way of those who want to try again "
(p. 247 n.). According to the spirit of this remark, I suspect, a
whole troop of us ought to slip quietly away into outer darkness.
For the most part, however, Mr. Hoernle* is manifestly anxious to be
fair, and these "chips and rough modellings from a metaphysician's
workshop," as he modestly calls them in his preface, make one
think very highly of the establishment.
JOHN LAIRD.
Relativity, the Special and the General Theory : A Popular Exposi-
tion. By ALBERT EINSTEIN. Translated by EGBERT W.
LAWSON. London : Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1920. Pp. xiii, 138.
Space, Time, and Gravitation : An Outline of the General Theory
of Relativity. By A. S. EDDINGTON. Cambridge : At the
University Press, 1920. Pp. vi, 218.
The Concept of Nature : Tarner lectures delivered in Trinity
College, November, 1919. By A. N. WHITEHEAD. Cam-
bridge : At the University Press, 1920. Pp. viii, 202.
IT can hardly be expected that any man should produce an ade-
quate review of three such books as these in the compass of a MIND
A. EINSTEIN, Relativity, Special and General Theory. 77
notice. If the thing could be done at all I am not the proper man
to do it. For the first two works named are primarily concerned
with the direct significance of the now famous theory for the
specialist in physics. Except where the authors occasionally
digress into the consideration of the wider issues of the theory of
knowledge, it would be, in the proper sense of the word, an im-
pertinence for the mere 'philosopher' to offer criticism. Prof.
Whitehead's book, on the other hand, is directly concerned with
Naturphilosophie, and is, in fact, far the most illuminating work
I have read on the whole subject. He is concerned primarily to
propound a general theory of the character of the object of knowledge
we call Nature and the methods available for the study of it.
The ' general theory of relativity ' issues indeed in its main outlines
from his theory of the character of Nature, but it appears in a form
which is not identical with that given to it in Einstein's own ex-
position, and, so far as I can judge, Dr. Whitehead is fully justified
in his contention that his version of the theory is far more con-
sistent and philosophical than any which the physicists pur sang
have produced. Dr. Whitehead's work would thus offer matter
for a very full and searching criticism from the purely philosophical
point of view, if I were really competent to undertake the task, as
I am not. As it happens, however, the argument of the Concept of
Nature is very closely parallel with that of the author's remarkable
work on The Principles of Natural Knowledge, except that the
more strictly mathematical part of that volume has nothing to
correspond to it in its successor, perhaps a doubtful improvement.
The Principles has already been carefully discussed in MIND by
Prof. Broad in a way which leaves me very little to add except
to express my admiration and concurrence.
I propose, therefore, to confine myself in the main to making
some very general remarks on the significance of the general
Theory of Relativity regarded as a contribution to the strictly
philosophical problem of the character of that which we call
Nature and the relation of the Nature studied in physics to the
' actual world ' in which we live out our daily lives. Even apart
from the really wonderful unification effected by the theory in
physics itself by its reduction of the law of gravitation to the more
general laws of motion, a matter on which Mr. Broad speaks with
proper emphasis in the issue of MIND for October 1920, there seem
to be still more general reasons for holding that the theory in
much the form in which Prof. Whitehead expounds it, or some-
thing very much like it, must be true. For my own part, I believe
it to be true not merely because it has "scored" heavily in the
verification of predictions made from it about the deflexion of
light from circum-solar stars during eclipse of the sun or about
the perihelion of Mercury, nor even merely because eminent
physicists regard it as unificatory of the fundamental principles of
their science, but because I find in it for the first time a complete
solution of certain difficulties, unconnected with any particular
78 CRITICAL NOTICES:
physical doctrine, which had long seemed to me to make it im-
possible to frame any intelligible theory of space and time them-
selves. Others besides myself have probably felt these difficulties,
and may be glad to have their attention called to what at least
promises to afford the solution of them. In the remarks I propose
to make I shall necessarily have Dr. Whitehead's work primarily
in view. But I may perhaps be allowed to say a word or two first
about the other two books.
Prof. Einstein's own work ought to be carefully studied by any
reader who wishes to know what exactly the Theory of Eelativity
asserts, and what, in spite of sensation-mongering journalists, it
does not, what special outstanding difficulties in physics first led
to its formulation in th<e more restricted form and how it came to
be generalised. The whole story is told directly and simply, and
with no introduction of any mathematics or mathematical physics
which ought to be beyond the grasp of a fairly intelligent Board
School boy. The little work, excellently translated by Dr.
Lawson is strictly business-like, and keeps wholly to the concrete
problems of physics, except for the last half score of pages which
discuss "the Universe as a whole". It is just with these pages
that I find . my doubts about the distinguished author's treatment
of his subject beginning. As is generally known, Einstein allows
himself to speculate, as "W. K. Clifford had done before him, 011
the possibility of a " difference of curvature " in different regions
of space. The speculation is no integral part of the Theory of
Relativity itself, but unfortunately has somehow attracted much
more attention from the general public than anything which is
really fundamental in Einstein's work, and unless it is clearly
pointed out that there is really no logical connexion between the
theory and the speculation, the former is likely to have to suffer
for the sins of the latter. Hence I regard it as fortunate that Prof.
Whitehead has protested emphatically against the confusion of
the two. I think he is clearly right in saying that Einstein is
standing in the light of his own theory by grafting on it specula-
tions which that theory itself shows to be peculiarly meaningless.
If a man believes in "space" as a sort of pre-existing framework
into which " matter " is somehow fitted, he may be excused for the
suggestion that peculiarities in the behaviour of the " matter" may
possibly be due to local irregularities in the structure of the frame-
work. But since it is just the great philosophical merit of the
Einstein ideas that when you think them out you are finally rid
both of the "framework" and of the "matter," this kind of
speculation can only be excused in Einstein or in Prof. Eddington
who, however, has the merit of making the speculation highly
amusing by the reflexion that it is not after all so unusual for an
original genius to miss the full significance of his own suggestions.
Some day, I fancy, our descendants will compare Einstein's failure
to reap the full fruit of his own ideas with Galileo's curious ad-
herence to the mistaken Aristotelian explanation of comets as
A. s. EDDINGTON, Space, Time, and Gravitation. 79
exhalations. I should say that Prof. Whitehead also seems to me
right in deprecating what appears to be the view of Einstein and
others about the unique significance of light-signals and the velocity
of light. It is true, of course, that when we try to imagine a way
of intercommunication between denizens of distant worlds trying
to compare their respective time-systems, light-signals at once
suggest themselves as the best resource. It is also true that ex-
periment shows that the velocity of light in vacua must be a near
approximation to the constant velocity c which plays so funda-
mental a part in the " Lorentz transformation " and consequently
in the whole Eelativity Theory. But I do not see that this ap-
proximation is more than a fact which we have to accept as
empirically given, an " accident " in the proper sense of the word.
I do not understand, any more than Prof. Whitehead, why this
accident should be supposed to confer a unique position on light-
waves in the system of Nature. Suppose we had been rational
beings without retinas sensitive to light, a supposition which does
not seem intrinsically absurd. Is it meant that the mere lack of
retinas would have necessarily prevented an Einstein from putting
the coping-stone on our system of mathematical physics ?
Prof. Eddington's work covers in the main the same ground as
Einstein's own exposition, though with more illustrative detail and
:a freer use of imaginative speculation about the Universe as a
whole in the closing chapters. Headers who are not themselves
specialists in natural science owe him a special debt of thanks for
the very full and clear account of the actual work done by the
scientific expeditions sent out to test the theory by observations
during the solar eclipse cf 29th May, 1919. As a non-expert I
may also perhaps be allowed to express my high admiration for
the pains which have been taken to make Einstein's mathematical
methods, a subject of which Einstein himself modestly says
nothing in his own popular statement intelligible in their main
character. I should strongly recommend every reader of Einstein's
own booklet to go on to read Prof. Eddington ; the account of the
relation of the " general theory " to the classical Newtonian
dynamics seems to me to become decidedly easier to follow when
it is less severely restricted to the necessary minimum of words
than it is by Einstein himself. At the same time, from my own
philosophical standpoint, which, so far as the knowledge of Nature
is concerned, is pretty much that of Prof. Whitehead, I feel that
Prof. Eddington is beset, still more than Einstein, by the ghosts
of metaphysical superstitions from which his own theory should
have delivered him. For example, I seem all through his book,
to be uncomfortably pulled up every now and then by " material-
ism " in Whitehead's sense of the word, the false doctrine of the
-object studied in physics as a something " behind the veil" of our
sense-experience. I note also the curious persistence with which
the mind apprehending the "space-time continuum" of Nature is
regularly confused with the brain a portion of that continuum
80 CRITICAL NOTICES I
and it puzzles me to discover that Prof. Eddington apparently
regards the "Fitzgerald" contraction as something which really
happens in Nature. It seems clear to me, on Prof. Eddington's own
showing, that the occurrence of the contraction is not a real event-
It is an hypothetical event assumed in order to avoid accepting
that plurality of space-time systems which the Theory of Eelativity
asserts. We may try to account for the failure of the Michelsen-
Morley experiment to detect; motion relative to the ' aether ' by
assuming the ' Fitzgerald ' contraction or by accepting the (special)
Theory of Eelativity, but it is surely impossible to combine the
two devices.
I proceed now to speak of topics of more general philosophical
interest suggested by study of Prof. Whitehead's book. As I say,
I cannot attempt anything like a full critical estimate of The
Concept of Nature, But I am glad to have the opportunity of
expressing my unbounded admiration for the work and declaring
my deliberate opinion that no writer on philosophy who has not
given it patient and attentive study will henceforth have any
right to be heard in any question about the general character and
fundamental principles of natural science. It is one of the great
merits of the work that it puts us from the first in the right
position for the understanding of the real problem. Ever since
Aristotle in his Physics took the fatal step of bringing into natural
science from logic the notion of a " subject of predicates " in the
new form of a " substrate " of which the known colours and odours
and explosions and so forth are " qualities," the way, as I quite agree
with Dr. Whitehead, to a true understanding of the purpose of
physics has been lost. To regain it, we need to insist with all the
emphasis we can that the world with which physical science deals
is just the world of the colours, temperatures, pressures, smells,
etc., with which we are daily conversant. I have never seen this
fundamental thesis (it is, of course, the true and valuable ele-
ment in Berkeley's miscalled ' idealism '), argued with more power
than in Dr. Whitehead's admirable chapter on what he calls the-
' Bifurcation of Nature '. He is there concerned more particularly
with two forms of the unhappy doctrine of the "substrate," the
attempt to distinguish between a 'causal nature' (made up of
"primary qualities") and nature as an "effect" (the system of
"secondary" qualities), or again, between Nature as it is "outside
the mind" and as it appears to the mind (with alleged " psychical
additions "). I presume he would be willing to add, as a third and
no less disastrous form of " bifurcation," the theory which reduces
physics to the study of mere "symbols" which, as it is said, we
have " substituted " for the realities of Nature.
If we once get back to the right point of departure, then, what
we have to start with is a mind (which is not itself one of the ' ob-
jects ' making up Nature, and of which it is no part of Dr. White-
head's task to give any further account), knowing a complex of
events which is Nature. And this complex is four-dimensionaL
A. N. WHITEHEAD, The Concept of Nature. 81
Every event fills a volume, and lasts through an interval. (There
is the further complication, which I need not deal with here, that
each of the minds which know Nature knows it through a peculiar
relation to one of the events which compose nature, its one ' per-
cipient event '. This * percipient event ' plays the same sort of
part in the theory which the ' system C ' does with Avenarius,
and, as with the ' system C,' there is a little difficulty in saying
whether it is quite, or only approximately, what we mean in com-
mon parlance by the ' nervous system ' of a given man.) The
Nature known is thus just the four-dimensional complex of events.
The one fundamental thing about it is that it " passes " ; as Plato
puts it, it is a yiyvo^vov. Every event is a ' here-now ' and
different ' here-nows ' overlap. It is the fourfold continuum of
overlapping events which is our whole " given " datum in the study
of Nature, our real world, and all advance in physical knowledge
is advance in knowledge of the structure and contents of this con-
tinuum. If this is true, it carries us very far. With the disap-
pearance of the "bifurcation" of Nature into a " reality " which
does not appear and appearances which are not " real," of course
the supposed supra-sensibles " matter " and " aether" disappear for
ever, to the great advantage of philosophical thinking, to which
both have long been open scandals. For "aether" we have left
what Dr. Whitehead calls the " aether of events," the fact that
" something is always going on everywhere," and for the distinc-
tion between space which is " occupied " and space which is
" empty " we have simply a distinction in the character of that
which is " going on ". We get back, with a richer insight, to the
position which Berkeley was trying to occupy, and from which he
was only kept by his unfortunate grafting on the denial of Locke's
" substrate " of the very dubious affirmation that the esse of Nature
is per dpi.
Next, as to space and time themselves. Until very recently
one had to choose between two conflicting theories, each of which
seemed hopeless. On the one side, it seemed quite clear that what-
ever we know about position in either has been learned from our
awareness of the relations between events filling volumes. It must
be out of this knowledge that we have in some way built up the
conceptions, with which we work in our pure mathematics, of
points and moments and the relations between them, and so far
the relational theory of space and time seems manifestly in the
right. But there was the fundamental difficulty, discerned long
ago by some of us, that the traditional relational theory has not the
courage of its own convictions. Every one who wished to be
thought scientific talked it, but unfortunately when the relationist
want on to talk, e.g., about causality, he regularly assumed that
somehow, out of the " here-nows " of our " given " we can build up a
single unique space-order and a single unique time-order, the same
for observers on any body in the Universe, a timeless space and a
spaceless time such that if A and B are simultaneous for an
6
82 CRITICAL NOTICES :
observer, say, on the earth, they will also be simultaneous for an
observer who is revolving round Arcturus, and for a third who is
revolving round Sirius. The writer of the present lines well re-
members the distress caused to him in 1896 or 1897, when it
dawned on him that this assumption was latent in the current
language about " the whole state of the physical Universe at the time
t" and that the assumption seemed highly precarious and in all pro-
bability false, since it appeared impossible to build up a time-order
without reference to the particular space-order of the observer. If
one took refuge, on the other hand, in the traditional Newtonian
account of space and time, there seemed to be the difficulty that
even if there are "absolute" positions, we can never know them,
and thus there is the double unintelligibility of understanding how
we can ever have come to be aware of their existence, and what use
our awareness of that existence has when and if we do come by it.
Now the beauty of Prof. Whitehead's " deduction of space and
time," as it seems to me, is that it for the first time gives both the
relationist and the absolute theories a fully definite meaning, and, in
doing so, removes all incompatibility between them. By following
out the relationist theory the theory which makes space and time
characters of events themselves, not of a framework in which events
are enclosed, it is shown in detail how we can pass from the indi-
vidual here-now of the pulse of actual experience to a plurality of
' scientific ' spaces and times, each time-order definitely correlated
with its own appropriate space-order. And when this has been done,
it can be further shown how " absolute position " itself gets a real
meaning as position in the " timeless space" of a single "time-
system". It is not my business nor my intention here to dis-
cuss the details of Prof. Whitehead's subtle deduction. But I
do wish to urge it as a strong argument in favour of a space-time
theory like his, of which the main principles of the general Theory
of Eelativity form an integral part, that it succeeds in making the
' Leibnitzian ' and ' Newtonian ' theories compatible in the very act
of giving each of them a fully definite meaning.
1 will make but one or two more very general observations. As
I have said, The Concept of Nature is a great contribution to Natur-
philosophie, far the finest contribution, in my own judgement, yet
made by any man. But Naturphilosophie is not the whole of
philosophy and there are therefore some important questions
suggested by Prof. Whitehead which he properly does not regard
it as his business to solve. The most important of them all to my
own mind is this. "Passage," as he says, is the fundamental fact
about Nature. Also, as he says, the mind itself, in some sense,
exhibits " passage ". It is clear, of course, that there must be
some important difference between the way in which Nature exhibits
passage and the way in which the mind exhibits it, since the mind
is itself no part of the fourfold continuum. The relation of mind
to " passage " could not have been discussed with relevance in a
course of lectures on The Concept of Nature, but the matter is one
c. A. RICHARDSON, Spiritual Pluralism. 83
of immense importance and requires to be examined very thoroughly
before Prof. Whitehead's Natiirphilosophie finally takes its place
in a completed philosophy of all that is. On one or two points I
am not sure that I have quite apprehended the author's meaning.
I think he sometimes talks rather unguardedly of the "homo-
geneousness " of the time-dimension with the space-dimensions of
Nature. I am afraid his words might suggest something which I
am sure he does not mean to convey. There is, of course, no
getting over the fact that as you come to elaborate science and in
the course of doing so to distinguish before-after from up-down,
left-right, before-behind, you can only make the separation in one
way. You must separate your original dimensions into 3 + 1, not
into 2 + 2. No possible scientific manipulation of your " given "
will split it up into a two-dimensional " space " and a two-di-
mensional " time ". In other words, it is a real characteristic of
Nature that there is a " spatial quale " which is different from the
"temporal quale,' 1 though what the difference is can only be
indicated by pointing to a fully articulated space-system and a
fully articulated time-system.
I am also not sure whether I quite follow the emphatic denial
that Nature the fourfold continuum has a " serial order". Of
course, it follows from the principles of the doctrine that none of
the special "serial orders" worked out by dwellers on different
moving bodies can be " the " order of events. But, I take it, the
" interval " in the fourfold continuum from A to B is something
quite definite, though, as its parameters are not all space-distances,
it is neither a " spatial " nor a " temporal " interval. And since each
different " point," so to say, of the fourfold continuum has its own
interval from whatever you take as origin, have we not all the con-
ditions required for an order of the points ? But probably I am
falling into some misconception due to mere ignorance.
If I might recur for a moment to my former point, I should like
to ask whether the reality of the difference between the " spatial
quale " and the " temporal quale " is not indicated by the simple
consideration that Prof. Whitehead has to get at the definition of
"moments" through " (r-antiprimes " but at that of "event-
particles" through "or-primes"?
A. E. TAYLOE.
.Spiritual Pluralism and Recent Philosophy. By C. A. EICHABDSON,
M.A. (Cantab.). Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxi, 335.
"THE pluralistic hypothesis," says our author, "is briefly as
follows : ' Eeality comprises selves (i.e., active subjects of experi-
ence) alone, differing simply in degree or in kind of mental de-
velopment, though the diversity is infinitely various. Experience,
then, consists in action and reaction between self and other selves,
described by Prof. James Ward in the expressive phrase ' mutuuni
commercium ' " (p. 9). In his final summary, he speaks of pluralism
84 CKITICAL NOTICES:
as " the hypothesis that reality is made up of interacting subjects,,
the object of experience for each subject being the manifestation
to him of the form to which his activity is determined by his
interaction with others " (p. 329). The hypothesis throughout
expressly challenges comparison with realism of the kind re-
presented " in America by the neo-realists, and in this country by
logical atomists of the type of Mr. Bertrand Eussell," by whose
teachings the author admits that he has been considerably
influenced (Preface, p. vi).
The author's argument, on his own showing, stands or falls
with his conception of the nature and function of 'explanation'.
Scientific hypotheses are not " really explanatory," but are " merely
descriptive. . . . They are attempts to describe the facts of
existence in simpler terms than the immediately given data. It
might therefore be urged that pluralism is also a merely descriptive
hypothesis, the ' explanation ' being simply taken back one step,
and expressed in terms of different things. Yet it is just in this,
difference of terms that the root of the essential disparity between,
pluralism and other hypotheses is to be found. It implies a dif-
ference of type. For pluralism is expressed in terms of active
selves. We all realise what it is to be active it is just living and'
doing. We all realise what a self is. This realisation is far more-
than knowledge in the ordinary sense. . . . Pluralism, being ex-
pressed in terms of active selves, is truly explanatory for such
active selves, i.e., for us" (pp. 13-14). It would apparently, how-
ever, be more accurate to say that ' realisation ' is not ' knowledge "
at all : for " evidently the subject or knower cannot be an object
of knowledge " (p. 14 n.). 1 Later he claims that pluralism " where
it is successfully applied " provides a " final explanation an ex-
planation which is capable of fully satisfying such beings as our-
selves in the search for the true nature and meaning of realitv '"
(p. 64).
In the end, however, Mr. Eichardson admits that pluralism does
not afford a final explanation of the universe, since it involves,
without solving, " the problem of the interaction of monads. We
seek further for the concrete ground of this interaction, and are
thus led to realise that some all-pervading principle, if it may be
so called, is necessary to explain the unity of what in another
aspect is a manifest plurality" (p. 82). In the last paragraph of
his book he lays down that the final answer to " such time-
honoured problems as freedom, immortality, creation, and the
existence of God . . . must somehow lie in the determination of
the nature of that concrete universal entity, in virtue of whose
immanence the plurality of selves is no mere plurality, but a uni-
verse". In the end, then, pluralism, so far as it is provisionally
1 C/., e.g., p. 19 : " Knowing is a relation between two entities, so that
evidently the subject cannot know itself. It simply realises its own.
existence. ..."
c. A. RICHARDSON, Spiritual Pluralism. 85
admissible, appears to partake of the nature of ' description ' rather
than of ' explanation '. But the description given by the author
does not carry us very far. For though we are assured that the
monads ' interact,' we are not told either how they do it, or why
they do it. Nor does there appear to be any possibility of dis-
covering " the noumenal conditions necessary in general for that
type of interaction between certain subjects which is the ground
of perception " (p. 285).
So much for the general results which ' spiritual pluralism *
seeks to establish. As regards, now, the method of Mr. Richard-
son's argument, the chief difficulty which he has imposed on him-
self, and which he never overcomes, is that of reconciling his
contention that the ' subject ' or ' self ' cannot be an ' object of
knowledge ' with his utilisation of the self as a principle of
philosophic ' explanation '. The vacillation which this unstable
position necessarily entails is reflected in his fluctuating conception
of that activity which, it would seem, specially characterises the
true, as opposed to the merely empirical, self (see e.g., p. 194).
We are told that " activity is fundamental " (p. 32), and that it is
" just living and doing " (p. 13). Further : " The true meaning which
causality has for us is rooted in the realisation of our own efficiency
as active individuals. The active individual is the ' cause '. The
end which his (generally purposive) activity accomplishes is the
4 effect ' " (p. 37). And " the self is purposive " (p. 146).
But we are also told that "the concrete self is the knower" (p.
19) ; that all subjective modes of activity " may probably be re-
duced to the single activity of attention " (p. 138) ; that "subjects
of experience cannot be considered to be in any sense ' in space
and time ' " (p. 43 l ) ; and that "any spatial or temporal reference
is to elements in the object of experience alone " (p. 45 *).
Now, apart from changes in attention apart, that is, from the
process of concentrating attention first on one thing (or portion of
the field of consciousness) and then on another attention itself is
meaningless. 2 When, therefore, we have intellectualised and mini-
mised purposive activity to the utmost, by rediicing it to "the
single activity of attention " ; we must, in deference to the principle
of the timeless self, then proceed either (1) to deny that there is, in
the last resort, any such thing as attention, or (2) to assert that so-
called differences in attention are really differences " in the object
1 Cf. inter alia, pp. 138-139.
- Cf. e.g. op. cit., pp. 248-249 : " The distinctive difference between the
^fields of consciousness and sub-consciousness respectively at any instant "
[italics mine] " is that while any part of the former is capable at that in-
stant of becoming the focus of consciousness, parts of the latter are not.
But it should be noted . . . that regions of the presented whole which
at one time form portions of the field of sub-consciousness, may at another
time [italics mine] form portions of the field of consciousness, and vice
86 CRITICAL NOTICES:
of experience alone 'V The attention-process, in short, forms no
exception to the general principle that we have to choose between
timelessness and activity : we cannot have both.
Thus, in place of the living self, which believes itself somehow
to transcend the antithesis of 'subject ' and ' object,' we are finally
brought back, by the doctrine of the timeless self, to something in-
distinguishable from Kant's Synthetic Unity of Apperception. The
self, which in Mr. Kichardson's philosophy was to explain every-
thing, seems to become merely an element in a purely formal analy-
sis of * experience ' and a remarkably elusive element at that..
Everything knowable about it is included in the 'Me' ; the 'I' is
left unknowable, and in place of knowledge we are offered a pro-
cess of ' realisation ' which is never explained, and would seem to be
inexplicable. While, on the one hand, there is no trace of any
trait d 'union between the ' I ' and the ' Me/ on the other hand
our " sensations, feelings, desires, thoughts, and acts " all appear
to be impartially included in the 'object' (cf. p. 187). What is.
here to prevent any monist from overthrowing Mr. Kichardson's.
' pluralism ' by simply suggesting that all the individual experiences
are in fact manifestations of one and the same Universal Self ?
Furthermore, the ' individual experience ' ' explained ' by the ' in-
teraction ' of such defecated selves is said to be absolutely " one and
indivisible" (p. 23). As such, however, it affords no excuse for
demanding a pluralistic interpretation. The unity of the individual
experience is indeed so unitary that our author will not even allow
us to speak of that experience as "continuous" (ibid.).
And this brings up yet another difficulty in the way of defining
the author's standpoint. A unity so absolute as to preclude con-
tinuity must preclude the idea of growth of experience and with it
the distinction between past and future (cf. p. 174). Doubtless,
the logical complement of the timeless individual self must be a
timeless experience (cf. pp. 138-139 and 177). But that is just what
makes the conception of the timeless individual self so fatally
obscure not to say unintelligible. To add to our perplexity,
Mr. Kichardson claims that the method of his pluralism, as opposed
to the analytic method of Mr. Bertrand Eussell, is genetic; and,
that " in the first stage the investigation takes the form, for the
1 Mr. Richardson lays special stress on the assertion that " one subject
implies in the presented object one, and only one, focus of attention, and
vice versa " (p. 259). If we accept this assertion without any temporal quali-
fication, we cannot escape the conclusion that every time the focus shifts,
a fresh (atomistic) subject is introduced on the scene. And what then
becomes of the * self ' as Synthetic Unity ? If, on the other hand, we at-
tribute the successive acts of attention within the life-history of the human
individual to a unitary ' self ' if, that is to sav, we consider that the at-
tentive ' self ' is at the very least also a principle of Synthetic Unity then-
the very unity of that * self ' compels us to regard the * self ' as being ' in
time ' even if the ' object ' is not. Thus, the conception of the ' self ' as,
that which attends is hopelessly irreconcilable with the idea of the 4 self '
as both unitary for each individual experience and timeless.
c. A. RICHARDSON, Spiritual Pluralism. 87
most part, of an analysis of the growth of individual experience
and of the transition by inter-subjective intercourse to universal
conceptual experience" (p. 12). And that nothing may be want-
ing to complete our bewilderment, while he rejects the idea of
" duration " as applied to the self (p. 44) he admits in relation
thereto the idea of permanence through change (p. 40) . x
If, however, disregarding these difficulties, we accept Mr.
Eichardson's theory of the absolute unity of the individual ex-
perience, the promised land of pluralism, as has been already
hinted, still eludes us. For what pre-eminently stands in need of
philosophic explanation is the possibility of analysing at all what
is called an ' indivisible ' experience. Mr. Richardson admits,
indeed, that ''Analysis of experience is by no means entirely
invalid" (p. 176). It is not, however, an admission, but an ex-
planation, of this fact that we are constrained to seek. On the
face of it, if analysis of experience is possible in any sense that is
relevant to philosophy, then the very foundation of Mr. Eichardson's
philosophy is destroyed ; and if it is not possible, then the pluralistic
superstructure is destroyed.
Now, such * validity ' as analysis is said to possess appears to
be purely relative to the purpose of practical calculation, and is
achieved in the teeth of its theoretic ' inadequacy ' (see esp. pp. 176
and 29). The situation, then, appears to be this: that though
analysis is theoretically impossible and philosophically irrelevant,
its results may, for practical or scientific purposes, be both true
and useful. And how out of such a situation a coherent pluralistic
philosophy is to arise, passes all understanding.
At this point it seems clear that Mr. Eichardson should have
dealt more faithfully with Solipsism. For Solipsism counters the
demand for an explanation of individual experience by blandly
accepting, as literally true, Mr. Eichardson's fundamental con-
tention : " Strictly speaking, there is only one fact about such an
experience in its actuality, which fact may be stated in the pro-
position ' It exists '. The ' it ' of this proposition is the totum
objectivum, or presented whole, of individual experience " (p. 28).
In truth, Solipsism seems to afford the ideal fulfilment of Mr.
Eichardson's aspirations for a ' truly explanatory ' hypothesis. Un-
like ' Spiritual Pluralism ' it has the courage of its aspirations. It
is an ' explanation ' strictly in terms of the self. It secures absolute
unity at the outset, instead of leaving it, at the end of a long
1 " From the subjective point of view, if 1 have first A and then B before
me, I can, in no significant sense, be said to have apprehended a process,
of change ; at most there has been a change in myself, and this, since it is.
I who have perceived both A and J5, assumes my permanence" (op. cit.,
p. 40). With Mr. Richardson, as with T. H. Green, the theory of the
* timeless self ' shows a disconcerting tendency to develop, dialectically,
into the theory that the individual l self ' is the only thing that either does
or can change, in the full sense of the word ; and that it is Reality, as.
opposed to the ' self ' which is really timeless .
88 CRITICAL NOTICES:
pilgrimage, still to seek. Its fidelity to the principle of Occam's
razor (cf. pp. 16 and 104) is beyond reproach. Its ' explanation ' of
experience possesses what Mr. Eichardson should regard as the
supreme merit of being absolutely non-descriptive ; for it tells us
nothing whatsoever about experience. And, by the same token,
the 'explanation' is absolutely final. For, accepting experience
as the revelation of itself to itself, Solipsism transcends the ever-
lasting ' Why?' of the metaphysical system-maker by transmuting
it into an imperturbable, all-embracing, and self-sufficing ' Why
not? 1 It thus overcomes not only the duality of subject and
object, but also the duality of question and answer.
Then again, just because the Solipsist can logically seek to
convince no one but himself, A's knowledge of the falsity and
absurdity of Solipsist B's pretension to be the sole 'subject of
experience' or even A's persuasion that not B, but A himself,
supports that solitary grandeur cannot trouble the calm current
of B's spiritual existence. It is for this reason and in this sense
that Solipsism is, as Mr. Eichardson says, "logically irrefut-
able " (pp. 21 and 170). Mr. Eichardson himself goes so far as to
say that " the events in the experience of an individual take place
just as if he were the only existing subject" (p. 170). J
Without doubt there are great and attractive possibilities in the
idea of a pluralistic universe. But a c pluralism ' which oscillates
between Monism and Solipsism, and which seems to have no
definite idea of what it means by ' self ' and ' experience ' can
hardly be regarded as a satisfactory solution of the philosophic
problem.
HOWARD V. KNOX.
The Historical Method in Ethics, and other Essays. By JOHN
HANDYSIDE, M.A. (Edin.), B.A. (Oxon.) late Lecturer in
Philosophy in the University of Liverpool and Second
Lieutenant in the King's (Liverpool) Eegiment, 18th Battalion.
Liverpool : The University Press ; London : Constable & Co.
Pp. xvi, 97.
OFithe three great ethical questions (1) What ought we to do?; (2)
How do we know what we ought to do?; (3) Why should we do
what we see to be right ?, it is with the second, which is logical or
methodolgical, that Mr. Handyside's Essay which gives the title
to this volume purports to deal. " The method of Ethics " he says,
(p. 34) "is an immanent criticism of systems, a criticism, that is,
which does not go for a criterion of systems beyond all systems
1 Mr. Richardson, who is here discussing the question of immortality,
says: "This brings out the difficulties involved in assigning a definite
meaning to the phrase 'ceasing to exist' ". But it would be truer to say
that it brings out the dangers involved in an uncritical acceptance of the
notion of * individual experience '.
JOHN HANDYSIDE, The Historical Method in Ethics. 89
for there is no Ethical knowledge, datum or construction, beyond
all systems but stays within the limits of the historical evolution,
to criticise system by system, and part by part. And as the
principle of this criticism can only be consistency, the method of
Ethics is dialectical in that sense."
It is no doubt apparent inconsistency which gives rise to un-
certainty and questioning; unresolved inconsistency is not to be
tolerated, but we cannot conceive consistency to be an adequate
criterion (except perhaps as applied to the whole, which is beyond
our grasp). We always want to get rid of inconsistency still
the most thorough-going and systematic consistency cannot supply
us with more than a negative criterion. It does not, e.g., exclude
incoherence absence of apparent connexion. For system we
require connexion of elements as well as absence of contradiction.
Further, is it not as applied to the Whole only that we can say that
all criticism of system must be immanent ? We require a system,
e.g., of morals to be self -consistent so far the criterion is imma-
nent, but we also require it to harmonise with the other knowledge
which we accept.
At the end of the essay Mr. Handyside speaks again of the
criticism or immanent dialectic which, as the true method < of
ethics, " is the truth of, and takes up into a higher synthesis, the
two imperfect and inadequate methods, the empirical and historical
on the one side, and the rationalistic or demonstrative on the other ".
This latter is blamed for pinning its faith to law, whereas law "is
not adequate to our moral experience," and it is to system and con-
sistency "systematic consistency" (p. 29) that we must look for
our criterion. But it seems difficult to see why the name of law
should be refused to the notion or principle of consistency on
which Mr. Handyside relies for systematisation in Ethics. This
principle (or notion) is treated by him as though it were funda-
mental, an universally applicable criterion of valid ethical con-
struction a principle which could not reasonably be questioned,
since according to him consistent means rational. Thus this
principle would seem to carry its own evidence with it, and to be
in fact a self-evident law used to systematise ethical material. The
author, however, appears to hold that no ethical propositions are
self-evident. But unless he can convince us of this his condemna-
tion of "demonstrating" morality falls rather flat, and moreover
the wind is taken out of his own sails, for as far as can be made
out he never definitely admits any fundamental difference between
' moral ' and ' positive ' judgments, and on p. 23 rather anxiously
-discusses the question whether from historical ('positive') pro-
positions, ' ethical ' propositions can be proved. If self-evidence
of propositions is not recognised, must not the self-evidence of
-conclusions from premises be given up too? It would seem to be
only the self-evidence of the connexion between the steps in any
process of reasoning, however lengthy, or between premises and
conclusion in the simplest argument, that enables ordinary people
90 CRITICAL NOTICES:
to follow the process and accept the conclusion. And if self-
evidence in any case turns out to be illusory, we resort to a fresh
application of the same test.
Mr. Handyside's indictment of the " Eationalistic or demon-
strative method" affirms that attempts "to arrive by its means at
laws which should have a universal claim on human conduct . . ,
have invariably i 'failed " and expresses the opinion that the last
attempt of this kind that of Sidgwick has even " demonstrably
failed " in fact, must have failed because every reasoning the con-
clusion of which is a moral judgment must have had some moral
judgment as premise, and thus " must rest upon at least one moral
judgment which is merely assumed". In criticising Sidgwick the
author pays no attention to that writer's account of his own view,
but applying to it the general considerations above referred to,
pronounces that "those most ultimate propositions on which
Sidgwick and his predecessors base their proofs of laws or maxims,
either are not moral judgments, and in that case do not prove the
conclusions, or being such are themselves equally in need of proof
and equally unprovable ". As far as I can see, the whole general
contention is itself an assumption for which no evidence is pro-
duced, and the acceptance of which would seem to invalidate any
system of Ethics into which reasoning enters.
As regards Prof. Sidgwick's Ethics, this is simply condemned
without examination, and I venture to conjecture without first-hand
knowledge on the part of the critic. Sidgwick (like Clarke, Kant,
etc.) takes as ultimate and fundamental, propositions which he
regards as self-evident, and among these Kant's Categorical Imper-
ative "Act from a principle or maxim that you can will to be a
universal law," and he gives us in his Philosophical Intuitionism
an Ethics based on the principle of Eational Hedonism (no mere
formal principle) which he regards as self-evident, and employs to
systematise the facts and laws of moral life into a coherent, compre-
hensive and consistent whole, with the aid of all that ordered wealth
of "historical" knowledge which he had at his command. Ac-
cording to Mr. Handyside such "history" is that which must
supply the real material, the intuitional content, required by the
" general form of all ideals," namely, the conception of System
" a scheme left to receive some concrete filling ". Thus Sidgwick's
Ethics does in point of fact fulfil the requirements of (1) system,
and (2) concrete filling got from history and experience conditions
which Mr. Handyside seems to lay down, but which apparently he
has not given himself a chance of discovering in Sidgwick's work.
It is perhaps only careful readers of The Methods of Ethics who
can appreciate the historical and critical equipment of the author,
or the skill and thoroughness of the ethical systematisation which
it accomplishes. The most relentless testing by summarising, index-
ing, and cross-references, and still more by long study, only serves
to bring into relief the consistency and coherence, the articulation
and underlying unity which make one think of the harmonious.
JOHN HANDYSIDE, The Historical Method in Ethics. 91
one-ness of a living organism. 1 On the whole, Mr. Handyside's
version of what he calls the "rationalistic or demonstrative"
method in Ethics, seems strangely undiscerning. His account of
Intuitionism in morals (p. 24) is grotesque, and his report of the
Ethics of Prof. Sidgwick (to whom he repeatedly refers, and
whom he contemns as having perpetrated the last attempt in this
direction) is absolutely beside the mark.
Mr. Handyside is genuinely interested in his topic he is
thoughtful and desirous of getting at the truth nothing is more
remote from his intention than intellectual dishonesty or conscious
misrepresentation. But this, while it makes him keen to justify
the view which he has adopted and to meet objections to it, has
not led" him to make any careful or thorough study of those very
divergent ethical thinkers exponents of " Ethics as usually and
traditionally understood" who are here lumped together under
the name of "rationalising demonstrationists". It is particularly
to be regretted that Mr. Handyside did not devote more attention
to Prof. Sidgwick. whom he dismisses in the most cavalier
fashion, without, it would seem, having either heard of his historical
work in Ethics and Politics, or made acquaintance at first-hand
with The Methods of Ethics. (The general absence of illustrations
and of precise references in this essay is a serious defect, and no-
where more unfortunate than in the present instance.)
The reason why Mr. Handyside calls his Essay The Historical
Method in Ethics seems to be that while, as we have seen, he dis-
trusts the supposed alternative method of " rationalising demon-
stration " ("the usual and traditional method," which is regarded
as such a derelict) he believes that these two can be taken up
into a higher synthesis by (p. 38) "the critical or dialectical or
speculative method " of which Historical Ethics (which he thinks
has been much neglected) is when broadly taken "an essential
aspect . . . supplying all the real matter or material for that
criticism or immanent dialectic " which (as already noted) he
regards as " the true method of Ethics " (and indeed of all know-
ledge). "Practical thought," says Mr. Handyside, "opinion as
distinguished from science, works with intuitions; and there is
nothing to produce intuitions but History." This is the concluding
sentence of his Essay and it seems to want a good deal of elucida-
tion. Why should " practical thought " which, I suppose, means
thought about Practice or Conduct be stigmatised as opinion ?
What science is there that derives no assistance from ' intuitions ' ?
What Mr. Handyside means by Method is not very clear. He does
not seem sure that Validity does not depend upon Origin. He
identifies Eational with Consistent and does not distinguish what
men do, have done, or will do, from what they ought to do. He
lays great stress upon the importance of Historical Ethics for a
complete view of the subject, but does not seem to have realised
1 It may perhaps be permitted to refer here to the article Henry kidgwick
in vol. xi. of Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
92 CEITICAL NOTICES :
how much has been done already in this direction. " The theory
of knowledge," he says (p. 27) "seems ultimately to hold that the
only possible criterion of the system of truth as a whole is its
consistency with itself, its exclusion of contradiction " hence
"the test of consistency may be of more value in the case of a
view of morality as system than in the other view of it as law".
(We may note here that System is what all the philosophical
moralists those who reject mere Perceptional or Dogmatic Ethics
have aimed at e.g., Kant and Sidgwick.)
"Ultimately," Mr. Handyside conceives, "we have grounds for
believing that only certain forms of Being, of relation, and of
system, or only one form, can be self-consistent, and such a form,
if any, must be found for the ethical system, if ethicality is to be
equal to the Absolute" (p. 38). "What, in his view, History
contributes seems to be the 'intuition' that men " have to create
or maintain" a moral and social system "in which they may tind
their true selves, and so be truly satisfied" (p. 30). This is
certainly something concrete, but it is highly ambiguous. Does
" their true selves" mean their better selves (the selves which they
ought to be) or the selves which they in fact are ? Does true satis-
faction mean a satisfaction with which a man is satisfied or with
which he ought to be satisfied ? Does satisfied mean happy ? If
it means * happy,' no doubt we have here an end which most men
have actually been pursuing, and which in the view of many
moralists including the Philosophical Intuitionists or Eational
Hedonists who have been so unceremoniously dismissed ought to
be pursued. But the grounds on which precisely this deliverance
of History of ' intuition ' ought to be accepted, are not indicated.
Does the dictum, that to be " truly satisfied " is man's ultimate aim,
his true end, carry its own evidence with it ? If not, by what
method, by what logical procedure is it recommended or justified ?
The question which Method answers is : How do we know that
this is right, or true ? If there is a historical method of Ethics,
it should show us by history what we; ought to do ; if it does not do
this, it is either not a method of Ethics, or not historical. If our
test is nothing less than the consistency or harmony of the whole
we have no test for any part until we know the whole. We seem,
to miss all through any clear distinction between justification and
history, between what ought to be, and what is, done or believed.
Ethics evaporates Method eludes us. The reconciliations adum-
hrated are obscure.
Mr. Handyside considers that in passing to ' historical ' method
in Ethics we pass to an "empiricist account of morals," "an
empirical and historical method," and this view of Method brings
us to the aperqu that ' Ethics is a positive science, a science about
men's notions of value" (p. 5). It thus looks as though Mr.
Handyside were here using 'historical method' in a sense that
can "hardly be distinguished from the inductive method" 1
{" there is nothing to produce [particular] intuitions but history " he
1 Sidgwick, Philosophy, its Scope and Relations, p. 126.
JOHN HANDYSIDE, The Historical Method in Ethics. 93
says, p. 39) opposing this 'historical' procedure to "deductive
reasoning from general premises assumed or supposed to be self-
evident" 1 to which at the beginning of his Essay he so much
objects. It is, of course, matter of 'experience,' of 'history,' that
men hold such or such "notions of value," but it is only because
the notions held are notions of value that they are ethically inter-
esting and important it is not in the mere occurrence of such
entertained notions, but in the meaning and validity of "value"
that we have to seek justification for ' ethical ' as distinguished
from 'positive' science, for 'ought' as distinguished from 'is'.
Good is what we ought to seek, Eight what we ought to do, even
,as Truth is what we ought to believe.
We may recall that Mr. Handyside was hard at work teaching
and examining from the time when he left Oxford in 1907, and it
was only after being appointed at Liverpool in 1911 that his
attention was specially directed to "moral and social philosophy".
When the great War came in 1914 he was keen to join the army,
and received a commission in the 16th King's (Liverpool) Eegiment
in 1915. In October of the following year he "was mortally
wounded while gallantly rallying his men in a particularly awkward
and desperate situation ". He lived and died as a brave man
should, and was one of the many who could ill be spared a man
of intrepid spirit, strong to confront difficulties whether of thought
or life. There can be no doubt that if he had had time and leisure
for further study he might have done distinguished work not only
as a teacher, not only as a citizen, but also as a seeker after truth,
and a thinker who tried to think for himself his face was set
towards the light he saw " a great thing to pursue ". At the time
when the Essay which we are considering was written, he seems to
have been at the stage in which his desire to reach the truth took
the form of trying to show that the doctrine which he had accepted
only in an anticipatory fashion perhaps, but to which he held
tenaciously and loyally met all legitimate demands, and that other
and competing doctrines did not do so. We must recognise that
this stage might naturally have passed into another still what we
are here primarily concerned with is, of course, the Essay as it
stands. It is in some sort a first attempt on the part of a young
writer to deal independently with some of the largest and most
difficult of philosophical problems, and it is perhaps no wonder
that he has not wholly succeeded where so many have failed. Of
the other two Essays which the volume contains "The Absolute
and Intellect," and " System and Mechanism " it may be sufficient
to iquote a sentence from the very interesting Biographical Note
by Prof. A. S. Pringle-Pattison, who says that "they are the
work of one fresh from the study of constructive idealism as
presented in the writings of Bradley and Bosanquet, and the.
author is in the main in sympathy with that position ".
1 Sidgwick, Philosophy, its Scope and Relations, p. 126.
E. E. C. JONES.
VI NEW BOOKS.
Mind and Conduct. Morse Lectures Delivered at the Union Theological
Seminary in 1919. By HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL, L.H.D., D.S.
Williams and Norgate. Pp. ix + 236.
ANYTHING on this subject from the pen of Henry Rutgers Marshall merits
the closest attention and the most careful consideration, all the more so
when, as here, the conclusions he has arrived at in several well-known books
are brought together in a concise form. Possibly the form is too concise.
Personally we must confess that we should have preferred that the more
fundamental questions raised had been discussed at such length and in such
detail as their importance and the difficulty of the problems they involve
seem to demand. Our reason for such a preference will probably be clear
to most people when we say that the eight chapters in this book are devoted
respectively to : Consciousness and Behaviour, Instinct and Reason, The
'Self, Creativeness and Ideals, Freedom and Responsibility, Pleasure and
Pain, Happiness, Intuition and Reason, and that there are two appendices,
;the first on the " Causal Relation between Mind and Body," the second on
"Outer-world Objects". Nor is the book a mere popular and superficial
skimming of the topics. Though here and there traces show themselves of
its original form and purpose as a series of lectures to a general audience,
the book as a whole is logical, closely reasoned, and fundamental. But the
inevitable consequence is, seeing that as far as the topics discussed are con-
cerned, the contents of a library are compressed within the covers of a two
hundred page book, that dogmatic statement is sometimes substituted for
critical development at the most controversial points. In the circumstances
the fact that the author has already elsewhere argued the controversial
questions out at length only partly excuses the omission of the argument
here.
The book is divided into three sections. Part I. consisting of the first
three chapters is headed "The Correlation of Mind and Conduct". No
psychological account of mind or consciousness is attempted. That is
assumed. The claims of behaviourism are alluded to but not examined.
ISome discussion of these claims would seem to be relevant to the topic
under consideration, and it is not entirely satisfactory to find it omitted.
Nor is the feeling of dissatisfaction lessened by the account which Dr.
Marshall gives of the early stages in the rise of consciousness of Self. Thus
the statement that " each human being realises that he himself is a man-
animal, and each of us observes his own behaviour more constantly and
more carefully than that of other animals " is, to say the least, questionable,
while the paragraphs which follow are equally open to the criticism that the
point of view of the psychologist is assumed as the point of view of the
naive mind. A statement like " I do not hesitate to say that my neighbour
was afraid when he fled in a panic, although I observed nothing but his
flight, and no fear at all," illustrates admirably the defect of too great
brevity of treatment. Surely there are variations in the degree of con-
fidence with which I assert that another person is afraid, dependent not
NEW BOOKS. 95
merely on the external signs I consciously observe, but on subtle signs
which I cannot specify, and on my own emotional reaction to all the signs.
The argument of the first chapter leads up to the important conclusion
that the "noetic and neururgic correspondence appears to be thorough-
going," that is, not only is there no psychosis without neurosis, but there
is no neurosis without psychosis. If the psychologist accepts the proposi-
tion that there is no psychosis without neurosis, he is practically compelled
to save his consistency and even his science by taking the further step, but,
as a psychologist, he may surely suspend judgment on the first proposition
in the lack of sufficient evidence, and it is by no means certain that he will
not escape more difficulties than he encounters by taking this line. In any
case the recognition of thoroughgoing correspondence necessarily involves
the recognition of the ' unconcious ' on an indefinitely large scale. We are
in fact brought to an ' unconscious ' more akin to the ' unconscious ' of
Schopenhauer and von Hartmann than the 'unconscious' of Freud and
Jung. Apparently ignoring this wide extension which must be given to
the term, Dr. Marshall would designate " subconsciousness " preferably
" subattentive consciousness". The suggested terminology is of doubtful
value, even having regard only to the narrower * unconscious ' of modern
psychology. * Unconscious ' itself is certainly an unhappy term. But the
essential character of the processes so designated does not seem to be their
relation to attention so much as their relation to that synthesis which makes
the personal consciousness, and * subpersonal ' would probably mark this
relation batter than 'subattentive'.
In the second chapter the chief theme is the contrast between instinctive
and adaptive actions, and between "instinct-feelings" and intelligence.
The author comes to the conclusion that no clear line of demarcation can
be drawn, either on the behaviour side or on the consciousness side, that all
behaviour is influenced by past situations as related to the present, and by
present situations as related to the future, and that when we overlook the
first we call the act adaptive, when we overlook the second instinctive, the
position being analogo us as regards the corresponding consciousness. " All
behaviour displays a unity of process," and "all situations in consciousness
display a unity of process ".
The third chapter, devoted to the discussion of the Self, ought to be
central in the book, but the argument is so difficult to follow, and the con-
clusions seem so strange, that we cannot yet be certain that we have grasped
Dr. Marshall's meaning. The main thesis seems to be that " presentations "
given in attention are simply ' * emphases within the complex psychic system
of consciousness," the unemphasised "something more of consciousness"
being the Self to which the presentations are given. On the face of it this
seems a rather high-handed setting aside of the verdict of consciousness
itself. The idea of Self, he further states, is a presented concept "and is
but an image or simulacrum " whatever this may mean of the real Self,
which is unpresentable. The questions are too large to go into here, and a
perfunctory criticism would be worse than useless.
Part II., on ' Some Implications of the Correlation' begins with Chapter
IV., entitled " Creatiyeness and Ideals ". The main topic discussed here is
the contrast between mechanism and vitalism, and their respective claims
in the realm of the psychical. The conclusion is that creativeness is a
marked characteristic of our psychic life, especially in connexion with
adaptive acts and the corresponding intelligence consciousness. The exist-
ence of ideals is the most striking evidence of such creativeness, and these
<'ire quite obviously outside any possibility of a mechanistic explanation.
The keynote, however, of the whole chapter is the notion of creativeness.
Continuing the suggested noetic and neururgic correspondence of the first
96 NEW BOOKS.
chapter, Dr. Marshall holds that there is evidence to justify us in asserting
creativeness all through Nature objective creativeness he calls it, as con-
trasted with the subjective creativeness of consciousness. But the creative
spontaneity of the Self as exhibited in ideals and purposes is the most
tremendously significant fact of all.
The following chapter is devoted to " Freedom and Responsibility," and
contains nothing that is really new in the light of the conclusions he has
already arrived at. He has obviously ' freedom ' already in his ' creative-
ness '. The outcome is that the Self is free to act in accordance with its
own nature, the choice between alternatives being due to * ' the creativeness
inherent in the free Self". We are always responsible for our acts. The
notion that there is such a thing as irresponsibility is erroneous, and arises
from the fact that we tend to define responsibility "in terms of account-
ability rather than in terms of authorship ".
Part III. is entitled "Guides to Conduct " and is concerned mainly with
the psychology of ethics as the title would lead us to expect. The argument
need not be followed here. There is, however, a digression into educational
theory in Chapter VI. (Pleasure and Pain), which is not a little interesting.
Dr. Marshall obviously distrusts modern educational reforms, more es-
pecially along the lines which he takes to be those characteristic of the
teaching of Froebel and Montessori. The educationist would have little
fault to find with the argument, were it not for certain misleading sug-
gestions which may conceivably do some harm by impeding educational
progress. The first such misleading suggestion is that modern educational
theory of the type indicated aims at making school work "amusing" to the
child. Dr. Marshall says he finds the same idea as far back as Plato. It is
in Plato, but neither in Plato nor in Froebel or Montessori is it adequately
described in the way he suggests. If he will examine the opposing doctrine
of effort in the light of the motives employed to produce the effort for
unmotived effort is impossible he will probably come to see the real inward-
ness of the contentions of practically every modern educator. The second
misleading suggestion is that experiments in the line of modern educational
theory have probably been tried again and again in the past ever since the
time of Plato, and having failed have left no record, so that the traditional
education represents the surviving fittest. To any one who knows the facts
the suggestion verges on the absurd. The new theories are enormously
more difficult than the traditional education to carry out in practice. A
gifted teacher here and there may in the past have approximated to the
education which theorists of the present are aiming at, but that is all that
has ever been possible. Even to-day with carefully trained teachers the
ideal is still remote, though we have perhaps definitely entered upon the
road towards its attainment. In other respects much of what he says is
sound, if too vague and general to be very helpful to the educator.
In spite of our criticisms it must be freely acknowledged that the book
as a whole is a valuable one, and deserving of careful study in practically
every sentence. It requires careful study in fact owing to its concentrated
tabloid character. It is by no means a book that is easily read and digested.
So much the better perhaps in these days when books on psychology have
so multiplied that room on our bookshelves has to be rationed out with the
utmost care.
JAMES DREVER.
Teoria Generate dello Spirito come Atto Puro. By GIOVANNI GENTILE.
Terza Edizione riveduta. Bari : Laterza e Figli, 1920. Pp. ix, 244.
In a previous reference to Gentile's ideas (MiND, July, 1920), I raised
the question whether the character of reality as something given in the
NEW BOOKS. 97
"atto puro" of the mind was consistent with its character as the uni-
verse and the " whole ". In the present work we have more material than
before for an answer to this question.
If there could ever have been any doubt whether the author intended to
identify the real with the ideas of individual minds, there can be none in
presence of this book. Quite explicitly, the proposition " that the spiritual
world is conceivable only as the very reality of my spiritual activity" is
here pronounced to be nonsense if we construe it of the empirical ego which
is one among many things and persons (p. 12). We have to take it of the
transcendental ego, the Person who has no plural, the constructive process
of all our experience (pp. 13-15). It is quite clear that this being, or
rather this becoming, for the term being is rejected as inappropriate, is to>
be considered as a real whole, " il tutto " (p. 217), which includes in its
energy all persons, all space and time, and all that we call nature, which
apart from it or him are but artificial abstractions.
But now our question returns upon us in a further form. If reality is
one with this super -personal and all-inclusive activity, can it be so strictly
identified, as the writer desires, with the actuality of mind, with its very
" act in action " ('* atto in atto," p. 6) ? Must it not be largely burdened
with implicit features, outside its activity in any one time aad place, which
would constitute a transcendence of immediacy, and so form a link with
older doctrines involving transcendence, which perhaps the new meta-
physic has rashly construed as transcendence not of immediacy but of
experience such as Plato's Forms, and Hegel's Logical Idea or Nature ?
If, on the other hand, we are really to insist on the act in action, saying
that the idea "cannot be absolute, if it does not coincide with the very
act of knowing it ; because, and this is the deepest origin of the diffi-
culties with which Platonisrn has to struggle if the idea was not the very
act by which the idea is known, the idea would leave something outside it,
and the idealism would not be absolute " (p. 217), if we are to insist on
this creationism so very completely, is not the essence of knowledge itself
endangered ? We do not indeed think that knowledge lies in copying a
transcendent real, but we are accustomed to suppose that for all knowledge
there is a real of which it is true and which speaks in it ; and that if there
were not, it would be merely a psychical succession. Does the new meta-
physic with its creative becoming impeach this principle ? I think there
is some confusion between a spirit which embodies a reality guarded by the
law of contradiction against confusion, and one frozen into immobility by
such a law as supposed to exclude all synthesis and change (pp. 35, 37, 154).
If Gentile's Idealism were steered straight at the point where creativeness
is to be reconciled with rationality, if I felt sure that he really held the
inseparableness of identity and diversity, I should welcome his doctrine
with much greater happiness.
A restatement on this head would affect his attitude to other idealism
on the problems of progress and change within the real itself, and on the
very serious kindred problem of the relation between morality and religion.
His standpoint, like that of much recent philosophy, is essentially that of
morality, involving perfectibility and imperfection ad infinitum in the
individual. I contrast certain characteristic sentences. " L'idealismo
moderno si muove in una direzione affatto opposta a quella in cui
e orientato il misticismo." It is " profondamente Cristiano ; intendendo
per Cristianesimo la concezione intrinseceamente morale del mondo, . . .
II Cristianesimo scopre la realta che non e, ma crea se stessa, ed e quale
si crea una realta che spetta a noi di costruire " (pp. 230-231).
We may compare with this Mr. Bradley's well-known judgment
(Appearance p. 500). "You cannot be a Christian if you maintain that
7
98 NEW BOOKS.
progress is final and ultimate and the last truth about things. . . .
Make the moral point of view absolute, and then realise your position.
You have become not merely irrational, but you have also, I presume,
broken with every considerable religion." This latter feature is very
striking in Gentile's remarks on Hellenism ; and on all religions of the
East except what he interprets as Christianity. I insist on the antithesis ;
because I believe that it the opposition of the purely moralistic or ethical
and the profoundly religious attitude, is more and more emerging as the
dividing line and divergent aspiration of modern modes of thought.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
Discorsi di Rcligione. By GIOVANNI GENTILE. In series Uomini e Idee
a cura di E. CODIGNOLA. Vallecchi, Editore, Firenze, 1920. P| . 13(>.
5fr.
This little book appears to me exceedingly valuable, both for ita striking
appreciation of an essential principle in idealistic philosophy, and for its
clear and concise presentation of the quintessence of the author's views,
explaining in some degree the prima facie exaggeration with which that
principle is embodied in them.
The volume consists of three addresses on religion, the first of which
" II Problema Politico," was published in the review, Politica, in March,
1920, but the second and third, "II Problema Filosofico," and "II Pro-
blema Morale," now see the light for the first time.
We must not dwell upon the exceedingly interesting sketch, going back to
the first "risorgimento," which explains how the new and positive "laicity "
of Italian opinion to-day sprang by opposition out of the old and negative
laicity or naturalism and anti-clericalism, which was itself a reaction
against the larger and nobler liberalism of the Mnszinian epoch. * ' I
giovani, acui e indirizzato il inio discorso, mi intendono. Gli altri alzino
pure le spalle, e tirino via." The men who have had experience of the
war, so I understand him, had before it felt what a mere agnosticism in
education meant, and are resolved to have something truly spiritual in
the future. " Se la nostra azione e azione politica o Stato, il nostro
Stato conviene pure che sia governato da uno spirito schiettamente e pro-
fondamente religioso " (p. 39).
But what does religion mean ? Here, in the address on the philosophical
problem, we approach what is the clearest statement known to me of
Gentile's special point of view, which governs not only his idea of religion
but his entire metaphysic. And in this work we have noc only the point
of view, but, I think explanations and illustrations which enable us to see
its possibility more fully than I at least have grasped it before.
The paradox involved is the apparently absolute rejection of every
" presupposto," and the consequent utter disruption of the philosophical
tradition and also a fundamental perplexity as to how the spirit can
connect itself with the universe. Modern philosophy in general, and the
modern view of religion in particular, are taken as beginning de novo with
Kant, as wholly and utterly divorced from the spirit of Greek thought, and
as not attaining their genuine modern form even in Hegel, or before the
present generation of Italian thinkers. It seems a good opportunity to
look straight at this problem of the " presupposto," and understand what
it implies, and how it affects, in particular, the author's religious stand-
point.
You have the essential argument on nearly every page in Gentile ;
NEW BOOKS. 99
here are two characteristic passages. "If there is anyone or anything
beyond me, I am conditioned by it ; and my action, my own being, does
not depend only on me ; I am not free" (p. 48). Or again "The great
alternatives are two ; either naturalism (however nature is understood, as
material or as intelligible) or spiritualism. Either all is nature, or all is
spirit. Since all cannot be nature, because, if so, wo could not say even
so much ; then, all is spirit. And this cannot but mean that spirit has no
preconditions (presupposti), and therefore is creator. This means that
if I need, in the concrete, to conceive myself as thinking (thinking, for
instance, a spiritualism) as spirit, I, whether I like it or not, am in the
necessity of not presupposing anything as prior to myself ; that is, of
feeling everything as inward to me ; of feeling the infinite responsibility
of the act in which I posit myself, in which I realise my life, implicating
the whole, and generating effects which will have their repercussion on the
whole " (p. 74).
Now all this, in a sense, we are accustomed to. But when we find that
the " presupposto " thus rejected is construed to include Plato's Forms,
God' or Nature as realities, and Hegel's logical idea, as each and all of
them "block" objects of thought, given, transcendent, and immutable,
denying all freedom to the finite spirit, we wonder in what sense the
universe is to be a whole, and whether or no it is conceived as transcending
the immediacy of the particular thinking being.
Yet we have seen in others of Gentile's works that he is fully aware
how impossible it is to construe reality in terms uf the particularity of the
particular immediate individual. So far from the experience relied on
being immediate and particular, it is just mediation and universality
which are its note (p. 105). The Ego which is all-creative is Kant's
transcendental ego, if we strike out all relation of experience to a nou-
menon. It is an P^go which is " We ".
This we knew. But how at all to connect the actual individual's think-
ing with the universe which is thought, so as to avoid the sheer emptiness
of an abstract creative liberty ; this, on Gentile's principles we, or 1 at
least, did not see how to do. In a minor detail, the same point arose
where Croce denied the discipline of art under the external world.
But in this book there are elucidations which help us to see our way.
The story of the formation of our moral freedom through " mediation and
universality " (p. 105 ff.) seems to show that that with which we are in
living unity, a social law, the mind and institutions of a group (pp. 107-108)
is not to be counted as a " presupposto " in the sense which demands rejec-
tion, but is to be reckoned as inherent in the " We " whose pure and actual
^action is the all-creating spirit which "makes " itself and its world. Even
the old example of tho slave's attainment of liberty along with his master
the learning to rule through learning to obey is recognised as a case of the
law. All this we welcome.
But then from the position here recognised, that of the group- mind and
communal life, an argument, we think, will run back and incorporate with
our living real all that transcends, not our experience, but only our im-
mediacy Plato's Forms, and Nature, and the logical idea, and the living
and immanent God. The view would remain good as insisting on im-
manence and unity, but its startling originality would be gone.
We may test this suggestion by two points on which Gentile is very
explicit (i) the absence of true morality from Greek ideas of life, and (ii)
the predominant place of morality as against religion in genuine and
characteristic modern thought.
(i) Greek Philosophy is naturalistic (as is every philosophy which
recognises a reality prior to the finite spirit, even if it is Berkeley's
100 NEW BOOKS.
God), eudsemonistic (p. 95) and the intuition of the moral life is foreign-
to it (p. 98 n.). This is because in it the finite spirit accepts a reality which
it does not create. The originating intuition of Christianity, on the other
hand, "the ferment of all modern civilisation, is that the world is ours
because we make it in the light not of what is but of what ought to be "
(p. 70). " Love your neighbour " becomes moral \vhen it refers to a moral
act, not, as in Plato's love of the good, to a universal natural instinct
(p. 99). Plato's real is there for the spirit to conform to ; the Christian
real is not there, but is an " ought to be " for the spirit to make. " If
the good was originally, we could not make it (or do it), and the good
which is not done (made) is not good." Therefore it is not a " pre-
supposto" (levelled at Plato's "good") but a result of life and action
(pp. 120-121).
This conception of an absolute new departure in Christianity, culminat-
ing in Kantian ethics and in the attitude of creative idealism, though it
lays emphasis on an important feature of the progressive modern mind,
seems wholly to ignore the mode of participation by which Gentile has
explained how the finite spirit is linked with the group-mind, nourished
by it and embodied in it. For this, the recognition of the human-divine
spirit in the communal life, is the golden thread which links Plato ta
St. Paul and St. Paul to modern thought. And apart from such a recog-
nition, extended to the universe, we hardly see how absurdity can be
escaped when we insist on the truth that nothing is really ours which
does not spring from our will.
(11) In the third address, on "the moral problem," we are shown the
conclusions which attach to this violent emphasis on the creative aspect
of the spirit. " Modern philosophy " (the " actual idealism " before us)
" is essentially ethical," and not, except in a subordinate sense, religious.
" Idealism must say that morality and religion are antithetic terms, each
of which is the negation of the other : mors tua vita mea" (p. 130). For
religion is essentially mystical, the annihilation of the subject before an
unknown transcendent object, and its attitude is essentially "where God
is, we are not ; in so far as he is, we are not " (p. 78). Here again the
identity and diversity of the divine and human will in the communal spirit
appears to be forgotten, and the true religious insight, that if God were not,
we certainly should be nothing, the reverse of that embodied in the above
proposition, to be ignored. Morality, then, is taken to include religion,
but not as the element of peace and unity with reality, but rather as the
element of negation and sacrifice of the subject, religion per se being
indeed not a tenable attitude, but only intelligible and realisable as
supplemented by philosophy, which restores the self-assertion of the sub-
ject, annihilated in religion. And so we are amazed, though we ought
not to be surprised, to find the following utterance : "But Christianity
is not solely a religion ; it is also a philosophy, and therefore a moral
doctrine ; and its greatness rests on the philosophical and moral truths
which it proclaimed, and by which it succeeded in transforming human
civilisation, not on its sheer religious element " (p. 129).
Clearly we are here on the whole confronted by the moralistic attitude
as opposed to that of religion, the attitude of individual perfectibility
and progress ad injinitum which is so powerful in many philosophies of
to-day. But this is not the end of the matter. In this case the attitude
in question represents a justified hostility to the mythical transcendence
and externalisation of God, and a demand for the synthesis of his reality
in and through our inner life. It seems, after all, that there is recognised
a divine reality, with which in some sense (we recall the lesson of the
group-mind) man may be at one and may pass beyond himself, although it
NEW BOOKS. 101
certainly appears as if his value were to lie wholly in his private actual
attainment, and not in a union by love and faith with a universe greater
than himself.
"Religion, from this point of view, rather than the negation, is, in
truth, the school or apprenticeship of the moral will. A school from which
no spirit will ever believe itself discharged which does not hold its day's
work to be finished, and which feels its life as an unceasing progress in
learning what it is to create one's own personality. " These are the con-
cluding words of the book, and I am not perfectly sure of their import.
But I suppose it to be that religion is the sense of imperfection and defect
which urges forward the Unite spirit, and that it does not, or not appreci-
ably, involve the sense of peace in unity with the whole through faith and
will, which to us seems fundamental to religion, and just to be wanting to
morality. Yet we can understand in some degree from the author's
emphasis on the " We " of the group-mind how it is possible for him to
refer, as it seems, the very universe itself to the creative fact of our will
and the process of our cognition.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
The Foundations of Einstein 's Theory of Gravitation. By ERWIN FREUND-
LICH. Preface by A. EINSTEIN. Authorised English Translation by
H. L. BROSE, M.A. Introduction by H. H. TURNER, D.Sc., F.R.S.
Cambridge University Press. Pp. xvi, 60.
This pamphlet is worthy of the numerous and eminent fairy godfathers
who have stood sponsor for it. Herr Freundlich wrote it ; Einstein gave
it his imprimatur ; Mr. Brose became acquainted with it while interned
in Germany, and (not having heard, presumably, that the Allied scientists
had officially determined that German science was merely an inferior
imitation of their own brilliantly original discoveries) determined to
translate it. Prof. Turner and Prof. Eddington (who cannot plead the
excuse of ignorance) encouraged Mr. Brose ; and the former provided an
excellent introduction. The result is the best account of the new theory,
for the purpose of the general reader, that has yet appeared. Prof.
Eddington's Report is of course considerably more detailed, but there is
much in it that can hardly be understood by anyone who is not pretty
familiar with mathematical physics. Herr Freundlich's pamphlet should
be intelligible to any educated reader, whilst at the same time it is full
and accurate and not in the least ' popular ' in the bad sense of the word.
The translation seems to have been thoroughly well done, and Mr. Brose
is t<> be congratulated on his work.
The following points may be of special interest to readers of MIND.
(i) The author lays special stress on the work of Riemann on manifolds,
and points out how Einstein's theory is a development of ideas thrown out
~by Riemann. (ii) He points out that the equations of the special theory
of relativity might have been deduced from simple and almost self-evident
considerations without reference to the velocity of light. It follows from
these that there must be some velocity which will be reckoned to be the
same in magnitude by all observers in uniform relative motion. That
this velocity is finite, and is in fact that of light in vacuo, is an additional
empirical fact established by the Michelsen-Morley experiment. These
statements may be compared with Prof. Whitehead s results in his
Principles of Natural Knowledge, (in) He shows very clearly how the
new theory fastens on the two weak points in the Newtonian mechanics
absolute motion, and the unexplained identity of inertial and gravitational
102 ^ T EW BOOKS.
ma8S an d successfully avoids the first and clears up the second. It thus
avoids the one great objection to Newton's mechanics, and synthesises the
two principles which immortalise his name the laws of motion and the
law of gravitation. Lastly (iv) Herr Freundlich makes great play with
two epistemological principles, which he regards as lying at the base of
Einstein's theory and as furnishing a kind of limiting condition to which
any satisfactory physical theory must conform. As they both seem to me
somewhat doubtful, it mny be worth while to say a few words about them.
The two principles are the denial of action at a distance, and the demand
that 'only those things are to ba regarded as baing in causal connexion
which are capable of being actually observed'. The first is supposed to
show that the law of gravitation, as stated, cannot be ultimate, because, in
the formula - = y ^ - we have a finite distance, r 2 - r 15 on the
right-hand side. * The distances between points which are at finite dis-
tances from one another, must not occur in these laws, but only those
between points infinitely near to one a -other.' The second is supposed,
both by Herr Freundlich and by Einstein himself, to ba the motive for
getting rid of absolute space, time, and motion in the statement of the
laws of nature.
The following criticisms suggest themselves at once, (i) If space be con-
tinuous there are no points 'infinitely near one another'; and therefore
the first principle cannot be fulfilled, (ii) Even if there were infinitesimal
distances they certainly are not the distances that can be observed, and
therefore to regard purely differential laws as ultimate involves a breach
of the second principle, tiii) It is rather unfortunate to insist on the
absolute necessity of such laws at a time when pure mathematics is rapidly
developing, in the theory of integral equations, methods that enable us to
deal with integrated laws ; when physics, in the theory of Quanta, is
moving rather in the direction of discreteness ; and when certain philo-
sophers, such as Russell, are developing the notion that the continuity of
nature is a logical construction, and that the ultimate data are of finite
magnitude, (iv) The second epistemological principle seems to me, as I
have argued elsewhere, to have very little in its favour, if taken as any thing-
more than a methodological postulate. Physics certainly cannot get on if
it confines itself to what actually can be observed. On the other hand,
anything that could exist is in principle observable, i.e., if we had the right
kind of senses we could observe it. The fact that we should need a greater
modification in our senses to enable us to perceive points of absolute space,
if there be such things, than to enable us to perceive electrons, if there
be such things, is surely epistemologically quite irrelevant. Naturally we
ought to avoid postulating unobservable entities if we can do without
them, and Einstein has at length shown that we can do without absolute
space, time, and motion in mechanics. But the real objection to them has.
always been, not simply that they were unobservable, but that they did
nothing. Electrons and molecules are postulated as causes and their
properties can be determined with more and more accuracy from their
observable effects. The laws of mechanics profess to analyse all motions ;
absolute space, time, etc., were merely parameters that simplified the
analysis ; and it was always clear in principle that they must somehow be
dispensable.
C. D. BROAD.
NEW BOOKS. 103
Theology as an Empirical Science. By DOUGLAS CLYDE MACINTOSH, Ph.D.
London : Allen & Unwin. Pp. xvi, 270.
Prof. Macintosh has written a fresh and able book which deserves a longer
notice than is possible here. In the Preface he tells us he will not cavil
about the right to term theology an ' empirical science, ' if the reader accepts
the view that "a genuine knowledge of a divine Reality has been gained
through religious experience at its bast," and that "this knowledge may-
be formulated and further developed by means of the inductive procedure
advocated and exemplified in the body of this book". The author is of
course right in insist ing that theology must set out from the data of religious
experience : Schleiermacher taught us this, though Prof. Macintosh is
more careful than Schleiermacher not to identify religious experience with
th-3 expsrience of a particular church. Still it is not so clear that theology
can be regarded as a purely descriptive or empirical science. So-called
inductive procedure is never merely inductive, and least of all in religion
where the data are not bare data but always involve interpretations and
valuations. The wr.ter, however, is justified in claiming that the theo-
logian need not be unscientific ; he may follow the method of other in-
vestigators, examining a specific experience and trying to understand it.
Dr. Macintosh holds that in the religious consciousness we have experi-
ence of a divine Reality, and the fundamental hypothesis of theological
science is, that man can learn by * observation and experiment ' what God
does under different conditions. Generalising from these data we reach
'empirical theological laws.' laws which tell us how God can be depended
on under given circumstances. Thus testing religious experience we can
build up a body of theological laws and establish a religious theory. Theo-
logy, like the other sciences, has a pro-scientific stage out of which it
develops.
Spiritual experience has two aspects, an objective and a subjective.
Revelation on the one side has its correlative in religious perception on the
other. Or, to put it otherwise, there is a constant and a variable factor in
religion, God b^ing the constant, and the human adjustment by which God
is experienced the variable. Prof. Macintosh finds revelation most con-
spicuously present in Christianity, and especially in Christ. But his con-
ception of revelation is b/o-ul, and his interpretation of Christ and the
Gospels is free of dogmatism.
In the third part of the book entitled "Theological Theory" the writer
seeks to formulate theological principles on the basis of the working relig-
ious consciousness. Thus, when formulating the moral and metaphysical
attributes of God, he does so on the ground of the pragmatic absoluteness or
absolute sufficiency of the religious Object as given in experience. One
must object, however, that the moral perfection of God is not to be reached
empirically : it is a postulate-.
The book may by cordially commended : it is frank and courageous with-
out being extreme. Its defect seems to be that it overstates the case for
empiricism. For instance the author time and again appeals to * religious
exparience at its best,' as if this were an empirical datum. Yet what is
best in religion rests on valuation, while valuation implies a standard or
religious ideal in the light of which selection is exercised. And this ideal
cannot be merely empirical.
G. GALLOWAY.
104 NEW BOOKS.
Saggio di una Concezione Idealistica della Storia. By MARIO CASOTTI. In
series II Pensiero Moderno a cura di E. CODIGNOLA. Vallecchi,
Firenze, 1920. Pp. 447- Lire 12.
This thoughtful and elaborate work is a defence and application of the
doctrine that the essence of reality is in history, and that its fullest mani-
festation is in the evolution of philosophy. The writer follows Gentile
and Croce, though not slavishly. His treatise is closely reasoned, and
the account I can give of it is no more than an outline.
The book falls, as he tells us in the Preface, into two parts. The first
four chapters criticise empiricism and metaphysical realism, which are for
him correlative doctrines, each of them implying on the one hand a world
of appearance, and on the other a rigid reality, external to the knowing
mind. On such a basis (p. 77) history can exist only on sufferance. The
logic of such a reality is the logic of bare identity (p. 86), of the concept
and purely analytic inference, and in such a reality nothing can ever come
to pass.
The remainder, and by far the longer portion, of the book, deals with
the realisation of "becoming" as the metaphysical basis of the universe,
and the consequent prerogative place of history in the world (p. 105) ;
its identity with actual and living thought and the dialectic by which that
develops ad seternum (p. 122).
The pivot of the argument is the conception of self-creative thought,
according to which, following Vice's principle of " Verum et factum con-
vertuntur," the spirit can know nothing, but what itself posits and produces
(pp. 32-33). Any object, any pre-existent being, limits thought ab extra,
and is incompatible with the reality of becoming in the universe.
To carry out this argument it is essential to show that all forms of ex-
perience, from the world of sense -perception upwards, can be identified
with forms of philosophical thinking, and the reasoning takes the shape of
a sort of deduction of the categories, according to which this conclusion is
attempted to be established with regard to sense-perception, art, moral
will, and religion (pp. 140 ff.).
But, in harmony with the underlying purpose, an important subtlety is
introduced into the exposition, differentiating the point of view from that
of Hegel. It is, in a word, the reduction of Phenomenology to Logic
(ch, viii.). That is to say, sense -perception and the rest are not to be
actual phases of mind which follow each other in history. Facts cannot be
categories ; for every fact has all the categories in it ; and the forms of
experience are not historical facts but philosophical categories which
govern the course of history, but do not take the shape of a finite factual
sequence. Thus history falls, in a sense, into cycles, ricorsi in Vice's
phrase, but not mere or recurrent cycles (p. 236). Philosophy itself, for
example, though the highest thing, may become abstract and effete ; and
then the inherent impulse of the whole will call for a recrudescence of
sense-perception or of religious intuition to renew the missing element.
The point is to avoid finality in the dialectic to make it a recurrent though
not a mere repeating series (pp. 234 ff.).
Obviously the whole thing turns on the paradoxical identification of all
reality with philosophical thinking the fresh and actual life of thinking,
which alone is creative and ultimately originative. We are accustomed
to something of this kind in the consideration that all knowledge must
grow out from our present basis and activity of judgment. The transition
is effected, as it seems to me, with extreme ingenuity, by insisting that
every phase of experience implies a philosophy an attitude and therefore
that ultimately the completed shape of art, say, or even of sense, is that
NEW BOOKS. 105
-attitude to the world which a being in any one of these modes by implica-
tion adopts. Even a monera, we are told (p. 149), has its attitude to the
universe. Therefore in thinking at its completest you have all experience
and all reality (pp. 262 ff.). And this, as we said, being identified with
creative thinking, is characterised by its novelty and originality. It meets
contingency, as I understand, and reduces it to order, as the fieri
passes into completion (p. 354). This slight sketch may suffice to indicate
the line of thought we are dealing with. There are signs, which I welcome,
that there really is to be a whole and a universe. The world of values is
eternal ; and the spirit, one would think, must be a whole, or it could not
enforce the dialectic sequences. (Croce's doctrine of "opposites" and
* distincts " is mortified, I should say, by the author, and very effectively
applied). Moreover, it is plain and emphatic that the thinking in question
is not that of the particular human unit (p. 410). It is the whole which
creatively maintains itself (pp. 262 ff .), but then the identification with think-
ing is harder and harder. If, as once is said, it is the whole which thinks
in me, then the paradox of creative thought is a good deal blunted.
I welcome the high importance here assigned to thought ; but I am per-
plexed by the apparent omission to consider what it is that thought has to
tell us. Does it not always affirm that it reveals to us a reality which is
not the mere act of thought ? The apparent denial of this is something
which I hold that our new idealists should reconsider.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
L'Exsenziale della Filosofia del Diritto. By Prof. PAMFILO GENTILE,
Libero Docente nella R. Universita di Napoli. Aquila : Officine
Grafiche Vecchioni. 1919. Pp. viii, 128.
The chief interest of this little book lies in its being a serious attempt to
apply the principle of literal immanence the principle of Croce and of
Giovanni Gentile in the province of the Philosophy of Law. Beginning
with an explanation of objective knowledge on the principle of coherence,
as against any view which involves correspondence with a " transcendent "
reality, and dismissing as irrelevant all attempts to base the principles of
right on historical and evolutionary fact, it proceeds to wrestle with the
difficulty that a literal exclusion of transcendence prim a facie destroys
the possibility of progress. Thus the ordinary conception of natural law
as an ideal beyond actual events an "ought to-be " is excluded, and it
is hard to explain to admit or to deny the historical phenomena of
better and worse. For as nothing can be outside the series of facts, all
the good and evil there is ought to be equally present in it throughout.
And the author's manful defence of this position, in his loyalty to the
immanent doctrine, is almost admitted by himself to be unsuccessful,
seeing that he returns to the conception that the Philosophy of Law must
be accepted as a science of what ought to be and sometimes is not. Only
we are to beware of the belief in ultimate ideal codes of Law.
Thus Law ranks with Morality, and he explains, I think rightly, against
the section on Law in Croce's Pratice, in what sense a legal system is
distinguished from moral principles by external " coerciveness " ; not
de facto coercion. Yet this distinction is capable, I hold, of a yet more
pregnant elaboration.
He adheres, however, to Croce's rejection of a speculative treatment
dealing with forms and details of the State. It is part of Croce's reluct-
ance to insist on any characteristic which involves the external expression
106 NEW BOOKS.
of mind. And he takes as a prerogative instance of its uselessness the-
contractual theory, which, literally interpreted, fails, as he says, to ex-
plain how a majority is justified in coercing a minority. Law should be
justified, he urges, not by its source or imponent, but by its ethical
content.
The " superpersonal " or ethical will, has, he tells us, nothing to do with
the generality of the will, and may be realised in any form of government.
For this view there is much to be said ; but I should urge, reversing a
phrase which the author applies to the " state of nature" in relation to
law, that such forms of government should be " above " and not " below "
popular democracy.
As it is, just for want of a reasoned nexus between general and uni-
versal, his final conclusion comes terribly near the reductio ad absurdum
that you need not obey a bad law, and that the mantle of ethico-political
sovereignty falls on the shoulders of any rebel who is sure he is right.
Only, if we recognise rational freedom, and take the individual as rational
and not as merely natural, we may practically, as I understand him,
sympathise with modern democracy.
In principle, the difficulties here pointed out arise from the narrow
assumption of literal immanence, which makes it impossible to indicate a
real whole manifesting itself in the shapes of actual life. In his refer-
ences to Hegel and elsewhere I think the author greatly modifies this
narrow immanence, to which he desires to be loyal, and his book appears
to me to be instructive from its clearness, candour, and sincerity.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
Psychology of Normal and Subnormal. By HENRY HERBERT GODDARD.
London : Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. N.D. [1919]. Pp.
xvii, 349.
This is probably the first psychology that has had its inspiration in
feeble-mindedness. Its author, famous for his remarkable study in here-
dity, The Kallikak Family, has, as Director of the Vineland Laboratory
and Training School for the feeble-minded, acquired from his experience a
firm conviction that psychology should be the study of intelligence, i.e.,
of the power of varying adaptively the response to stimulation, and a
healthy suspicion that it usually has been little more than a juggle with
technical terminology (p. ix.). It is certainly extraordinary how much
light he contrives to throw on normal psychology by his knowledge of the
feeble-minded, and how aptly he can illustrate from it. But our wonder
and delight are sensibly diminished when we discover, to our horror, that
we are all suspected of feeble-mindedne.ss our-elves. For putting his
trust in the Binet tests, and explaining all mental achievements in terms
of " neuron-patterns," Dr. Goddard places the high- water mark of mental
development at the ' mental age ' of 20. and decides that the ' average '
mental age cannot be more than 16 pp. 53-56). Later on, however, he
finds that he has been too optimistic ''Present indications point to a
level much below our assumed level of 16 years'' (p. 251). For "the
use of mental tests in the U S. Aimy has established beyond dispute :I
(p. 234) that "half the human race is little above the moron," with a.
mental age of about 13, while " 12 per cent, of the drafted army of the U.S.
was found to have too low intelligence to be sent over seas" (p. 250).
Moreover, Millet's famous Man with the Hoe is manifestly "a perfect
picture of an imbecile," who is unfit for higher work (p. 240), and "the
truest democracy is found in an institution for the feeble-minded and it is
NEW BOOKS. 107
an aristocracy a rule by the best " (p. 238). Thus it is that "the facts of
modern civilisation" are best explained (p. 234).
Now all this is highly important, if true. For if true, it would call fur
a pretty complete reconstruction of our social and political institutions.
Instead of our gerontocratic ' democracy,' which raises men to power when
they are too old either to enjoy or to exercise it, we should institute an
aristocracy of youthful intelligence and vigour, if the mind culminates at
20. And yet it quite well may be true. For civilised societies have now
for many generations been so organised as to favour the survival of their
inferior stocks. It is quite -credible, therefore, that the 'average' man
may have sunk to the 4 moron ' level. But Dr. Goddard hardly adduces
convincing proof of this. The U.S. army tests should have been more
fully discussed ; as it is, they may be suspected of having been merely a
device for camouflaging the allotting of commissions on ' aristocratic ' lines.
As for the Binet tests of intelligence their value is plainly empirical and
not a priori and infallible ; it would be very interesting to learn how the
leading psychologists would stand them. But if they were required to
give the public this pledge of their faith in their own methods, it would
probably turn out that they were not simple-minded enough to run any
risk of appearing feeble-minded 1
F. C. S. SCHILLER.
La Filosofia di Benedetto Croce. By EMILIO CHIOCCHETTI. Second Edi-
tion, revised and enlarged.
Religione e Scienza. By AGOSTIXO GEMELLI, Societa Editrice, "Vita e
Pensiero ". Milan, 1920.
A famous cartoon in Punch many years ago represented Gladstone and
Disraeli each presenting to the other his newly published work. Disraeli
as he receives Juventus Mundi is saying to himself, "Dull ! " Gladstone
accepting the new novel is saying, "Frivolous ! " I am reminded of this
whenever I open a book and find it impressed with the approbation of the
Holy Office, or when I am informed that a philosopher's book has been
placed on the Index. There is something distinctly comic in the idea of an
official censorship of philosophy but this is not enough to account for the
feeling. It seems, in advance of acquaintance, that an approved book must
be dull and that a forbidden book can only have been condemned for some
frivolous reason.
The two books now before me, bear the Imprimatur and I expected them
to be dull. They are not. On the contrary both bear witness to the
wonderful vitality and strength of the neo- scholastic philosophy in Italy.
If there ba any evidence of dullness it is on the part of the censor, for the
authors seem able to expound sym pathetically the most alarmingly unortho-
dox doctrines and have only to add that of course they do not themselves
hold them.
To expound the philosophy of Benedetto Croce to the followers of the
neo-scholastic philosophy is the purpose which Signer Chiocchetti sets
before him and he fulfils it in an admirably clear and complete manner.
He has one advantage. Croce is not hostile to Christian belief or even to
Catholicism although to both he is distinctly antipathetic. Religion is
not opposed to philosophy but it is lower and not higher in degree, also
as mythology it is a mixed or hybrid, and not a pure form of philosophy.
This is a very different attitude towards religion to that taken by posi-
tivism, which also has still a large following in Italy. The keynote of
108 NEW BOOKS.
Croce is immanence. There is no transcendent God. Croce is not an
absolute idealist but rather a realistic spiritualist, meaning of course by
spirit not something ghostly but the universally active concrete mind.
There is no reality confronting mind, either above it or below it in degree.
Reality is life or mind in its activity. Nature is not thiug in itself, the
only reality is Lo Spirito. Chiocchetti's exposition is more than
sympathetic, it is enthusiastic, and over and over again he interposes
to say how he himself accepts it without reserve. Yet he must have a
transcendent God, and notwithstanding Croce's declaration that the im-
mortality of the soul has lost its meaning and interest in philosophy, God
and the soul are still, for Chiocchetti, *' i massimi problemi ". The origin of
Croce's philosophy in Hegel and Kant is excellently expounded and so too
is its relation to the older Italians, Rosmini and Gioberti, and to contem-
poraries. The author is very sympathetic to Varisco, on account of his
devotion to religious problems, but as compared with Croce, Varisco's
weakness lies in his lack of system. System our author thinks is Croce's
strength. Not the least interesting part of the book is the final note on
the Idealismo attuale of Gentile and his pupil Guido de Ruggiero. An-
other " note " in the book is interesting and amusing. It is a good-natured
reply to that flippant sceptic, Giuseppe Rensi, the Professor of Philosophy
at Genoa.
" Religione e Scienza " consists of a series of " Saggi Apologetici " by the
eloquent and learned professor, Brother Agostino Gemelli, the Franciscan.
The essays are not culled from reviews and periodicals, they are serious
studies connected by a common purpose and ideal. There is a curious
difference in the way the problem of religion and science presents itself to
a believer in revelation, according to whether he holds the catholic or pro-
testant faith. Challenge a protestant concerning his belief in miracles, he
will bring to mind some dogma such as the virgin birth, and the question
for him will be whether a certain interpretation of a single historical event
is credible. But challenge a catholic, and he will bring to mind a dogma
such as that of the real presence, which affects his whole conception of
nature and present everyday fact. The relation between Catholicism and
science is therefore different in one of its essential characters from that
between religion and science.
Brother Gemelli is not content to affirm that there is no real conflict
between science and faith, he holds that there is positive harmony between
them. They rest on postulates common to both, and the mental disposi-
tions in Catholicism and science are akin. This is set forth in the first
essay in an argument masterly in form, although it may not carry convic-
tion to the non-catholic. It shows how the catholic may reconcile himself
to science but also, what is more important, how faith may give him more
and not less freedom in research.
Gemelli is a vigorous controversialist, to have seen him rise in his
Franciscan robe and address a congress of philosophers is an experience to
remember and he has himself investigated the matters with which he
deals in the essays. They are intended to illustrate and enforce his own
conclusions. One of them tells the story of the thinking horses of Elberfeld.
It bears the humorous title " Beasts who think and discourse and
men who do not reason." Another is named " The miracles of biology," and
deals with the researches of Carrell and others. A third treats of the
methods of certain believers in spiritualistic phenomena and particularly of
the famous medium Eusapia Paladino. The two last essays are historical.
They deal with definite charges which have been made against the Church
of obscurantism and direct hostility to scientific research in matters of
human welfare. One is the case of the Plasjue at Milan in the sixteenth
NEW BOOKS. 109
century named after St. Carlo Borromeo, a story familiar to readers of
Manzoni's I promessi sposi. The charge was that the church by insisting
on certain religious processions against the earnest protest of the civil
authorities, who had forbidden them in order to prevent the spread of the
contagion, actually and positively spread the plague. The last essay is on
the trial and condemnation of Galileo.
H. WILDON CARR.
The Construction of the World in Terms of Fact and Value. By CYRIL.
TOLLEMACHE HARLBY WALKER. B. H. Blackwell, 1919. Pp. vii, 92.
Mr. Walker's subject is a problem which in modern times is being increas-
ingly recognised as central in philosophy, viz., the relation of fact to value
within the real world. Chapter I. shows how the concepts of fact and value
arise in "the world of the average man," how they are developed over
against each other in "the objective world of common-sense," how they
reach sharp distinction in the world of science (the realm of pure fact) and
of art (the realm of pure value). With the help of this survey of actual
worlds, Mr. Walker then sketches the resulting problems presented to
philosophy, and argues that there is a fundamental distinction, though not
a complete disjunction, between fact and value. Chapter II. resumes the
enquiry from the subjective side, and discusses the distinct character of
cognition as apprehension of fact and of valuation as the making of values..
Mr. Walker throughout insists on the receptive quality of the former process
and the contributive quality of the latter. He thus reaches by a study of
cognition and valuation, some definition, or rather characterisation, of fact-
and value in general. Fact is determined first as something given, capable
of being stated, particular, and verified. Value is not simply a derivative
of fact, nor is valuation simply a consequence of cognition. Neither, on
the other hand, can facts be eviscerated into a species of value. Value is
seen to be an ultimately distinct something added to fact by the activity
or reaction of the cognising mind. Value is first different from fact, in
that it is something made, not given. Values then become relatively
independent of facts through being attached to the ideal contents of facts
dissociated from their actuality. Thus values, such as love and beauty,
etc., are originally made by a reaction of the mind towards particular facts
presented to it ; but the contents of the particular facts are detached by
the mind from their actual occurrence, and thus arises an ideal world
where contents possessing value can be handled and systematised in-
dependently. A value is finally defined as a content which counts as good,
bad, or indifferent. A further difference therefore arises between fact and
value, in that a value need not, like a fact, be particular. Nevertheless
values must, like facts, be ultimately expressed in language and verified
in concrete experience.
Chapter 111. leads on to a discussion of value-systems. We are shown
how values, in spite of their original subjectivity, may become objective
and even absolute. Prof. Bosanquet's and Prof. Miinsterberg's theories
on this subject are criticised, and it is argued that "absolute " values are
those which pass the test of being found consistent, persistent, and satisfy-
ing in human experience. In conclusion the author claims to have shown
that value and fact may be combined as two finally distinct elements in
reality, and that value-systems and fact -systems are both legitimate and
distinct constructions, representing respectively the receptive and creative
functions of the mind.
The great value of Mr. Walker's discussion lies in the fact that he
employs a radically empirical method, while at the same time maintaining
110 XEW BOOKS.
a perfectly clear distinction between the spheres of psychology and logic.
Nevertheless his argument often suffers from over-compression, and would
have gained greatly in lucidity if he had made more frequent use of
concrete illustration. It is difficult to say what actual concepts Mr.
Walker regards as values, or how he would classify the different values
which he does recognise. Is truth for instance essentially a value '? If it
is, it seems impossible to exclude value from the world of pure science.
If it is not, in what sense precisely is truth, even in the world of science,
better than falsehood or error ? Pleasure and pain Mr. Walker apparently
refuses to recognise as values, on the ground that they are mere feelings,
whereas values are created by a definite act of the mind (p. 86). But
are not pleasant and painful sensations immediately felt as good and bad
respectively ? What of utility again ? It seems to be essentially a value-
concept. Yet Mr. Walker, in order to show that subjective idealism
breaks down in the world of fact, does not hesitate to argue that it is more
economical to assume a common world (p. 70;; and he also meets the
sceptical objection to the permanence of substances as given facts, by
saying that it is " less arbitrary and more convenient" to accept the vie\v
of common-sense (p 48). Moreover in speaking of the world of art as the
world of pure valua ho says that utilitarian activities as such do not belong
to it (p. 26).
In short the processes of cognition and valuation, and the worlds of
fact and value, seem to interpenetrate and involve each other more
essentially than Mr. Walker's sharp distinctions admit, and his very
instructive attempt to define them leaves some impression of vagueness
owing to his failure to state or classify the actual kinds of value in use.
OLIVER C. QUICK.
Beauty and the Beast. An Essay in Evolutionary ^Esthetic. By STEWART
A. McDowALL, B.D., Chaplain and Assistant Master at Winchester
College, Author of Evolution and the Need of Atonement, etc.
Cambridge, at the University Press, 1920. Pp. 93. 7s. 6d. net.
THE argument of this book presupposes in the main Croce's philosophy,
more especially his ^Esthetic, but attempts to carry it further by con-
tending that beauty is not only expression, but more definitely, the
expression of relation, or "relationship" are the two ideas quite con-
vertible, "Beziehung" and *' Verwandschaft " ? The relation, thus
expressed in beauty, is the oersonal relation of the divine love (pp. 28,
34, 38).
Perhaps the chief contention, bearing on the actual nature of beauty,
which this interpretatioa necessitates, is the rejection of the traditional
view that aesthetic experience is in essence a "quieter" of desire. The
author maintains that its characteristic is the opposite ; a *' longing,"
and creative stimulus, which can find satisfaction only in the above-
mentioned relation.
On this I would only remark in general that if a man has come to a
certain metaphysical doctrine on what he thinks sufficient grounds, it is
natural that all forms of experience should seem to him to point in that
direction. But still it is an awkward matter to make such suggestion the
primary point in any special province of life. A difficulty arises in
knowing exactly what we are speaking about, and in distinguishing such
a definite phenomenon as truth or beauty from the underlying suggestion
with which we believe that all experience is charged. Thus the account of
NEW BOOKS. Ill
truth, beauty, and goodness, on page 69, hardly gives us a valid differentia
.for each of them.
The main idea of this ./Esthetic qua Evolutionary lies in developing the
supreme sense of personal relation out of beginnings which show them-
selves in the sexual impulse, psycho-analytic enquiries being pressed into
the service. " In the great adventure of Creative Love, to sex is given the
task of bringing about those relations which constitute the ground- work of
the personal union which is Love" (p. 64). ''Then Beauty is seen as
[Spirit's grasp upon the relation between all the parts of the whole a
relation that is not yet complete, and can only be complete when the sole
relation is that of love between personal beings, of whom God is the first
in timeless Being" (p. 66).
What I cannoc help feeling is, that in addition to the contradictions
involved in Croce's theory (c/. pp. 9 and 10) we have here got a further
development which may or may not be instructive for evolutionary theory
or for religious philosophy, but tells us nothing, strictly speaking, of what
we mean by beauty, and of what we care for when we try to appreciate it.
The whole enquiry is given a special twist.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
>'?> Theosophic Points and other Writings. By JACOB BOHME. Newly
translated into English by JOHN ROLLESTON EARLB, M. A. Constable.
Pp. vii, 208. 10s. 6d. net.
The translator, as I judge, wishes this book to be received on its intrinsic
merits. It is a well printed companionable volume ; and has no introduc-
tion, and almost no note or comment, with the exception of a single and
very helpful citation from Prof. Joachim. The writings have their own
several title pages which show that they all date from 1<520 or 1622. But
the unlearned, ot whom I am one, cannot identify them with books whose
titles they have seen elsewhere, or with parts of those books.
And, I take it, this treatment is right. The book is thus not loaded with
learning, of which plenty no doubt can be found elsewhere. The occasions
of writing, and the details of the jargon, do not very greatly matter. The
volume, if I am right, is meant to be a friend, like a great poem or a
devotional book. Learning would have stood in our way.
My overwhelming impression, which I must set down very shortly, is
that of the intense and penetrating realism of Bohme's views. If we ask
for his theories and arguments, indeed, we are tempted to say the reverse.
But if we attend to his judgment and insight as to what sort of a place the
world is, what we have to expect there, and where in it our happiness and
misery lie, how it pierces to the heart ! The world, we learn, is not a
place of quietness or comfort ; it is essentially, in its very roots, a place
of battle and victory. Gentleness, indeed, not fierceness, is the conqueror ;
but fierceness and pain are fundamental, because gentleness and goodness
are, by their nature, not original, but to be won by what we should call a
self -transcendence. The most coherent conspectus of the ideas is on
pp. 166 ff., where we really might be listening to the feeble pessimism of
to-day and its refutation.
And if you ask Bohme for his evidence, he does not at bottom refer you
to his alchemy. He would answer simply, as elsewhere: "I speak as i
/know and have found by experience ; a soldier knows how it is in the wars "
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
112 NEW BOOKS.
The Ways of Life : a Study in Ethics. By STEPHEN WARD. London :
Humphrey Milford. Pp. 127. 6s. 6d. net.
The preface says, " Ethics resemble science in that what is most promising
is also most debatable ". . . . "So the aim of ethics should be, not to say
all that has been said, but to establish new relations, and, by means of
these, get others, according to the increasing subtlety and capacity of
human kind."
This seems to me a very hard book to estimate. It is full of good
things, and full, too, of what I almost venture to call mistakes. And the
above quotations suggest that the author would welcome this opinion, at
least if I wrote "paradoxes" for "mistakes". Book I., "Manners," is
aimed, I take it, at showing what simple factors are all man needs to
describe and guide his life, if only he used them straightforwardly. He
is a co-operative being ; he likes to be active and to play a game for the
sake of playing it ; and life is just such a game just a game whose in-
terest never ends. (Here, I think, something is wrong. A game, as he
says, is hypothetical. Life, I hold, is categorical.) Thought makes our
world, which is a means of endless variation of our activities. The
great difference between one group's world and another's is how much
thought has been applied to it.
But man has not in the past let himself think freely and guide his
activity by thought, and so his life is exceedingly unsuccessful. And
the enemy, in Mr. Ward's language, is morality. If he had printed it
"morality" most of us would see what he meant, and sympathise with
him.
The second book, "Morals," draws out his idea. Morality, printed
without the quotation-marks, is in its most pronounced form a taboo. It
is all that is objectionable in codes, precepts, preachments, prejudices,,
imperatives, customs that corrupt the world. The antidote and antithesis
is thought. Make a clean sweep ; teach everybody to think, and manage-
their own lives, which is what their brains were given them for, get rid of
morality (" morality " I insist is what he means), and you will have trans-
formed the world for the better.
And to the vices of " morality " he adds the paradoxes of ethics, making,
I think, undue capital out of them. To feel an " ought " shows you must
be bad. To do a duty because it is good is proof of an ulterior motive,
i.e., contradicts morality. To exercise choice proves that you are not free.
Self-sacrifice involves several absurdities, because the author will not see
that the self can transcend its existence. The moral consciousness is the
greatest thing in life, but it cannot be directly made a rule of living. You
can only value it rightly "when the arbitrary relation between morality
and conduct has been severed ".
I should suggest, meo periculo, that if we read " morality " where the
author writes "thought," "codes and imperatives" where the author
writes morality, and, perhaps, "religion" where the author writes "the
moral consciousness," though he does not quite see how, in religion, are
realised the freedom and perfection which morality demands but cannot
find in life if we might make these emendations we could see what he is-
driving at, and sympathise.
BERNARD BOSANQUEOL
NEW, BOOKS. 113
Philosophical Currents of the Present Day. Vol. II. By DR. LUDWIG
STEIN, o. 6. Professor of Philosophy, University of Berne. Trans-
lated by SHISHIRKUMAR MAITRA. The University of Calcutta, 1919.
Pp. iii, 235-393.
The second volume of Prof. Stein's book contains chapters on Hartmann
(neo-realism), Spencer (evolutionism), Voltaire, Nietzsche, and Stirner
(individualism), Dilthey (mental science), and Zeller (history of phil-
osophy). The book is of some interest to those who like their philosophy
watered with biographical anecdotes and literary references, and it seems
to have been well written in the original. These qualities may have
justified its first publication, but they are scarcely an excuse for trans-
lating it, and the jolts in the translation are not the less aggravating on
account of the discursive amble of the philosophy. The following * sample
of the style of the great linguistic artist ' W. Dilthey is not elegant in
English, " But from the stars there rings, when the stillness of the night
comes, even to us, that harmony of the spheres, of which the Pythagoreans
said that only the noise of the world could drown it, an indissoluble
metaphysical union which is at the base of all arguments and survives
them all " (p. 356). Even an uncouth translation, however, may be
disfigured by carelessness in proof-reading and otherwise. The trans-
lator is plainly ignorant of Greek ; but any of his friends who happened
to possess a very moderate acquaintance with that tongue could have told
him that the letter r is not the letter i, and that there are conventions
concerning accents. One might ignore misprints, bub the date 1917 in
the quotation from Spencer (p. 276) makes nonsense of the passage in
which it occurs. And what can be said for this 'howler ' ? "The great
favourite of Popper is Voltaire. From the philosopher von Forney
Popper took . . . his philosophical starting point for he dealt with the
problem of the * significance of Voltaire for modern times ' " (p. 309).
J. L.
Employment Psychology. By HENRY C. LINK, Ph.D. New York : The
Macmillan Company, 1919. Pp. xii, 440. 10s. 6d. net.
As Prof. Thorndike rightly says in his introduction to this book, the
author " has the great merit of writing as a man of science assessing his
own work, not as an enthusiast eager to make a market for psychology
with business men. Indeed, the story of his experiments is distinctly
conservative, for in many cases he could have obtained an even better
prediction of success at a given job than he did obtain, by applying the
technique of partial correlations and the regression equation so as to
obtain a weighted composite score from a team of tests."
The book is valuable not so much for its addition to psychological
knowledge as for its exposition of the practical application of psychological
methods to the problems of vocational selection. The actual results
obtained are correlated with the known skill of the workers or with the
foreman's estimate of that skill before and after he became intimately
acquainted with them. The tests applied are carefully described. They
were designed to examine assemblers, tool makers, machine operators,
clerks, stenographers, typists, and others. The book can be heartily
commended for its sane, scientific, and practical outlook on the subject.
8
114 NEW BOOKS.
The Mind of a Woman. By DR. A. T. SCHOFIELD. London: Methuen
& Co. Pp. viii, 120.
This chatty little book claims to be a contribution to feminine psychology
by " a physician occupied almost exclusively for some thirty years with
nervous diseases" so that "he has become intimately acquainted with
women's minds, at any rate in a pathological state " (p. 7). The results
are by no means as lurid as might have been expected : in fact the book
is just the sort of production a cynical suffragette (if such there were)
might point to with pride, when justifying the contention that if once
women got the vote, a general femiuisation would follow, and all other
things would speedily be added unto her, in a 'democratic' country.
The author, who professes great admiration for Benjamin Kidd, neverthe-
less notes (p. 62) that even in the three specifically feminine arts of dress,
cookery, and music, woman has never been able to wrest supremacy from
the male. But the chief thing he proves, perhaps, is that these popular
comparisons of the sexes are in no way profitable.
F. C. S. S.
Fivre, Essai de Biosophie the'orique et pratique. By PAUL OLTRAMARE.
Geneva : Georg & Co., 1919. Pp. xvi, 326.
Biosophy, the discipline expounded in this book, is "at the same time
practical and theoretical, social and individual," being "the science
of life considered in its highest manifestation, the spiritual". Yet it
"has not the ambition to supplant religion. Its aim is to prove that
human life can be fully spiritualised without the intervention of the
strictly religious hypotheses and hopes" (p. xvi.). Or as the publishers'
announcement declares, "it is particularly addressed to those who are
alienated from all religious faith," and wishes "to enrol them in the good
fight of truth against error, and of liberty, justice, and beauty against
everything that tends to lower man to the brute ". Actually it appears to
be a sort of revival of Comtian positivism and is composed of moralising
reflexions in the style of the ancient Stoics, full of amiability and en-
thusiasm and the most unexceptionable sentiments. In fact it contains
little or nothing th-it anyone could take exception to as new, and nothing
that could be censured as severe, not even the (very sound) criticism of
psycho-analysis on pp 227-228. Prof. Oltramare hopes that his book
will lead to the formation of an international Biosophical Alliance, and
this hope we may all echo Unlike other international alliances it cannot
do any harm.
F. C. S. S.
Psychology and Folk-lore. By R. R. MARETT, M.A., D.Sc. Methuen &
Co. Pp. ix + 275.
This is an excellent little book of its kind. The title is perhaps somewhat
misleading, for there is much more Folk-lore than Psychology, in the sense
of the psychology of the schools. But interesting psychological material
there is in plenty, and the book itself is thoroughly readable from beginning
to end. It is a collection of addresses, lectures, reviews, and articles on
anthropological topics, nearly all with the psychological interest more or
less emphasised. As one would expect, therefore, the chapters are some-
what loosely bound together, and there is no sustained argument, anthropo-
logical or psychological, running through the book as a whole.
NEW BOOKS. 115
The title is taken from the first address, a presidential address to the
Folk-lore Society. The main contention here is that the folk-lorist must
approach his subject matter from a psychological, and not merely a socio-
logical, still less a purely descriptive, point of view. The usage of ' psycho-
logical ' is somewhat wide. The author means simply that the folk-lorist
must get at the real inwardness of survivals from a past stage of culture,
thus understanding "why survivals survive". A considerable part of the
address is taken up by a criticism of a view attributed with dubious justice
to Dr. Rivers, that the folk-lorist as such is concerned with sociological
rather than psychological considerations. Possibly the disputants are using
the word 'psychological' in different senses. Chapters IV., V., and VI.
continue the theme, more especially the last on "The Interpretation of
Survivals," which is a further strong plea for the psychological attitude.
Chapters VII., VIII. ? and IX. also belong together. These chapters dis-
ouss " Origin and Validity in Religion," " Magic or Religion," and " The
Primitive Medicine Man". In the first two, the interest is not psycho-
logical in any marked degree ; in the third, that interest again becomes
prominent in the working out of the relation between the ' psychological '
medicine of the primitive medicine man and the medical science of the
modern doctor. The remaining chapters are much more anthropological
than psychological, and their interest for the psychologist as such is slight.
All of them, however, are interesting.
JAMES DREVER.
'The New Psychology and its Relation to Life. By A. G. TANSLEY. Lon-
don : George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1920. Pp. 283. 10s. 6d. net.
Some of the most remarkable advances in psychology have come from those
who have received no systematic training in the subject. The aim of this
excellent book is to present in non-technical language such recent psycho-
lojgical advances : it has been written by a botanist. As the author ob-
serves, "the flood of light thrown upon the workings of the human mind
by the discoveries and the resulting conceptions of modern psycho-patho-
logists has illuminated the mental mechanism, not only of the hysteric and
the madman, but of the normal human being". He has endeavoured to
combine "what may be called the 'biological' view of the mind a view
excellently represented, for instance, in Dr. McDougall's well-known,
Introduction to Social Psychology with the concepts which we owe mainly
to the great modern psychopathologists, Prof. Freud and Dr. Jung".
The book is therefore based on the writings of Freud, Bernard Hart,
Janet, Jung, McDougall, and Trotter. It can be thoroughly recommended
for the scientific and temperate standpoint which it endeavours to maintain
from start to finish and for its general clearness of exposition. It will prove
full of interest not only to the general reader who seeks a fair summary
of the above-named writers' views, but also to the expert psychologist who
is enabled by his professional knowledge to supply criticisms which it was
beyond the power of the author to suggest. Psychology owes a debt of
gratitude to Mr. Tansley for his useful book.
Le Thomisme. Introduction au Systeme de S. Thomas D'Aquin. By
E. GILSON. Strasbourg, 1920. Pp. 174.
An excellent general introduction to Thomism. M. Gilson's main object
throughout is to dwell on the point that Thornism is no mere "apologetic,"
116 NEW BOOKS.
but a systematic and coherent philosophical theory of the organisation of
the whole of reality. This is well brought out by starting with the pro-
blem which, as a matter of fact, confronted St. Thomas, the refutation
of " Averroisrn," and passing in review successively the Thomist doctrines
of the relations between faith and reason, the nature of God and the proofs
of the existence of God, creation, the nature of angels, the nature of man,
the union of soul and body, the intellectual and conative "powers" of
the soul, and the "end of life". The work is skilfully done and with
close adherence to the text of the Angelic Doctor. The brevity at which
M. Gilson aims makes his exposition at times hard reading, but it may
confidently be recommended to all who wish to know something definite
about a very " live " philosophy and have not the leisure or the opportunity
for minute personal study of the original texts. For readers of the texts
the constant references to the parts of the Saint's extended works where
the fullest treatment of the special problems will be found are highly
valuable. It is a pity that so good a piece of work should be disfigured by
an unusual number of tiresome errors of the press.
A. E. T.
Un Philosophe N&o-platonicien du XI e tiiecle, Michael Fsellus. BY CHK.
ZERVOS. (Preface de M. Francois Picavet.) Paris: Ernest Lecroix,
1920. Pp. xix, 269.
Light is still much needed on the obscurest part of the history of the
transmission of classical thought to modern times, the early middle ages
of the Byzantine Empire. M. Zervos has done good service by this care-
ful and fully documented study of the revival of Hellenic letters at
Constantinople in the eleventh century and of the life and character of
one of the leading figures in the movement, Michael Psellus, first Dean
of the Faculty of Arts, as we should phrase it in the University of Con-
stantinople after its re-opening by the Emperor Constantino Monomachus
towards the middle of the century. The work is based on wide study
of all the remains of the period, published and unpublished, and may
serve as a valuable corrective to current views which tend to treat the
revival of thought and learning as a purely Western affair and to represent
the mediaeval Eastern Empire as intellectually stagnant. M. Zervos is
enthusiastic for his subject and his hero, though I cannot honestly say his
study does much to remove the impression of Psellus as morally and
mentally a poor creature which one had gathered, e.g., from the notices of
him in Finlay. Perhaps one ought not to expect much of a protege of
the successive husbands raised to the throne by the amorousness of that
lively old lady, the Empress Theodora. A valuable feature of the book is
the full and careful bibliography of the not very accessible published works
of Psellus. I am not sure whether M. Zervos is really quite at home in
the earlier history of Neoplatonism. Some of his statements about
Plotinus surprise me, and it is unfortunate that Maximus, the unlucky
associate of the Emperor Julian, should be referred to several times over
as Maximus of Tyre. His home appears to have been Ephesus and
there is, so far as I know, no evidence to connect him in any way with
Tyre. I am much afraid he has been confused with an earlier and a
better man, the well-known writer of the second century.
A.E.T.
NEW BOOKS. 117
Received also :
J. Laird, A Study in Realism, Cambridge University Press, 1920, pp. xii,
228.
J. Clerk Maxwell, Matter and Motion, reprinted, with notes and ap-
pendices by Sir Joseph Larmor, London, S.P.C.K., 1920, pp. xv,
163.
Harald K. Schjelderup, Hauptlinien der Entwicklung der Philosophic von
Mitte des 19 Jahrh. bis zur Gegenwart, Christiania, Jacob Dybrwad,
1920, pp. viii, 278.
P. Frutiger, Volonte et Conscience, Geneva, Georg et Cie., Paris, F.
Alcan, 1920, pp. v, 472.
G. T. Ladd, Knowledge, Life, and Reality, Yale University Press, 1918,
pp. 549.
H. Berg.son, Mind Energy, trans, by H. Wildon Carr, London, Macmillan
& Co., 1920, pp. x, 212.
H. L. Eno, Activism, Princeton University Press, 1920, pp. 208.
N. Petresen, The Two-fold Aspect of Thought, London, Watts & Co.,
pp. 32.
H. Wildon Carr, The General Principle of Relativity in its Philosophical
and Historical Aspect, London, Macmillan & Co., 1920, pp. x, 165.
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. xx, 1919-20, London,
Williams & Norgate, pp. 314.
R. Miiller-Freienfels, Das Denken und die Phantasie, Leipzig, J. A.
Barth, 1916, pp. xii, 341.
E. Rignano, Psychologie du Raisonnenient, Paris, F. Alcan, 1920, pp. 544.
J. Pikler, Theorie der Empfindungssttirke u. i. des IVeberschen-Gesetzes,
Leipzig, J. A. Barth, 1920, pp. 26.
J. McCabe, Spiritualism, a Popular history from 1847, London, T. F.
Unwin, Ltd., 1920, pp. 243.
W. S. Walsh, The Psychology of Dreams, London, Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1920, pp. 361.
P. Bousfield, The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis, London, Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1920, pp. xii, 276.
M. Culpin, Spiritualism and the New Psychology, London, Edward
Arnold, 1920, pp. v, 159.
N. R. Campbell, Physics, The Elements, Cambridge University Press, 1920,
pp. vii, 5H5.
H. Cohen, Die Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums,
Leipzig, G. Fock, 1919 ? pp. vi, 629.
J. C. Hard wick, Religion and Science from Galileo to Bergson, London,
S.P.C.K., 1920, pp. ix, 148.
E. Cassirer, Zur Einstein' schen Relativitatstheorie, Berlin, B. Cassirer,
1921, pp. 134.
D. I. Bushuell, jr., Native Villages and Village Sites East of the Missis-
sippi, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 69, Washington,
Government Printing Office, 1919, pp. 111.
J. R. Swanton, A Structural and Lexical Comparison of the Tunica, Chiti-
macha, and Atakapa Languages, Bureau of American Ethnology,
Bulletin 68, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919, pp. 56.
F. Muller-Lyer, The History of Social Development, trans, by E. C. Lake
and H. A. Lake, London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1920,
pp. 362.
W. H. R. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious. Cambridge University
Press, 1920, pp. viii, 252.
Roger Bacon, Secretum Secretory m, ed. by R. Steele, Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1920, pp. Ixiv, 317.
118 NEW BOOKS.
Carveth Read, The Origin of Man and of his Superstitions, Cambridge
University Press, 1920, pp. xii, 350.
E. Belfort Bax, The Real, the Rational, and the Alogical, London, Grant
Richards, Ltd., 1920, pp. 264.
Sheikh Muhamined Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self, trans, by R. A. Nichol-
son, London, Macinillan & Co., Ltd., 1920, pp. xxxi, 147.
C. W. Armstrong, The Mystery of Existence and a Brief Study of tl<
Problem, London, Grant Richards, Ltd., 1920, pp. 197.
C. H. L. Rixon and D. Matthew, Anxiety Hysteria, London, H. K. Lewis
& Co., Ltd., 1920, pp. ix, 124.
Berkeley, Les Principes de la Connai*sance Humaine, trans, by C.
Renouvier. Les Classiques de la Philosophic, viii, Paris, A. Colin,
1920, pp. xii, 108.
Maine de Biran, Memoire sur les Perceptions Obscures. Les
la Philosophic, xii, Paris, A. Colin, 1920, pp. xii, 67.
A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God, 2nd edition, revised, Oxford,.
Clarendon Press, 1920, pp. xvi, 443.
Knight Dunlap, Mysticism, Freudianism, and Scientific Psychology, iSt.
Louis, C. V/Mosby Co., 1920, pp. 173.
H. Guillon, Essai de Philosophic generale elementaire, Paris, F. Alcan r
1921, pp. 187.
G. Dwelshauvers, La Psychologic Francaise Contemporaine, Paris, F. Alcan r
1920, pp. viii, 253.
A. Naville, Classification des Sciences, 3rd edition, entirely revised, Paris,
F. Alcan, 1920, pp. 322.
E. Marcus, Der Kategorische Imperativ cine gemeinverstdndliche E in fit
hrung in Kant's Sittenlehre, 2nd revised edition, Munich, E. Rein-
hardt,, 1921, pp. 257.
J. Heiler, Das Absolute, Munich, E. Reinhardt, 1921, pp. 77.
G. Sauheri, Euclides Vindicates, edited and trans, by G. B. Halsted,
Chicago, Open Court Publishing Co., 1920, pp. xxx, 246.
Leibniz, The Early Mathematical Manuscripts of Leibniz, trans, with
notes by J. M. Child, Chicago, Open Court Publishing Co., 1920,
pp. iv, 238.
Baron Max von Oppell, The Charm of the Riddle, Glasgow, Macleho.se,
Jackson & Co, 1920, pp. 34.
A. Levi, II Concetto del Tempo nei suoi Rapporti coi Problemi del Direnire
e deW Essere nella Filosojia di Platone, Turin, G. B. Paravia & Co.,
1920, pp. 112.
A. Levi, Sulle Interpretations Immanentistiche della Filosojia di Platone,
Turin, G. B. Paravia & Co,, 1920, pp. vi, 240.
G. E. Raine and E. Luboff, Bolshevik Russia, London, Nisbet & Co., Ltd.,.
1920, pp. 192.
J. Howley, Psychology and Mystical Experience, London, Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner, & Co., Ltd., 1920, pp. 275.
Ch. Lahr, Cours de Philosophic, 23 e edition, tome i, Psychologic, Logique ;
tome ii, Morale, Metaphysique, Histoire de Philosophic, Paris,.
G. Beauchesne, 1920, pp. xii, 754, 748.
W. Benett, Freedom and Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1920, pp 367.
M. Waxman, The Philosophy of Don Hasdai Crescas (Columbia. Uni-
versity Oriental Studies, vol. xvii), New York, Columbia University
Press, 1920, pp. xii, 162.
C. Andler, Les Precurseurs de Nietzsche, 2 e edition, Paris, Bossard, 1920,
pp. 384.
R. Nazzari, Principi di Gnoseologia, Turin, G. B. Paravia & Co., pp..
xxiv, 272.
VIL PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS.
JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS.
xvii., 9. J. E. Creighton. * Philosophy as the Art of Affixing Labels.'
[The concrete universal is a cure for nil the criticisms of philosophy.]
Q. A. Barrow. 'A Via Media between Realism and Idealism.' [A
review of Lossky's Intuitive Basis of Knowledge.] xvii., 10. D. F.
Swenson. 'The Logical Implicates of the Community.' ["Unless
men are capable, in principle, of a logical understanding of one another,
they cannot understand one another either aesthetically or ethically," and
understanding depends on " rationality in the sense of meaningfulness,
consistency and truth". The first depends on the principle of identity,
which guarantees sameness in the universe of discourse, in so far as
minds "really understand each other". The second depends on the
principles of inference, causation and teleology, the third is not creation
but discovery.] J. R. Kantor. 'Intelligence and Mental Tests.' [Be-
lieving that *' with the passing of a subjectivistic psychology and its
replacement by an extensive study of concrete human reactions the need
for a native intelligence . . . \vill disappear," the writer explains the
failure of mental tests to lead to "a wider extension of knowledge con-
cerning psychological phenomena " as due to the assumption that " what
is measured by the tests is a mental factor and not a specific mode of
adjustmental response," for all "intelligent acts must be specific ; for our
reaction patterns are definite concrete responses," and to increase them
increases "our ycnvnd capacity to respond," and so our 'general intelli-
gence'.] J. E.' Turner. 'Dr. "Vildon Carr's Theory of the Relation
Between Body and Mind.' [Criticism of his Aristotelian Society Address,
1917.] xvii., 11. H. C. Brown. 'The Problem of Philosophy.'
[" The fundamental category of science is description ... of philosophy,
action" . . . "Scientific description involves selection" . . . "Philo-
sophy starts from the truths with which science ends, but its purpose is
not merely to cite or to systematise . . . where the scientist seeks dis-
coveries, the philosopher makes interpretations." But no complete
agreement on these is likely.] C. I. Lewis. "Strict Implication An
Emendation.' [Corrects a mistake in his Survey of Symbolic Loyic.}
xvii., 12. T. L. Davis. 'De Profanitate.' [Points out that the
practice of swearing is a proof that a false proposition implies any pro-
position.] E. L. Schaub. Report on the 20th Annual Meeting of the
Western Philosophical Association. xvii., 13. J. H. Randall, Jr.
' The really Real.' [Points out that 'real' is " essentially a category of
laudation and a judgment of value" and that ' neo-realists ' degrade the
term when they apply it to all that merely ' is '.] I. Bentley. ' A Note on
the Relation of Psychology to Anthropology.' [Apropos of a complaint
by Dr. Hrdlicka about "the difficulty of getting psychology properly
defined.] xvii., 14. E. B. Holt. 'Professor Henderson's " Fit-
ness " and the Locus of Concepts.' [Destructive criticism of The Fitness
of the Environment and The Order of Nature, which are charged with
systematic misapplication of concepts (the question of their 'locus');
120 PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS.
Henderson's argument for teleology is denied any "iota of value," and
need not " cast the faintest shadow on the path of the most uncompromis-
ing mechanist ".] Q. A. Katuin. 'The Ideality of Values.' ["Values
are dynamic, evolutionary and changeable. Above all values are prac-
tical" but "a judgment of value is something more involved and more
complex than just a state of appreciation" ... it is not "mere in-
stinctive or habitual reaction to an act or object".] xvii., 15. L.
E. Hicks. 'Normal Logic or the Science of Order.' [All men think
alike by * instinct,' u the basis of instinct is cosmic order . . . the cosmos
is logical" and "not only are we in the cosmos; the cosmos is in us"
and subjects us to "external control". Also direct "dyad inference"
(from implications) should nob be rejected. As regards a criterion,
"logical thinking is bused on constant relations, inspires belief, has
true-or-false quality, advances knowledge, is orderly, coherent, harmo-
nious with the environment ". This is not absolute, but ' fairly reliable'.
It follows that "no hard-and-fast line" can be drawn "between logic
and its neighbours " psychology and epistemology. ] Q. D. Walcott. ' A
New Content Course in Philosophy.' [Consisting of comment on the
results of the sciences as formulated in the Home University series.]
REVUE NEO-SCOLASTIQUE DE PHILOSOPHIE. No. 85. February, 1920.
Articles. H. Pinard, S.J. Essai sur la Convergence des Probabilities
(concl.). [Conclusion of the essay mentioned in the summary of this review
given in MIND, N.S. , 116. The general line of argument is that, in spite
of the logical weakness of "induction," we can reach practical certainty in
dealing with questions of historical fact through the "convergence " of proba-
bilities, ie., by what is of ten called in English the " consilience " of inductions.
The reason why this method is more trustworthy in history than elsewhere is
that the weaknesses of induction only affect it as a method of generalisation.
In history we are not generalising but attempting to establish unique singu-
lar facts. Has the author sufficiently considered whether it is ever possible
to know anything but "universals" about the "singular" fact?] J. Le=
maire. La Connaissance sensible des Objets exte'rieurs. [A discussion of
the * reality ' of the objects of sense-perception. The argument is too long
and intricate for reproduction here. The conclusion is that the immediate
object apprehended by sense is "within " us, but can be shown to have its
analogue "without the mind". The writer holds that this view preserves
what is fundamental to the doctrine of S. Thomas about the species sensi-
bites. The points are well argued, but it is assumed, on what seem to be
insufficient grounds, that what I perceive must in some sense be " in " me,
and that the so-called " objectification of our sensations " is a genuine
psychical process. What if one denies both assumptions ?] R. Kremer.
Le Neo-Realisme Americain. [A good introductory account of the position
of the American so-called "new" realists.] R. M. Martin. La question
de V Unite de la Forme substantielle. j An historical discussion of the views
of the English Dominican scholar, Robert Fishacre.] Note on Cardinal
Mercier's American tour. Reviews of books. No. 87. August, 1920.
P. Charles, S.J. L'Agnosticisme Kantien. [A short historical article
tracing the development of Kant's views on the ' ' proofs of the existence
of God " from the dissertation of 1763 to the publication of the first Critique,
with the object of showing that Kant's final rejection of the "cosmo-
logical argument " is a logical development from misconceptions of its point
already latent in the Dissertation. I could wish the author had discussed
the curious question why Kant, in the Critique, entirely omits to examine
the special form of the argument on which he had himself formerly relied as
"the only demonstration " of God's existence.] E. Janssens. Notes -sr
la, conscience douteuse. [In defence of " probabilism " against all other
PHILOSOPHICAL PEEIODICALS. 121
systems of casuistry.] J. Bittremieux. Notes sur le Principe de
Causalite. [An interesting article. The reasoning is difficult to follow,
but the author's object is to establish the a priori character of the principle
of Causality by arguing that even if we deny that it can directly be deduced
from the law of Contradiction, the denial of it can be shown to violate that
(law. The principle is thus a priori, a position which it is desired to main-
tain because of the part played by the principle of Causality in the argu-
ments for the existence of God. The author's method of proving his point
does not impress me. As I understand him, he first assumes that the
principle of Causality is true and self-evident, and then argues that, this
being so, to assume that its contradictory is also true violates the law of
Contradiction. But surely this is equally true if one assumes the truth of
any proposition which contradicts a proposition already known to be true.
Apart from deference to the Aristotelian tradition, there seems to be no
reason for attaching more importance to the Law of Contradiction than
to any other principle of logic.] Reviews of books, etc.
VHT.NOTES,
To THE EDITOR OF "MIND".
DREAMS.
SIR, Dreams present features which condemn Freudian speculation as
inadequate. And we ought, I think, to agree further that the " in-
coherence " and " illogicalness," emphasised by Signer Rignano (A New
Theory of Sleep and Dreams, July MIND), are frequently absent. In the
first place, the dream may be as "fantastic" as, say, A Midsummer
Night's Dream, and yet be quite " coherent " within its own sphere. The
practical interests of waking life being suspended, freedom of invention is
untrammelled. This invention may be grotesque, as is the work of many
of our day-dreams, but it may be well ordered and exceedingly beautiful.
In the second place, there is a sort of dream, not only remarkable in point
of its inventiveness, but respectful of the kind of "coherence " which we
value in waking life. I was once the victim of a grim dream-serial quite
as reasonable as are most adventure novels. And on one or two occasions
I have enjoyed what may be called the reflective dream ; carrying the
familiar psychological and aesthetic interests into a new field. Thus the
question of the perceptual content of dreams had been interesting me. I
found myself anon floating in a room with richly decorated walls and was
able to examine the detail of this decoration deliberately. I noted its
complexity, and knew that I was doing so in a dream. On another oc-
casion I was able to alter my perceptual surround at will, with the same
belief, fully reflective, that I was playing with the contents of a dream.
There is nothing more surprising ia these night-dreams than what char-
acterises an ordinary day-dream on the mountain-side. The point is that
" coherence " and the " logical " may show equally in both. Day-dream-
ing becomes fantastic very readily ; the creation of genius may be merely
that portion of it which is worth preserving.
Dream -experience may thus be coherent and purposive, even when a
marked freedom in the way of inventiveness is displayed. But there
is dreaming, of course, in which "dissociation," anarchy, and chaos
predominate. ''Many dreams . . . have a plot, the point of which
is usually directed against the dreamer. He at any rate neither foresees
nor constructs it. Now this implies 'dissociation,' not merely between
the dreamer and the waking self (as is attested by the amount of amnesia
for dreams), but also between the dream and the ' maker of dreams '." *
Now to account for this dissociation we may have to look back very far.
It repeats, perhaps, on the small scale, within us human sentients, what
took place originally on the great or cosmic scale. The tendency which
can "dissolve" even 'waking personalities' and which is displayed so
frequently in our more anarchic dreams may be continuing the titanic
1 Dr. F. C. S. Schiller in his review of Bergson's L'Energie Spirituelle,.
MIND, July, 1920.
NOTES. 323-
process in which all finite sentients arose. We are watching the tide now
at the point of its furthest advance.
In the specially anarchic dream, where dissociation is very marked,
there is prolonged or echoed, as it were, the original process of the birth
of sentients (with its inevitable attendant confusion and discords), which
took place at the dawn of this particular world-system. (World as Im-
agination, p. 462 ff.) Novel sentients actually arise within us and con-
tend with us e.g., the malign 'maker of dreams,' who is sometimes
more formidable than any ordinary adversary of waking life.
But there are dreams and dreams. And we have to be on our guard
against the theorist desiring simplicity who seeks to account for all dreams
in the same way. Reality, after all, is not concerned to be simple just
for the psychologist's convenience.
DOUGLAS FAWCETT.
Villa Sommerheim, Wengen,
Switzerland, 18th July, 1920.
DEATH OF WUNDT.
PROF. WUKDT died on 1st September at the advanced age of eighty-eight
years. The world is thus deprived of the most prominent and widely-known
of present-day philosophers. Few, indeed, would claim for Wundt either
the speculative genius or the imaginative insight of a Herbart or a Lotze ;
but his extraordinary versatility and his comprehensive acquaintance with
vast fields of knowledge have rarely, if ever, been rivalled. Year after
year, books and monographs and articles issued from his pen in steady
succession, and almost everything he wrote exhibits a surprising mastery
of detail and power of turning it to account in constructive work. As a
teacher, too, he was effective and inspiring ; without a note, and in pre-war
days usually to audiences of more than three hundred students, gathered
from all parts of the world, he would handle, in a concise and lucid manner,
themes of notorious difficulty.
Wilhelm Wundt was born on 16th August, 1832, at Neckarau, near
Mannheim. In 1851 he began the study of medicine at Heidelberg, and
took his degree in 1856. In the following year he habilitated in the Depart-
ment of Physiology, and remained in Heidelberg for some years as Helm-
holtz's assistant in the physiological laboratory. During that period he
published two monographs on physiological subjects one on the theory of
muscular movements (1858) and the other on the theory of sense-perception
(1859-62). He was still at Heidelberg when, in 1863, the Vorlesungen
iiber Menschen- und Thierswle appeared a volume which, he used in
later years to say, contained the wild oats of his youthful days. Two
elaborate monographs on the mechanism of the nerves and nerve-centres
followed in 1871 and 1876, which embodied a good deal of careful experi-
mental research. In 1874, Wundt succeeded F. A. Lange as Professor of
"Inductive Philosophy" in Zurich, and, in the same year, the first
edition of the Grundziiye was published in one volume (increased to three
volumes of huge proportions in the fifth edition of 1902). His sojourn in
Ziirich was, however, a brief one. He removed to Leipzig in 1875, on his
appointment to one of the philosophical chairs in the university ; and
Leipzig continued to be his home for the last forty-five years of his life.
In his Antrittsreden of 1874 and 1876 Wundt sketched the view which, as
Professor in Leipzig, he consistently maintained of the function of phil-
osophy, and of the influence which philosophy, as he conceived it, should
124 NOTES.
exert upon the empirical sciences. Philosophy, he maintained, is based
upon the results reached by the empirical sciences, and forms their neces-
sary supplement and completion. Three years after his advent in Leipzig
(i.tf., in 1878), the Leipzig Institute of Experimental Psychology was
started in a humble way, but it grew by rapid strides, and was the pre-
cursor of similar laboratories in practically all the German Universities.
The Philosophische Studien, of which Wundt was the editor, served as a
medium of publication for the work of his pupils, and many valuable
articles of his own, not however always on psychological subjects, are Eke-
wise contained in the twenty volumes that appeared from 1883 to 1903.
From 1880 onwards a series of elaborate philosophical works were given
by him to the world. The first? volume of his Logik, devoted to " Erkennt-
nislehre," was published in 1880, and the second (in later editions ex-
panded into two volumes), dealing with " Methodenlehre," in 1883. Then
followed, in 1886, the Ethik, an investigation, as he described it, of the
facts and laws of the moral life. And, as the culmination of his attempt at
philosophical construction, the System der Philosophic appeared in 1889,
in many respects the most original of all his works, wherein an idealistic
metaphysic is developed, widely removed, however, from the forms of
idealism prevalent at the time. The later years of his life were occupied
with a huge undertaking. In 1900 the first volume of his Volkerpsychologie
saw the light, and five other bulky volumes followed. He was dependent
here for his material upon the labours of others, and the book cannot be
said to be of the value of his more strictly philosophical treatises. It should
be mentioned that Wundt contributed an article on " Central Innervation
and Consciousness" to the first volume of MIND in 1876, and also an in-
teresting account of " Philosophy in Germany " to the second volume. He
married shortly after leaving Heidelberg, and leaves a son and daughter
surviving him, the former being a distinguished authority in Greek Philos-
ophy. His own work was done ; but philosophical science loses in him a
genuine inquirer who spared himself no pains in the search for truth.
DEATH OF MEINONG.
We deeply regret to announce the death of Dr. Alexius Meinong, Pro-
fessor of Philosophy in the University of Graz. Prof. Meinong died, after
a short illness, on 27th Nov. at the comparatively early age of sixty-seven
years. His important work, Ueber Moglichkeit und Wahrscheinlich-
keit : Beitr&ge zur Gegenstandstheorie und Erkenntnistheorie, published
during the war, has only recently reached this country, and contains some
of Meinong' 8 most careful and original investigation. We hope in a later
issue to give an account of his many contributions to philosophy.
MIND ASSOCIATION.
The following is the full list of the officers and members
of the Association :
OFFICERS.
President PROP. G. F. STOUT.
Vice -Presidents PROFS. J. B. BAILLIE, B. BOSANQUET, H. WILDON
CARR, T. CASE, G. DA WES HICKS, F. B. JEVONS, J. H. MUIR-
HEAD, A. S. PRINGLE-PATTISON, C. READ, J. A. SMITH, N. KEMP
SMITH, W. R. SORLEY, and J. WARD, PRINCIPAL G. GALLOWAY,
DR. J. M. E. McTAGGART, and THE VERY REV. DR. HASTINGS
RASHDALL
Editor DR. G. E. MOORE.
Treasurer DR. F. C. S. SCHILLER.
Secretary MR. H. STURT.
Guarantors THE RIGHT HON. A. J. BALFOUR, VISCOUNT HALDANE,.
and MRS. HENRY SIDGWICK.
MEMBERS.
ALEXANDER (Prof. S.), The University, Manchester.
ANDERSON (W.), Logic Department, The University, Glasgow.
ATTLEE (C. M.), 19 Elvetham Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
BAILLIE (Prof. J. B.), King's College, Aberdeen.
BAIN (Mrs.), 50 Osborne Place, Aberdeen. Hon. Member.
BAIN (J. A.), 37 Widdrington Terrace, North Shields.
BALFOUR (Rt. Hon. A. J.), Whittiugehame, Prestonkirk, N.B.
BARAL (Prof. S. N.), Gaurisankar-Saeter, Lille Elvedalen, Alvdal, Nor-
way.
BARKER (H.), The University, Edinburgh.
BENECKE (E. C.), 182 Denmark Hill, London, S.E.
BENETT (W.), Oatlands, Warborough, Wallingford.
BERKELEY (Capt. H.)., Painswick, Gloucestershire.
BLUNT (H. W.), 183 Woodstock Road, Oxford.
BONAR (J.), 1 Redington Road, Hampstead, N.W.
BOSANQUET (Prof. B.), Heath Cottage, Oxshott, Surrey.
BOWMAN (Prof. A. A.), Princeton University, N.J., U.S.A.
BRADLEY (F. H.), Merton College, Oxford.
BRAHAM (Rev. E. G.), Mayfield Lees, nr. Keighley, Yorks.
BREN (Rev. R.), 68 Wheeleys Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
BRETT (Prof. G. S.), Trinity College, Toronto, Canada.
BROUGH (Prof. J.), Hampden House, London, N.W.
BURNET (Prof. J.), The University, St. Andrews, N.B.
CAMERON (Rev. Dr. J. R.), 6 Albyn Terrace, Aberdeen.
CARLISLE (Right Rev. the Bishop of), Rose Castle, Carlisle.
CARPENTER (Rev. Dr. J. E.), 11 Marston Ferry Road, Oxford.
CARR (Prof. H. W.), 107 Church St., Chelsea, S.W. 3.
CARR (W.), 51 Elm Park Rd., Chelsea, S.W. 3.
CASE (T.), Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
CHANG (W. H.), 74 High St., Oxford.
CODDINGTON (F. J. 0.), Training College, Sheffield.
COIT (Dr. S.), 30 Hyde Park Gate, London, S.W.
COLE (G. D. H.), Magdalen College, Oxford.
CONNELL (Rev. J. D.), 52 Dudley Gardens, Leith.
126 MIND ASSOCIATION.
COOKE (H. P.), Clevelands, Lyndwode Road, Cambridge.
COOKE (Dr. B. B.), Cornell University, Ithaca, U.S.A.
D'AKCY (Rev. M. C.) Ore Place, Hastings.
DAVIDSON (Prof. W. L.), 8 Queen's Gardens, Aberdeen.
DESSOULAVY (Rev. Dr. C.), Penuybridge, Mayfield, Sussex.
DIXON (Capt. E. T.), Racketts, Hythe, Hants.
DODD (P. W.), Jesus College, Oxford.
DORWARD (A. J.), Queen's University, Belfast.
DOUGLAS (C. M.), Auchlochan, Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire.
DOUGLAS (Prof. W.), Rangoon College, Rangoon, Burma.
DUNLAP (Prof. K.), Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, U.S.A.
EDGELL (Miss B.), 15 Lyon Road, Harrow.
EDWARD (Rev. Dr. K.), Mansefield, Peebles.
ELIOT (Sir C.N. E.), K.C.M.G., The British Embassy, Tokio, Japan.
FARMER (Rev. H. H.) 69 Lichfield Road, Stafford.
FAWCETT (E. D.), Sommerheim, Wengen, Switzerland.
FIELD (G. C.), The University, Liverpool.
FORSYTH (Prof. T. M.), Grey College, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
FREMANTLE (H. E. S.), Cottesloe, P. 0. Selborne, District Uitenhage,
Cape Colony.
GALLAGHER (Rev. J.), Crovvton Vicarage, Northwich.
GALLOWAY (Principal G.), St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, N.B.
GEIKIE-COBB (Rev. Dr. W. F.), 40 Cathcart Road, S.W. 10.
GIBSON (Prof. J.), Bron Hwfa, Bangor, Wales.
GIBSON (Prof. W. R. B.), The University, Melbourne, Australia.
GOLDSBOKOUGH (Dr. G. F.), Church Side, Herne Hill, S.E.
GRANGER (Prof. F.), University College, Nottingham.
HALDANE (Rb. Hon. Viscount), 28 Queen Anne's Gate, London, S.W.
HALLETT (H. F.), The University, Leeds.
HAMPTON (Prof. H. V.), Karnatak College, Dharwar, Bombay, India.
HARDIE (R. P.), 13 Pahnerston Road, Edinburgh.
HARVEY (J. W.), The University, Birmingham.
HASAN (S. Z.), New College, Oxford.
HEADLY (L. C.), House on the Hill, Woodhouse Eaves, Loughborough.
HENDERSON (C. G.), Bijapur, India.
HETHERINGTON (Principal H. T. W.), University College, Exeter.
HICKS (Prof. G. D.), 9 Cranmer Road, Cambridge.
HOERNLE (Prof. R. F. A.), Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
INGHAM (C. B.), Moira House, Eastbourne.
JAMES (Rev. J. G.), Flowerdale, Potters Road, New Barnet.
JEVONS (Dr. F. B.), Bishop Hatfield's Hall, Durham.
JOACHIM (Prof. H. H.), New College, Oxford.
JONES (Miss E. E. C.), Meldon, Weston-super-Mare.
JONES (Prof. Sir H.), 1 The College, Glasgow.
JONES (Rev. Dr. W. Tudor), 14 Clifton Park, Bristol.
JOSEPH (H. W. B.), New College, Oxford.
KEANE (Rev. H.), Stonyhurst College, Blackburn.
KEATINGE (Dr. M. W.), Willowgate, Boar's Hill, Oxford.
KEYNES (Dr. J. N.), 6 Harvey Ptoad, Cambridge.
KIRKBY (Rev. Dr. P. J.), Saham Rectory, Watton, Norfolk.
KNOX (Capt. H. V.), 3 Crick Road, Oxford.
LAIRD (Prof. J.), Queen's University, Belfast.
LATTA (Prof. R.), 4 The College, Glasgow.
LEGGE (A. E. J.), Kingsmead, Windsor Forest.
LEWIS (Dr. E. B.), Glamorgan County Hall, Cardiff.
MIND ASSOCIATION. 127
LIBRARIAN (The), Bedford College, Regent's Park, N.W.
LIBRARIAN (The), University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
LINDSAY (A. D.), Balliol College, Oxford.
LOVEDAY (Principal T.), University College, Southampton.
McDouGALL (Prof. W.), Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
MclNTYRE (Dr. J. L.), Abbotsville, Cults, Aberdeenshire.
MclvER (Prof. R. M.), The University, Toronto, Canada.
MACKENZIE (Prof. J. S.), 56 Bassett Road, North Kensington, W.
MACKENZIE (Sir W. L.), 4 Clarendon Crescent, Edinburgh.
MACKINTOSH (Prof. H. R.), 81 Colinton Road, Edinburgh.
MCTAGGART (Dr. J. M. E.), Trinity College, Cambridge.
MAIR (Prof. A.), 26 Parkfield Road, Liverpool.
MANCHESTER (Right Rev. Bishop of), Bishop's Court, Manchester.
MARETT (Dr. R. R.), Exeter College, Oxford.
MARSHALL (Mrs. D. H.), Ovingdean Hall, Brighton.
MARSHALL (H. Rutgers), Ceutury Assn., 7 West 43rd Street, New York.
MOBERLY (W. H.), Lincoln College, Oxford.
MOORE (Dr. G. E.), 17 Magdalene St., Cambridge.
MORIKAWA (Prof. C.), Delegation Japouaise, 9 Rue la Perouse, Paris.
MORRISON (D.), The University, St. Andrews, N.B.
MORRISON (Rev. Dr. W. D.), 38 Devonshire Place, London, W.
MOIRHEAD (Prof. J. H.), The University, Birmingham.
MUKERJI (Prof. N. C.), Ewing College, Allahabad, India.
MURE (G. R. G.), Merton College, Oxford.
MURRAY (J.), Christ Church, Oxford.
NUNN (Dr. T. P.), Day Training College, Southampton Row, W.C.
OAKELEY (Miss H. D.), Passmore Edwards Settlement, Tavistock Place,
W.C.
OSGOOD (G. L.), Manor House, Petersham, Surrey.
PARKINSON (Rev. Dr. H.) Oscott College, Birmingham.
PATON (H. J.), Queen's College. Oxford.
PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE (W. A.), Worcester College, Oxford.
POLLOCK (Sir F.), Bart., 21 Hyde Park Place, London, W.
PRICHARD (H. A.), Trinity College, Oxford.
PRINGLE-PATTISON (Prof. A. S.), The Haining, Selkirk, N.B.
QUICK (Rev. 0. C.), 25 Sanderson Road, Jesmond, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
RAHDER (J.), 12 Colignyplein, The Hague, Holland.
RAMANATHAN (Rao Bahadur K. B.), 16 Venkatachala St., Triplicane, India.
RANADE (Prof. R. D.), Fergusson College, Poona, India.
RASHDALL (Very Rev. Dr. H.), The Deanery, Carlisle.
READ (Prof. C.), Psychological Laboratory, University College, W.C.
RIVETT (Miss D. M.), Newnham College, Cambridge.
ROBINSON (Prof. A.), Observatory House, Durham.
ROGERS (R. A. P.), Trinity College, Dublin.
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Ross (W. D.), Oriel College, Oxford.
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128 MIND ASSOCIATION.
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6
NEW SERIES. No. uS.] [APRIL, 1921
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
I. PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD
LECTURES (II.).
BY C. D. BROAD.
B. MIND.
(a) Enjoyment.
With this confession I leave S.-T. and pass to Prof.
Alexander's views about mind. There are two points to be
considered about this, viz., the ontological position of mind
and the epistemological question about its knowledge of objects.
The former is closely connected with the theory of a hierarchy
of complexes with new secondary qualities, and I will set it
aside for the present. We are said to enjoy but not to con-
template ourselves and our states and to contemplate but not
enjoy qualitied complexes of a lower order than minds. Now
I find considerable difficulties about both enjoyment and con-
templation. I will begin with the former. I might sum up
my difficulties about enjoyment in one question : Is enjoyment
by a mind a mode of knowledge or only a mode of being?
The word enjoyment first appears on I., 12. '. . . I am
accustomed to say that the mind enjoys itself and contemplates
its objects. The act of mind is an enjoyment, the object is
contemplated.' It seems then clear that to be an enjoyment
is just to be a mental act.. (I exclude for the moment the
analogies to enjoyment at lower stages of the hierarchy of
qualities.) The meaning of the verb to enjoy is more difficult.
I take it that it is not intended originally to be an active verb.
We enjoy enjoyments ; and on this view ' I enjoy X ' just
means ' X is one of my mental acts '. But then we also have
the phrase constantly used, 'I enjoy myself. This clearly
9
130 C. D. BEOAD :
cannot mean ' I am one of my mental acts '. It presum-
ably must mean ' I am a complex composed of enjoyments '.
This interpretation certainly seems to be borne out by tbe
statement that we experience an act in the sense in which
we strike a blow, but experience an object in the sense in
which we strike a bell. (Cf., L, 12.) If this be so to enjoy is
not to know. ' I enjoy X ' simply means that X is one of my
acts, and it is thus a statement about the nature of X and the
complex to which it belongs. It just classifies X as a mental
act and assigns it to that complex of such entities which is me.
Yet Prof. Alexander constantly speaks as if to enjoy were
to know, and as if we could enjoy things which are certainly
not acts of our minds. Thus on L, 21 we are told that the
mind in contemplating a horse ' enjoys its togetherness with
the horse '. Now this togetherness is a relation between the
horse and the state of my brain due to the horse. Hence I
do not see that the statement ' I enjoy my togetherness with
the horse ' can possibly mean as it ought to do on the above
interpretation 'togetherness with the horse is one of my
acts '. In fact I am constantly said to enjoy what can also
be contemplated ; yet I cannot contemplate my mind or its
states. Thus in I., Caps. III. and IV., I am said to enjoy the
space and time in which my mental processes go on, and
these are said to be identical with the space and time in
which my brain and its processes exist. Now the latter can
of course be contemplated. Thus to say ' I enjoy such and such
a space ' cannot mean ' Such and such a space is one of
my mental acts ' ; for, in the first place, the statement is
perilously near to nonsense, and, in the second, it must imply
that some of my mental acts can be contemplated, which is
contrary to the theory. Hence the verb ' to enjoy ' must
have shifted its meaning. One possibility is that Prof.
Alexander does here use ' enjoying ' as an active verb, and not
merely as a verb with a cognate accusative. He may really
mean that enjoying is a form of knowing, although a different
form from contemplation. On the other hand he may not
have committed this inconsistency. The phrase ' I enjoy my
mental S.-T.' may be elliptical. He may only mean that
mental events have in fact spatio-temporal characteristics,
that these are in fact the same as those of the corresponding
neural processes, and that mental events are enjoyed but not
contemplated. If this be so the proposition : ' I enjoy the
space and time in which my neural processes go on ' will only
mean : * I enjoy mental acts which in fact have the same space
and time factors as those which can be contemplated in the
events of my brain and nervous system '. If this be the
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 131
meaning the word * to enjoy ' is of course used ambiguously,
but it is not necessarily used to mean or to imply any form
of knowledge.
However this may be, the relation between enjoyment and
knowledge on Prof. Alexander's view remains to me very
obscure. Prof. Alexander often says, as on L, 12, that ' my
awareness and my being aware of it are identical '. Now this is
an important and characteristic doctrine ; but surely it ought
to be proved. It cannot surely be meant that to be aware of
a tree, and to be aware that I am aware of a tree mean the
same, and that it is an analytic proposition that there can be
no unconscious or unnoticed awarenesses. Of course there is
a sense in which it is analytic. No doubt in one sense of
experience the statements ' I am aware of a tree ' and ' I
experience my awareness of a tree ' mean the same. For, in
this sense, experience does not mean knowledge ; the state-
ment ' I experience my awareness of a tree ' merely means
* This awareness of a tree is one of my mental acts '. No one
doubts that the word experience can be used in this sense.
But in this sense I might be ' aware of ' all my awarenesses and
yet know nothing whatever about them, nor even know that
I had them. The important question of fact is : Granted
that I experience all my awarenesses in the perfectly trivial
sense that they are all awarenesses of mine, am I ever or
always aware of them in the sense of knowing them ? Prof.
Alexander of course denies that I can be aware of them in
the sense of contemplating them. If this be so, then either
I do not know my states of mind at all, or there must be a
form of knowing different from contemplation, and of course
different from ' experiencing ' in the sense described above ;
for that is not a form of knowing my states of mind, but the
form of being which states of mind have. It would then be
a question of fact whether I ' knew ' all or only some of my
states of mind, in this sense of knowing which is not con-
templating.
Against the view that I can contemplate my states of mind
Prof. Alexander produces two arguments, one positive and the
other negative. The first is on I., 19 : ' If I could make my
mind an object as well as the tree, I could not regard my
mind, which thus takes its own acts and things in one view,
as something which subsists somehow beside the tree'.
This argument seems to me quite inconclusive. It is not
necessary that I should contemplate my mind, but only a
certain act of it, viz., this awareness of the tree. Secondly,
my mind for Prof. Alexander is a complex continuum of my
acts. Therefore, to talk of 'my mind taking its acts and
132 C. D. BROAD :
things in one view ' means no more than to say that a certain
continuum contains two different constituents, such that the
object of the first is the tree, and the object of the second is
the first. I do not say that our minds are continua of this
kind, but I do not see why they should not be. Certainly
there is no incompatibility between this and the fact that
our minds are things 'which subsist somehow beside the
tree '. Probably the real objection is that on this view one
part of my mind would ' subsist beside ' another which itself
* subsists beside ' the tree. It is probably felt that because a
perception and a tree cannot both belong to a single complex
which is a mind, therefore a perception and a perception
of a perception cannot do so. But this seems a mere
prejudice. If I could contemplate my perception of a tree, my
contemplation and the perception would doubtless be ' beside '
each other, as the perception and the tree are. Of course it is
true that the perception and the tree do not both belong to a
mind. But this is presumably because trees are not mental,
not because they are ' beside ' the perception of them.
What has to be proved is that the ' besideness ' of contem-
plation is incompatible with both terms being mental and
belonging to the same mind. I find this frequently and
vigorously asserted, but it does not seem to me self-evident,
and no effort is made to prove it.
The negative argument is that introspection, which seems
to make against Prof. Alexander's view, can be explained in
terms of it. ' . . . An -ing (i.e. a mental act) . . . may
exist in a blurred or subtly dissected form. When that
condition of subtle dissection arises out of scientific interests
we are said to practise introspection, and the enjoyment is
said to be introspected '. The common view is that in
introspection a state of mind becomes the object of a fresh act
of attention, just as an external object like a flower may.
Consistently with his general view Prof. Alexander has to
deny this ; he has to hold that when a state of mind becomes
introspected a change happens in its mode of being, not in
the fact that it becomes cognised by a later act. Now it
seems to me that being always differs from being known.
An originally ' blurred ' emotion might change in the course
of our mental history into a 'subtly dissected' one, but
unless both are in some sense known this will not constitute
knowledge about the emotion. For this it would seem
needful to know both the blurred and the dissected states,
and further to recognise such a connexion between the two
as makes it reasonable to call the dissected state a dissection
of that particular blurred one. It may be that for intro-
PEOF. ALEXANDEE'S GIFFOED LECTUEES. 133
spection it is necessary that a blurred state shall develop into
a dissected one so connected with the former that it can be
called the dissection of it, but this process itself is not
knowledge of the fact that the one state has developed into
the other, for no process is the same as the knowledge that
it has happened. If you say; 'But this process and all the
stages in it are enjoyed ', the answer is irrelevent. It only
means that the process and the stages in it are mental ; to be
mental does not mean to be known ; and if you say that
everything mental is ipso facto known, you ought to produce
some proof for this very doubtful proposition, and to tell us
by what kind of knowledge a mental state is known, since
you deny that it is contemplated.
Very closely connected with this point is Prof. Alexander's
theory about the memory of past states of mind. His
theory of the memory of objects is plain and straightforward.
It is just a present awareness with a past object bearing the
marks of pastness on it. But clearly past states of mind
cannot be remembered in this way, because no state of mind
can be contemplated at all. Now the great difficulty about
remembering past states of mind on any such theory as
Prof. Alexander's is this: Suppose I thought about my
dinner yesterday, and that to-day I remember this act of
thinking. The act of remembering belongs to to-day, the act of
thinking which is remembered belongs to yesterday. On the
ordinary view there is no difficulty ; remembering would be a
relation between to-day's act of remembering and yesterday's
act of thinking, and there is of course no reason why a
cognitive relation should not thus bridge a gap in time. But
on Prof. Alexander's view you cannot contemplate a state of
mind, you can only enjoy it. And enjoying is not a relation
between one state of mind and another ; it is merely the
mode of existence peculiar to states of mind. Thus a state
of mind and the enjoyment of it are essentially contemporary,
for the enjoyment of a state of mind is just the existence of
that state. Thus memory of past states could not be de-
scribed as ' a present enjoyment of a past state,' for this
would be sheer nonsense ; and, on Prof. Alexander's theory,
it equally cannot be described as ' a present contemplation of
a past state,' because states of mind whether present or
past cannot be contemplated. What then is a memory of
a past state on Prof. Alexander's theory ?
I think we can understand his view best by bearing in
mind his doctrine of perspectives. It will be remembered
that ' space at a moment t ' did not consist of the spatial
characteristics of event-particles at t merely, but consisted of
134 c. D. BEOAD:
the spatial characteristics of a certain selected group of event-
particles of all dates. Similarly, I think he holds that ' my
mind at 10 o'clock to-day ' does not consist simply of enjoy-
ments whose date is 10 o'clock to-day. It consists of a certain
selected group of enjoyments of various dates. We have
seen the principle on which some event-particles of an as-
signed date are included in, and others excluded from, the
perspective of a given event-particle. What is the corre-
sponding principle that includes some of last week's enjoy-
ments in ' my mind at 10 o'clock to-day ' and excludes others
of the same date ? The principle seems to be that these past
enjoyments which are remembered by me at 10 o'clock to-day
and those future enjoyments that are anticipated by me at
10 o'clock to-day are to be included in the selection which
constitutes 'my mind at 10 o'clock to-day'. All others are
to be excluded. If you now ask Prof. Alexander how he
reconciles the presentness of my memory of yesterday's
thought with the pastness of the thought and with the denial
that the one contemplates the other, his answer will be, I
take it : ' The remembered thought is past, for its date is
yesterday ; but there is a present memory of it, because this
past enjoyment is included in that set of enjoyments of
various dates which constitutes ' your mind at 10 o'clock to-
day V I support this interpretation by the following passages,
all from I., 127 : ' . . . The past enjoyment is the way in
which the actual past of the mind is revealed in the present ;
but it is not revealed as present '. ' ... It is not revealed
in the mind's present, though it forms one part of the total
of which another part is the mind's present.' ' ... It is
imagined to persist with the present ; and so it does, but it
persists as past.' ' If time is real the mind at any present
moment contains its past as past.'
Now, as regards this view there are two remarks to be
made : (i) As usual there seems to be a confusion between
being enjoyed and being known. It may, for all I know, be
a precondition of my present memory of my past state that
this past state shall form part of ' my mind at the present
moment '. But memory surely is a kind of knowledge, and
just as it seems to me that the mere existence of a present
state in my mind is not knowledge of that state, so equally
the mere existence of a past state in my mind is not know-
ledge of it and therefore is not memory. Surely Prof. Alex-
ander's sound principle that no object gains its existence or
its qualities from the fact of being known ought to be supple-
mented by the equally sound principle that no existent not
even an enjoyment gets known from the mere fact of ex-
PKOF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 135
isting and having such and such qualities. It seems to me
that his best plan would be (a) to keep his distinction between
enjoyment and contemplation, and then (6) to supplement
it by a distinction between enjoyment and knowledge by
enjoyment (and also probably by one between contemplation
and knowledge by contemplation). Knowledge by enjoyment
and knowledge by contemplation would then be two different
sorts of knowledge by acquaintance, if the latter phrase be
used merely as opposed to inferential and to descriptive know-
ledge. But, whilst contemplation would be acquaintance,
enjoyment would not. The doctrine would then assume the
following much more plausible form : We have knowledge,
by acquaintance, in the sense of non-descriptive and non-
inferential knowledge, both of external objects and of our
own states of mind. But this knowledge is differently con-
ditioned in the two cases. The mere existence of our state of
mind is ipso facto accompanied by and forms the foundation
of direct judgments about them, which we . will call know-
ledge by enjoyment. The mere existence of external objects
does not found immediate judgments about them. These
require a certain relation between the mind and them, viz.,
contemplation or acquaintance. This relation does not subsist
between minds and their states, and is not needed. When
the relation of contemplation subsists between our minds
and external objects it founds judgments of contemplation,
which resemble judgments of enjoyment in being non-
descriptive and non-inferential, but differ in the respects
mentioned above. I do not say that this is true, or that it is
what Prof. Alexander means, but I cannot help thinking that
it would improve his theory.
(ii) Apart from this standing difficulty there is another
that is perhaps worth mentioning. Does the statement ' X is
a state remembered at t ' just mean that X is one of the past
states included in ' the mind at t ' ? Or does ' the mind at t '
just mean the selection of states that are present, or past and
remembered, or future and anticipated? On either of these
alternatives the statement that a past state is remembered if
it forms part of the mind at the moment of remembering is
merely trivial and analytical. For, in the one case, memory
is just denned by reference to the mind at the moment of
remembering; and, in the other, the mind at the moment of
remembering is just denned by reference to remembered and
anticipated states. Prof. Alexander's doctrine of the re-
membering of past enjoyments is only substantial if (a) those
past states which are remembered have some intrinsic dis-
tinction from those that are not, and (6) the mind at a
136 c. i>. BEGAD :
moment is, not a mere artificial, though legitimate, selection
of states of various dates, but something naturally marked
out and recognisable. Now, I grant that by ' my present
self ' I do not mean a mere instantaneous cross-section, also
that c my present self ' undoubtedly includes my acts of re-
membering past and anticipating future enjoyments. But,
from what has gone before, it evidently does not follow that
it contains these past and future enjoyments themselves.
That I can make a selection of past, present, and future
enjoyments on these principles is obvious enough. And I
can call such a selection 'my present self. But that 'my
present self/ in this sense, is anything that I actually re-
cognise as a natural unit, or that it is any less artificial than
a momentary cross-section, is by no means obvious.
(b) Contemplation.
details of contemplation are very elaborately worked
out in Vol. II., and much that is of great value and interest
is said there. But I must confine myself to the general out-
lines and a few special points. It is of the essence of Prof.
Alexander's theory that there is no peculiar relation which
can be called the cognitive relation. There is one common
relation between all finite parts of S.-T. however high or low
they may be in the hierarchy of complexes. This is called
wmpresence. A stone is compresent with another that at-
tracts it, just as a man's mind is compresent with a stone
that he perceives. But we say that the man cognises the
atone, whilst we do not say that the one stone cognises the
other. The difference is not in the relation, but in the nature
of the referent. When a complex which has mentality is
compresent with a stone we call the relation cognitive ; when
a complex that has only mechanical and secondary qualities
is compresent with a stone we do not talk of cognition.
Since any bit of S.-T. is compresent with any other, since
cognition just is the compresence of a complex which has
mentality with some lower complex, and since we are com-
plexes with mentality, it might be thought that we ought to
cognise everything in the universe below the level of mind.
Prof. Alexander's answer is that pairs of finites may not be
compresent to each other with respect to all their characters.
Thus, things behind my back are not compresent with my
mind if I am not thinking of them ; but they are still com-
present with my body since they exert attractive forces on
it. Such things 'never fail to be compresent with me in
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 137
some capacity of ine,' though they may not be compresent
with me in my capacity of a thinking being. (Of. II, 99-100.)
This solution of the difficulty has implications which Prof.
Alexander does not explicitly state, and which it is important
to notice. He cannot merely mean that unnoticed things
are compresent with the part of my body which only lives
and does not think, but not with the part that thinks as well
as lives. For, if this were so, there would be a finite bit of
S.-T. viz., this latter part with which they are not com-
present ; which is contrary to his view. We must therefore
suppose that everything is compresent with the part of my
body that thinks, but not with it qud thinking. What does
this involve? A certain set of motions has the quality q nt
and, consequently, all the lower qualities q n -i, q n -z , etc.
If everything be compresent with it everything makes some
difference to this as to any other set of motions. If some
things be not compresent with it qud possessing the quality
of q n but only qud possessing (say) q n -i t <?n-2 ... etc., this
must mean that a set of motions possessing the qualities
q n , q n -i, q n -2 . . . can be modified without any modification
of q n . Thus it is implied that there is not an unique correla-
tion between a set of motions that possesses the quality q n and
the quality q n itself. Presumably the higher your complex
the more modification it can undergo without change of its
highest quality.
In sensation some sensum B evokes by causal action a set
of motions in the brain of an observer. These motions are
enjoyed, and the enjoyment of them is the sensation of B.
Any other sensum B' would excite different motions, and the
enjoyment of these would be the sensation of B'. But
suppose we are aware of an image or of a memory. Here
the object that we become aware of is not the cause of that
brain-state which, as enjoyed, is the awareness of the object.
The cause may be purely internal to the body. But the
final result is the same, viz., the production of a set of
motions which (a) is complex enough to have the quality of
consciousness and (6) is ' appropriate to ' the object, so as to
be the consciousness of it. Just as every finite object that
affects our minds produces the appropriate act, so no act
exists without an appropriate non-mental object. And this
object may be quite independent of the cause of the act. (We
shall have to deal later with the apparent exceptions pre-
sented by error and illusion.)
The first point that seems to need further light is the
relation between ' com presence ' and ' appropriateness '. At
stages below life and mind it would seem that compre'sence
138 C. D. BKOAD :
practically comes down to causal influence, and that appro-
priateness is secured by the assumption that any difference in
the cause involves a difference in the effect and conversely.
The explanation also applies at the level of mind in the case
of sensation. When I am aware of an image the image and
the brain-process are compresent, and the latter is appropriate
to the former. But the compresence does not here mean
causal influence, and thus the appropriateness cannot be
secured by any axiom about causation. It would seem that
here the appropriateness must be the primary fact, and the
compresence derived from it. We call this image compresent
with this act of imaging because the latter is appropriate to
the former and not to any other object.
Now the question that arises is : What justifies the asser-
tion that every act has an appropriate object in the non-
mental world ? An act is a certain brain-state with a mental
quality. This may be produced by causes which have no
connexion with the object to which such an act is appropriate.
Surely we might expect such acts to be constantly happening
in the absence of any appropriate object. Nor do I see how
we could tell in any given case whether there was an appro-
priate object or not. A certain brain-state is produced by
causes internal to pur bodies; this brain-state is complex
enough to be conscious and we enjoy it ; and we define the
consciousness of the appropriate object to be this enjoyment.
What is to prevent all this going on even if there be no
appropriate object in the non-mental world? The object
has nothing to do with the causation of the brain-state,
so that might happen in its absence. The object has
nothing to do with the brain-state being conscious, for that is
entirely dependent on the structure and complexity of the
brain-state itself. So the brain-state could be conscious in
the absence of the appropriate object. But the enjoyment of
a brain-state which is conscious just is the awareness of the
appropriate object. Thus I cannot see what prevents the
awareness of an object from existing although no such object
exists, has existed, or will exist. Prof. Alexander's epis-
temology is of course meant to be thoroughly realistic ; but
his account of what constitutes consciousness of an object
seems to me to involve all the difficulties of extreme subjective
idealism. The reason is not far to seek. Compresence at
the lower level of existence shows itself as causal influence,
and the peculiarity of this relation is that if a exists A can
only influence it causally if A also exists. Thus, in this
sense of compresence, the existence of a is a guarantee of the
existence of anything else that is compresent with it. But at
PROF. ALEXANDER'S 'GIFFORD LECTURES. 139
the cognitive level compresence does not always or usually
show itself as causal influence ; the enjoyed conscious brain-
state a can be compresent with the object A though there is
no causal influence between them. If we ask what consti-
tutes compresence in such cases the answer apparently is that
compresence here shows itself as appropriateness. Now the
appropriateness of a to A only means that there is a one-one
correlation l between the two, that a different a would be the
awareness of a different A and conversely. But this relation
of appropriateness, unlike the causal relation, does not
guarantee the existence of one term given that the other
exists. Ifc is a mere correlation of the internal structure of
two terms. Thus a might exist and be appropriate to A, but
this would be no guarantee of A's existence. For to say that
a is appropriate to A only means that if there be any object
of which a is the awareness then that object must have the A
structure and not (say) the B structure. A certain key will
only fit a certain lock ; but if keys and locks be produced in-
dependently the existence of the key is no guarantee of the
existence of an appropriate lock. So it seems that the theory
tries to make the best of both worlds. It tells us that the
relation of act to object is that of compresence ; we ask for
an illustration of this and are offered instances of causal
influence between physical objects. In these instances if one
term exists all others compresent with it must exist too.
Then we find that acts and objects do not as a rule have this
relation, but another, called appropriateness, which does not
have the peculiar property that if one of its terms is an
existent the other must be so too. But we slur over this
difference, because we are told that appropriateness just is
compresence, and we remember that the examples of corn-
presence which we have met were such that if one term exists
so must the other.
I suppose that Prof. Alexander's answer would be somewhat
as follows : Gompresence is one and the same relation every-
where, and the feature that we notice in causal influence is
common to all instances of compresence. Now every finite
is compresent with other finites. A conscious state a exists.
Our general principle implies that there will be other finites
compresent with it. And the nature of compresence is such
that these must themselves exist. Among the other existent
finites only that one which is appropriate to a is compresent
with it. But, since something must be compresent with it,
^Perhaps more strictly a many-one correlation, since presumably
different brain-states enjoyed by different people can be awarenesses of the
same object.
140 C. D. BROAD:
and since only an appropriate finite could be compresent with
it, there must exist a finite appropriate to a. If this be the
right interpretation we have three independent premises :
(i) All finites are compresent with some other finite in respect
to any assigned quality of them ; (ii) What is compresent
with an existent finite exists ; (iii) Finites that have the
quality of consciousness are compresent in respect to this
quality only with other finites that are appropriate to them.
It follows formally from these premises that every cognitive
act has an appropriate object which exists. It is often dim-
cult to distinguish what Prof. Alexander assumes and what
he claims to prove, and the above tedious discussion is per-
haps justified if it disentangles the premises and the conclusions
of his theory of contemplation. It leaves me with a very
grave doubt as to whether there is one single relation of
compresence, the same at all levels, and differentiated only by
the different qualities of the relatum. At the lowest level
compresence is just the fact that two finites are both bits of
one continuous S.-T. This is easy enough to understand,
and it is easy to see that every finite is in this sense com-
present with every other. But at the stage of mind
compresence has become rigidly selective, there is a one to
one relation between cognitive state and appropriate object.
It is obvious enough that what is compresent with an exist-
ent must itself exist, if compresence merely means coexistence
as finite bits of one S.-T. But it is by no means so obvious
when this meaning has dropped into the background, as it
has done at the level of mind and its objects. Prof. Alex-
ander offers other illustrations of this sense of compresence
which is independent of causation. He takes them from the
sphere of life. An animal acts appropriately to catch prey
which he does not now see. The prey does not cause the
action, yet the action is appropriate to the prey. This does
not seem to me a very happy illustration. If the animal does
not yet perceive its victim (say a mouse) its present action is
appropriate only in a general sense ; it is one that can
equally be continued into the movements needed for catching
a mouse or into those needed for catching a bird. On
the other hand the act of imagining a future scene is supposed
to be not merely appropriate in a general way to the image,
but to be uniquely correlated with it. Again, it is asserted
that a mental act cannot exist without an appropriate object ;
and we have objected that on Prof. Alexander's view it is
difficult to see why this should be so certain. Now cats
often make the appropriate movements for catching mice and
then fail to catch them sometimes because it is not a mouse
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 141
but a bit of dead leaf that starts their actions. Thus the
illustrative analogy is rather in favour of our objection than
of Prof. Alexander's theory.
(c) Appearance and Illusion.
This brings us to Prof. Alexander's view about appearance
and illusion, a subject which is always the crux of realist
theories of perception. He distinguishes between real, mere,
and illusory appearances. Eeal appearances are genuine parts
of a perceived thing. From different positions we perceive
different parts of the same thing and these are its real
appearances. An example is the elliptical visual appearances
of a circular object. Mere appearances are real parts of some
complex of several things. Thus the bent visual appearance
of a stick half out of water is a mere appearance of the stick,
because it is not a part of the stick as such but of the more
complex thing ' stick-in-different-media '. Lastly, illusory
appearances are cases where the observing mind intrudes
itself into what is observed. 'An illusory appearance is so
only so far as it is supposed either instinctively ... or by
. . . judgment to belong to the real thing of which it seems
to be an appearance.'
There is an interesting comparison (II., 191-192) between
this view and Prof. Stout's, which throws some further light
on the above distinctions. For Stout all appearances would
be at best mere ; for in any apprehension by us of external
objects our own bodies are concerned, and the appearance
apprehended is a function of them as well as of the external
object. Prof. Alexander says : ' For us this position is un-
acceptable, because the action of the sense-organ is part of
the process of sensing . . . not its object . . . The distorting
or qualifying thing must be either observed or observable
in the sensible object.' I do not quite understand whether
Prof. Alexander's difference from Stout on this point is-
substantial or only verbal. Does he accept Stout's view
that changes in the sense-organ modify the apprehended
appearance as much as changes in the medium between the
the body and the external object? If so, the difference is
merely verba. 1 . Prof. Alexander just refuses to call variations
due to my eye mere appearances because I do not and cannot
perceive my eye when I perceive an external object by means
of it. But I equally do not and cannot perceive my glasses
when I perceive external objects through them ; are we to
say that distortions and changes of colour due to them are
real appearances ? If you answer that I can see my glasses
14*2 c. D. BROAD:
at other times, it is equally true that I can see my eye at
other times by making suitable arrangements. If, on the
other hand, Prof. Alexander intends to deny the facts alleged
by Stout he has a very difficult position to maintain. So far as
I can see the eye, with its lense, behaves exactly like any other
optical instrument such as a camera or a magnifying glass,
and no sharp distinction can be drawn between the bodily and
the non-bodily conditions of the variation of appearances.
As regards real appearances of shape and size Prof.
Alexander has a very interesting theory. In the first place
he holds that spatial characteristics are not perceived by
means of any of our sense-organs but by the brain. The use
of eyes, ears, etc., is to make us aware of the secondary
qualities possessed by complicated motion-complexes. But
these motion-complexes qua bits of S.-T. excite areas or
volumes in our brains. The enjoyment of these volumes is
the awareness of the shapes and sizes (and, I think, distances)
of the external object. Since our brains are only affected
through our special sense-organs we cannot intuit the spatio-
temporal attributes of an external thing without at the same
time sensing some of its secondary qualities. Hence we
think that we sense the spatio-temporal attributes ; but this
is a mistake. Really we intuit the contour of a thing by
our brains and sense the secondary qualities which belong to
the motion-complexes within that contour by means of our
special organs of sense. Now Prof. Alexander points out the
important fact that, although a circular disc looks smaller as
we move it away from us, and although it looks elliptical
as we turn it round, yet the felt and the seen contours con-
tinue to coincide. Though we see an ellipse and feel a circle
there is at no point a gap between the two. Now what we
see at any moment is those event-particles from which light
reaches us at that moment. These are not contemporary.
If we are looking straight down on the disc the centre is
nearer to us than the outside parts, light has therefore
further to travel, and so what we see at the centre is earlier
than what we see at the outside. The further we are from
the disc the less is the difference in time between the central
and the peripheral events that we see and this difference
apparently is seen as decreased size. Similar remarks apply
to the elliptic visual appearances. Thus all can be regarded
as parts of the one thing because the thing is something
with a history and the visual appearances are selections of
events of different dates in that history. Touch, though not
perfect, gives us the nearest approximation to the real geo-
metrical properties of things.
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 143
The above theory, if I have understood it aright, seems to me
to contain a very valuable suggestion for dealing with conflicts
between sight and touch. Once we remember that things are
not momentary volumes but have a history, and consequently
are extended in four dimensions, we see that the phrase * the
shape of a thing' needs definition, and we see that the
object of vision on a realist view cannot be a set of con-
temporary parts of the thing. And, if space and time be so
closely bound up with each other as Prof. Alexander holds,
temporal differences in an object might, I suppose, be inter-
preted as spatial differences. But these valuable hints need
considerable working out. In the first place, when Prof.
Alexander says that touch gives us the nearest approximation
to ' the real geometrical properties of things,' we should like
a clear definition of what is meant by the shape or the size
of a thing, taken as a four-dimensional contour. Secondly,
the touch that assures us that a disc is circular is successive
touch ; we run our fingers round the edge. Thus the object
of touch no more consists of contemporary event-particles
than does that of sight. And the more slowly we run our
fingers round the edge the greater will be the time differences
between the event-particles felt. These differences thus (a)
depend on our own action, and (6) are much greater than any
that occur in the object of sight (for the latter are inversely
proportional to the velocity of light, and the former to that
of our fingers). It seems odd then that the deliveries of
touch should be so constant as compared with those of
sight, if the variations in those of sight be due to time
differences in the different parts of the seen object.
The theory of illusory appearances I find more difficult to
follow. The general principles are clear enough. In all
perception there is ideal supplementation of a sensum by
association. If the perception be not illusory this supple-
ment can be verified by sense in the perceived object on
further experience. If it be illusory it cannot. ' An angel
would see illusory appearances as mere appearances,' because
he can contemplate the percipient's mind as well as the per-
ceived thing, and can thus see what we cannot that the
attribute ascribed to the latter really belongs to the complex
thing composed of it and the former (II., 213). The main
difficulty is over illusory sensations. Suppose I see a certain
patch as green (through contrast) when it is really not
green. Then according to Alexander (a) the green that I
see is actually in the world, (b) it is not merely an universal
green that I apprehend, and (c) the mode of filling a patch
with a colour is a real factor in the world. The illusion
144 C. D. BKOAD :
consists in seeing the real particular green, in the real re-
lation of ' filling ' a contour to which it does not stand in this
relation. On II., 214, we are told that 'the actual intuited
space of the grey patch is filled with the green quality'.
And the cause is that * the mind squints at things, and one
thing is seen with the characteristics of something else '
(II., 216). Now I really do not see how all these statements
can be reconciled. A certain intuited contour is filled with
a grey colour, and this means that motions of a certain kind
are going on within it. We see this patch as green. The
particular green of the patch really is somewhere else in the
world. Where precisely ? Let us say in a particular piece
of grass. This means that in the contour of the piece of
grass motions of another kind are going on. In what way
and in what sense can our minds put the particular green of
this bit of grass into this grey contour? The statement
that ' the actual space of the grey patch is filled with the
green quality ' suggests that the mind really transfers (in a
perfectly literal sense) the green motions of the bit of grass
into the grey contour. But if it does this the originally grey
contour really is green for the time being, and there is no
illusion ; whilst presumably the bit of grass must really cease
to be green. This cannot be what Prof. Alexander means ;
but I can offer no suggestion as to his real meaning here.
C. THE HIEEAECHY OF QUALITIES.
I regard this doctrine as perhaps the most important thing
in Prof. Alexander's book. I believe that something of the
kind will prove to be the necessary and sufficient means of
settling the embittered controversies between mechanists and
vitalists, if only the extremely muddle-headed protagonists on
both sides could be got to see what they are really arguing
about. And I think that Prof. Alexander is quite right in
holding that the question ought to be raised at a much lower
level than that of life or mind, certainly at that of chemical
action at least. It is needless to enlarge on the doctrine, for
the general outlines of it will be clear enough from examples
that have occurred earlier in this paper. There are just two
points, however, that call for some criticism.
(i) Prof. Alexander holds that if a complex has the quality
q n then it is always a specialised part of it that will possess
the quality. This part will indeed also possess all the lower
qualities q n -i, q n -* But the rest will only possess g-i,
q n -z, . . . I do not see any very good reason for this view.
It is of course suggested by the analogy of the brain, which
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 145
has consciousness as well as life, etc., and is an integral part
of a larger whole which has life, etc., but no consciousness.
But I do not see why e.g., a coloured physical object must
consist of specialised coloured motions dotted about within a
contour among others that are merely mechanical. It may
be so, and it provides Prof. Alexander with a convenient way
of dealing with intensity ; but that seems to be the only
argument in favour of this possibility.
(ii) It is not clear to me that ' quality ' is used in the same
sense all through the alleged hierarchy. E.g., red seems to
me to be a quality of a certain motion-complex in one sense,
and life to be a quality of a more elaborate complex in a very
different sense. By saying that a body is living I just mean
that its motions and other changes fit into each other and
into the environment in certain characteristic ways. The
statement is an analysis of its characteristic modes of change.
But by saying that a motion is red I certainly do not mean
that it is a vibration of such and such frequency. The state-
ment is not an analysis of its characteristic mode of motion,
but is the assertion that a property, which is not analysable
in terms such as velocity, frequency, etc., that apply directly
to motions as such, occupies the same contour as a. certain
set of motions. Prof. Alexander holds that organic sensa
are characteristic of living bodies and are contemplated by us
when we have organic sensations. If this be true organic
sensa are qualities of living bodies in precisely the same
sense in which colours are qualities of certain non-living
bodies. But the life of a living body does not seem to me to
be a quality of it in this sense, for the reasons stated above.
We are told that the characteristic behaviour of a living
being could be exhibited without remainder in physico-chem-
ical terms, provided only that the nature of the physical
constellation were known. ' If we could secure the right sort
of machine it would be an organism and cease to be a material
machine' (II., 66). Yet life is not an epiphenomenon ; such
and such a constellation could not exist without life. Simil-
arly I suppose that such and such a vibration could not exist
without being red. Now I agree with this; but I believe
that the ' could not' has a different meaning in the two cases.
If life could be exhibited without residue in physico-chemical
terms, it is because life just means characteristic modes of
change. A machine that moved and changed as a living organ-
ism does would be alive by definition. 1 The necessity here is
1 Though the very important difference remains that such a machine
would be an artificial organism, i.e., one produced by the deliberate action
10
146 C. D. BROAD :
analytical. But I do not see that red can in this sense ' be ex-
hibited without residue in physico-chemical terms,' because
no part of the meaning of ' red ' has anything to do with
motion and change. I agree that there is a perfectly good
sense in saying that the vibrations which in fact are red could
not fail to be red. But I understand this to be a synthetic
proposition asserting it to be a law of nature that such and
such types of vibration are always accompanied by such and
such a colour. The statement about life is like saying that a
figure all of whose points are equidistant from a fixed point
could not fail to be circular ; the statement about red is like
saying that a ruminant cannot fail to be cloven-footed.
The sense in which it is certain that life can be exhibited
without residue in chemical and physical terms is that by
calling a body alive we mean no more than that it changes
and moves in such and such characteristic ways. (I omit
the question of organic sensa.) The sense in which it is
nevertheless possible that there is something new in an
organised body is that (a] it may be impossible even theoretic-
ally to deduce all the behaviour of such a complex from the
most exhaustive knowledge of what its parts would do if they
were not in such a complex ; and (6) even if the parts obey
precisely the same laws within as without this complex,
and if therefore the peculiar behaviour of living bodies comes
down to a question of collocations, there is still the question
whether the laws and collocations of the inorganic world
will account for the coming together of these organic colloca-
tions. Neither colour nor consciousness can be exhibited
without residue in physical and chemical terms in the sense
in which life can, since to be coloured or to be conscious does
not mean to move in certain peculiar ways. The only sense
in which red can be exhibited without residue in physical
terms is that, since redness and a certain sort of movement
are constantly connected, any proposition which ascribes a
predicate to red objects can be replaced by one which as-
cribes the same predicate to movements of the sort that are
red.
D. UNIVERSALS.
Universals on Prof. Alexander's view are patterns which
are or may be repeated in S.-T. Individuals are complexes of
S.-T. The configuration of an individual is particular, but it
follows a plan which may be repeated by other configurations
of mind, whilst an ordinary organism is rather a natural machine, produced
so far as we know, without any deliberate design. This is the really
queer thing about organisms.
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 147
at the same time or by this configuration at different times.
We might be tempted to hold that it is a plan as such that
constitutes an universal, and that it is merely a contingent
fact that all plans are plans of configurations of S.-T. This
Prof. Alexander would deny ; all possibility is rooted in the
actual, all that is actual is S.-T., and it is part of the meaning
of a plan to be a plan of a configuration of S.-T. The
essence of universality is that configurations of the same
spatio-temporal pattern can exist anywhere in S.-T. This,
Prof. Alexander thinks, is only possible because S.-T. has an
uniform * curvature ' in Gauss's sense.
The last statement seems to me to be much too sweeping.
We must recognise an hierarchy of universals. Let us start
with something that is merely geometrical and take the
series : circles of 1" radius, circles, closed conies, conies in
general. Now suppose that the curvature of S.-T were not
uniform. Then (a) circles of 1" radius might still be possible
at some places and times though not at all ; (b) even if there
could be nowhere and nowhen circles of 1" radius, circles of
smaller radius might be possible at various times and places ;
(c) even if this were not so conic sections of some kind might
be possible always and everywhere, so far as I can see. Thus
many variations in the curvature of S.-T. might be imagined
which would only cut out universals of the lowest order, i.e.,
those whose instances are particulars, such as circles of 1"
radius, and would leave higher universals, such as conies in
general, standing. And, unless it be essential to an universal
to be capable of having instances always and everywhere,
many variations of curvature would be compatible with the
subsistence even of lowest universals like circles of 1" radius.
When we pass to more concrete universals like cats and
dogs, the argument is stronger still. I cannot imagine why
the existence of dogs requires complete constancy of curvature.
It is admitted that no two dogs are exactly alike in shape,
and that any dog changes its shape considerably in the
course of its history. Thus the curvature of S.-T. might vary
considerably from place to place and from moment to moment
without prejudice to the possibility of things built on the
pattern of dogs, or even of pug-dogs, existing always and
everywhere. Of course if S.-T. were such that a pug in one
place was rolled out into the shape of a dachshund by merely
chasing a cat from one end of a garden to the other, the
universals ' pug ' and ' dachshund ' could hardly be said to
subsist. But S.-T. might vary in curvature without varying
so wildly as this ; and, even if it were so wild, the universals
'dog ' and ' cat ' might still subsist unmoved.
148 c, D. BKOAD:
E. DEITY.
I do not quite know how seriously Prof. Alexander intends
his theology to be taken. I suppose it is a point of honour
with Gifford Lecturers to introduce at least the name of God
somewhere into the two volumes, and we may congratulate
Prof. Alexander on the ingenuity which discovered a place in
his system for something to which this name might be not
too ludicrously applied. Whether the religious consciousness
will be satisfied with Prof. Alexander's God I cannot say.
He modestly professes to have very little personal experience
of religion, and, as I too come very much nearer to 'our
countryman Dr. Middleton ' than to ' the Cardinal Baronius r
on that ' theological barometer ' suggested by Gibbon, of
which these two theologians were to form ' the opposite and
remote extremities/ it would ill become me to say what the
religious consciousness does want. Prof. Alexander's candi-
date for the position of God has the two merits of being
necessarily mysterious to us, and being in a definite sense
higher than ourselves. The vaulted roof of St. Pancras
station seen at midnight has been known to evoke the
religious emotion in one eminent mathematician returning to
Cambridge from a dinner in town ; and what the sight of
St. Pancras has done for one man, the thought of the next
stage in the hierarchy of qualities may do for others. It might
indeed seem difficult to feel much enthusiasm about a God
who does not yet exist, and who will cease to be divine as
soon as he begins to be actual. Still the merit of faith is
commonly held to increase with its difficulty, and the merit
of religious adoration may vary according to a similar law.
Frankly it seems to me that the doctrine of what Prof.
Alexander calls ' deity ' is an integral and important part of
his system, but I suspect that it is not what anyone else
means by deity, and that it has been somewhat strained to
make it fit in verbally with the concepts of religion and
theology. If Prof. Alexander really does feel towards his
deity as religious persons do towards their God I apologise
most humbly for poking fun at it.
The theological reference seems to have warped the dis-
cussion in at least two ways, (i) We hear much more of the
quality of deity as such than about the beings who would
possess it. This is because the former is identified with God,
whilst the latter would merely be gods, and polytheism is out
of fashion. But all sorts of interesting questions could be
raised about gods in Prof. Alexander's sense. There may be
gods, with respect to us, existing now. If there be we might
PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES. 149
stand in one of two different relations to them. Our brains
might be parts of a god. This might be true of some of us
and not of others. The ' good old German God ' might be
more than a myth if it would consent to forego its capital
letter. The quality of deity might belong to a material
system composed of special parts of the brains of all Germans
or of all Hohenzollerns. Taking the latter hypothesis the
brains (and consequently the minds) of Hohenzollerns would
be connected with the good old German god in a way
comparable to that in which the merely living part of our
bodies is connected with our brains, which think as well as
live. The brains of other Germans would only stand to the
German god in a sort of relation in which (say) plants stand
to animals. In general, if any gods exist now, parts of the
brains of some of us might be parts of a material system
which has deity. Others of us might have no share in any
god. Or it might be that all men and no animals stand
in the more intimate relation to some god. We might
expect that if some men stand in a much more intimate
relation to deity than others this would show itself in their
lives and thoughts. With half the ingenuity that Prof.
Alexander has lavished on proving that his God has many of
the attributes ascribed by theologians to their God, I would
undertake to work some of the most characteristic doctrines
of the Christian religion into his system on the basis of the
possibilities outlined above.
(ii) I think that the theological implications of Prof. Alex-
ander's phraseology have led him into a quite unjustifiable
optimism. He seems to hold (a) that S.-T. will always go
on producing higher and higher complexes with new and
more wonderful qualities, and (6) that we ought to regard
these new qualities with something of the love and reverence
which religious persons feel for their God. But these as-
sumptions seem to me quite baseless, (a) What we know of
nature, apart from alleged divine revelations, rather tends to
suggest that the higher complexes, such as those that carry
life and mind, are unstable; that they can only arise and
persist under very exceptional conditions ; and that these
conditions are unlikely to be permanent. (6) What we know
of the relations between beings who have only life and those
which have both life and mind does not justify a very com-
forting view of the probable relations between ourselves and
gods. Animals have life and mind ; plants, I suppose, only
life. The main relation of the worshipper to the god in
this case is that the latter eats the former when it can.
Whilst this presents an interesting variation of the religious
150 c. D. BROAD: PROF. ALEXANDER'S GIFFORD LECTURES,
conception of the Sacramental Meal, it may cause the timid
worshipper to view the coming of the Kingdom with a certain
degree of apprehension.
I must bring this long discussion of Prof. Alexander's book
to an end. I have mainly mentioned points where I disagree
or feel difficulty. The system is so original, and so many
hard questions are dealt with in the book, that it is almost
certain that I have misinterpreted Prof. Alexander in many
places. It will necessarily take the philosophic world some
time to think itself into the new positions, and we are bound
to make mistakes in the process. The author himself must
give us help on the way ; and it is in the hope that he may
be moved to do this in the pages of MIND that I have ' praised
with faint damns,' which, I hope, have not disguised my
admiration for a great work of philosophic speculation, nobly
conceived and conscientiously carried through.
II. HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS
CRITICS. (II.).
BY FEANK CHAPMAN SHARP.
THE STANDARD OF EIGHT.
ACCORDING to Hume, as we have seen, the term "right,"
when applied to conduct, means that the person judging
believes himself to have abstracted from all relation of the
action to his private interests, and from all accidental rela-
tions to himself of whatever kind they may be. Bight
represents the desires of an impartial observer of the situa-
tion. Since human beings are constantly supposing them-
selves impartial in their judgments when in fact they are not,
the actual judgments of the race contradict each other to an
enormous extent, and varying types persist through genera-
tions or centuries. Of all the mass of human judgments
those alone may properly be called " correct " or valid which
are the expression of a thorough-going, all-sided impartiality,
because they alone really are what they give themselves out
as being.
This conception of right raises two questions fundamental
to ethics : Is there some one standard valid not merely for
you or me, but for the race? And if so, what is it? Hume's
attitude towards the first question we shall find it convenient
to reserve for later consideration, premising only that he
believes in the existence of a universal standard. Turning
to the second question we are compelled to say that Hume
answers it in only very general terms. The conduct ap-
proved is that which is useful or agreeable to the agent or
others. This is well enough as far as it goes, but it is only
half an answer. The really interesting problems are still
before us. In life it constantly happens that we are com-
pelled to choose between the good of one person or group
and that of another; or again between the harm of one
party and that of another. In such cases which interest or
set of interests ought to prevail ? Hume recognises at one
point or another though he nowhere undertakes a syste-
matic presentation of the subject that three very different
152 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP:
and sometimes incompatible principles are used by the men
in the street in solving problems of this kind : They are :
(1) One ought to choose the greater good, or, where harm
or loss is inevitable, the less harm. (2) Where the actor
himself or a member of his family is one of the parties
affected, he ought to choose the nearer good, even where
the result is a net loss for those affected. (3) The good of
those who are worthy of admiration ought to be preferred
to the good of those who are not; and the good of the
more admirable ought to be preferred to that of the less ad-
mirable. With changed terms, the same principle is applied
to the distribution of necessary evils. In so far as the admired
are admired for moral qualities (3) becomes the principle that
claims are a function of moral desert or merit.
Now, as has been said, Hume sees these facts, but just as
he nowhere presents them as a whole so he never subjects
them to a serious and systematic examination with a view to
solving the problems of validity which they present. Why,
we can only guess. Of one thing we may be sure, however,
namely that he had a pretty well denned view of his own,
for bits of it are dropped here and there. All that we can do
to-day is to pick up the crumbs which fell from his table.
His contributions to this subject if this be not too pre-
tentious a name for them deal with just two items. Both
have to do with the claims of the "nearer " good.
Logically the definition of right in terms of impartiality
requires a modification of the doctrine that morality has its
source exclusively in concern for the good of others. Hume
has nowhere discussed this subject in the light of his general
conception of right ; but he leads his readers to the necessary
conclusion by a different route.
Taken literally a view which reduces all morality to
benevolence can only lead to Comte's maxim : Live for
others, in the sense of, Live solely for others. But Hume
has discovered the inner contradiction at the root of such an
ideal. In showing that the institution of private property
would have no place in a society governed by the spirit of
universal benevolence, he writes : " " Suppose that, though the
necessities of human race continue the same as at present,
yet the mind is so enlarged, and so replete with friendship
and generosity, that every man has the utmost tenderness
for every man, and feels no more concern for his own interest
than for that of his fellows : it seems evident that the use of
justice would, in this case, be suspended by such an extensive
benevolence, nor would the divisions and barriers of property
and obligation have ever been thought of. Why should I
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOEY AND ITS CEITICS. 153
bind another, by a deed or promise, to do me any good office,
when I know that he is already prompted, by the strongest
inclination, to seek my happiness, and would, of himself, per-
form the desired service ; except the hurt, he thereby receives,
be greater than the benefit accruing to me ? in which case,
he knows that, from my innate humanity and friendship, I
should be the first to oppose myself to his imprudent gener-
osity." 1 This is the principle which in the Essay on Suicide
he states in the words : " I am not obliged to do a small good
to society at the expense of a great harm to myself ". 2 This
is the only conclusion which his definition of right permits.
Impartiality works both ways. The moral point of view is
the Copernican point of view. It does indeed thrust self from
the position it tends to arrogate to itself at the centre of the
universe, but it assuredly does not annihilate it. In accord-
ance with this insight we shall have to say that Hume's system
involves the view that the desire from which springs the
valid moral judgment is the impartial desire for good as such ;
and Love thy neighbour as thyself, rather than Live solely for
others, is the requirement of the moral ideal.
A second problem on which Hume has expressed his
opinion concerns the claims of the greater good and the good
of one's family and friends when the two conflict as they
occasionally do. Hume recognises that public opinion in
many instances regards the latter alternative as having the
higher claim. He himself denies the validity of this claim,
and asserts that the common belief arises from that failure
to be impartial which is precisely the source of invalid moral
judgments. 3 It cannot be said that he has worked out the
doctrine of the subject satisfactorily. He has left it with a
bare affirmation. And there it stands, a fundamental problem
of ethics, of great theoretical if not practical significance,
almost completely ignored by moralists till the present day.
The claims of the greater good, as we have seen, some-
times come into conflict with another ideal, that of the
treatment of men according, not to the amount of their need
or the good that can be conferred upon them, but according
to their merit. Hume recognises in one place the existence
of the judgments that directly approve preferential treatment
1 Enquiry, sec. iii., pt. i., G. ii., 180 ; S.-B. 184.
2 Essays, G. ii. , 413.
3 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. ii., sec. ii. ; G. ii., 261-262 ; S.-B. 488-489 ; pt. iii.,
sec. i. ; G. ii., 341-342 ; S.-B. 582-583. Other illustrations of failure in im-
partiality as a cause of invalid moral judgments will be found also in the
follow ng passages: Treatise, bk. iii., pt. i., sec. ii., G. ii., 248, S.-B.
472; pt. iii., sec. i., G. ii., 344; S.-B. 585.
154 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP:
of the meritorious and the inflicting of suffering upon the evil
doer as an end in itself, and explains it. 1 But in no place
does he even express an opinion upon the validity of such
judgments, except, of course, by implication. Of the problems,
in particular, which are involved in the recognition of moral
judgments based upon the desire of harm for harm's sake
there is no genuine recognition in any of his writings.
THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL VALIDITY.
Nevertheless the problems of retribution are of the greatest
theoretical, to say nothing of practical, importance. For they
raise in its most acute form the question whether there is
one standard valid for the entire race. They represent an
ideal of hate face to face with an ideal of love. Since some
persons accept the former where others reject it the question
arises, which attitude is the proper one. Or must we rather
say, as Socrates said to Crito : " Those who are agreed and
those who are not agreed upon this point have no common
ground, and can only despise one another when they see how
widely they differ ".
My own answer is that there is a solution of this problem
of retributive punishment which follows directly from the
foundations of Hume's system. To understand it we must
distinguish between two features of Hume's definition of
right which as yet we have not attempted to separate.
The impartiality involved in the nature of the moral judg-
ment means impartiality of attitude towards the goods and
evils of life, and, properly speaking, it means nothing more
than this. Three such attitudes are possible, that of friendli-
ness to goods, that of indifference, that of enmity. Hume
recognises in his formal descriptions of the moral judgment
only the first, so that for him morality consists (as we have
phrased it) in equal concern for equal interests. But, as we
have just noted, there exist judgments which have a prima
facie claim to be called moral which are based upon enmity.
And the question we have to face is, Can they justify their
claim to validity ? This is to ask whether, if we weigh equal
interests with equal scales, we can find a place in the moral
ideal for the demands of retribution.
To answer this question we must note that the great, in-
deed the overwhelming, majority of our moral judgments
have their source in what (using the terms of the preceding
paragraph) we may call friendliness to goods ; otherwise
1 Treatise, bk. iii., pt. iii., sec. i. : G. ii., 349 ; S.-B., 591. Cf. Enquiry,.
sec. v., pt. ii. ; G. ii., 213; S.-B. 226.
HUME 7 S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 155
stated, in the desire that goods may exist. This is not merely
true as a fact, it must be true in any human society which
we can conceive of as existing on this earth. For the desire
for the realisation of the good is constructive, but the desire
for the infliction of evil is destructive. Universal destruction
of values for destruction's sake would mean the ruin and
death of the society in which it prevailed. The approbation
of the infliction of harm for harm's sake is thus conceivable
only as a sporadic irruption into an alien system of ideals.
It is on the basis of the impartial desire for the preserva-
tion and increase of values that we demand that a man shall
moderate his ambition, his love of power, of money, and
similar springs of action, till he brings them to a point where
they are in harmony with the well-being of the whole of
which he is a member. On what ground then can we urge
an exception to this rule in favour of the desire for vengeance ?
Either this is a piece of favouritism, a dispensation granted
to one desire that is not granted to others, or it is not. If
the inclusion of the demand for retribution can be shown to
involve no favouritism, then it ceases to appear as a rival
standard ; it takes its place in the organised system of values
that make up the moral ideal as Hume conceives it. It
therefore presents no exception to the doctrine of a universally
valid moral standard, and is therefore of no farther concern
in the treatment of the present topic. On the other hand, if
its inclusion in our code of conduct is mere partiality, a de-
termination to stand at all odds for what we happen to like,
then we may like it as much as we will, it can nevertheless
claim no place among moral judgments. Nor can it be raised
to this dignity by the simple expedient of throwing the de-
mands of the desire into the form of a universal judgment :
Let all, whether others or me myself, who have committed
such deeds, be made to suffer in return. For this formula as
it stands is a mere counterfeit of the impartiality required
for the moral judgment. It is obtained by picking out one
interest of one party and universalising it. Whereas genuine
impartiality requires equal concern for all interests, those of
the victim as well as those of the would-be avenger. The
mistake is the same as that made by Mr. Spencer in the use
of his formula of freedom : Every man is free to do that
which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom
of any other man. As Mr. Spencer actually interprets this
principle except occasionally when caught in a corner this
means : I am at liberty to play the piano in my apartment
all night long provided I am willing to allow the other re-
sidents of the same building to do the same thing. Here
156 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP :
obviously there is a failure to weigh all the interests con-
cerned, which is concealed from view by our willingness to
share with others the favoured one. The same is true of the
demand for retribution. It has its source in a certain desire.
Its advocate declares himself willing to universalise this de-
sire. But in supposing that he has thereby transformed a
personal desire into a moral ideal he forgets that there are
other interests involved in the situation those of the victim,
for instance, which demand their chance to be brought to
the scales and to have their part in determining the
decision.
The only moral code in which the demand for retribution
could find a place for itself would be one built from the
ground up on the basis of a consistently impartial hatred for
all goods. And such a code, as we have said, never has
existed as far as we are aware, does not exist, and as far as
we can see never will exist under any conditions concerning
which it is worth our while to speculate.
I have introduced this discussion not for its own sake but
as a means of approach to the question left unanswered
above. Is there one code valid for the race ? The approba-
tion of retributive punishment is the most striking and im-
portant of the apparent exceptions. If it can be shown that
this as well as all the lesser variations from the principle
that that conduct is right which aims at the greatest attain-
able good of those affected if it can be shown that these
variations are all due to a failure to meet the conditions
which we suppose ourselves to have met in calling an action
right, then our question is answered in the affirmative.
What then is Hume's share in this result ? I reply : His
definition of right has supplied the instrument by which it
was gained. The method employed is that which he himself
employs here and there very incompletely no doubt to
distinguish between valid and invalid judgments. Finally
the conclusion reached is that which Hume himself accepts
and argues for with a great deal of earnestness.
Since he himself, however, in his official arguments, so to
speak, in behalf of universality does not use the method above
presented, it may not be superfluous to examine the grounds
upon which he does rest his doctrine of universality. He
discusses the subject in two places.
In the Enquiry he affirms that regard for others (" human-
ity ") is either universal in the race or is universal in all those
who have not destroyed it by a career of crime. Ignoring
the demands of malevolence and treating, as he usually does,
morality as a matter of the service of others, he thence con-
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOEY AND ITS CRITICS. 157
eludes to the existence of a code which is valid either for all
or for practically all the members of the race. 1
In the essay entitled " A Dialogue " he reaches substantially
the same conclusion in a different manner. Here the diversi-
ties of the moral judgment are reduced to two classes, as
follows : " Sometimes men differ in their judgment about the
usefulness of any habit or action : Sometimes also the peculiar
circumstances of things render one moral quality more useful
than others, and give it a peculiar preference". 2 Confining
our attention to the first which will supply the principle for
dealing with the second, it is easy to show that the whole
argument is from Hume's own point of view an ignoratio
elenchi. The differences in judgment about the usefulness of
any habit or action are differences in what Hutcheson, reviv-
ing a scholastic distinction, calls material rightness. Some
moralists seem to scorn this distinction as a trivial one. It
is precisely the reverse. Every voluntary act involves (1) a
view of the situation in which one is about to act, and (2) a
purpose, or if you prefer, an intention to bring about a certain
state of things. Now on Hume's own view an error in (1)
is not an error in moral judgment ; it is an error of the
intellect (whether of the individual or of his time) committed
in the attempt to examine the facts of the situation. Most
of us would agree, for example, that it is an error to suppose
that the negro is on the whole better off, in any reasonable
sense of that term, under a white master than as a free man ;
we shall be equally ready to agree that it is an error to think
of eternal salvation as depending upon the acceptance or
rejection of this or that theological dogma. From this point
of view the holding of slaves and the burning of heretics are
materially wrong ; i.e., they are things which cannot be done
by a man controlled by a moral purpose who sees the situation
as it really is. Formal rightness, on the other hand, has to
do with the purpose as such. The question of formal right-
ness always is, in essence, the following : Assuming the
interest involved in the situation to be such and such, which
of the conflicting interests or sets of interests has the superior
claim upon the will ? According to any system of ethics
which regards the moral judgment as a judgment upon pur-
poses it is mistaken answers to this question that alone con-
stitute mistakes in moral judgment. This is precisely Hume's
view. Therefore a discussion of variations in judgments of
material rightness is entirely irrelevant to the moral problem
*Sec. ix., pt. i. ; G. ii., 247-248. ; S.-B. 271-272.
2 Essays, G. ii., 299; S.-B. 336.
158 FRANK CHAPMAN SHAEP :
which he supposes himself to be treating in the Dialogue.
The consequences of this singular lapse were most unfor-
tunate. This essay is Hume's one systematic discussion of
the nature, extent, and causes of the variations in moral
judgments. As a result of getting on the wrong track in this
place he never faced these problems in their entirety, and
he thus failed to formulate a real solution of them.
Hume's contributions to the problem of universality in
ethics, as we now see, were two in number. He asserted the
existence of a code which though based upon " the particular
structure and fabric of the mind " is in virtue of the funda-
mental unity of that structure valid for the race. What is
far more important he discovered a cause of variations in
moral judgments which has a tremendous range ; a cause so
extensive in its operations that it challenges the moralist to
show the necessity of introducing any others ; a cause which
if it turns out to be the sole cause of the failure to attain
unity of moral ideals will enable us to assert the possibility
of formulating a single code valid in its principles for all
mankind.
THE ELEMENT OF TRUTH IN THE DOCTRINE OF
OBJECTIVITY.
We are now in a position to estimate the force of what
may perhaps be regarded as the central objection which
rationalistic ethics has urged against Hume and the entire
school of which he is a member.
Reid in his work, On the Active Poioers, writes as follows :
" Suppose that, in a case well known to both, my friend says
Such a man did well and worthily, his conduct is highly
approvable. This speech, according to all rules of interpreta-
tion, expresses my friend's judgment of the man's conduct.
This judgment may be true or false, and I may agree in
opinion with him, or I may dissent from him without offence,
as we may differ in other matters of judgment.
" Suppose, again, that, in relation to the same case, my
friend says: The man's conduct gave me a very agreeable
feeling.
" This speech, if approbation be nothing but an agreeable
feeling, must have the very same meaning as the first, and
express neither more nor less. But this cannot be, for two
reasons :
"First, Because there is no rule in grammar or rhetoric,
nor any usage in language, by which these two speeches can
be construed so as to have the same meaning. The first
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOKY AND ITS CRITICS, 159
expresses plainly an opinion or judgment of the conduct of
the man, but says nothing of the speaker. The second only
testifies a fact concerning the speaker to wit, that he had
such a feeling.
" Another reason why these two speeches cannot mean the
same thing is that the first may be contradicted without any
ground of offence, such contradiction being only a difference
of opinion, which, to a reasonable man, gives no offence.
But the second speech cannot be contradicted without an
affront ; for, as every man must know his own feelings, to
deny that a man had a feeling which he affirms he had, is to
charge him with falsehood. " l
This contention could have been accepted by Hume as
essentially sound. The only objection he need have urged
against it is the supposition that it applies as a criticism of
his system. Right, he teaches, does represent something
more than the chance feelings of the passing moment. It
means that the action will give a feeling of satisfaction to one
who evaluates impartially all the interests affected. To say
this is obviously to make no affirmation whatever about my
own feelings as they are in the moment of judging, when
they may be dulled by pre-occupation with other affairs,
warped by personal prejudices, antagonisms, or emotional
stresses, or dimmed by a dull imagination or lack of
experience in that particular field of life. However remote
from each other the starting points of the two theories may
be, and however widely their farther courses may diverge,
rationalism can pick no quarrel with a system such as Hume's
on this issue. On the contrary Hume could well afford to
admit that rationalism has performed a great service to
ethical inquiry by insisting, in season and out, upon this
central fact of the moral experience.
MORALITY AS FEAR OF PUBLIC OPINION.
Before leaving this part of the subject I must call attention
to one more misunderstanding with regard to Hume's theory
of the moral judgment. In his Introduction to Hume, Green
writes : " The pleasure of moral sentiment, as Hume thinks of
it, is essentially a pleasure experienced by a spectator of the
act who is other than the doer of it". 2 The basis for this
supposition will be found in the words which immediately
follow those just quoted: "If the doer and spectator were
1 Essay v., ch. vii., Sir William Hamilton's edition (1863), p. 673.
2 P. 367. Introduction ii., sec. 61. Cf. Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 5
for another statement of the same view.
160 FRANK CHAPMAN SHAEP I
regarded as one person, there would be no meaning in the
rule that the tendency to produce pleasure, which excites the
sentiment of approbation, must be a tendency to produce it
to the doer himself or others, as distinct from the spectator
himself". This argument involves the assumption that a
person cannot look at an act or a situation from two points
of view. One hardly knows whether to take an argument of
this kind seriously. If we must, let us test it by an examina-
tion of the following commonplace illustration. A gives
money to a worthy person, B, to relieve the latter's necessities.
According to Hume, A's fundamental motive must have
been if the act is to be counted a thoroughly moral one a
desire to give pleasure to B (or to relieve him from pain).
The pleasure which he here desires to produce in B is
obviously a pleasure distinct from that produced in the
spectator of the deed. The latter, looking impartially at
once at A's resources and B's needs, feels the satisfaction of
a benevolent man in the act. What is there to prevent A
from reacting in the same way ? Can he not feel a generous
satisfaction at his conduct when viewed from this standpoint,
a satisfaction the same in kind and source as that of the
spectator? If he does he is playing the role of agent and
spectator at the same time. Is there anything in the logic
of Hume's theory to make this impossible ? Nothing whatever.
Is there anything in his language to show that he regarded
it as impossible ? Far from it : Hume constantly assumes
that the agent may play the spectator. The fundamentals
of his system are not merely not incompatible with this
position, they demand it.
Suppose we occupy ourselves for a moment by combining
Green's statement above with his other statement about the
incompatibility of altruism with a sensationalistic psychology.
This would mean, translating it into the terms of the just
used illustration : A could not merely feel no approbation of
himself for helping B, he could not even form the idea of B's
needs as something demanding his assistance. What then
is left to serve as motive for the action ? Green's answer is :
Nothing but the desire to stand well with the spectator.
" Understood as [Hume] himself understood his doctrine it is
only ' respectability ' the temper of the man who ' naturally/
ie., without definite expectation of ulterior gain, seeks to stand
well with his neighbours that it will explain." l Our reply
to this assertion is that the sensationalistic psychology of
Hume will explain nothing whatever beyond the range of
1 Essay v., ch. vii., p. 370 ; sec. 64.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEOEY AND ITS CE1TICS. 161
motive possible to Principal Lloyd Morgan's chicks ; and
that they are as incapable of the aspiration for respectability
as they are of the enthusiasm of humanity. If we consider
what results would flow from the application of Green's
principles of exegesis to the interpretation of Hume's History
uf England, or let us say, to Mill On the Subjection of Women,
we shall see just how much they are worth. Their worth
being precisely zero we are free to consult Hume himself.
What does he say ? " Our regard to a character with others
seems to arise only from a care of preserving a character
with ourselves; and in order to attain this end, we find it
necessary to prop our tottering judgment on the correspondent
approbation of mankind." 1 This statement is made not
merely once, but over and over again. It may seem somewhat
exaggerated to some of us, as if Hume, in the endeavour to
walk straight, were leaning backwards. Let that be as it will.
What alone concerns us here is the fact that starting with
those premises of Hume's ethical theory which it is alone
profitable to consider, there is nothing in them or any legiti-
mate deduction from them which can properly be urged in
criticism of the view that the desire to stand well with one's
neighbour is a mere derivative from the desire to stand well
with one's self. The attempt therefore to manoeuvre Hume
into a position where he can find room in his ethical system
only for the fear of public opinion must be adjudged a failure.
EEASON IN THE MOKAL JUDGMENT.
Having completed our account of Hume's theory of the
moral judgment we are prepared to inquire what role is
assigned to reason in the formation of the moral judgment. 2
The word reason has a considerable number of meanings
which it is necessary to distinguish :
(1) By reason may be meant the power of intuiting
necessary truths. If these truths are thought of as a special
set of judgemnts, applicable to a definite field, as the axioms
of geometry are held to apply to space, then, as we know,
Hume denies the existence of such axioms.
(2) If, on the other hand, reason be defined as the power
of apprehending those necessary truths upon which thought
of every kind depends, specifically the law of contradiction,
then it can be shown that although Hume himself does not
specifically mention the fact in so many words, the logic of
1 Enquiry, sec. ix., pt. i. ; G. ii., 251 ; S.-B. 276.
a Certain aspects of this subject are discussed in MIND, N.S., vol. xiv. r
by Norman Smith in a paper entitled The Naturalism of Hume.
11
162 FBANK CHAPMAN SHARP:
his theory makes it necessary to assign to this law an im-
portant part in the determination of the structure of the
moral standard. The principle of contradiction can of course
play no such rdle in Hume's system as in Kant's. It can
appear only in the form of the principle of consistency.
Some modern rationalists who try to lean on Kant as far as
possible do not appear to see the difference, but it is in reality
clear and important. To accept contradictions is to believe
differently about the same, while to judge or to act incon-
sistently is to feel or to act differently about the same.
Consistency, in other words, is nothing more or less than
persistency persistency in the use of a principle of appro-
bation or of action. 1 Consistency in judgment is requisite
wherever there is a principle at the foundation of the judg-
ment. The principle upon which the moral judgment is
based in Hume's system may be formulated as that of equal
concern for equal interests. To say that this must be em-
ployed consistently is to say that this feature of the moral
judgment is of its essence, so that failure to conform marks
the judgment as invalid.
(3) Again, if reason be defined as the power of conceptual
thought, then most emphatically Hume regards it as playing
a large role in the moral judgment. Not merely, as he
asserts in a formal statement, does reason in this sense
apprise us of the existence of the actions which arouse appro-
bation and disapprobation ; it lies in the very nature of the
moral emotions conceived of as satisfaction and dissatisfac-
tion at conduct or character that they should be aroused by
ideas. We may assert with confidence that no moralist has
ever thought of denying this fact. Everybody knows that,
in normal adult life, emotions are aroused only by ideas or
rather by judgments (in the logical sense of the term).
It is thus clear that the formation of a moral judgment is
something very different from the operation of a " sense,"
whether it be called internal or anything else. The name
"moral sense" is most misleading as a representation of
anything that Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, or Hume ever thought
of teaching. The members of this school whether they
used the term little or much were perfectly clear about the
facts. It is only their critics that have allowed themselves
to get muddled. Perhaps one reason for their mistakes may
be found in some words of Viscount Bryce : " There are
1 Obviously this latter principle must be something else than the principle
of consistency. In view of their failure to see this fact it is not surprising
that the Kantians of every tribe have been reduced to pitiable straits in
the attempt to find a content for the moral ideal.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 163
always people ready to assume that things are what they are
called, because it is much easier to deal with names than to
examine facts ".
(4) The rationalism that finds its clearest Eighteenth Cen-
tury expression in the writings of Price asserts that reason (or
the understanding, as Price calls it) contributes a new con-
ception to ethics, the unanalysable, a priori, idea of right.
It need hardly be said that Hume does not share this view ;
but it may not be superfluous to point out that his own
position is based not upon an appeal to sensationalistic first
principles, but upon the possibility of analysing the term. If
we can define right conduct as that which has a tendency to
arouse in an impartial observer a feeling of satisfaction, we
can see that, as the conception arises in the course of in-
dividual or racial development, its appearance in the arena of
life means not the emergence of a specifically new conception
dropping in upon the mind from a world outside of experi-
ence, but rather a new organisation of pre-existing concep-
tions, each of which has its roots in experience.
Because Hume took this position he was at liberty to
repudiate another favourite, if not necessary, feature of all
theories of ethical rationalism. This is the view according
to which certain ideas, solely by their own power, so to
speak, are capable of arousing feeling, so that you could pre-
dict a priori of any rational being that having the idea he
must have the emotion or desire. Hume denies this in the
words: ''Reason alone can never be a motive to any action
of the will". 1 The rationalistic doctrine, as is well known,
caused Kant a great deal of worry. Its clearest statement
and the best argument in its favour is found, however as in
many other instances not in Kant, but in Price. 2
Price having demonstrated to his own satisfaction that
right is an unanalysable idea having its source purely in the
understanding, and that the insight that right, as predicate,
belongs to a certain action or class of actions is due to the
workings of this same faculty, faces the question : What if
there be beings who know what is right, but, in its presence,
are as indifferent as are the stones at our feet ? Price meets
every difficulty of this kind by boldly asserting that " excite-
ment belongs to the very ideas of moral right and wrong, and
is essentially inseparable from the apprehension of them. . . .
When we are conscious that the action is fit to be done or
1 Treatise, bk. ii., pt. Hi., sec. iii., ; G. ii., 193; S.-B. 413.
2 Price's Review was published some years after Hume had written the
Enquiry. Nevertheless, it supplies the best possible foil for the anti-
thetical position of Hume.
164 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP:
ought to be done it is not conceivable that we can remain
uninfluenced or want a motive to action." l The same
assertion is made with regard to the idea of the good of self r
of the good of others, and of truth. According to Hume, on
the other hand, the power of responding to ideas by motives
has its source in the "particular structure and fabric of the
mind," which might conceivably have been different. "'Tis
not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole
world to the scratching of my finger. 'Tis not contrary to
reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least
uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me." -
In maintaining that " 'tis not contrary to reason " he means
to assert, among other things, that the idea, though it is the
stimulus of the dynamic element in the desire, lies outside of
this element, as the match lies outside of the gunpowder ;
so that it is possible in the abstract to have the idea without
a trace of the corresponding emotional or volitional reaction.
That Hume's analysis of the moral experience does not com-
mit him to any such bold assertions as his opponents have
been forced into making in connexion with this subject is
certainly one of his titles to the attention of judicious minds.
THE AUTHORITY OF THE MORAL JUDGMENT.
When men talk about the place of reason in morality they
are often in reality thinking about its "reasonableness".
But no one can discuss this question without having in mind
the claims of possible competitors. Of these the most clam-
orous is the welfare of the ego. Its claims to the last word
were championed by the moralists not merely of the dark
ages when egoistic hedonism was a power in the land, but of
the enlightenment of the latter part of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury under the sway of what for want of a better name we
may call the Green-Caird school. We have already seen 3
how Hume would handle the pretensions of egoism to be the
judge of last resort in matters of reasonableness. We need
give no more attention, therefore, to this aspect of the case.
The inquiry into the reasonableness of morality, however,
sometimes has a different meaning from the question : What
is there in it for me ? The inquirer may have in mind its
ability to stand the test of reflective criticism from any point
1 Op. ctt. t p. 310 ; cf. p. 89 if.
2 Treatise, uk. ii., pt. iii., sec. iii. ; G. ii., 195 ; S.-B. 416.
3 MIND, N.S., vol. xxx.,
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 16.5
of view whatever. 1 Turning away, then, from the insistencies
of egoism the problem for a theory such as Hume's can only
be formulated as follows : " Is there anything in moral action
which appeals to the desires which I find possess the deepest
significance when I sit down and scrutinise them in a cool
hour?"
The experiences that force this question upon us are far
from infrequent. Who of us has not many times allowed
himself to be determined in his actions by feelings which, for
one reason or another, he has reprobated even in the moment
of obeying ? When Paul du Chaillu was exploring in West
Africa his party ran out of provisions and were without food
for several days. When they were reduced almost to the
extremity his men killed a huge snake and devoured it with
great relish. But du Chaillu was unable to bring himself to
touch it though he cursed himself all the time for his squeam-
ishness. This is a fair illustration of the distinction which
Butler designates as the distinction between power and
authority, even if it is not of the sort that he had specifically
in mind.
Butler's solution of the problem is well known. It consists
in asserting that the moral judgment carries within itself an
element or factor which is directly apprehended as authorita-
tive. Hume's solution is nowhere stated in so many words
in his published works. The one specific reference to it
which is preserved to us is found in a letter to Hutcheson
relating to the latter's Compendium : " You seem here to em-
brace Doctor Butler's opinion in his Sermons on Human
Nature that our moral sense has an authority distinct from
its force and durableness ; and that because we always think
it ought to prevail. But this is nothing but an instinct or
1 In the common use of the term, " reasonable " means f ' capable of stand-
ing the test of reflective examination," or, "approved when all relevant
facts have been brought into consideration " ; where " relevant facts " mean
those which are capable of influencing in any way the decision. The
English and French habit of employing this particular term to represent
this meaning may have lured some students of ethics into the rationalistic
fold ; but it can have been only those who could not distinguish a pun
from an argument. This will be evident if we examine a typical state-
ment like that of Sidgwick (History of Ethics, p. 215.): "It is only
another way of putting Hume's doctrine that reason is not concerned with
the ends of action to say that the mere existence of a moral sentiment is
in itself no reason for obeying it". This sounds rather plausible till it is
translated into German, where reason as first used would become
"Vernunft," and at the end of the sentence would become "Grund".
Thereupon the reader awakes to the fact that he was being treated to a
piece of linguistic legerdemain.
166 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP .
principle which approves of itself upon reflexion and that is
common to all of them. " l
This solution of the problem of authority is patently in-
complete and in so far unsatisfactory. It is possible to work
out something better, however, with materials supplied by
Hume, and on the basis of the fundamental principle of his
system, the principle, namely, that morality is a matter of
values and that value has its source in the affective side of
our nature. We distinguish between the relative value of
different desires and feelings, according to Hume, in propor-
tion to their force, durableness, and number. Where choice
is necessary, cool, i.e., impartial reflexion always desires the
greater value. When such a feeling as the antipathy to
snake meat appears we may obey it because it is at the
moment a more powerful impulse than that which can be
aroused by a calm estimate of values. Nevertheless, even
at the time we may know we are sacrificing the greater
value for the less, and wish we could, by a word of command,
annihilate the recalcitrant feeling. An impulse obeyed, but in
the very act of obedience wished out of existence, is precisely
one that may be said to have power but not authority. And
the distinction is accordingly perfectly explainable from
Hume's premises, and by a method which he adumbrates.
Authority is thus the voice of our permanent self (which in
no normal human being is the equivalent of the merely egoistic
self) as against the temporary self, a voice which we may
refuse to obey at the moment, but which in that very moment
we know we shall ever afterwards wish we had obeyed, and
which, therefore, in the act of disobedience we wish we could
either destroy or control.
THE USEFUL CHARACTER AND THE USEFUL BUILDING.
Hitherto we have been dealing with the valuation of char-
acter as a means to an end, its utilitarian or extrinsic value.
But an ethical system which recognised no other element of
worth in character than this would be open to the objection
first urged by Adam Smith in the following words: "It
seems impossible that the approbation of virtue should be a
sentiment of the same kind with that by which we approve
of a convenient and well-contrived building; or that we
1 Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. i., p. 149.
Cf. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, pt. iii., ch. iv. (Bohn
edition, p. 222). "The passions ... as Father Malebranche says, all
justify themselves, and seem reasonable and proportioned to their objects
as long as we continue to feel them."
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 167
should have no other reason for praising a man than that for
which we commend a chest of drawers ".* Hume himself
raised this objection, but answered it in a very vague and
inconclusive manner. In the Treatise he pronounces these
variations in our feelings "very inexplicable" ; 2 in the En-
quiry he says : " There are a numerous set of passions and
sentiments, of which thinking rational beings are, by the
original constitution of nature, the only proper object : And
though the very same qualities be transferred to an insensible,
inanimate being, they will not excite the same sentiments ". 8
This is much the same as the statement of the Treatise, only
in more words. As a matter of fact, all this time Hume was
holding in his hands precisely the cards he needed, but,
curiously enough, he failed to play them. However, he has
laid them out for us, and if we do not use them the fault
is our own.
The direction in which a solution is to be sought seems
sufficiently clear. It is not to turn our back upon all that
has been already accomplished. It is rather to find additional
modes of value in character which do not apply to material
objects, and which, therefore, will account for the differences
under consideration.
Such a mode of valuation may at first sight seem to be
given in Hume's frequent references to beauty of character.
The immediate source of this language is doubtless Shaftes-
bury, who, in turn, borrows it from the Greeks. For
Shaftesbury, moral beauty is due to " harmony " between the
egoistic and altruistic elements of our nature. But Hume
attempts to explain the aesthetic element in character in a
very different way. To say that an inanimate object, as a
skilfully designed machine or a well cultivated field, appears
beautiful is, according to him, to say that the view of it
affords the spectator a sympathetic delight in the promise
which it holds out of happiness in the form of work done or
food supplied. Beauty of character has its source in the
same kind of qualities, and touches the same springs in
human nature. 4 Obviously, then, it cannot be regarded as a
new element over and above utility ; it is rather another name
for the same thing. Accordingly, whatever may be thought
1 Theory of Moral Sentiments, pt. iv. , ch. ii. ; Bohn edition, p. 271.
2 Bk. iii., pt. Hi., sec. v. ; G. ii., 371 ; S.-B. 617.
3 Sec. v., pt. i., first note : G. ii., 202 ; S.-B. 213.
4 Treatise, bk. iii., pt. iii., sec. i. ; G. ii., 336; S.-B. 576. Enquiry,
sec. v., first paragraph, and in many other parts of the essay. It may be
worth noting that this theory of beauty was suggested by Shaftesbury.
See Characteristics, vol. iii., p. 180 (5th edition). It does not represent,
however, his dominant view.
168 FBANK CHAPMAN SHARP:
of Shaftesbury's contributions to the aesthetics of morals,
Hume evidently can be of no help to us in this direction.
The desired new element however is found in another
feature of the good character. All the greater manifestations
of will power arouse, or tend to arouse, an emotion which is
akin to or identical with that of the sublime. Hume
recognises this aspect of character, calling it the heroic.
Unfortunately however his account of it is so manifestly
artificial as to obscure and almost destroy the effects of the
recognition. In the Treatise he writes : " Whatever we call
heroic virtue, and admire under the character of goodness
and elevation of mind, is either nothing but a steady and
well establish'd pride and self esteem, or partakes largely
of that passion. . . . The merit [moral value] of pride or
self esteem is deriv'd from two circumstances, viz., its utility
and its agreeableness to ourselves [he means, the possessor] ;
by which it capacitates us for business, and, at the same time,
gives us an immediate satisfaction." 1
The inadequacy of this account is only too obvious. Pride
has its source in the consciousness of the possession of that
which is capable of evoking admiration. Accordingly there
must be such a thing as a capacity for admiration before there
can be pride in possession. Admiration for the heroic, ac-
cordingly, cannot be reduced to the satisfaction of knowing
that I possess qualities which, if I had the capacity for
admiring them, I should rejoice to possess. Hume would
have done better to treat the emotion of the sublime as an
ultimate constituent of the mind. He was of course endeav-
ouring to simplify. But there is nothing in his system
requiring him to simplify this emotion out of existence, any
more than the emotion of anger, fear, love, or hate. In re-
writing the above-quoted passage for the Enquiry he seems
to have been struck by its artificiality. But in his lengthier
and far better treatment of the subject he has not entirely
freed himself from the trammels of the earlier presentation.
However, the fact remains that Hume has specifically noted
the direct admiration which goes out to power of will as such,
an admiration which, while it is somewhat akin to that which
is evoked by a few material objects, such as a mountain peak,
or a majestic cathedral, separates as by a great gulf our
feelings for the overwhelming majority of inanimate objects
from our enthusiasm for moral heroism.
There is still another respect in which our attitude towards
1 Treatise, bk. iii., pt. ii., sec. ii. ; G. ii., 356; S.-B. 599-600.^ The
corresponding passage in the Etiquiry is in sec. vii. See G. ii., 232 ff. ;
S.-B. 252 ff.
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 169
a good man differs from that towards a well-contrived house.
A man may arouse emotions of gratitude and resentment
both by what he does in relation to us personally and by his
treatment of others; broadly speaking with exceptions
which from the point of view of theory are of undoubted im-
portance for an adult civilised person, a house does not.
Unfortunately Hume has not dealt with the subject of
resentment and gratitude or thankfulness except in a very
unsystematic and confused way. He recognises their exist-
ence of course, and the fact that they play a role in the moral
judgment. Indeed at times he actually identifies the feelings
at the basis of the moral judgment with resentment and
gratitude, thus making the same mistake as Westermarck
to-day, who begins his description of the moral judgment
with the second story. 1 But confused and perhaps even
conflicting as some of Hume's statements are on this point,
the requirements of his system are unmistakable. Starting,
as he does, from the position that the original source of the
moral judgment is feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction
having their source in the desire for good, he is bound to
recognise "thankfulness" and resentment as consequences
of these feelings.
"Resentment," says Westermarck, "is an aggressive atti-
tude of mind towards a cause of pain." Originally it tends
to arise indifferently towards material objects and conscious
beings, and in the latter towards intellectual, temperamental,
and moral imperfections alike. What it really craves, as
Adam Smith clearly shows, is to make the source of pain
sorry for his action. Hence when an adult jerks or swears
at a tangled fishline he is apt to be ashamed of his folly
because he is attempting to satisfy a desire which he knows
to be incapable of realisation. Hence the ordinary man
learns to control himself on such occasions more or less
completely and in proportion as he refuses the emotion its
expression, it tends to die out. In the case of intellectual and
temperamental defects the impulse can of course reach its
goal. But when, for example, we who are teachers have let
ourselves loose at the stupidity of a thoroughly well inten-
tioned pupil we have, when we have later come to ourselves,
felt regret at pain caused which could not be compensated by
resultant good. Our victim was helpless and could only
suffer. There is one case and only one in which the impulse
to express our resentment can be justified in the eyes of a
1 Enquiry, sec. v., pt. ii. ; G. ii., 207 (also 208, 209, in spots) ; S.-B. from
219. Treatise, B. iii., pt. iii., sec. v. ; G. ii., 368 ; S.-B. 614.
170 FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP :
humane man, namely where the occasion is a moral delin-
quency. For there the expression of our feelings is capable
of producing a change in the outer action and oftentimes in
the inner spirit. Here again the law of atrophy holds, and
the more clear headed and more sympathetic ultimately come
to feel little or no resentment except as a reaction to wrongs
committed.
What is true of resentment is true, mutatis mutandis, of
gratitude or thankfulness. It seeks to make the benefactor
rejoice because of his benefaction. In half a dozen ways
which anyone sufficiently interested can easily work out
for himself, it arouses impulses which can only be satisfied
by the response of mind to mind, and for reasons readily
conceived it concentrates itself largely never completely
on traits of character. Admiration of beauty (in Shaftesbury's
meaning and other allied senses) and of strength, fused with
thankfulness for moral and extra-moral traits of mind, are
either love or the most important ingredient of love. Thus
we see how, without going beyond the confines of Hume^s
general theory of morals, we can account for the love and
the hatred of the good or bad character respectively as a
phenomenon which has no real parallel in our attitude
towards useful material objects.
Thus far we have defended Hume by means of his own
ideas. But there is another factor which he himself does not
mention and which is not referred to by any of his pre-
decessors, but which may be worth a moment's attention in
the interest of a complete view of our problem.
There is a service which an unselfish spirit can perform for
us which no material object of any kind can possibly supply
that of taking an interest in our welfare, of entering into our
life. We crave this for its own sake, entirely apart from any
ulterior advantages which we may calculate to obtain from
it. It is for this reason that we value the expressions of
kindness and gratitude in those persons whose gifts or services
are only a source of embarrassment because we can neither
use nor refuse them. So strongly do we feel in this matter
that when a total stranger in a crowded street car accidentally
treads on our toes we wish him to express his regret, though
we never expect to see him again. This valuation of the
unselfish character is not, strictly speaking, a moral valuation,
because it has its source in a personal rather than an im-
personal point of view. But it is a valuation of morality just
in so far as morality involves unselfishness.
Our feelings of warmth for those who care for a cause in
which we are interested represent but another application of
HUME'S ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS CRITICS. 171
the same principle. The cause in question need have no
moral flavour whatever, as the football interests of our
university. But it will of course be deep in proportion as the
common interests go down to the roots of life. Veterans
who have fought in the same war in defence of the same
country know well what these feelings are. The good man
has something of the same feelings for every other good man
who is engaged in the same warfare against the evils which
afflict humanity.
The adequate answer to Adam Smith is thus to be found
in the recognition of the intrinsic value of character as en-
titled to a place by the side of the extrinsic or utilitarian
value, and in an analysis of the phenomena of " thankfulness "
and resentment which shows why they attain their complete
development (for the most part) only when their object is
human character.
III. THE ETHICAL AND ESTHETIC IMPLICA-
TIONS OF REALISM.
BY W. P. MONTAGUE AND H. H. PARKHURST.
METAPHYSICAL theories are usually defended on the ground
that they are true ; and even when the advocates of a theory
expatiate upon its ethical or aesthetic value, they do so
because they think thereby to establish its validity. This
indirect method of procedure is natural to all those who
share the comfortable assumption of the pragmatist or the
idealist that there is some sort of correlation between the
good and the real though even for such philosophers the
validity of their method presupposes the validity of the theory
which it is intended to establish. To the realist, however,
it seems neither natural nor justifiable to appeal to the
nobility of realism as evidence of its truth. For him, things
are what they are, regardless of their power to edify. This
may perhaps be one explanation of the fact that the multi-
tudes of efforts made by realists in recent years to explain
and defend their theory have included little concerning the
ethical and aesthetic implications of realism. It is the ques-
tion of these emotional implications of realism, considered on
their own account and not as an indirect substantiation of
the doctrine, which is the subject of the present paper.
By realism we mean the epistemological doctrine that noth-
ing, whether abstract or concrete, whether real or unreal, about
which it is possible to discourse, depends for its character or its
status upon the mere fact that it is known. In other words,
that cognition is always selective and never creative of its ob-
jects. The older forms of the realistic doctrine, such as the
dualistic realism of Descartes, and the common-sense realism
of the Scottish school, were contented to insist upon an objec-
tive status, independent of being known, for the concrete world
of existence, and tacitly regarded the realm of abstract forms
and universals as a creation of the mind. The realist of the
present day assimilates to the common-sense existential realism
of modern philosophy the profound subsistential realism of
Plato. He would emancipate from their supposed depen-
ETHICAL AND ESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF EEALISM. 173'
dence upon cognition not only the things of earth and heaven
but the totality of laws and forms all qualities and all rela-
tions. More than this. The new realist has discovered that
it is impossible to confer independence upon the real and the
true without at the same time emancipating the shadow
correlates of these the false and the unreal. For every true
proposition has a contradictory which is false ; and if the
truth of the true proposition depends upon its subject-matter
rather than upon the thinking of it, then, by the same token,
the falsity of the false proposition depends equally upon its
subject-matter rather than upon the attitudes of belief or
disbelief which a spectator may entertain towards it. Round
squares and mermaids are not unreal because sane people
disbelieve in them ; they are sanely disbelieved in because
they are unreal. 1
It should be noted that realism as thus denned is a purely
epistemological doctrine, and as such is not committed to
any of the various metaphysical theories as to the nature
either of objects or of consciousness. The objects may be
one or many, material, spiritual, or both. Consciousness
may be the property of a soul, of a transcendental ego, or
even a mere form of relation between material things. The
essential point is that cognition, irrespective of its intrinsic
nature, discovers and does not create the universe of which it
is a part. Again, it is necessary t<^ bear in mind that the
realist, in holding that the function of cognition is discovery,,
is not thereby condemning consciousness to an otiose and
epiphenomenal role. It is of the very nature of discovery to
bring about profound alterations in the thing discovered.
The lantern that a man carries does not create the obstacles
in his path. It reveals them, but in revealing them as they
are it enables the man to remove them, and to create new
things in their place. The pragmatist has no monopoly of
the doctrine that intelligence is practically efficient. Realists
are quite in agreement with him, but they hold that the only
direct effects of consciousness are upon the organism. With-
out itself altering the objects known, consciousness enables
its possessor to alter them. If objects were changed by
the very act of knowing them they could hardly be so effec-
tively changed by action based upon that knowledge. Indeed,
under such circumstances, action itself, as distinguished from
cognition, would be altogether superfluous.
1 Thus in a sense the term realism is somewhat inadequate for the theory
which it denotes. There is need for a more appropriate name, such as
objectivism, for the doctrine that the status of the unreal and the false, no
less than that of the real and the true, is independent of whether or not
they are apprehended.
174 W. P. MONTAGUE AND H. H. PABKHUBST :
Now, while this is true of all action, we propose to confine
our discussion to the realistic implications of the types of
action involved in the pursuit of the ethical and aesthetic
ideals.
I.
From the standpoint of one who seeks to create beauty in
the world of things or goodness in the realm of conduct, the
primary condition of effective action is an unflinching re-
cognition of the realities of the situation in which this crea-
tion is to be accomplished. If the sculptor intends to change
a block of marble into a statue of a god, he must recognise
the independent objectivity of the marble and of the laws by
which he is to chisel it. Similarly, the moral reformer who
would change a community that is impoverished into one
that is prosperous must recognise the independent objectivity
of the poverty which he is to change, and of the economic
laws by which he is to make the change. As a matter of
fact, the creative artist and the constructive reformer are
found to possess a more than ordinary degree of appreciation
of the independent reality of the physical world with its
blended worth and imperfection. The entire procedure of
the artist bears witness to his deeply-grounded belief that
ugliness and beauty alike are external to himself and to all
beholders. In his own view his significant task is that of
discovery. In combating ugliness he feels himself to be
combating no mere psychic state either of his own or of
another consciousness. In the same way when pursuing
beauty he has the sense of recognising something independent
both of himself and of his entire audience. As faithfully as
the scientist he scrutinises nature and man to determine
their inmost essence ; and though a dreamer and a harborer
of ceaseless fancies, it is not as a dream or a fancy that he
regards the cosmos. Of the objective reality of that c osmos
which is his study he is incorrigibly persuaded.
And similarly of the moral reformer. His two most in-
sidious foes are the sentimentalists who see the world as the} r
would have it rather than as it is, and the complacent
conservatives whose habituation to the evil in their environ-
ment prevents them from recognising its existence. Buddha
and Christ, Luther and Lincoln were actuated by a flamingly
vivid perception of the evil about them. Familiarity served
not to dull but to enhance this perception, and the vision of
what they wished to accomplish was never for a moment
confused with the ugly reality confronting them. They were
ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF EEALISM. 175
neither sentimentalists nor optimists, but realists, imbued
with a grim and poignant appreciation of actualities.
In those other cases in which the religious spirit has been
opposed to militant morality, the opposition has been due to
the religionist permitting his faith in the ultimate goodness
of the universe to blur his appreciation of the actual badness
of the world in which he is called upon to act. If God is
good, and if God creates all, then all must be somehow good.
And if, despite this, things still seem evil, it is not for us to
protest, but rather to rest secure in our faith that evil is not
real but only good in disguise. This anti-moral passivism to
which religious people are sometimes subject receives formula-
tion in technical philosophy in the theory of absolute idealism
according to which the realm of finite life, its sins and
tragedies, is labelled the world of Appearance a fragmentary
and distorted expression of an absolute Reality to whose
internal perfection the misery and discord in our experience
actually contribute in much the same way as the discords of
a Wagnerian opera contribute to the higher harmony of the
whole. The religious attempt to justify the ways of God to
man is in essence the same as the idealistic philosopher's
tendency to minimise actual evil by relegating it to the realm
of "Appearance". In both cases there is an anti-realistic
denial of the actuality of evil, and in both cases the intellectual
denial of evil engenders a practical indifference to its presence
and to the means proposed for removing it. In short, it is
only against real evil that it is worth while to contend. And,
conversely, all who have contended fruitfully against evil
have had a lively sense of its reality. Hence, while realism
does not bar the conception of a God or an Absolute, it does
bar all forms of those conceptions which involve excuses or
denials of the evil which our world contains.
Associated with the recognition of the reality of evil in
nature goes a wholesome interest in the laws of nature. It"!
is only by the use of natural law that nature's evils can be
ameliorated. And it is interesting to note that the greaiP
moral heroes who have preached the reality of evil have
also preached very definite methods for its removal ; while,
conversely, those anti-realists by whom evil is regarded as
good in disguise have usually been indifferent and incurious^
as to the laws of the material world. Magic and thauma-
turgy, prayers and incantations, are good enough devices to
cope with an evil which has but a shadow existence : and
they seem not inadequate to those for whom the laws of
nature are only laws of mind. The responsibilities of natural
176 W. P. MONTAGUE AND H. H. PABKHURST :
science need be assumed only by those for whom evil is one
of nature's realities.
So far we have been considering the necessity for a
recognition, by the artist and the reformer, of the existential
reality of the material world in which values are to be em-
bodied, and of the laws and conditions of that embodiment.
But there is an equal necessity for all creators to recognise
the subsistential reality of the ideals themselves of goodness
and beauty. For, irrespective of the definition of the aesthetic
and ethical, and irrespective also of the nature of the specific
ideal which is to be made real, the one who is striving for
its realisation must recognise that the validity of that for
which he strives is objective and in nowise dependent upon
his discovery of it. Even for a reformer who accepted
hedonism as true the essential objectivity of the realm of
values would be in nowise diminished. For if the happiness
of my neighbour is a good, it will be a good irrespective of
whether or not I recognise it as such. The realist concep-
tion of value implicit in the attitude of anyone who seeks
to create value, be he artist or moralist, is not necessarily of
something dissociated from conscious experience, but of some-
thing whose essence and nature is independent of the would-be
creator's awareness of it. The socialist who believes in the
desirability of the collectivist state may be mistaken in that
belief, but in order that it should inspire him to action he
must regard its worth as something intrinsic and independent.
From fnVirfdividual standpoint, belief in the value of a thing
is exactly like belief in its truth. In either case the belief
may be mistaken, but the assumption of its independent
A validity is a prerequisite of all action. The sculptor, the
architect, the painter, the musician, when they seek to em-
body in material form the as yet non-existent objects of their
imagination, are inspired to their efforts by their belief in the
more than imaginary beauty of those objects. If they sup-
posed for a moment that the worth of what they were to
create was merely subjective, and dependent upon or derived
from their own attitudes of approval, their motive for creation
would cease to be aesthetic and become merely hedonic and
selfish. In short, even from the hedonistic standpoint, beauty
and goodness are the permanent possibilities of enjoyment as
truth is the permanent possibility of apprehension. And as
permanent possibilities of apprehension have a nature and
structure that is quite independent of whether or not they
are actually perceived, so equally the permanent possibilities
of enjoyment have a nature and structure that is quite in-
dependent of whether they are realised. In neither case
ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF EEALISM. 177
does the status of possibility exhaust the nature of the essence
to which it pertains. 1
II.
And now that we have seen the extent to which the
realistic standpoint is presupposed by artist and moralist
with regard both to the world of existence and to that of
subsistent ideals, we proceed to discuss how the realist's
interpretation of the universe enhances its beauty and moral
dignity. In short, we wish now to show that realism, in
addition to being a prerequisite for the creation of values, is l
also a prerequisite for their appreciation ; that it is itself a
source of new values, both ethical and aesthetic.
Science reveals to us a universe in which there are no
evidences of beginning or end or spatial limit. The span of
each human life, though all too brief for the accomplishment
of chosen tasks, appears to him who lives it a not inconsider-
able duration. It is long enough to permit weary waitings-
and final defeat of cherished hopes and the passage of hours
that seem distended and slow beyond all power to estimate.
And yet the extent of even the most prolonged individual
existence is to the span of recorded history an almost negli-
gible quantity. In the eyes of man himself the magnitude
of that vastly greater temporal period of human history
causes his own little biography to shrivel to a point by com-
parison. But we know that, measured by the incalculable
standard of the entire racial history, the time comprehended
within the limits of recorded annals is but a moment in an
extended day. We are persuaded, though bereft of images
to convey the persuasion, that to measure, in turn, the entire
duration of human experience, incredibly prolonged though
1 Considered as permanent possibilities of enjoyment ethical and aesthetic
values differ in two respects.
(1) An aesthetic value is a possibility of immediate enjoyment, whereas
an ethical value is a possibility of mediate enjoyment. Rhythm and
symmetry are aesthetic values because the direct experience of them is
pleasant. Courage and kindness are ethical values, not because to con-
template them as such gives direct enjoyment, but because to practice them
produces results from which enjoyment is derived. Any enjoyment of
ethical ideals as such is not ethical but rather aesthetic.
(2) As the two types of value differ in the manner in which they produce
enjoyment, so also do they differ in the kind of subject-matter in which
respectively they are embodied. ^Esthetic values are embodied in sensory
material, such as tone, colour, form, and as such are directly perceptible,
whereas ethical values are embodied in rules of conduct and attitudes of
will which are to be apprehended only conceptually.
Due allowance being made for these differences, one might be justified in
saying that virtue is beauty of spirit, while beauty is virtue of matter.
12
178 W. P. MONTAGUE AND H. H. PAEKHUEST :
it be, against the larger dimensions of the tale of life from its
beginnings upon our planet, is to render the lesser unit once
again almost pitifully diminutive. But consider the incom-
mensurability between the period of moderate temperature,
adapted to life, upon earth, and the total duration of that
body as a physically distinct satellite of the sun. And
according to all evidences we are compelled to regard even
that last temporal immensity as but a passing interval against
a background of even more unimaginable phases. Compared
with the ampler chapters of cosmic evolution, the gestation,
birth and adolescence of our mighty solar system is but a
syllable a single pulse in a symphony for which temporal
limits may not be predicated.
If, as regards duration, the universe which constitutes the
subject-matter of science is thus staggering, its spatial ex-
tensity is no less so. There again we encounter a series of
magnitudes which may be arranged in a hierarchy. Begin-
ning once more with man, we find that his body is of dimen-
sions which, by comparison with certain orders of existence
at least, seem to himself of considerable dignity. But if, by
contrast with the microscopic, the cubic contents of a human
body bulk somewhat large, in what terms are we to describe
the magnitude of our earthly globe, measured by the same
standard ? But even the earth itself proves of little account
with regard to the space it occupies, when compared with
the proportions of the solar system. When the magnitude
to be envisaged transcends the limits of that already unim-
aginable immensity of the sun with its attendant satellites,
imagination is completely paralysed, and the mind is compelled
to resort to indirect means of naming and mapping those
extra-solar distances. Of the proportions of the milky way
and the yawning abyss of space beyond the uttermost stellar
system we can make no approach to comprehension. And
yet of such inhuman vastnesses does science tell ; of such kind
is the universe with which the intelligence of mortals grapples.
But the anti-realist, be he pragmatist or absolute idealist, is
set upon belittling this cosmos which he is privileged to
inhabit. He would take advantage of the intricacies of the
epistemological problem to reverse that process of increasing
scientific knowledge by which man has emancipated himself
from the thrall of his own vanity. Belief that the world
and all therein was made for man's behoof and that its events
are to be explained by their bearing upon his weal and woe,
that the sun and the stars are set in the sky as lanterns to
light his path that man, in short, is the centre about which
.all things revolve all such belief serves indeed to feed the
ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF KEALISM. 179
-vanity and soothe the fears of the race in its infancy. But
chastened by the austerities of physical science, we have
made some approach to a decent humility ; and the glories
of anthropocentricism are no longer more than the bells and
paper crown with which the fool was wont to play at royalty.
But no sooner has the plain man abdicated from the throne
constructed by his own vaingloriousness than philosophers
approach and tempt him in new and intricate speech to
resume his r61e of legislator for nature. We can learn of
things only through their often distorted impressions upon
our senses ; we can conceive the world only under conditions
by which it is related tc our minds ; and the newer anthro-
pocentricism bids us interpret the relativity and egocentric
limitations of our experience as a relativity and egocentric
dependence of the world which we experience. In the older
view man recognised that the world at least existed in-
dependently of his knowledge, even though the origin of its
existence and the character of its laws were motivated by
his needs. But the anthropocentric philosopher surpasses in
arrogance the old-time theologian ; for with his slogan, no
object without a subject, and his claim that the meaning and
existence of things are inseparable from the experience of
them, he reduces a whole vast cosmos to the status of a
mental construct. Our own experiences are, to be sure, the
world's ratio cognoscendi. The idealist would conclude that
they are therefore its ratio essendi. Whether, as pragmatist,
he teaches that reality changes with the changes of human
opinion, that there is no objective truth, but only as many
truths as there are beliefs, or whether, as absolute idealist, he
invents a transcendental or universal Self which functions
through each of our finite centres and thus sustains the world
in either case the anti-realist belittles the things of nature
by relegating them to a false and unnecessary dependence
upon experience, and denying them their ancient privilege
of existing in their own right irrespective of their status
as objects of any experience, finite or absolute.
If common-sense realism is outraged by the reduction of
the visible and existent universe in all its vast extent to mere
mental content, with a consequent belittlement in power and
magnitude, the new or Platonic realism of the present day is
still more outraged by the idealist's relegation to the status
of subjective dependence upon consciousness of the even
vaster realm of abstract subsistence. For the invisible region
of the subsistent comprehends the infinite totality of essences
and values of truth, beauty and goodness and the laws of
its structure possess a kind and degree of validity which, to the
180 W. P. MONTAGUE AND H. H. PARKHURST :
realist, far transcends the validity of the transitory and con-
tingent sequences and coexistences which obtain in the
world of the concretely existent. Plato, who was perhaps
the first clearly to proclaim the objective reality of abstract
forms and relations, was strongly influenced by Pythagorean-
ism, and it is natural that the clearest illustrations of the
nature of the subsistent should be afforded by the subject-
matter of mathematics. Consider the kind of reality to be
attributed to the properties and relations of numbers if those
relations and properties are regarded as in no way dependent
either upon the concrete objects by which they may be-
exemplified or upon the consciousness of the mathematicians-
who discovered them. To the realist it is clear that the
truth that 7 and 5 are prime numbers and that their sum
equals 12 would be totally unaffected by the annihilation of
all existing objects and all existing consciousness.
This realist faith that universal truths are independent of
the particular subject-matter in which they are exemplified
by no means conflicts with the realisation that we attain to-
a conceptual knowledge of the universal through a perceptual
knowledge of the particular. In the teaching of arithmetic
or geometry it is pedagogically necessary to use concrete
diagrams of particular shape and size which are experienced
at particular times and places. It is by attending to the
generic aspects of such diagrams that one comes to ap-
preciate the abstract and universal relations of number and
space. This initial psychological dependence of the universal
upon the particular prevents many from arriving at a clear
conception of the logical and ontological independence of
universals. In other words, the fact that the particular is
the ratio cognoscendi of the universal produces upon the
immature or philosophically confused the illusion that it is
also the ratio essendi. Just as the mind of the child in its
early development depends for its knowledge of universals
upon their concrete embodiment so do the minds of men in
the early stages of culture. In both cases alike we find the
same anti-realistic identification of the abstract and universal
with its particular manifestation. To one who is emancipated
from this confusion the realm of number and geometric
form appears in its abstract purity, freed from all limitations
of matter and place and from every vicissitude of temporal
change. It is because of this freedom from the bonds of
locus and date that not only numbers but the entire realm of
essences possess a richness and an immensity in comparison
with which even the infinities of the existent world are
dwarfed to insignificance. For our actual universe is but
ETHICAL AND ESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF EEALISM. 181
one from the limitless store of spatio-temporal systems ; any
given existent world is but a cross section of this absolute or
subsistent totality. For the Pythagorean, the domain of the
subsistent appears to have been restricted to number and
geometric form ; while in Plato's philosophy it received the
somewhat different limitations of high logical generality and
ethical and aesthetic value. Neo-Platonism was more con-
sistent in that it recognised that any individual, such as
Socrates or Caesar, possessed an eternal archetype. It is
perhaps only in the neo-realistic philosophy of to-day that the
domain of the subsistent has been seen to include every
character whatsoever, quantitative no less than qualitative,
specific no less than generic, valueless no less than valuable,
fragmentary no less than integrated. From this standpoint
we might be tempted to define the world of subsistence after
the manner of Leibnitz as the totality of possible or thinkable
objects. There would, however, be two drawbacks to this
seemingly simple definition. First, the term possibility
would have to be paradoxically broadened to include its
negative, the impossible, for the subsistent must include not
only such empirically impossible objects as centaurs and
mermaids, but also such logically or intrinsically impossible
objects as round squares. While, secondly, though any
subsistent may be termed thinkable or conceivable, yet it is
at least uncertain whether this relation to thought is intrinsic
to the nature of the subsistent.
What are the ethical and aesthetic implications of the
transcendental universe of subsistence as thus realistically con-
ceived ? At first sight it might seem that we had upon our
hands a vast incoherent heterogeneity of miscellaneous
essences promiscuously related. And the fact that this wild
totality was regarded realistically as independent of con-
sciousness might seem quite insufficient to confer upon it
value of any kind. But to condemn the subsistent in this
way would be to overlook the most significant of its characters.
For the realm of the subsistent is not merely an aggregate of
terms. It is also a system of propositions, that is, identity
relations between these terms. These prepositional relations
do, to be sure, include the false no less than the true. It is,
however, from the true propositions that the universe of sub-
sistence derives not only its unity and structure but the ethical
and aesthetic values with which this paper is concerned.
While the round square fills honourably its humble role of
illustrating the meaning of impossibility, it is the obverse
aspect of this impossibility, namely, the proposition that
squareness and roundness are reciprocally incompatible, that
182 W. P. MONTAGUE AND H. H. PAEKHUEST :
is really significant. Here is an eternal truth whose status
is independent of its recognition by any mind, divine or
human. Moreover, while such eternal truths are also in-
dependent of the world of concrete existence, the world of
concrete existence is by no means independent of them.
Whatever thing would exist as square must forego the joys
of roundness. An eternal truth is indeed an identity relation
based solely upon the abstract natures or essences of the
terms related, and however varied the temporal and spatial
collocations of an existent system they can never be such as
to violate the relations that obtain between essences. A square
thing may be red or blue, but it cannot be round ; an event
can be past or future in reference to some given event, but
it cannot be both ; a thing may be black or non-black, but it
cannot be a black that is not the opposite of white ; seven
electrons may or may not combine, but their number can
never be evenly divisible by two.
While there is significance in this capacity of the eternal
truths of essences to exercise a selective veto upon the world
of existence, the ethical and aesthetic significance of the realm
of the subsistent follows even more directly from those in-
trinsic characters of eternity and immensity of which we
have spoken. In the present day, particularly, when the
omnipresence of change and the stirring implications of
creative evolution are for the first time accorded the recogni-
tion that is their due, it is something of a relief to realise
that, though Heraclitus was right in his belief that all things
changed, he was no less right in his vision of the changeless
logos, a system of invariant forms and laws by which the fiux
of existence is measured and defined. However invigorating
and splendid the experience of the flowing aspect of reality
may be, there is after all a universal craving for the per-
manent. To participate vicariously through contemplation
in the eternal order that transcends existence brings quiet to
the mind and permits the conscious ego to transcend its own
limits and to rise to a kind of Nirvana a Nirvana which is,
however, attained through expansion of consciousness rather
than through its suppression.
That one of Plato's insights which was most important for
ethics was also the one most neglected by his disciples, par-
ticularly by Aristotle. We refer to his conception of the
superiority of ideal good to any existential power, even that
of the divine creator. Ideals of right and justice, according
to Plato, do not derive their validity from God. On the
contrary, it is God who must derive his worth from them.
In short, right is above might and independent of it in the
ETHICAL AND .ESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF REALISM. 183
Platonic universe. Which means that religion depends upon
ethics, not ethics upon religion. The whole history of re-
ligious ethics has been corrupted by failure to realise Plato's
discovery of this supremacy of the ideal. The barbarous
notion that moral values derive their significance from the
will of a heavenly being, that living nobly means nothing
more than conforming one's action to the commands of such
a being in short, the doctrine that obedience is the cardinal
virtue, and disobedience the cardinal vice, these are the
notions, as false as they are degrading, which characterise
the ethical traditions of those who reject Platonic realism.
For the realist, ethics is an affair of ideals, not of commands,
and it is rooted not in the contingencies of existence, but in
the necessities of subsistence. If courage and mercy are ex-
cellences of character, they do not become more excellent if
there happens to exist a power which wills them, nor less
excellent if there be no such power. The ethics of realism,
because it is based upon eternally subsistent ideas, cannot be
corrupted or shaken by anything that may happen to beliefs
about the merely supernatural.
The conception of a power not ourselves that makes for
righteousness has undergone many changes in the past, and
will probably undergo as many in the future. Belief in the
existence of such a power has its consolations and its dangers.
We may regard it as supported by the facts of science or as
refuted by them, but in no event should the primary sanctity
of the sense of duty reverence for values as such be put at
the mercy of anything so precarious and irrelevant as exis-
tential supernaturalism. Ethics the science of what is noble
and beautiful in the way of living should be freed from all
vestiges of authoritarianism. The evil notion that one needs
to apologize for the good or to justify the claim of the ideal
upon the heart by translating it into the mandates of political
or theological authority should be for ever repudiated. This
does not at all mean that the realist should forgo the use
of any empirical method iji his attempt to discover the
specific ideal which is applicable to a given situation. The
truths of essence are as difficult to discover as the truths of
existence, and the realist's assurance of the absoluteness of
duty is in no way incompatible with a dubiousness as to
what is his specific duty in a given situation. Nor should
we fail to realise that the content of duty may change and
evolve that rules of conduct were suitable for yesterday
which may not be suitable to-day, and that a change in the
situation of an individual will call for a corresponding change
of the means used to attain the ideal.
184 ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS OF REALISM.
Modern realism is cosmocentric in its outlook rather than
anthropocentric or egocentric, with regard to the Platonic
world of subsistence no less than with regard to the exis-
tential world of common sense and science. It would deny
to the individual the pseudo-creativeness attributed to him
by the philosophy of idealism and pragmatism. It would
accord to him no transcendent powers of legislating for
nature, or of supporting by his consciousness the infinities
of space and time. But in depriving the individual of these
illusory powers to constitute reality by his thought, realism
gives back to him the increased responsibility of member-
ship in the independent and self-existent order of nature.
To be alive in a world that is not of our own making is after
all a noble adventure. And to have the privilege of con-
templating existent nature in all its vastness, to feel that
each new scientific law is not a mere resume of our impres-
sions but a veritable conquest of the objective universe, gives
to the realistically emancipated a high and serious elation
which is quite beyond the reach of those who would subject
nature to a status of dependence upon mind. And when to
the tumultuous and inexhaustible welter of things existent,
realism adds the quiet and infinitely greater immensities of
the realm of subsistence, the mind gains access to new and
imperishable sources of joy and peace. The comprehension
that the whole universe of essence and existence, though not
created by us or dependent upon us, may nevertheless be
mastered through contemplation, induces an emotion of pride
freed from the petty arrogance of subjectivism. It is this
pride in a universe that is independent yet controllable, and
external yet progressively knowable, which is the ground for
all sound appreciation of the beautiful and the sublime.
IV. DISCUSSIONS.
THE MEANING OF MEANING'.
IT is probable tbat the Symposium on Meaning which was held at
the Oxford Philosophic Congress, and was published in the October
issue of MIND, will have presented to a casual reader the usual
features of a philosophic discussion. That is to say, it reads like
a triangular duel, in which each participant aims at something
different, and, according to the other, misses it, and hits a phantom.
I had aimed at what seemed to me the really vital point about
Meaning, which I regard as one of the great untouched problems in
logic and psychology, but both Mr. Kussell and Prof. Joachim, the
latter ' resolutely ' (p. 404), appear to avoid it. Mr. Eussell regards
what I aimed at as quite an unimportant part of his paper, though I
tried to expound a theory diametrically opposed to his, which
seemed to me directly to negative his solution of ' How Propositions
mean'. He wanted me, it seems, to discuss the very peculiar,
very interesting, but somewhat unnatural hybrid between Humian
sensationalism and behaviourism with which he is now experiment-
ing. Prof. Joachim, lastly, attempts no positive contribution to the
question, and labours only to show that Mr. Russell "asserts what
no one can possibly think " (p. 405). His friends will infer, that,
if so, Mr. Russell also does not think it, and that possibly Prof.
Joachim has not understood what he meant. I cannot but agree
with Prof. Joachim that Mr. Russell has chosen to express himself
in difficult and apparently contradictory terms, as philosophers so
.often do, though the ' contradictions ' which strike me most are not
identical with those selected by Prof. Joachim. Yet I dare not
suppose that they are more than verbal, and think it possible that I
,have failed to understand Mr. Russell.
After which candid confession I feel entitled to say that he has
not understood me in some important points.
(1) I feel sure that he has not understood the two, to me,
essential points he says he agrees with, viz., that meaning is not a
property of ' objects ' and that it is essentially personal. For not
only does he fail to explain how he can adopt conclusions which
are in him devoid of any visible support in the way of premisses,
but the whole of his paper seems to negative any such agreement.
How, e.g., can meaning be " an observable property of observable
entities," if he ' agrees ' that it is attached to them by our personal
attitudes, whereby they are ' taken to mean ' ? Or how can the
186 F. c. s. SCHILLEE:
meaning of words prevail over that of those who use them, if he
' agrees ' that meaning is ultimately personal ?
(2) On the other hand he misunderstands both me and the
character of my objections to his theory, when he supposes my
method to be ' philosophic ' rather than scientific : that the method
of knowing is one and that there is no specific philosophic method,
is both a corollary of Pragmatism, and, I believe, a very real and
important point of agreement between us.
(3) He has entirely misunderstood my alternative to (what I call)
the ' intellectualist ' method of observation or contemplation. Or
rather, he refuses to look at it, and insists on applying to it
categories against which it is a systematic protest. When he
declares, e.g., that " all the words in which Dr. Schiller endeavours
to describe his unobservable entities imply that after all he can
observe them" (p. 401) and that "his very wor ds turn them into
objects of contemplation " l (ibid.), I can only gasp, and retort that
my theory does not concede any such power to words. To dispose
of it thus would seem to be a typical case of the over-riding of
actual meaning by verbal, which could hardly be surpassed from the
writings of Mr. Bradley 2 or by the most literal pedantries of formal
logic. Because the words ' imply ' a meaning I disclaim, am I to
be debarred from using them so as to confute superstitions based
on verbal meaning? Because I call certain processes 'unobserv-
able,' have I called them ' unknowable ' ? Because I contend that
many of our most vivid and vital experiences are not properly to be
described as ' observable objects,' must a tabu be put upon the word
' experience,' and must I be tied down to the very words I reject as
inadequate, ' observe ' and ' object ' ? All this because Mr. Eussell
thinks he cannot understand "how anything can be experienced
without being an object " (p. 402). Is there then no ' subject ' at
all, no one that experiences and acts? If so, why do we all
habitually talk about it?
I suspect, however, that when Mr. Eussell says ' can't,' he means
' won't '. But even language, that supreme court of appeal for so
much philosophy, refuses to bear him out. It has words for actions
as well as for ' objects ' and ' relations,' it recognises verbs as
well as nouns, and summons philosophers to recognise them too !
Now actions, processes, attitudes, are never properly ' objects,'
though they can (verbally) be hypostasized by a fiction which ignores
their dynamic quality and the selective construction of the ' objects '
of our interest. Neither are agents ' objects ' to themselves ; especially
not the Self, which has been such an insoluble crux for intellectualist
analysis. It has successfully defied transformation into an object,
and the distinction of the ' I ' and the ' Me ' has merely disrupted
the unity of the personality which common-sense postulates, and
psychic functioning attests.
1 Italics mine.
2 See MIND, No. 72, p. 500, for the doctrine that we are condemned to
mean what we say, and c/. No. 73, p. 41-42.
THE MEANING OF 'MEANING'. 187
Mr. Eussell has obviously got deeply involved in this ancient
difficulty. Having insisted that there are to be nothing but observ-
able objects in experience, he has had to dissolve away the Self,
after the manner of Hume. Yet he cannot afford to do this, be-
cause his theory of Meaning involves an appeal to ' mnemic causa-
tion/ which is, on Humian principles, a double contradiction,
because memory demands psychic continuity, and causation,
agency. 1 When invited to recognise activities and continuous
agents, he has no right to refuse and to require them to be trans-
muted into ' objects '. For the contention he has to meet is that
they are the primary reals, and that ' objects ' are secondary, and
constituted by the operation and selection of ' agents '. Moreover,
even if the demand for ' objects ' were as legitimate as he thinks it,
it could not possibly be satisfied by an analysis which does not
provide for the continuity of any object at all.
And when this analysis inquires into ' what swirls in the tide of
life,' it may be invited to contemplate the answer which a still
more scientific analysis gives to the question what moves in the
world of physics ? Physics now analyses all material phenomena
into the motions of * electrons ' ; but it does not profess to know
what the ' substance ' of an electron may be, and hardly even
attempts to guess what 'electricity' may be per se. The simple
truth is that, alike in physics and in psychology, activities are far
more certain, and better known, than the 'substances' ('objects')
in which they are feigned to inhere. And no wonder : for are not
activity and life the primary realities, and the sources by which all
our notions of ' substances ' and ' objects ' are deposited ?
The ' behaviourist ' method of explanation, moreover, which so
fascinates Mr. Russell, is far more in sympathy with this attitude
of physics than with the old static conception of a world built up
of solid substances bound together in stable relations. For even at
the lowest it is surely far more certain that the amoeba nourishes
itself by putting forth pseudopodia, than that it recognises staple
articles of food standing in a nutritive relation to its internal
economy. Behaviourism is dynamic, as modern explanations tend
to be ; but the non-behaviouristic stratum in Mr. Russell's beliefs
seems to be incongruously and dangerously static.
(4) Passing next to Mr. Russell's reply to my criticisms of the
theory that * images ' are the original vehicles of meaning, I find
that I must question its adequacy and relevance, perhaps because
it is put too elliptically for my comprehension.
(a) His reply to the objection that images cannot be essential to
meaning, because there are excellent thinkers addicted to imageless
thought, is that this "ignores the history of the individual. The
essence of meaning lies in the causal efficacy of that which has
meaning," and this is " a result of habit. A word, through association,
a Mr. Russell here seems to use the notion of causal agency in a way
hardly compatible with his own formal analysis of the notion in his Aris-
totelian Society address (vol. xiii.).
188 F. c. s. SCHILLER:
acquires the same causal efficacy as an image having the same
meaning ; habit causes it to have this efficacy directly, without the
intermediary of the image. But that does not prove that the image
could have been dispensed with originally " (p. 398).
This means, I suppose, that though the imageless thinker now
dispenses with the use of images, he was once less independent.
The psychology seems somewhat conjectural. Also is it not a trifle
dogmatic to assume that objects have meaning and causal efficacy,
and that in these allegations lies the essence of meaning ? This is
just the question at issue. And in any case how is the answer
relevant to the objection ? How can the fact that in a mind that
has imagery, and uses it, the meaning originally attached to the
images may be transferred to the words it uses later, prove any-
thing about a mind that does not have or use images, and yet
contrives to mean?
(b) To the objection that meaning and imagery do not in fact
vary concomitantly as they should do on his theory, Mr Eussell
has no reply except the argumentum ad hominem that he would
not have expected from me so much insistence on * verbal
precision '. Now it may be that I have erred in demanding,
vainly, ' vitality and concreteness ' from philosophic formulas
that are fog-producers ; but I do not see how this is relevant to
the question whether meaning and imagery do, observably and in
fact, behave as if they belonged together. Nor again can I see
relevance in the very true remark, with which I cordially agree,
that ''precision in the meaning of words is a social product," or,
as I should prefer to say, a consequence of ' intersubjective inter-
course '. But I may point out to Mr. Eussell, who is, I take it,
committed to the laudable ideal of denning precisely all the words
he uses, that this ideal is unattainable in principle, because every
word he defines is defined by others which are undefined and
ambiguous ; so that, until he has defined everything he has not
really got precision anywhere. The inference, to me, from this
situation, is not that nothing need be defined, but that definitions,
explanations, paraphrases, etc., should be used, as best one can,
until the personal meaning to be conveyed has actually been
conveyed, and is understood.
(c) To my third argument for the independence of meaning
Mr. Russell has, so far as I can see, no objection. He merely
agrees that, when " the associations of the image are different,"
the meaning will be different, but has nothing to say on the
question how in that case the meaning w r ill be communicable. If
meaning depends on images, and the images mean differently,
because they have different associations, then images fail as
vehicles of meaning. Whence I should infer that it might be
better to drop the images and to start from Meaning as the
primary process in understanding.
(5) It seems to me to be a serious misunderstanding to suppose
that in my mouth ' intellectualism ' is a term of abuse and
means merely ' bad ' (p. 398).
THE MEANING OF ' MEANING '. 189
This -charge rests, I suspect, on a confusion between 'intel-
lectual ' and ' intellectualist ' . I have not the faintest desire to-
interfere with the exercises of Mr. Russell's intellect, and yield to
no man in my admiration for them. I consider him perhaps our
finest ' intellectual,' and a leader of our ' intelligentsia '. I also-
hold that he inclines, as a rule, to * intellectualist ' views of
philosophic questions as is natural enough in so distinguished an
intellectual. But I am quite ready to discuss how far his intel-
lectualism goes, and I recognise that, unlike most intellectuals,
he has had the courage to vivisect himself and to analyse his
intellectualist bias, magnificently, in the Journal of Philosophy,
xvi., 2.
Moreover, I by no means use ' intellectualist ' as a term of
abuse. It is as purely and coldly a descriptive term as 'volun-
tarist ' or ' sensationalist '. It merely means one who tends to
explain human behaviour in terms of intellection. Nor can I
conceive why an intellectualist should object to being described as
such. If I were an intellectualist (as I am an ' intellectual ') I
should be proud to be called one. For it would mean that I
believed I had succeeded in explaining the real in terms of man's
highest and most specific function, his intellect. When, therefore,
I object to ' intellectualism,' I do not mean that it is 'bad' to
explain in terms of intellect, but that it is wrong intellectually.
It is wrong intellectually, because it tries to account for our
cognitions by the unworkable fictions and blind abstractions of a
1 pure thought '. Now I hold that this explanation is not adequate.
The intellectualist accounts, even of the human intellect, fail to
describe its nature and functions. The intellectualist attitude in
philosophy is moreover false and futile, because it is covertly
inspired by hidden forces or ' complexes ' which are neither intel-
lectual nor admirable. But, unfortunately, intellectualists do not
understand how they are tricked by their instincts and prejudices.
However, it is clear that these contentions are the result not of any
a priori animosity to intellectualism (and still less to intellect), but
of willingness to face the facts. They presuppose an unflinching
use of the intellect, even upon itself, and so a goodly dose of
intellectualistic affinity. For only one who is capable of severely
controlling his desires will confess, even to himself, that the perfect
sage is an unattainable ideal ; the ordinary man, whose beliefs are
dictated by his emotions, could hardly reach conclusions so repug-
nant to human vanity.
It is, therefore, something quite definite that is meant by the
charge of ' intellectualism '. In Mr. Russell's case and in the
article under discussion, it means that Mr. Russell wrongly and
needlessly insists on assuming the attitude of the spectator or
contemplator, and will not look at, or for, anything but ' objects '..
Now, as the active side of cognition is there, and is all-pervasive,
it follows that, if you ignore it, you cannot describe correctly.
Historically this attitude is explicable enough ; it was determined
190 F. C. S. SCHILLER :. THE MEANING OF 'MEANING'.
by the use of the senses, but as the intellect was largely developed
by the functions of perceiving and interpreting their data, intellect-
ualism and sensationalism often co-operate and fuse for the pur-
poses of my criticism. Theories of knowledge based on them all
suffer from the same incurable defect, that of overlooking that the
active side in our nature pervades also our ' cognitions '.
It is not true that this side is unintelligible or inexpressible. In
every language there exists a vocabulary for it though it is very
defective in Greek, from which our philosophic tradition is derived.
Only, of course, the words of the actor are different from those of
the onlooker. They are often inadequate, and can always be mis-
-understood ; we should not try to haggle over them, but penetrate
to the meaning it is sought to convey. However, ' objects of con-
templation ' and ' unobservable entities ' are not terms it is natural
select in endeavouring to describe activity as it is immediately felt
by the agent. As I said, the verbal stronghold of such descriptions
is in the verb ; but its inexpugnable and insuperable attestation is
in the personal pronoun, c I '. Whoever sets himself over against
his experience even to contemplate it as Mr. Eussell repeatedly
does, 1 confesses thereby that it cannot be completely analysed into
observable objects, and so admits the failure of his ' intellectualism '.
I tried to show, therefore, that these difficulties of our intellect-
ualistic psychology were factitious and gratuitous. There is an
alternative way, and it is wrong to neglect to explore it. If, more-
over, such neglect is wilful, the cJwice of the intellectualist method
becomes, clearly, arbitrary : it is, moreover, self-defeating. For to
refuse to recognise the voluntarist alternative to intellectualism is
itself an act of will, and this act proves that intellection is not the
only process native to the human mind.
1 E.g., when he recognises 'prepositional attitudes' (How Propositions
Mean, p. 30). * Attitude ' is precisely the word I regard as least inadequate
,fco the expression of the nature of Meaning.
F. C. S. SCHILLER.
THE BASIS OF BOSANQUET'S LOGIC.
I AM so much interested in Mr. Leonard Russell's point of view
(MiND, October, 1920), that I will venture, if I may, this once
more, to try to meet it as far as I can.
On one matter, indeed, I do not see my way to any agreement.
It seems to run right through the discussion. It is the question
whether I am bound, on my premisses, to hold that the subject of
a hypothetical judgment must exist in fact (I.e., p. 476). The reason
is, as I understand, that I hold the ultimate subject of the
judgment to be reality.
In my view it is this doctrine which gives me absolute freedom
in my account of the immediate subject of judgment. I take it to
be the essence of thought to qualify reality as a whole ; and the
instrument of its operation I take to be always a discrimination,
including in this term selection and combination, within the whole
content which reality offers as experience. Any discriminated
content that will prescribe a special line of connexion within the
whole will serve as the immediate subject of a judgment. The
name of a real thing suggests a real subject taken as it is given.
But the antecedent of a hypothetical judgment, usually an idea
introduced by an " if," suggests at once something divergent from
given reality. The "if" introduces an ideal subject, of which the
consequent predicates something not true of it as it stands, but
true in the light thrown on it by its connexion with what is
relevant in the whole. The reason why I say that this is funda-
mental is that I cannot comprehend the notion of a thought which
does not operate towards qualifying the whole reality. Thought, I
should have said, strictly speaking, is the whole or the reality
operating through minds to qualify itself by establishing definite
coherences prescribed by discriminated conditions. Thus I can
see nothing in the point that knowledge cannot be based on the
whole reality, because it is based on discriminated systematic
connexions. It is based, I believe, on a systematic connexion at
every point of affirmation, but never on any connexion apart from
the criterion of the whole content, the appeal to which is its nisus
and its nature. The whole specified in its parts in the light of the
whole that is what I understand by knowledge as a construction
created by thought.
Subject to this difference of opinion, I can agree that we get
knowledge by " constructing a world," but this only in a definitely
limited sense and degree, which I will recur to, " other than the
192 BERNARD BOSANQUET I
real world" (p. 474). The main work of construction is, I believe,
ordering and adjusting the world of experience in ' obedience ' to-
the principle of totality which is the law of coherence. Surely
Mr. Bussell would not say with Gentile that thinking simply
creates the world? As I understand, we make it in discovering
it, and discover it in making it.
But this factor of agreement, which goes very deep with
reference to the active character of thought, is yet modified by a
further difference between us, though again, I hope, re -modified
towards Mr Russell's position by a further explanation. I am
writing as shortly as I possibly can, and beg for a favourable
hearing.
The further difference is this. I admit the work of construc-
tion, but cannot agree that it comes under the head of supposition
or position. Therefore I must deny that "posited systems are at
the basis of our whole explicated knowledge of reality " (p. 475).
Supposition, as I see the matter, is not construction, and cannot
construct a world. Construction is the complete work of thought,
of judgment. Supposition is ideal experiment, and has the
limitation of all experiment. The experiment is one thing ; the
judgment upon it is another. The whole purpose of the experi-
ment is to see how the real world reacts how the special track
we have selected opens up and continues in consequence of what
the experiment does. Why does "reality" make a difference and
furnish the test ? Because reality is the whole ; it does not matter
which word you use ; and the whole is the criterion of thought. I
am not sure whether Mr. Russell means that he formulated his
view, that scie-nce is necessary to contradict science (p. 474 top), in
opposition to mine or because of it ; but I say it in so many words
(Logic, 2 i., p. 297 n.). Only, supposition does not tell you whether
science is for you or against you. It is solely when you have
judged, that you have committed yourself to a survey of the whole,
which says that there is no superior generalisation against you. I
agree that content is what you have to consider ; but it seems to
me to be only in the judgment, which affirms of reality, that you
have the whole content brought to bear. Strictly, you cannot
have a posited system. For you cannot posit the consequences,
the unification, of combinations. You can only judge them.
But we seem to have such a thing. We seem able to suppose a
world, in erecting which we draw consequences and so unify
combinations. Here we are misled, I believe, by the feature, apt
to pass unnoticed, of conclusion -premisses (cf. Implication, pp.
65-66). The moment you glance at posited data, inference begins
to grow. Consequences begin to draw themselves long before
the main conclusion is drawn. " All men are mortal " is put
forward as a premiss. But it is chock-full of conclusions. And
so is the structure of any coherent system which, we say, in
current language, that we " posit " or " suppose ". The moment
we look at the factors of our supposition taken together, judgment
THE BASIS OF BOSANQUET'S LOGIC. 198
and inference, which go beyond it, begin. The criterion of the
whole, and the appeal to it, is inherent in our thought, and cannot
be barred out.
This was my further difference. I agreed that thought was
productive ; but I do not agree that its operation as such can be
identified with supposition.
But now I have a re-modification to offer which will take me, I
hope, some little way at least back towards agreement.
Mr. Eussell had in mind (October, 1918, p. 447; the non-
Euclidean geometries. Now I have no right to say a word as of
myself on this subject. But I find a discussion by Prof. Alexander
(in Space, Time and Deity, i., pp. 157, 160 ff.) which seems relevant
and suggestive. It is instructive in itself that Prof. Alexander
discusses them under the section-heading " A Product of Art ".
He compares the construction of them " with the arbitrary act of
imagination by which we construct a chimera". They are "the
investigation of certain notions for their own sake when freed
from their attachments ". They are products of free thought
" giving rise to fresh combinations ". Yet they retain a kinship
with nature such that they give us valuable knowledge, which can
perhaps also be said, but certainly in a sense much more remote,
of works of art (Alexander, pp. 161-162). Discrimination within
the whole has here passed into divergent supposition. Abstraction
and combination have led the way to a posited world other than
the real world.
This, I take it, is the sort of case which Mr Eussell is deter-
mined to have recognised. Here we certainly get knowledge, and
we seem to get it by constructive thinking about an assumption or
supposition. I fully admit the importance and significance of the
topic. I only venture to suggest two remarks : (1) Pure thought,
in drawing consequences, seems to me to transcend supposition by
asserting, not positing, its own laws ; (2) it also seems to me to
transcend supposition just because it pursues the suggestion freely
and constructively, i.e., it takes, out of a complete survey of reality,
any and every consequent which the supposition indicates to be
relevant. Thought would contradict its own nature, and would
fail to be creative, if it confined itself to dwelling on the content of
an assumption. Rather, like art, it works out the possibilities to
which a notion, applied to the whole of content without restriction,
gives it the clue.
Then, to come to terms with Mr. Russell's ultimatum (p. 477) ;
" The judgment, I should say, is always and inevitably based on
such a partial system, though referring to the whole of reality " ;
I should say that I believe I understand what it means, and that I
recognise in it, as I have explained, high practical truth in the case
of certain freely constructed systems ; but strictly and ultimately I
cannot but hold it to be a contradiction in terms. A judgment
which refers to the whole of reality must, in principle, be modelled
by coherence with it. In a given case the demands of the whole
13
194 BERNARD BOSANQUET : BASIS OF BOSANQUET'S LOGIC.
may make no apparent difference to that one out of innumerable
partial systems which is more immediately in question. But this
cannot be because the whole of content has not to be consulted,
but only because, allowing for undeveloped interdependence of
systems, its answer is on the whole taken to be favourable.
BERNARD BOSANQUET.
DO WE KNOW OTHER MINDSi MEDIATELY OR IMMEDIATELY?
IN the October number of MIND there was an article by Mr. Joshua
C. Gregory, criticising my paper on 'Our Knowledge of Other
Minds ' in the Aristotelian Proceedings for 1918-19, and I should
like to say something by way of a belated reply to him. Mr.
Gregory disputes my contention that we know other minds as
directly and immediately as we know physical things, and defends
the orthodox view that minds can only know one another indirectly,
via the material world. The truth of this view seems to him
obvious from the consideration of such facts as the following : a
person's thoughts, feelings and desires are concealed from public
inspection ; absence of bodily signs makes it impossible for us to
perceive a person's mental states ; our knowledge of other minds
depends upon our own previous experience and upon their re-
semblance to ourselves; some mental lives altogether elude our
apprehension. Mr. Gregory then concludes that the existence of
other minds is inferred and not perceived ; but the inference, he
insists, is implicit and spontaneous. It is the work of primary,
unconsciously acting memory, and is made by us in our infancy,
so that in mature experience the recognition of other mental lives
appears to be immediate.
It does not seem to me that the facts upon which Mr. Gregory
bases his conclusion are all of them equally certain ; thus, e.g., I
should be prepared to argue that our knowledge of other minds is
not limited to mental states similar to those experienced by our-
selves. But even granting that all Mr. Gregory says is correct, the
facts he refers to in no way conflict with the ' direct acquaintance '
theory. It is perfectly true, of course, that other people's thoughts
do not lie exposed to our view and that even their emotions may
be difficult to discern ; but this is not a reason for denying that
what little we do perceive of other minds is perceived and not
inferred. The fragmentary character of our acquaintance with
other mental lives could only be regarded as an argument against
the view I am defending if by ' immediate ' knowledge were meant
a knowledge that is exhaustive and infallible. But ' immediacy ^ in
this connexion simply means that when the act of discrimination
is directed upon a mind, then what we apprehend is a mind and
not something that intervenes between us and it ; it does not mean
that the discrimination is either perfect or attained without any
trouble. Certain conditions such as the similarity of a mind to our
own may help us to discriminate it more perfectly, while under other
conditions we may completely fail to detect the presence of a
196 NATHALIE A DUDDINGTON :
mental life but this only shows that our knowledge of other minds
is subject to the same limitations as our knowledge of anything
else. Mr. Gregory thinks that if minds can be directly perceived,
we ought to be able to tell at a glance whether an amoeba has
consciousness or no. But then he might as well argue that if
physical things can be directly perceived the discovery of the
bacillus of cholera ought not to have occasioned Koch the slightest
difficulty.
I am not concerned to deny Mr. Gregory's contention that our
knowledge of the inner lives of others is inseparable from the
observation of their bodily behaviour. If minds do not exist apart
from bodies this is just what one would expect to find ; but my
point is that we could have no clue to the interpretation of ex-
pressive behaviour unless we also perceived the mental state of
which it is an expression. And it is because the two have been
perceived together that the bodily movement may become the sign
of the inner state though this does not mean that immediate
apprehension of minds is forthwith "repressed". Mr. Gregory
grants "some plausibility" to my contention that the reason why
we do not perceive minds alone is that they are always connected
with bodies ; but he qualifies this concession by the enigmatic
remark that "we do perceive dead bodies alone". Certainly;
why not ? Mr. Gregory apparently thinks that having once got
into the habit of perceiving minds together with bodies, we should
not be able to perceive bodies without minds. But our slavery to
habit is not so bad as all that ; and fully in accordance with the
direct acquaintance theory not even the ' habitual conjunction of
mind and body ' can make us go on perceiving a mind when it is
no longer there to be perceived.
In defending the traditional theory against my criticism of it
Mr. Gregory accuses me of having misrepresented the nature of the
inference upon which our recognition of other minds rests. This
inference, he maintains, is as unconscious and spontaneous as
walking, etc., and he constantly compares it to the 'complication'
of perception : just as the child learns to see the hardness of the
table, so it learns to see that its mother is pleased when she smiles.
Now it seems to me that the two cases are not parallel. The hard-
ness of the table has, in the first instance, been as directly appro*
hended as its colour ; but the mother's gladness has, according to Mr.
Gregory, never been apprehended at all. It is useless to call upon
' unconscious memory ' to reinstate something that has never been
experienced. And however much one may insist that the inference
is unconscious, there is no getting away from the fact that the
psychological and not merely the logical starting-point of such
an inference must be the child's own experience, which is contrary
to all we know of the development of a mental life. Thus, e.g.,
Mr. Gregory says, "the child learns from its own pain, pleasure
or anger associated with bodily manifestations to perceive from
similar bodily manifestations the possession by other minds of
'T>0 WE KNOW OTHEE MINDS MEDIATELY OE IMMEDIATELY ? 197
similar feelings or emotions ". But if the child is to learn from
its own pain, anger, etc., it must be capable of detecting these states
in itself which presupposes in an infant an astonishing power
of self-analysis ; and even if this were a likely supposition, it would
not be of much avail, because there is no similarity between a
baby's experience of its own angry kicks and the sight of its mother's
frowning face so that its correct interpretation of her expressive
behaviour would still remain a mystery. To say that we make the
connexion between our own movements as we feel them and the
movements of others which we see, " as we make all fundamental
connexions unconsciously, spontaneously, and implicitly," is
simply to give up all attempt at explanation.
As against this mythical theory of inference I urge, then, that
the presence of a mental life is revealed to us along with the shape,
colour, and other qualities that characterise the body, and that
living beings appear to us from the first as qualitatively different
from inanimate things, though it may take us a long time to dis-
cover in what precisely the difference consists. There is no con-
tradiction in maintaining that we are aware of minds long before
we know that they are minds. This view seems to me to afford a
satisfactory explanation of the fact of intra-subjective intercourse; and
in my paper I tried to show that there is nothing in the nature
of knowledge to make direct acquaintance with other minds im-
possible. Mr. Gregory has several criticisms to make of the general
view I take of knowledge, but they seem to me to be based on a
misunderstanding of my position. Thus, e.g., he remarks that I
'have been compelled 1 to criticise the traditional psychological
view ' by deductions from neo-realistic principles '. But it was a
distinct object of my paper to consider the bearing of realism upon
the problem '.of our knowledge of other minds; nothing 'com-
pelled ' me to take the realistic theory as my starting-point except
the fact that I happen to believe in its truth.
NATHALIE A. DUDDINGTON.
V. CRITICAL NOTICES.
Instinct and the Unconscious : A Contribution to a Biological
Theory of the Psycho-neuroses. By W. H. E. EIVEBS, M.D.,
D.Sc., LL.D., F.E.S., Fellow and Praelector in Natural Sciences,
St. John's College, Cambridge. Cambridge, at the University
Press, 1920. Pp. viii, 250.
MERELY to enumerate the titles of Dr. Eivers's chapters, or tell
over in one's mind the "inhibitions" and "dissociations," the
" substitutions " and " phobias " and " complexes " which advertise
so many of his pages, is to see at once that his book will attract
attention wherever an interest is taken in the newer problems and
concepts now knocking for entrance at the gates of psychology.
And attention once caught, it is safe to say, will be held. For the
reader will not be long in divining that he has more than a mere
record of psychological observations before him. He has an effort
at a systematisation of the newer facts ; and this in short compass,
for it is a comparatively short book.
All work on these themes tends to invite comparison with that of
Professor Freud. One feature of the present book which will ap-
peal to many readers may be at once recorded. It has all the interest
of having been written by a man apparently about as familiarly
acquainted with the phenomena of danger as Freud with the
phenomena of sex. It is, of course, a war medical book. Compared
with Freud it reminds one more than once of the great difference
between the rough and ready methods of war and the refinement,
patience, and thoroughness which are possible in such an exclu-
sively civil practice as Freud's has been. Yet it seems to succeed in
being convincing on one point at least ; not intrinsically a supremely
important one, but yet interesting. It shows how good a basi&
there is, after all, for a view of Freud which is often rested only
on prejudice ; namely, that his theory of psycho-neurosis is one-
sided owing to the exclusive stress which it lays upon sexual
factors.
The author's preoccupation with danger experiences is not alone
responsible for this result. What has mostly contributed to it is-
rather just the happy accident which has given the study and
practice of psycho-therapy into the hands of an anthropologist.
The writer is interested in the theory of his subject. His approach
is biological. One of his chief aims is to cast a biological light
upon these mental-pathological symptoms. From this circum-
w. H. B. RIVERS, Instinct and the Unconscious. 199
stance chiefly has arisen a certain relaxation of the stress upon
sexual factors as the generative agents in the various pathological
conditions.
This result seems to arise naturally out of the author's work
rather than to be anywhere explicitly pushed into the foreground.
Like all his compeers he works with the conception of the un-
conscious. He recognises a process whereby functions which were
conscious become unconscious. Following the general lines of recent
theory in these matters, he takes psycho-neurosis to be the disturb-
ing reverberation of these unconscious functions upwards into con-
scious life. He wishes biology to throw some light on the question
how such functions come to exist. Why should a conscious process
pass down into the unconscious? What biological necessity is
there for there being processes thus held down? The need is not
far to seek. Inhibition of early tendencies is a corollary of
evolution. Kinds of activity which have been superseded must be
kept down out of the way of superseding ones. In pathological
conditions the former reappear. We have an outcrop of "some-
thing necessary for the welfare of some of the ancestors of man
which still comes into action in special circumstances".
A point of genuine theoretic interest thus arises. What instinctive
tendencies ar 3 they which do crop out, in man, in a pathological way ?
" Not universally the sex instincts " is what the author would reply.
The reason is fairly obvious. The sex instincts are not the only
ones, from a biological point of view, which are old and strong in
us. Of far more ancient lineage than the control of them is the
control of our natural tendency to go demoralised in the face of
danger. Self-preservation is our earliest task. Sex control comes
to be a task too, but not till far later. There seems to be this much
of justification at anyrate for the author's visible tendency to sus-
pect that sex instincts have been made to do duty, in various
quarters, in recent theory of neurosis, where danger-instincts
would have served better.
But the whole issue as to which set of impulses most taxes our
powers of control is rather aside from the focal point of interest of
these studies. Whatever may most need control, the machinery of
the controlling process is what interests the author. And in this
he bears testimony to the fact we were not out of need of being
reminded of it of the indebtedness of the whole world of psycho-
therapeutics to Freud for the real clues to this mechanism. Much
and violently as Freud's opinions are still opposed upon all matters,
the impression which his general view of the mechanism of re-
pression leaves on the candid expert now, as the author testifies,
so far from being one of suspicion, is frankly one of wonder that
anything so obvious and simple should not have been tnought of
long ago. This does not prevent but that within the general truth
of the view there should be a great deal still to be understood.
An-1 in the interests of further understanding the author would
appeal to the hypothesis that the mechanism of inhibition has a
200 CEITICAL NOTICES :
biological function. We cannot but say here how much we wel-
come a mass of stimulating reflections upon a general hypothesis
about which, for certain, many had long been waiting for some
biologically-trained psycho-therapist to come forward and 00*61' his
opinion.
In his effort at systematisation the author appears to have been
rather particularly indebted for his impressions to three sources ;
(a) the experiments of Dr. Henry Head and his colleagues on
sensibility, more especially the observed incidents in the process
of the return of sensibility to Dr. Head's arm after the experi-
mental severing of the afferent nerve ; (b) the facts of " immobility "
as a device for meeting danger (whereby, to take a common ex-
ample, a hare in flight will suddenly "clap" flat to the ground in
a suitable spot, and suppress absolutely every movement in its
body) ; and (c) the experiments whereby Keith Lucas and A. D.
Adrian brought out the physiological principle which they call
the " all-or-none " reaction of a nerve to a stimulus.
In the experiments of Dr. Head the author detects a phenomenon
also appearing in those of Lucas and Adrian. The feature of the
latter's experiments was the manner in which the response of the
excited nerve seemed to refuse to grade itself to the varying
strength of the stimulus. When the nerve was stimulated the
reaction simply either took place or didn't, according as the
stimulus passed a given point of intensity or fell short of it. It
was a case of reacting all-or-none, wholly or else not at all. One
of the interesting features of the experiment of Dr. Head, on the
other hand, was the definiteness with which a stage of " proto-
pathic" sensibility preceded the stage of the full return of normal
or " epicritic " sensibility, and the definiteness with which, at the
primary stage, feeling, etc., were simply either there or not there,
all discrimination being at a minimum. On the strength of these
facts, and under a sense, perhaps, of the closeness of the connexion
between sensation and action, the author places the protopathic
sensibility and the all-or-none reaction of a nerve, under the same
heading, and reads them as the same in principle.
These facts seem to have furnished more or less the clue to
what is the governing idea of the book, the author's conception of
the nature of instinct (chap. vi.). The feature of instinct is taken
to be that it is thus all-or-none. Instinctive reaction does not
grade or adjust itself. It is the nature of instinct, as an American
might say, to go " with a plop ". There is no mediation with it.
It simply, so to speak, goes off full blast, or else does not go off
at all. "An animal or child exposed to danger, which is so re-
cognised as danger that it produces a reaction, tends to give itself
to the reaction fully. If it runs away it tends to run with every
particle of the energy it is capable of putting forth ; if it cries or
screams or utters other sound it tends to do so with all the vigour
at its command. In these cases there is no discrimination of
w. H. E. RIVEES, Instinct and the Unconscious. 201
the degree of danger" (p. 44). "If the danger be sufficiently
great, and if certain lines of behaviour by which it would nor-
mally be met be frustrated, even the adult man will fail to dis-
criminate the nature of the danger and to graduate his move-
ments accordingly. He will devote every particle of his energy
to flight or other form of primitive or instinctive behaviour "
(ibid).
A question of importance now arises, for it concerns the central
theme, the mechanism of suppression and its way of operating.
We might get the simple force of it by putting it thus. Looking
away from the facts of sensibility and of instinctive reaction as
matters of interest in themselves and considering only the process
whereby the more primitive among these sensibilities and reactivi-
ties become displaced to make room for others, what are we to say
of the act of putting them out of action ? What are we to say of
the inhibiting-act itself ? Is it of the all-or-none type ?
The author takes as more or less typical of this act of repression
or of suppression as he maintains it should be called the im-
mobility-reaction to danger (chap. viii.). Here, all happens as
though, in the appropriate circumstances, some mechanism simply
sprang-to, regardless of grading. In the animal which would pro-
tect itself by immobility, every movement is at once and indis-
criminately suppressed. This seems to favour the view that
originally the act of suppressing; was an affair of all-or-none ; that
it is instinctive, therefore ; and his taking this standpoint commits
.the author (a) to the peculiarly thought -provoking position that
there is an instinctive tendency to suppress instinctive tendencies
(we incline to agree with this, and it suggests to us that intelli-
gence may be a species of release of this tendency), and (b) to the
attempt to explain how indiscriminate suppression came to be
graded, which involves the question how instinct generally came
to be graded.
The act of suppressing has, in fact, come to be graded. There
are many evidences of this. Some of the most interesting are
found by the author among the facts of hypnotism and hysteria.
That these two conditions are conditions of discriminated suppres-
sing is part of the light which, for the author, biological considera-
tions have to throw upon them.
The view taken of hypnotic states is highly noteworthy. The
-author finds here an outcrop of features useful in adapting a herd
to the task of survival. He regards the hypnotic condition as a
throw-back to the gregarious instincts. He finds in its anaesthesias,
its hyper-aesthesias, its astonishing docilities and all the rest, things
gregariously useful. Its heightened sensibility is gregariously useful,
so is its insensibility, so is its general suggestibility.
But the central feature of the hypnotic condition is one which
links it with hysterical conditions (chap. xiv.). In both we have
a reappearance of one general device whose day of primary useful-
ness is past, namely, the immobility-reaction to danger. In hysteria
202 CRITICAL NOTICES:
and hypnotic states alike, the paralyses and anaesthesias which are
found may be regarded as partial manifestations of a process which,
if it were complete, would produce paralysis of all movement and
insensibility to all stimuli over the whole body (p. 130).
We have here a conception which seems to us determinative of
a good deal in the author's views ; his conception of suppression
as something not originally graded which has become so. In
hysterical and hypnotic states we have a process of indiscriminate
suppression modified in the carrying out. The problem is how the
modification has been made.
The reply given is that the discriminativeness has been induced by
suggestion. Much is set down to suggestion in the book. Sleep,
in the chapter on sleep, is said to be procured by suggestion.
Hypnotism admittedly comes by suggestion and hysterical sup-
pressions of sensibility, etc., are attributed to the same cause. It
operates, in fact, on all instincts.
The great source of suggestion (chap, xiii.) is herd life. Indeed,
suggestion, for the author, is little else than the herd instinct in
operation. Instead of following McDougall in this matter and
taking suggestion as one of three parallel manifestations of herd
instinct the author takes it as the one central tendency which
itself takes three shapes. He names these in a way calculated to
remind us of the mutuality (and the unconscious character on both
sides) of the relation denoted in each case. There is a " mimesis "
in herd life whereby, when one member happens to do a thing, the
others find themselves doing it. There is a mutual " sympathy,"
and there is thirdly a mutual "intuition". With these terms he
would replace McDougall's " imitation, sympathy and suggestion ".
Suggestion operating within the necessities of herd life is the great
articulating factor, adjusting primitive instinct to the definite
demands of situations.
Ons feature of these discussions on suggestion and connected
themes, which rather militates against clearness, is the manner in
which the author seems to move back and forth between the
two problems, that of grading in instinct generally and that of
grading in the instinct of suppressing in particular. We must
at once say, however, that although clearer statement could have
been wished for, of what was being done, this free movement
between the one problem and the other is the reverse of unjustifi-
able. They are at bottom the same problem. It is really
indifferent whether we ask how the suppression-act has come to be
graded or how instinct itself has come to be graded. Every
ins.inctive reaction is an instinctive suppression. Instinct tears
down its own channel ; but the very act of opening that channel is
a shutting of others. In the case of the rabbit on the grass, the very
act of scampering away is an abstention from feeding or playing.
In asking how instinct learns to grade its actions and not simply
go full tilt down its own groove we are literally asking how it
learns to grade its suppressions. The whole problem is one of
w. H. R, KIVEES, Instinct and the Unconscioiis. 203-
grading the suppressing-act. Suggestion, for the author, is the
universal grading factor so long as we remain on the level of
instinct, i.e., on the unconscious plane. The other way in which
our instinctive actions may be checked in their career and properly
adjusted or graded is through intelligence. This, however, takes us-
on to the conscious plane. Graded instinct is thus not necessarily
intelligence ; which seems a difficulty in the theory, since it leaves
the difference between the two very hard of specification. To this
point we shall have briefly to return.
There is much discussion in the book upon the conception of
the unconscious, much also of a practical therapeutic kind which we
shall only be able to touch upon incidentally if at all, as we pursue
the matter of central theoretic interest. The presupposition which
underlies the work is clearly that in dealing with instinct we are
dealing with something of the all-or-none order. What is the
effect of this presupposition ? What is the value of it ? W 7 hat is-
the necessity for it ?
In the first place, even if it should not admit of acceptance as
it stands, we do not see that to upset it is to upset the book. We
do not see, in other words, that it is indispensable to there being a
problem at all. There must, of course, be a problem. Anything
which would wipe that out, stands self -condemned. The wondera
of instinct have evoked men's admiration for too long. But
although we happened not to assume instinct to be by nature
ungraded, we could still clearly have a problem ; namely the pro-
blem of accounting for the extent to which grading in instinct
has gone, of getting at the source of the continuous further refine-
ments of it.
Is there, however, any good reason for demur to the all-or-none
principle as applied to instinct ? Our first impulse is to reply (very
naively no doubt) that while there is no very good one there appear
to be quite an array of little ones, against this presupposition ; a
presupposition of which there is certainly a great deal of philo-
sophical prejudice in favour.
For example : (a) in regard to the experiments which gave rise to
the terms " protopathic " and "epicritic," the presupposition in
question seems to import into our interpretation of the results an
abruptness of antithesis we put it no higher which sounds arti-
ficial.
We have alluded to the motive for launching these two terms as
designations of two levels of sensibility, viz., the definiteness with
which the process of recovery fell into two stages. Now, while
Dr. Eivers will not say that the later-returning over-laying epicritic
system, distinct from the other as it is, simply suppresses the
underlying protopathic one; he does contend, and he believes it to
be borne out by the facts of the experiment at which he himself
was present that during the healing process certain features of the
protopathic system are suppressed and certain others are taken up
204 CRITICAL NOTICES:
into the epicritic and fused therewith. The impression is left
as though the all-or-none principle taken too seriously as the
principle of the suppression-act were here working against true
theory. One has the impression of something which does not
discriminate within what it takes. It goes-to like a spring. What
it crushes it crushes and what it leaves it leaves.
(b) The all-or-none character also works unconvincingly at times
when introduced into a series of biological considerations. Roundly,
it is difficult to imagine an original biological function for the all-or-
none type of thing, of such nature and importance as to throw
light on pathological states. This is not to say we cannot find a
biological function for the suppression-act; but ''all-or-none" is
the malady of the suppression-act, and has not any huge, obvious,
universal, biological place such as is wanted and required for the
author's purposes, though it may well enough have some place.
Tnis fact seems to us to come out particularly clearly when
the author would throw a biological light on the phenomena of
dissociation (chap. x.). Dissociation it is one of the author's
contributions to terminology is not the state constituted by the
mere suppression of part of the conscious life. We have dis-
sociation proper only where the suppressed part is able to attain to
an independent consciousness, one which alternates with the normal.
The " fugue " is an instance of dissociation. The individual in
this condition carries out a connected series of actions qua another
person, which he subsequently cannot remember or understand his
having done. When the author raises the question, What biologic-
ally useful condition is indicated here? his suggestion is that it is
connected with some such alternation of environment as we find in
the life of an amphibian ; and when we recall what an episode in
the history of terrestrial life must have been its emergence from the
sea, the brilliance of the hint will be appreciated. But inevitably
it recalls to our minds the unlikeliness of a biological use for the
malady. There might be some use for an original condition where-
of the malady might be regarded as a distortion.
The impression arises somewhat as follows. For an answer to
the question Whence dissociation ? our attention is drawn to the
frog and the newt, and at once it becomes plain and illuminating
that of course memories of land life had better be suppressed during
water life, and water-experiences had better be at rest whilst one
is tackling the environment of the land. But, we incline to ask,
were land and water so different at the time the human race was
emerging ? Is there any evidence that our human line of ancestry
leads through anything so close to a literal newt stage ?
While no doubt the present amphibian is the summary victim of
two alternating fugues, and is no doubt much convenienced by that
(from the human point of view) malady ; it is a present form of
life, a comparatively not extremely widespread product of the
sharpened distinction of land and water, whose characteristic its
clean-cut alternation of lives seems rather to take its place along
w. H. R. RIVERS, Instinct and the Unconscious. '205
with the human malady of dissociation itself and along with all
other similar conditions, as the distortion of something originally
much less clean-cut which was the actual primitive and useful
thing. All observation seems to point rather to the gradual re-
straining of older activities and gradual bending of them to slightly
new tasks. When a species of creature, adjusted to a certain
environment, finds its environment change without its thereupon
going "down and out" when in spite of a change a species
survives what really does become of the creature's old adjust-
ments for its old conditions once the new environment has arrived ?
They do not go out of existence. Neither do they, surely, go out
of action. They operate subduedly, they operate nascently, at new
tasks. It is precisely inhibition of this graded sort which is the
necessary accompaniment of evolution.
Yet all these considerations are not enough to shelve the principle
that the nature of instinct is to be " all-or-none ". What is
wrong seems to us to be, that this is applied as a description of how
instinct looks from without as well as how it feels from within,
whereas it is good as the latter only. It is a description of the
inner view applied to both views. This is the source, we fancy, of
most of the head-shaking with which the principle meets. To
observation it is simply untrue that the startled hare runs its
fastest and its farthest every time it runs at all, nor does the child
scream his loudest every time he cries. The author may say " he
tends to ". Yes, but that is the inside view. And the truth seems
to be that from this point of view he not only tends to go the
whole way ; he does so every time.
We figure the matter to ourselves in somewhat the following
way. Every real situation is a system of moments or appear-
ances contained within an all-inclusive appearance or moment.
The creature reacting instinctively reacts entirely wholly every
time, to that selection of the appearances whereof the real situa-
tion is constituted, which is apprehended. Take the case of the
rabbit on the grass. His ventures and poises, his starts and
stops, his whole elaborate game of venturing out for a nibble in
the dawn when he can just see and not be seen, is most delicately
adjusted at every point. Even his fleeing is adjusted he won't
" clap " anywhere, but only in a nook among the grey grass where
he will be invisible and the wind will not stir his hair! Read
from without, it is all graded. But from within, what is it ?
Most likely, a series of literal presents in which even reaction and
apprehension are hardly distinguished, but reaction is part of the
apprehension just This, and the ears go up ; This, and the paws
are raised; THIS, and it bangs away. Each reaction is a total
reaction to as many of the component moments of the situation as
happen to strike a selection of cords on the many-stringed instru-
ment of the animal's constitution.
By making this distinction we are helped to explain the peculiar
206 CRITICAL NOTICES:
convincingness which the author's conception of instinct has,
despite of apparent artificiality ; and which must have made him
cling to it in spite of much opposition of the kind which it met
with, as many will remember, at the philosophical congress of 1919.
The undeniable truth which it seems to us to contain is that instinct
from within, or as an experience, is whole-hearted.
And we venture to think that with this distinction respected, the
conception of instinct round which this book is built may possibly
gain not only in verisimilitude, but in working- virtue as a hypothesis
as well.
For to recognise this distinction whilst not forgetting the facts of
suppression, may quite well lessen the difficulty both (a) of seeing
where intelligence begins, and (b) of understanding the rationale of
its operation.
(a) We are warranted in saying, judging by what we feel like
when we ourselves are most nearly instinctive, that in the This,
This, This, of the instinctive series, each picture, while distinct
from the others, is internally distinctionless ; and that the super-
vention of intelligence is where This has become This-not-that.
But all is activity or reactivity. It is This-acfo'tn'%-not-that, which
constitutes intelligence. The emphatic focus on the less emphatic
background, is really the dominant activity releasing the dominated
one to a faint place beside it in consciousness. Intelligence thus
becomes a species of release. It is the partial release of repressed
activity into consciousness, under control. " Could we but find the
springs to relax we might release to the animals themselves their
buried intelligence."
And (b) to realise that instinct can be articulate from one point
of view and " whole " from another (externally articulate, in-
wardly whole) is a matter of the greatest importance ; it is what
lends its peculiar interest to the assumption that to control instinct
is itself an instinct. We are prepared to find whole-heartedness
not incompatible with articulation. We are prepared to find when
the articulation, which is at first external only, at length comes
within (dawn of intelligence), that the whole-heartedness may
remain. Life is not entirely a matter of golden means and
compromise. Instinct has to be regulated ; but there is always the
instinct to achieve through the regulation, whereto we may give
ourselves away. A man may kick too hard or bat too hard, but
he cannot ever play his game too well. Instinct does not indeed
survive unmodified in intelligence. But it does survive. Un-
modified it is whole but undiscriminating. But when it becomes
discriminating it can still be whole.
And finally, inasmuch as intelligence is by its nature graded, we
cannot altogether agree with the author in the violent view, that
what restores the balance, in cases of psycho-therapeutic cure, is
not an intelligent, i.e., voluntary process. Is not the psycho-analyst
always appealing to intelligence and will? The appeal which
cures, so far at least as the present writer has ever been able to see,
N. E. CAMPBELL, Physics : The Elements. 207
is always an appeal to release something. It is hardly possible
to substantiate this important point without a brief allusion to two
of the well-described case histories which the author prints ; but
they do happen to illustrate the point aptly. He instances two
soldiers (we may call them A and B) who have each met with an
experience, by the distressful memory of which they are pursued.
Upon much repeated advice, each is found to have been, in all the
ways he can think of, following the plan of drowning the memory ;
but in vain. Dr. Eivers hits upon the plan of making them " face
up to it," and succeeds in the one case and fails in the other. The
reason is that he can help A to face up to his experience, but
cannot help B to face up to his. A's has fortunately an aspect
which is beautiful, and which the physician can point out and so
release that part of it into consciousness. And with that released,
A can face up, and suppress what remains, and get well. B's
experience, on the other hand, has no redeeming feature. (A
Freudean would probably say that the released aspect of A's
experience really operated because it released much more ; and in
the other case would have gone on willy-nilly till he found some-
thing sexual in it and released that.) Psycho-analysis from this
point of view emerges as an art of releasing. Intelligence is a
releasing. And it seems a mistake to say it is anything else than
intelligence and will which effects psychical salvation. Indeed it
seems no far-fetched thing to equate psycho-analysis and intellig-
ence. Any animal can fear. It takes a man to " take up arms
against his own fear". 1 An animal would cease to be an animal
the moment you could psycho-analyse it.
We do not close this review of Dr. Eivers's work with any sense
of having done justice to the element of brilliance and of what we
can only call random suggestiveness about it, which is the result of
that close acquaintance with fact which accompanies all its
speculative importance and interest. But the perusal of it certainly
strengthens the conviction that the greatest work in this great, rich,
new field, will only be done by a thinker of synthetic mind who has
something like the author's variety of scientific, philosophic, and
especially anthropo-psychological equipment.
J. W. SCOTT.
Physics : The Elements. By N. R. CAMPBELL, D.Sc. Cambridge
University Press, 1920. Pp. vii., 565.
THIS work is a critical study of the methods and theories under-
lying Physics. By Physics the author means that experimental
science which the ordinary text-books profess to expound the
Mechanics, Heat, Sound, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, and the
Properties of Matter, familiar to every schoolboy.
1 From W. E. Hocking.
208 CKITICAL NOTICES:
Some, of philosophical or mathematical leanings, would say
that this sort of Physics was a relic of the nineteenth century,
and shortly to be entirely superseded ; that, although Euclidean
Geometry and Newtonian Mechanics were all right for use in
Secondary Schools, they were beneath the notice of enlightened
men. To this we should reply, that Physics is after all not a
branch of Mathematics, but an experimental science that depends
upon certain things done in the laboratory ; physical measure-
ments, in short. These measurements, of sizes and shapes and
masses and weights and velocities of bodies, and of electrical
potentials and capacities, and a thousand and one other charac-
teristics of the external world, have been gradually accumulated
and made more and more precise throughout several centuries,
starting with Galileo and his inclined planes, and finishing up as
far as we are concerned with such results as are to be found in
Kaye and Laby's Tables of Constants. That is Physics. That is
the liquor, the rest is only the froth : it is that that drives our
trains and lights our houses and navigates our ships and provides
our food and clothing and, when necessary, kills our enemies. If
any mathematician or other person wishes to criticise the results,
he can do so only by showing that there are mistakes in certain of
our measurements, or in our deductions from them. To do this he
must assume some to be correct. Moreover, we know already that
the measurements are only correct within definite limits, not
absolutely. If there is anything certain in this uncertain world, it
is that no theoretical criticism can seriously disturb these results :
it can supply a commentary on the text and explain obscurities and
doubtful points and make minor emendations, but that is all. Or,
to change the metaphor, the pruning the theorist can do is only to
preserve the shape of the tree and increase its yield of fruit. The
only thing that could cause a real revolution would be some new
and unforeseen experimental facts. Dr. Campbell, therefore, is
concerned with the criticism of the methods by which the results
are obtained, not of the results themselves.
The practical person, on the other hand, may object, " if the
results are so satisfactory to all concerned, why bother ? Why
shun delights and live laborious days criticising something you
know is all right : for if the results are right, the method must be
sound?" This is easily answered. In the first place, it is quite
possible to obtain right results by wrong means ; in fact, it often
happens. It is always well to know as much as possible about
one's tools, so as to be able to use them to the best advantage, and
to know how to avoid mistakes. Finally, we can say, and this is
the only defence Dr. Campbell deigns to make, we are inquisitive
about these matters.
In discussing what is undoubtedly an important book on an
important subject, the critic may be forgiven if he deals chiefly
with what he considers are blemishes, for the author shows a
curious perversity of doctrine, which naturally provokes attack.
N. R. CAMPBELL, Phy&icx : The Elements. 209
One defect of the book is its immense length, a defect which
neutralises to a large extent the merits of a lucid and lively style.
Probably it is correct to say of this work, as has been said of
others, that long books are written by people who have not time to
write short ones.
There is no need to dwell on some of the author's peculiar views,
such as his dislike of metaphysicians, or his doctrine of the
nature of truth (pp. 256-267), which should bring a blush to the
cheek of the most hardened Pragmatist ; for they do not seriously
affect his argument. But his distrust of Mathematics leads to
difficulties that must be considered.
Part I. deals with certain preliminary questions. The chief
points are : a not very satisfactory treatment of the subject-matter
of science, and the basis of agreement on matters of fact ; an
interesting treatment of the character and proof of natural laws,
including a lively attack on the doctrine of Causation and on Mill's
Inductive Canons, and incidentally a confession that there is no
such thing as inductive proof, which appears to be forgotten later
on ; a discussion of the nature of Theories, using the term in a
special sense ; and an apparently heretical treatment of Chance and
Probability (matters that are beyond me). In the final chapters
there are some excellent remarks on the use of imagination in
scientific discovery, and on the place of science in education
(pp. 224-229). The treatment of laws and theories seems to call
most for comment.
" Laws," he says (p. 38), " are propositions asserting relations
which can be established by experiment or observation. The
terms between which the relations are asserted consist largely or
entirely of judgments of the material world, immediate or deriva-
tive, simple or complex. The relations asserted, if not always the
same, have always a common nature which may be described as
uniformity of association." Later (p. 45) he says that most of the
laws of science, apart from the most primitive and implicit, state
relations between "concepts," and that "concept is a word-
denoting an idea which depends for its meaning or significance on*
the truth of some law ". Most of the technical terms of Physics
stand for concepts in this sense. Thus, he takes as examples.
Hooke's Law, that the extension of a solid body is proportional to
the force applied to it, and Ohm's Law, that electric current is
proportional to potential. Here " solid body," "force," " current"
and " potential " are all concepts. Dr. Campbell's analysis and
statement of the case may not be very profound or exact, but it
would not be easy to improve upon it. It would be quite accept-
able but for the fact that he afterwards introduces a very far-
reaching distinction between laws and theories and between con-
cepts and hypothetical ideas. A theory, according to his special
use of the term (pp. 122-123), is expressed as a system of pro-
positions falling into two groups. The first group, which he calls
the Hypothesis, consists of propositions about certain hypothetical
14
210 CRITICAL NOTICES:
ideas : these propositions and ideas are sharply distinguished from
laws and concepts as not being directly derived from experience.
The other group of propositions he calls the Dictionary, and it
serves to relate the hypothesis to laws. Apart from the dictionary,
the propositions of the hypothesis appear as arbitrary assumptions.
It would be absurd to deny that this is an excellent description of
a certain type of theory, particularly of theories depending upon
an analogy, such as the Kinetic Theory of Gases, used as an
illustration by the author. But it seems extremely doubtful
whether this rigid distinction between laws and theories is every-
where applicable. In fact, it is Dr. Campbell's strict regard for
this distinction that leads him into his greatest difficulties.
When he comes to discuss Fourier's Theory of Heat Conduction
as an example, the artificiality of the distinctions is apparent.
The hypothesis here is a differential equation relating certain
variables and constants. The dictionary consists of a number of
propositions stating that these variables and constants " are " the
co-ordinates of a point in a body, temperature, time, density,
specific heat, and thermal conductivity, all of them measurable
quantities. The only reason stated for considering the whole
thing a theory and not a numerical law is that differential
coefficients are involved, which are not directly measurable, and
that though a differential equation and its integrated form may be
logically equivalent their meaning is different. It is clear from
later discussion that the crux of the matter is the author's view
that mathematical propositions as such are all hypothetical, and
that the numerical relations which are the immediate result of
measurement are somehow not mathematical.
The treatment of measurement occupies Part II. of the book.
Numerical measurement, he explains, arises out of the fact that
certain properties of processes and things display transitive a-
symmetrical relations of the kind that generate " order," and that
numerals can be assigned to stand for the terms related. In some
cases the numerals are not mere arbitrary symbols like the numbers
on the doors of houses, but are found to be amenable to arithmetical
manipulation, so that the results of certain physical manipulations
and of certain arithmetical ones correspond. Thus, if two things
weigh a pound each it is found that the whole collection of two
things weighs two pounds. At this point Dr. Campbell distinguishes
what he calls physical number, with a small 'n,' which is a pro-
perty of things, and mathematical Number, with a big ' n,' which
is something different, to be found only in the pages of Principia
Mathematica (see p. 304). The authors of that learned work, I am
told, consider cardinal numbers to be classes of similar classes, and
surely these similar classes are just the things of the physical world,
cows and potatoes, and gram weights and bits of wire, and anything
else that is numerable ? Fifty years ago, if an inquiring stranger
had asked a mathematician what numbers were, he might well have
been told that this was a great mystery not to be revealed to the
N. K. CAMPBELL, Physics : The Elements. 211
uninitiated. It would have been reasonable for him to believe that
what he came across in his humble way and called numbers were
not the same as the supernatural entities dealt with by those
enlightened ones. But nowadays things are different. When it
has been shown by logical deduction that two and two make four,
the result can be applied to the constituents of the physical world
as soon as we have made one simple observation, namely, that there
really are as many two things, and still another set of two things.
When, therefore, Dr. Campbell supposes that the numbers we
employ when we count things are not the Numbers of the mathe-
matician some astonishment is pardonable. When we find him
spending laborious chapters proving, by logic apparently, that
physical numbers can be added and multiplied and otherwise
manipulated, it becomes more astonishing still. The trouble all
comes, it would seem, from his having read Principia Mathematica,
and not believed it. He should have taken it on trust, unread, like
the rest of us.
Consider the process of direct measurement. Two observations
are necessary. First, we make a comparison between two sets of
perceived things or processes, whereby they are judged to be equal
in some respect. One of the sets is taken as a standard. The
second operation is a process of counting, which is not strictly a
measurement, but is prior to all measurement in numerical terms.
For instance, we can measure a length with a scale of inches by
juxtaposition of the scale divisions included. The standard here
is an inch, and the linear scale is a device that repeats inches in the
correct manner for our purpose. For convenience the standard is
usually put equal to unity, but of course we could call the inch 22*4
(millimetres) or 1/12 (feet), if we liked. The operation can be done
in the reverse fashion. If our only standard was a yard, and the
length to be measured was a few inches, we should have to find
with a pair of dividers how many times it went into the yard. In
any case what we are aiming at is to obtain a ratio, which we can
do by dividing one number by another, but simplifying the opera-
tion by calling one of the numbers, arbitrarily, unity. It is well to
notice that the result is a ratio and not a cardinal or ordinal
number, and we can as a matter of fact utilise (mutatis mutandis]
either the numeral or its reciprocal in calculation. This fact is not,
I think, sufficiently emphasised by Dr. Campbell. He sometimes
speaks, in fact, as though counting were itself a kind of measure-
ment, and as if there was always one number which was the value
of the magnitude measured. Normally there is an indefinitely
large collection of numbers which all represent the value sought
within any assigned limits. The true or right value is not a
number, but a class of numbers. The only cases in which a single
number truly represents the value of the measured quantity are
where it is assigned by definition, as when we say there are twelve
inches in a foot, and certain special cases where we are comparing
discontinuous series.
212 CRITICAL NOTICES:
That the limits within which lie the values of a quantity are
always a finite distance apart, Dr. Campbell points out clearly.
This depends, as he says, upon the fact that every instrument has
a " step ". We can always conceivably make the step smaller, but
it is still always finite, because we can never judge that a thing is
equal to q, but only that it is greater than p and less than r. We
can for convenience take q, the arithmetic mean of p and r, and say
that it equals qB. This use of the arithmetic mean has certain
other justifications, but it is still not the value except in so far as it
symbolises by convention a class of ratios. Other kinds of average
could be used instead.
Dr. Campbell points out (chap, x.) that those properties we can
measure directly and in the full sense, such as lengths or weights,
are additive, but that there are derived quantities which are not
always additive, such as density. His statement here is unfortunate.
He says (p. 282), " However we combine two bodies of equal density
we always obtain a body of the same density ". This is only true
of solids and liquids. If we take two equal volumes of a gas of
density 1, and pump all the gas from one vessel into the other, we
shall have a gas of density 2, and density will be additive. What
it means is that density is a specific property of solids and liquids
that cannot be varied at will, but only between very narrow limits.
Special cases can be found where magnitudes usually additive are
specific properties, and so are not additive. Volume is usually
additive, but in the case of an emulsion we cannot always combine
the spheres of the emulsed liquid to make spheres of larger volume,
because above a certain critical volume they will be unstable, and
there will be no spheres of any volume.
Density, although it is a specific property and for the most part
defies our powers of manipulation, can be measured because it is
related by laws to properties that are not specific and can be added.
Hardness cannot be measured except in a very limited and un-
satisfactory way, by means of an arbitrary scale, because it is
specific and not yet related by laws to measurable magnitudes. If
we discovered a substance whose hardness could be varied at will,
hardness would become measurable and additive.
Dr. Campbell gives an interesting treatment of the measurement
of derived magnitudes by means of laws relating them to funda-
mental magnitudes, and of the theory of dimensions. One point,
however, he has hardly proved. He shows (pp. 386-390) that the
ordinary text-book statement that volume has the dimensions of
length cubed is misleading and needs correction, and that volume
can be treated as the ratio of mass and density, but he hardly
establishes his case that the alteration is necessary or desirable on
grounds of precision or simplicity. Doubtless many logical theories
of dimensions are possible according to what kinds of quantity we
choose as fundamental ; the problem is, which is the best ?
The treatment of the Theory of Errors is heterodox like that of
Probability. Here again I should not venture to criticise. The
x. K. CAMPBELL, Physics : The Elements. 213
rinal chapter on the application of mathematics is valuable, if
allowance be made for the author's peculiar views on mathematics.
In an appendix there is an outline of the proposed continuation of
the work.
To return to the question of theories and laws : the author re-
jects the view that simple numerical laws are theories on two chief
grounds (pp. 336-337). They are (I) that they do not explain laws
or predict laws as proper theories should ; (2) that universal agree-
ment is possible about them, but not about theories. As regards
(2), it is true that the confidence that should be placed in generalisa-
tions varies, but there seems to be always some element of doubt,
as his treatment of Induction shows. Moreover, it does not seem
legitimate to distinguish sharply as Dr. Campbell does between
experimental concepts, which are supposed to be given unequivo-
cally in experience, and hypothetical ideas, which are not. Any
general notion of scientific value is somewhere based on experience,
and in some respects goes beyond experience. Dr. Campbell, in
order to avoid the suspicion that numerical laws involve mathe-
matical numbers, which are theoretical, explains how a law can be
expressed graphically in such a way as to avoid the use of numbers
(pp. 350-352). This very process of expressing a law as a graph
shows that a numerical law can be legitimately regarded as a theory
in his sense. We start with a number of experimentally de-
termined relations, as, for instance, that at one atmosphere pressure
a gas occupies 25 c.c. at half the pressure 50 c.c., and so on.
These results are plotted as points, and, finally, a curve is drawn
through them which represents the law, Boyle's Law in this case.
Now the individual experimentally determined points are them-
selves laws according to any reasonable definition, and they cer-
tainly represent relations between concepts in Dr. Campbell's sense.
Experiment can only give us a finite collection of points. The
curve through them is theory. It has the characteristic properties
of explaining the positions of the points and of predicting the posi-
tions of new points by interpolation. If it is possible to describe
Fourier's Law as a theory according to Dr. Campbell's view of the
nature of theories it is equally possible so to describe Boyle's Law.
Any ordinary generalisation that is important enough to have a
name can be analysed into more special generalisations in relation
to which it has the status of a theory. In order to get to laws that
cannot be further analysed, we must burrow much deeper beneath
the surface of explicitly recorded generalisations than the author
does. Further, progress in generality, if also accompanied by
increase in precision and refinement of statement, may involve a
diminution in the arbitrary and fictitious element, so that it is not
always the simple and primitive generalisation that is the least
hypothetical. Several illustrations of this could be found from
recent developments in Physics ; in particular, one of the benefits
conferred by the Principle of Kelativity is an increase in generality
of statement accompanied by an elimination of hypotheses.
214 CRITICAL NOTICES:
In conclusion, it is to be hoped that Dr. Campbell's work will be
read, not only by the philosophers, whom long training has inured
to the study of long books, but also by the physicists. It would be
a pity if they all put it aside, the experimentalist as mere theory r
the mathematician as sheer blasphemy. The book may suffer from
both these defects, and yet be a valuable contribution to their
science.
A. D. EITCHIE.
Sulle Interpretazioni Immanentistiche della Filosofia di Platone.
ADOLFO LEVI. Turin [undated]. Pp. vi, 240.
n Concetto del Tempo nel suoi Rapporti coi Problemi del Divenire e
dell' Essere nella Filosofia di Platone. Saggio sulla Teoria delle
Idee. ADOLFO LEVI. Turin [undated]. Pp. 111.
Two generally excellent works on the interpretation of Plato by a
thoroughly competent scholar who seems familiar with nearly
everything which has been published on the subject for the last
hundred years, and is also an acute and eminently sane critic. I
would heartily recommend both to the students of Platonism in our
own country, who are perhaps too prone to undervalue the work of
continental Platonists outside Germany. Of the two works, the
longer, which I have named first, is in the main expository and
critical of other interpreters (mostly German and English), and
serves as prolegomena to the second, in which Mr. Levi develops
his own views of the meaning of Plato. As appears from the title-
page of the former essay, Mr. Levi is strongly opposed to all inter-
pretations of what he calls the " immanental type," i.e., to all
which do not recognise, or try to explain away, the metaphysical
or ontological significance of the Platonic " Ideas " and their
" separateness " from sensible existents. His thesis is that the
Platonic doctrine is from first to last an " ontology," and not a
" philosophy of experience ". Hence he is led to a careful exposi-
tion of a whole series of interpretations which are subjected to
careful criticism with a view of showing their incompatibility with
the Platonic text, as well as with the statements of Aristotle about
the Platonic doctrine, on the supreme value of which the author
rightly insists. The interpretations selected for special considera-
tion are to mention only the chief among them those of Fouillee,
Dr. Jackson, Teichmuller, all grouped together as of the " panthe-
istic type," the " logico- methodological " interpretation (Lotze,
Cohen, Natorp, Hartmann, Marck, Prof. Stewart), and the " mathe-
matical " (which means primarily that of Milhaud. Eobin, though
constantly cited, receives no full examination).
The exposition of these various interpretations of Plato strikes
me as full, fair, and clear, and in respect of most of them, in my
own opinion, Mr. Levi's criticism is finally annihilating. I am par-
ADOLFO LEVI, Ftiosofta di Platone. 215
ticularly glad to see that the importance of the Platonic doctrine of
the soul as the " self-moving" is clearly recognised, and that it is
shown that this one doctrine excludes all the " pantheistic " read-
ings of Plato which require the identification of God, the soul of the
world, and the supreme " Idea " with one another. As Mr. Levi
rightly sees, it is precisely because " souls," including God, the
api<mj 1^x4 are neither " Ideas " nor alafofrd, but stand midway
between the two realms that the conception of the soul enables
Plato to offer a solution of the problem of the " cause of yepco-i? and
<f>@opd ".
The long examination of the exegesis of the "Marburg school,"
and particularly of Natorp, leads up to a triumphant criticism
which ought to give the coup de yrdce to the whole attempt to read
Neo-Kantianism into Plato on the strength of wilful mistransla-
tions. (Or can it be, as Mr. Levi seems once at least to hint, that the
mistranslations are not wilful, and that the real secret of the " school
of Marburg" is simply ignorance of the Greek language?).
I am not sure that the case against Natorp and his followers
might not be put even more forcibly than Mr. Levi himself has put
it. He says quite truly that the Plato of Natorp is a Plato who
has been taught Kantianism at Marburg. He might also have said
that Natorp's Plato has unlearned at Marburg the most important
doctrine in which the Plato of the Academy was at one with the
Kant of Konigsberg, the doctrine of the radical disparateness of
sense and thought. It is just because sense and thought are dis-
parate (or at least so both Plato and Kant thought), that in "on-
tology " we have to recognise a real difference between the " Forms "
and the sensibles which "partake" of them. The figure which
Cohen and Natorp have labelled " Plato " is not even a Plato con-
verted to Kantianism.
The " mathematical " interpretation of Plato comes off better at
Mr. Levi's hands, though he regards it as only doing justice to one
side of Plato's thought, and classes it along with the " pantheistic "
and " logico-methodological " interpretations as " immanental," i.e.
as denying the Platonic x^pioyxos of Form from sensible.
I do not feel sure that this estimate is wholly correct. I admit
that in one or two of his comments on Milhaud Mr. Levi makes a
real point, and I am not quite sure that I myself should now like
to express myself wholly as I did years ago in a paragraph which
is quoted on p. 238 as an illustration of the " mathematical " type
of Plato-exegesis. But I do not see that this exegesis involves
denying any kind of XU^KT/AOS which can really be ascribed to Plato.
To give an illustration. The number 2, we know, is a Platonic
et&o5. Now the number 2 is the number of all " pairs," and a-"pair "
is a class with individuals which are not classes as its members.
My right hand and my left hand are the members of a certain
pair, and this pair itself is a class which is a member of the " class
of all classes which are pairs ". The number 2 is this " class of
classes which are pairs ". My hands are the members of a class,
216 CEITICAL NOTICES:
not the class itself, arid that class again is an entity of a different
order from the " class of all pairs ". Thus there is a real xupivpos
between the number 2 and any pair, and between the pair which
is the class of which my hands are members and rny hands them-
selves. Is not this enough to explain why on Aristotle's showing
the Platonic et8os is " separate " from the " mathematical, " and
both from sensibles ?
Mr. Levi's own exposition of Plato, in the second of his essays,
ha,s throughout the merit of being a careful attempt to explain Plato
in a genuinely historical way, but I think he is still haunted by cer-
tain prejudices which are really due to the bad nineteenth-century
habit of forgetting that the meaning of a great philosophy cannot
be properly understood if it is studied out of relation to the actual
scientific thought of the society in which it arose. In fact, the
great merit of a work like that of Milhaud is precisely that it does
take the actual scientific problems and methods of the age of So-
crates and Plato as the point of departure for inquiry into the
meaning of the Academic philosophy.
Milhaud may be open to a good deal of criticism in the details
of his exegesis, but he has the imperishable merit of having seen,
after a century and more of misconception, where the beginning
must be made if Plato's thought is to be grasped. The two chief
points which I should be inclined to criticise in Mr. Levi's essay
are his assumption that the whole conception of eSb/ was a discovery
of Plato, and his way of using the Philebus, the Timaeus and the testi-
mony of Aristotle. As to the first point. It is, at any rate, a great
gain in 'historic insight that Mr. Levi properly insists that the
.Platonic 1805 is not an " hypostatised general notion ". He accepts,
however, i'rom teller the view that Socrates was busied solely with
the "general notion," and thus correctly infers from these premisses
.that the origin of the theory of Forms is not to be found in the
teaching of Socrates. Plato must have reached his belief in the
($os by the route of " aesthetic intuition " before he came under the
influence of Socrates at all. The original Platonic elSos and the
" aesthetic intuition" by which it is apprehended are set before us
in the Symposium and Phaedrus, which are thus treated as much
earlier works than, e.g., the Phaedo, in which we have further de-
velopments due to the influence of Socrates and his quest of the
." universal ". Now I grant that this is, at any rate, a more rational
theory than that of the development of the elSos out of an " hyposta-
tised concept" (which latter is, in fact, nonsense), and I congratu-
late Mr. 'Levi on the courage with which he has drawn the inference
necessitated by his theory about the dates of the Symposium and
Phaedrus. If they expound Platonism as yet un-Socraticised, they
must be the youthful compositions that he holds them to be. But I
should have said that it ought to be as clear that, on stylistic and other
grounds, the Phaedrus cannot be an early dialogue, as it is that the
i Theaetetus cannot be, in spite of the assertions of the " Marburg
.school, "an earlier work than the Phaedo. Any man who main-
ADOLFO LEVI, Filosofia di Plato tie. 217
tains either paradox seriously has really put himself out of court
as a Greek scholar.
Now when we turn to the Symposium we are at once struck by
the fact that Plato quite definitely connects the "aesthetic intui-
tion," OD which Mr. Levi properly lays stress, with certain critical
incidents in the career of Socrates. According to his account a
personal " vision " had a great deal to do, not indeed with the first
formation of the theory of /ze'fo&s, of which a very different
history is given in the Phaedo, but with the doctrine of the ascent
to the Form of Beauty. But this vision came not to Plato himself,
but to Socrates, and it came before Plato's birth. It has been com-
mon in the nineteenth century to treat this representation of the
matter as a mystification, but no one has ever given any tangible
reasons for such a view, and it was evidently not the Academic
tradition. It is quite clear that Aristotle, for example, only knew
of one "Platonic theory," that which he has described in Bk. A of
the Metaphysics, and that his statements about the thought of
Socrates are mainly based on the Phaedo, which he, therefore,
rightly or not, regarded as historical. In fact, I believe it would
be safe to say that though Aristotle repeatedly alludes to the Phaedo,
and in one famous passage directly describes its most important
thesis as " what Socrates says in the Phaedo " ; (De Generatione,
335 b 10), he never expressly speaks of any statement drawn
from the dialogue as a tenet of Plato. Mr. Levi reminds us
that in Metaphysics M. the theory of the " ideal numbers " is dis-
tinguished from that of those who "first had said that the Forms
.are ". He interprets this phrase as a reference to the Phaedo, and
it is possible that he may be right. But he should have observed
that this passage does not attribute the doctrine of the Phaedo, if
that is what is meant, to Plato at all. On the face of it, the writer
of M. is distinguishing what Aristotle knew as " the doctrine of
Plato" from something earlier and cruder. It is, therefore, at
least well worth our while to try the hypothesis that Plato's ae-
counts of the theories and the " rapts " of Socrates are the truthful
narratives they purport to be. On that view we could do full jus-
tice to all Mr. Levi urges about the experiences in which the mystical
strain of the Symposium and Phaedrus has its origin without having
to make the strange assumptions that these experiences are those of
Plato in the days before he the nephew of Charmides, remember !
had come under the influence of Socrates, and that the connexion
of them with, e.g., Socrates' service at Potidaea is a simple fiction.
(I think Mr. Levi would perhaps have been more willing to try
this hypothesis had he known, as he clearly does not, that Proclus,
who had the library of the Academy at his disposal, definitely
identifies the "friends of Forms" mentioned in the Sophistes with
Italian Pythagoreans, and repeatedly insists on the point that the
representation of Socrates in the Parmenides and Phaedo, as holding
the //,e'0eis theory from his early youth, is historically accurate. It
is safe to say that this was the view taken in the continuous Acade-
.mic tradition, as it appears to have been the view of Aristotle.)
218 CRITICAL NOTICES:
As to the use of the Timaeus and Philebus, Mr. Levi follows the
common practice in assuming that these dialogues represent Plato's
own most intimate thought at the time when they were written.
I am afraid I cannot believe this, and I think it idle to try to dis-
cover in them either the "ideal numbers," or, as Mr. Levi even
seems to suggest, still later developments of Platonic thought. We
must remember that both dialogues are in form imaginary conver-
sations, dated in the fifth century, and that, as it is quite easy to
prove, the discourse of Timaeus in particular is imagined to be de-
livered not many years after Plato's own birth. (This would
follow from the way in which the famous Hermocrates is described
as a young man whose friends are confident that he will yet do great
things, and there are many other indications to the same effect.)
We should naturally expect that this dramatic dating would set
limits to the extent to which Socrates and Timaeus can be used to
express Platonic ideas. The existence of such limits is manifest in
both dialogues. It is certain that Plato must have held the theory
of the " ideal numbers " and their formation from the ''one" and
the " great-and-small " at least as early as 367 (since Aristotle
simply identifies this theory with " the doctrine of Plato "), and
equally certain that the Philebus must have been written long after
that date. Yet in the Philebus Plato makes Socrates work not
with the " one " and the " great-and-small," but with the antithesis
of aTrcipov and Tre/ms, which Aristotle expressly says was Pythagorean
and not Platonic. So with the Timaeus. I am prepared to urge
though I naturally cannot give the proof here that one of the
most famous features of the dialogue, its astronomical theory, is
not the theory which Plato himself held when he wrote the dialogue,
and I believe it can be proved that Aristotle was well aware of this
fact. I regard it then as a mistake to look in either of these dia-
logues for any closer approximation to Plato's own views than
could be plausibly ascribed to fifth-century precursors. In par-
ticular, I am sure that neither dialogue contains a single word
about the "ideal numbers". We must remember that Plato did
not depend on his writings as a means of teaching his ideas to his
pupils in the Academy, and that it was his work in the Academy,
not the composition of his dialogues, which must have appeared
to him the main business of his life.
There are two other minor historical points on which I could
wish that Mr. Levi would reconsider his position. I regret that
he should countenance the quaint theories which have made Antis-
thenes of all men into an epistemologist and represented much of
Plato's most important logical work as a refutation of him. So
far as I know the only evidence for these speculations is the as-
sumption that the allusion of the Sophistes to oi/a/za#eis yepovres who
deny the possibility of contradiction must be meant for Antisthenes.
As though there might not well be many persons answering to the
description in an age which could produce Euthydemus and his
brother ! (And is it likely that Antisthenes would be called a
ADOLFO LEVI, FUosofid di Platone. 219
in 399, the year in which the Eleatic of the Sophistes is sup-
posed to be speaking ?) * I am sorry also that Mr. Levi should
countenance the notion that Plato in his " later theory " replaced
ft&c&s by /xt/xryo-ts as the relation between Form and Sensible. It
is plain from Aristotle, who expressly says that /xe'0ets was the
Platonic, //.i/r^o-i? the Pythagorean, word that Plato to the last
talked of //.#ets and, in fact, it and its equivalents, /XCTO^TJ, /Arroucna,
remain the recognised terms of the whole Platonist succession down
to the very last of the Neo-Platonists. The reason why the words
fte-re^eiv, /xe'tfe^is are avoided in the Timaeus is childishly simple. The
chief speaker is a Pythagorean astronomer, and /A/'/AT/O-IS, as Aristotle
says, was the Pythagorean formula. Also, as Aristotle sensibly
adds, the difference is merely verbal. In fact, so far as statements
about the nature of the ?8r; are concerned, there is no difference
whatever between the Phaedo and the Timaeus, nor should we ex-
pect to find any when we remember that the Phaedo professes to
describe views held by Socrates in the middle of the fifth century,
and the Timaeus to report a discourse delivered about twenty -
five years later. That Plato's own theory had undergone a de-
velopment which makes it widely different from that of the Phaedo,
we know, not from the Timaeus, but from the testimony of Aristotle
and other members of the Academy.
With these reservations I strongly commend Mr. Levi's careful
study to all lovers of Plato. In the main it impresses me both by
its scholarship and by the soundness of the author's judgment. But
I am not quite sure whether the writer has fully grasped the im-
portant point that the " ideal numbers" are, as is clear from Aris-
totl , just the integers, neither more nor less. I am half afraid
that Mr. Levi supposes the integers to be what Aristotle calls the
The main purpose of the study of Plato's treatment of Time and
Becoming is to show that even in the Timaeus, taken as representing
Plato's maturest thought, there is an unsolved problem. The
world of *' becoming " is after all not explained in terms of the
eternal etS??. The two still, after Plato has done his best, stand over
against one another, and Plato's doctrine remains a "two-world "
philosophy. " The problems stated by Parmenides (i.e., in Plato's
dialogue) remain unsolved." In a sense, this is, no doubt, true.
Plato has never shown why there must be a realm of temporality.
He has merely shown us that the eternal and the temporal are
compresent and interpenetrant. Why this should be so is, I
imagine, more than any philosophy can say.
It may be doubted whether Plato's inability to go further
justifies treating his doctrine as a " two-world " one. If all the
1 Also it must not be forgotten that the conversation of the Sophiftes
is feigned to be held only a few weeks before the death of Socrates. Antis-
thenes was at this time one of the "inner circle " of Socratics, as we see
from his presence in the Phaedo. This makes it unlikely that the
Sophistes should contain a contemptuous attack on him.
220 CRITICAL NOTICES :
phrase means is that Plato rightly refuses to identify the eternal
with the temporal after the fashion of our " cheap and easy mon-
ism," that, no doubt, is true. But if it is meant that, after all, the
elSrj are supposed to be suprasensible " things," that seems to me a
mistake. The root of the whole matter is the disparateness of
thought and sense from which follows the distinction between the
finality of mathematical demonstration and the provisional charac-
ter of all empirical science. If sense could be sublimated into
thought, or if thought really could " posit " its own data, as the
Marburgians do vainly talk, temporality could be swallowed up in
eternity. Because this cannot be, the sensible world exhibits every-
where the traces of what Timaeus calls dvay/o;, base or brute " con-
junction " for which we can see no reason. However far back
you may push your scientific hypotheses they always include the
assertion of "conjunctions" which are not "connexions," as
Hume rightly said. Yet the further back you push " explanation,"
the less prominent does " conjunction " become, and the more pro-
minent " connexion ". If we could see with God's eyes, presum-
ably we should see " connexion " everywhere and " conjunction "
nowhere. But it is only God Himself who can see with God's
eyes, and thus for all our philosophy ov and yeVeo-ts must remain
distinct. Whether Plato would have put it exactly in this way no
one can tell, but this seems to me to be the natural way for us to
express what he was concerned to say. If the distinction of " two
worlds " is taken to mean more than this, it cannot, I think, be
found in Plato, though even to ascribe it to him in its extremest
form is less of a misunderstanding than the attempts to make him
into a Spinoza, or an amalgam of Spinoza and Berkeley.
Mr. Levi's essays are a valuable proof that in Italy, as elsewhere,
Platonic exegesis is beginning to shake off its " dogmatic slumbers ".
It might move a little faster, but eppur si muove, and that is the
main thing.
A. E. TAYLOR.
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1919-1920. New Series,
vol. xx. London : Williams & Norgate, 1920.
THIS volume of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society presents
an attractive table of contents, most of the papers dealing with
topics of present-day interest and controversy. Prof. Ward's
Presidential Address has for its subject the method of philosophy.
The question of method, he thinks, is one which urgently demands
discussion at the present time, because while it remains unsettled
it bars the way to further progress. And no doubt a real difference
as to method must have this effect, since it will prevent the
exponents of the divergent methods from reaching any common
ground. Whether the difference between Prof. Ward and the
thinkers whom he has specially in view in the later part of the
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 221
address Bradley and Bosanquet depends essentially or pre-
dominantly on a difference of philosophic method is not perhaps so
clear. But at all events Prof. Ward thinks so, and the question is
one which it would certainly be well to have cleared up. Prof.
Ward begins by pointing out that, in accordance with the Arist-
otelian distinction between notiora nobis and notiora natura, the
problem of attaining philosophical first principles is an inverse one.
He reminds us of the way in which philosophers were long misled
by the ease with which an abstract science like mathematics was-
able to attain indubitable first principles and a demonstrative
method ; and, further, of the way in which Kant brought out the
difference in this respect between the method of mathematics and
that of philosophy. Yet, in spite of Kant, his idealistic successors-
seemed to take once more as their ideal of philosophical knowledge
the development of the whole structure of reality out of a supreme
principle, the Absolute. And in the philosophy too of our leading
English " Neo-Hegelians " (if we are to call them by that name) it
is the Absolute that figures as the standard or ideal by which all
finite experiences are tested. How, then, do we arrive at this
conception of the Absolute ? Along one line of reflexion it seems
to b '> equivalent simply to the universe or all-inclusive whole, along
another to the ideal of a perfect being or God. In the philosophy
of the Absolute these views seem to be fused : from the elementary
logical demand for self-consistency in the real there somehow
emerges the conception of an absolute " Experience, individual and
perfect ". " These seem giant strides to accomplish by a principle
' so absurdly simple,' to quote Mr. Bradley, ' as the law of contra-
diction '." Prof. Ward then comments more particularly upon the
procedure by which finite things, as being only parts of a larger
whole, are found to be involved in contradiction and seem to lose
their reality even as parts, becoming only adjectives of the one
reality, the Absolute. And he shows how this process of dis-
solution reaches its climax when the finite centres themselves in
which the datum experiences of our whole philosophising take
place yield in their turn to the same inevitable fate. "If only,"
says Prof. Ward later, " the so-called ' divisions ' of Keality into
finite centres of experience were recognised as themselves real
real in a sense quite different from appearance, in short, as real in
the sense in which the Absolute itself is real ; if, in other words,
they were regarded as creatures who have their part in carrying on
the work of creation, being endowed with the 'main miracle' of
will ... in that case, certainly, we should have less ground to
dissent from their doctrine." I was rather struck by this sentence,
because it suggests that the difference between Prof. Ward and the
"Neo-Hegelians" is not so extreme as might at first sight appear.
The appearance of extreme opposition is due in part certainly to
the fact that the opponents on each side use expressions the self
an ' appearance,' * real in the sense in which the Absolute itself is
real' which have an air of paradox or absurdity to those on the
222 CRITICAL NOTICES :
other. Yet Dr. Bosanquet, for instance, speaks of self-consciousness
as "the clue to the typical structure of reality," and Prof. Ward
would surely admit that there is a sense in which the finite centre,
simply because it is finite, is less real than the Absolute. Probably
a still more serious cause of misunderstanding is that phrases like
" an Absolute Experience " tend to suggest, and are no doubt taken
by critics to mean, something far more positive and rigid than those
who use the phrases really intend, or, at any rate, have any logical
right to intend. In view of the ordinary usage and associations of
a term like " experience," such phrases, it seems to me, simply
invite misunderstanding.
There are no fewer than three ' Symposia ' in the volume,
the Oxford Congress of Philosophy accounting for two. A com-
parison of the three inclines one to think if an outsider may
venture the suggestion that the Society might profitably devote
some consideration to the best method of conducting a ' symposium '.
The usual practice of the Society seems to be this : A writes the
first paper, B with A's paper before him writes the second, C with
A's and B's papers before him writes the third, and so on. This
method has its drawbacks, as will presently appear. One of the
Oxford Symposia, to which six writers, French and English,
contribute on the ' Problem of Nationality ' follows a different
method : the contributors (apart from a single reference) appear to
have written quite independently, with the advantageous result
that each addresses himself directly to the subject and gives his
own view of it. The contributions of MM. Halevy and Mauss, and
Sir Frederick Pollock are specially pointed and useful inasmuch as
they seek to limit and define the place of nationality as a political
principle. M. Halevy argues that the principle if made simple or
absolute becomes really a principle of revolution rather than of
settled peace, and that to meet the real complexity of the facts
we must also take account of the principles of natural frontier and
balance of power. Sir F. Pollock, who is in general sympathy
with this attitude, argues that there is no one simple way of
determining nationality, and that the most important factor after
all is that of common tradition and institutions, that is to say, the
political factor broadly understood. M. Mauss prefers to consider
the problem in a more concrete form the place of nations in
political development. Using the term nation in a somewhat
restricte 1 sense, he holds that the full development of national life,
in existing nations as well as in peoples that are not yet nations, is
still in large measure a task to be achieved. Eecognising this, he
looks beyond the nation, not to an empty cosmopolitanism which
is only the counterpart of individualism, but to the development of
a true internationalism which will establish right relations between
the .nations : in his view the beginnings of this development are
already plainly visible. The remaining three contributors treat
nationality rather as a single force, M. Ruyssen and Prof. Gilbert
Murray speculating on the possibilities of keeping it within due
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 223
limits, while M. Johannet takes a rather gloomy view of its sig-
nificance : " Pratiquement la vogue de 1'idee nationalitaire en 1920
est le signe d'une recrudescence de rivalites imperialistes ".
The other Oxford Symposium has for its subject : * Is the
Existence of the Platonic EIAO2 presupposed in the Analysis of
Reali.y?' Mr. Joad leads off with the affirmative answer, which
Miss Stebbing also maintains in a more qualified way, while
Mr. Lindsay and Prof. Hoernle act the part of critics. When we
are told that Mr. Lindsay finds himself in " fundamental disagree-
ment with almost everything in Mr. Joad's paper " we are prepared
for criticism of a polemical kind. Mr. Lindsay's main criticism (in
which Prof. Hoernle concurs) appears to be that Mr. Joad ignores
the fact that general notions are used in judgment, and thereby be-
comes unable to distinguish those which have no objective counter-
part (e.g., phlogiston) from those which have such a counterpart.
But is error in judgment, we may ask, so much easier to explain
than error in conception ? Prof. Hoernle's criticism does more, I
think, to further the ends of discussion. He points out that there
is no real dispute about the propositions on which the 4 realists '
lay so much stress, viz. that "the possibility of my being able to
know a thing depends upon there being a thing for me to know,
which is something other than my knowing it" or that "no con-
clusion as to the status of an entity follows from the fact that the
given entity is the object of a mental act " ; and he tries to clear up
the confusions which make the assertion of these propositions seem
important.
The remaining Symposium proposes the question : " Is the
'Concrete Universal' the true Type of Universality?" The
natural text for the discussion would have been, as Prof. Dawes
H ; cks po'nts out, the chapter in Bosanquet's Gifford Lectures, but
Prof. J. W. Scott puts a meaning of his own on the question, and
practically identifies it with the question of the objectivity of know-
ledge. His general line of argument is that knowledge is objective
only if the known object is the same for different minds, and this
identity of the object throughout its several appearances is what he
means by concrete universality. Mr. G. E. Moore tells us that
this argument seems to him "to have hardly anything to do with
the question," but, instead of dealing with it briefly and proceeding
to discuss the question properly at issue, he devotes his own paper
wholly to a detailed (and unsympathetic) criticism of Mr. Scott's.
Prof. Wildon Carr, following this unfortunate example, finds
Mr. Scott's thesis "of great interest" and proposes likewise to take
his "lead entirely from it ". Thus it is only in the final paper that
we come to the question proper, as most students of philosophy
would understand it, and even then Prof. Dawes Hicks is naturally
hampered by the fact that his colleagues have been discussing
something else. Comment upon this method of conducting a
* symposium ' is needless. The perversity of it is the more to be
regretted because the argument of the final paper shows very
224 CKITICAL NOTICES:
plainly that a careful discussion of the subject proper is eminently
desirable. After quoting from Hegel the following passage :
" Caius, Titus, Sempronius . . . are all men. That they are so is
not merely something which they have in common, but something
without which these individuals would not be at all," Prof. Dawes
Hicks comments as follows : " The passage illustrates with
sufficient clearness the confusion which Hobhouse [has recently
sought] to exhibit [between a universal and the concept of it] ".
Hegel himself explains his meaning by adding that "it would be
nonsense to suppose that Caius, without being a man, would still
be brave, learned, etc. " a statement which seems too obvious to
be guilty of subtle confusions.
I will now remark briefly on some of the ordinary papers..
Mr. Gator's paper on ' The Nature of Inference ' is interesting be-
cause it shows a former disciple of Bosanquet in sharp revolt
against his master's logical and metaphysical theory. Some of the
theses which he would now maintain are as follows : "That there
are for thought, no things which being given something else
different from them necessarily follows. . . . That no logical con-
nexion can be at once pure and synthetic. . . . That the Absolute
taken as meaning the all-inclusive reality has no character." For
logical necessity of connexion Mr. Cator would now substitute a
psychological tendency to fuse together things which can barely be
distinguished. "Thought's working principle is that a thing is
what it is only just not." Thought is " an activity of which the
characteristic nisus is to mediate between differents by the inter-
position of just-nots, separately imperceptible, cumulatively per-
ceptible". The theoretical difficulty which he now finds in the
ideal of logical system is well brought out in the following passage :
" Given a jigsaw puzzle complete but for one piece, or an animal
complete but for one bone, or a universe with but one gap in its
completeness, could we say with certainty what the missing ele-
ment must be ? No ; because the absence of the piece makes the
ground of determination itself indeterminate precisely in the
direction in which it is required to be determinate."
Mr. G. E. Moore's paper on " External and Internal Relations "
is argued with his usual acuteness, and states very carefully what
he takes to be the real issue and what his own view is. Un-
fortunately he seems to attribute to those who hold the doctrine
that relations are ' internal ' a view which one cannot believe that
they do actually hold. According to Mr. Moore the doctrine implies
"that any term which does in fact have a particular relational
property, could not have existed without having that property," e.g.,
if Edward was in fact the father of George he could not have
existed without being the father of George. Why the doctrine that
relations are ' internal ' should commit us to a fatalism of this sort
it is hard to see. At the end of his paper, in speaking about the
formula that a relation is grounded in the natures of the related
terms, Mr. Moore gives as one of its possible meanings this, that,
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'.
in the case of every relational property, "the term [which possesses
it] has some quality without which it could not have had the
property"; and he goes so far as to say that the formula taken in
this sense " may quite well be true ". One can only regret that hfe
did not make this formula so interpreted the starting point of his.
discussion.
Prof. J. A. Smith's paper on " Giovanni Gentihe " seeks by a
sympathetic account of the main tendency of that philosopher's
thinking to enlist our interest in him and in the genera) movement
to which he belongs. It seems clear from the account that Gentile
makes an advance upon Croce, but it is not so clear that either the
one or the other improves upon the Hegelian original. Wh n we
read a sentence like the following : " This all -dissolving but also
all-creating or re-creating thought is thought a priori and absolute,
is the act or reality of thought at its highest," we seem to be back
at the kind of language which Green felt to be so unconvincing.
In a paper on "Impulse, Emotion, and Instinct" Mr. Shand
endeavours to clear up some of the confusions in which these
controverted topics of psychology are involved. The primary aim
of the paper is to show generally how emotion is distinguished
from impulse, and more particularly how the primary emotions are
distinguished from the elementary or instinctive impulses. As
regards the questions at issue between McDougall and himself
questions as to how much the instincts, defined in view of their
actual character and mode of operation, can be used to explain
Mr. Shand seems to me to have the great advantage of being more
concerned to express the actual facts than to fit them into a simple
theoretical scheme.
Mr. Ginsberg discusses the question "Is there a General Will?"
mainly, though not exclusively, with reference to Bosanquetfs teach-
ing on the subject. He is evidently anxious to be accurate in state-
ment and objective in criticism, but I am afraid that disciples of
Bosanquet will find him wholly unconvincing. He expresses him-
self, for instance, upon the distinction between the real and the
actual will as follows : " I should say that a thing is either real or
not real, and that, therefore, the actual will is just as real as the
'real' will, if by the latter we mean the permanent or standing
will, though the former is relatively to it transitory. If, on the other
hand, as seems to be the case, by the real will is meant a completely-
rational will with a definitely articulate organic system of purposes,
then such a will is not real at all, but ideal ". But of course to
bring against Bosanquet's doctrine such dilemmas as ' either simply
real or simply not real,' ' either simply real or simply ideal ' is.
merely to beg the question, and to beg it not only against the
doctrine but against the facts.
Mr. C. C. J. Webb's paper on " Obligation, Autonomy, and the
Common Good " deals in an interesting way, though too briefly,,
with the basis of obligation. Accepting the Kantian doctrine that
''the essential feature of our moral consciousness" is "the sense
15
226 CEITICAL NOTICES : Proceedings of Aristotelian Society.
of obligation," he would base this authoritative character of
morality, not upon a mere common good or general will, but rather
upon an absolute factor " which may perhaps be best described as
the sovereignty, of God."
In a paper on " The Problem of Truth and Existence as treated
by Anselm " Mr. A. E. Davies contends that Anselm's treatment
.of the problem has been generally misunderstood, in that his proof
of the existence of God has been represented as purely a priori.
The aim of the whole argument, it is here maintained, is to verify
that experience of faith in which God is actually apprehended, and
this is done by showing (1) that consistent thought about existence
involves the thought of a Being than which nothing greater can be
conceived to exist an argument in which, instead of trying to pass
from thought to existence,- Anselm throughout presupposes the
distinction between them as ultimate (2) that this Being is
identical with the God in whom faith believes, since anything less
would not be God.
Miss Beatrice Edgell's paper on " Memory and Conation " com-
pares the views of Ward, Semon, and Freud, in regard to memory.
Mr. Geikie-Cobb's paper on mysticism seeks to distinguish
between a false or inferior form of mysticism which finds a basis
in unconscious vital and mental forces and the true mysticism
which draws inspiration from a higher source. "The function of
philosophy," he thinks, " when mysticism comes before it, is to
accept the data of the latter as it does the data of the sensuous
order, and then to find a place for them in its system of thought."
In view of the incommunicable character of the mystical experience
it would seem that the philosopher who is to undertake this task
must himself be a mystic, but this is not expressly said.
Of the merits of a paper on " Buddhist Metaphysics in China
and Japan " I am unable to judge.
H. BAEKEB.
VI. NEW BOOKS.
Lectures on Modern Idealism. By JOSIAH ROYCE. Yale University
Press.
IT was a curious consequence of the preoccupation of the British Press
with the War that the death of Royce was almost unnoticed in this
country at the time when it occurred. Yet his was a name which might,
one would have thought, have attracted the notice of journalists even
then, in consequence of the very decided position taken up on the side of
the Allies by the man who, since the death of William James, had been
undoubtedly the foremost figure in the ranks of American philosophers.
Indeed, as the editor of the volume before us tells us, Royce " was destined
to articulate the American conscience at a time of moral perplexity ".
These posthumously published lectures, in which he gave, to quote his
editor again, "an unbiassed and trustworthy study of German idealism "
is "all the more notable " as coming from one who "showed no hesitancy
in characterising Germany as 'the wilful and deliberate enemy of the
human race ' when she, in his opinion, assumed that role ". "Germany
was thus judged, not by one who disparaged and belittlod, but by one
who knew and cherished the ideals of her past." For Royce was in a very
real sense a follower, though an independent follower, of the German
idealism discussed in these pages.
It is indeed no very " modern Idealism " with which they deal : only
that of the immediate successors of Kant, with Fichte, Schelling and
Hegel. Of this they give an admirably clear and suggestive account.
The first and second lectures deal with the Kantian conception of know-
ledge and of the self, which lay behind this whole movement of thought.
It is rightly emphasised here that while the self "to whose categories,"
according to Kant, " all natural facts conform " " one inevitably conceives
as common to all tho^e men whose intelligence we accept as essentially a
guide to our own" (p. 23), yet it is never by Kant himself " viewed as
any absolute or as any superhuman mind th*t views all the facts of nature
at once ". The difficulty of the whole Kantian position is well put on page
61 in the remark that "in order to reach his epistemoiogy, as he usually
staies the latter, one has to accept his ontology, while after one has once
accepted the epistemoiogy, anything but a wholly problematic ontology is
excluded ". Is it, by the way, quite a correct representation of Kant's
doctrine of freedom to say that "the practical reason in passing moral
judgments, inevitably says * I am, for 1 ought to be, the origin, the source
of my own deeds ' " ? Should it not rather be " I am the source of my
own deeds, for I ought to act thus and not otherwise " ?
The account of Schelling and Hegel should be especially useful in calling
attention to the importance assigned by these philosophers to facts which
it is sometimes, as it would seem, thought that it has been reserved for
others to emphasise ; for example, the unconscious element in the self
(p. 120) in Schelling, or the plurality of selves (p. 174) in Hegel. Through-
out the lectures one meets with sayings which suggest interesting trains
228 NEW BOOKS.
of thought or associate with a striking phrase some important aspect of
the philosophy under discussion. Some of these may be quoted. * ' Future
historians will look back upon the history of idealism as being that of the
dissolution of the classic Protestantism" (p. 3). "The philosopher is
more frank than common sense with his antitheses. He does not invent
the paradoxes ; he confesses them " (p. 93). " The ideal hero of Hegel's
Phanomenologie, name him IVeltgeist, or call him by a more familiar word
Everyman" (p. 188). "One may charge Hegel rather with having too
hastily overlooked the possibility of discovering a deeper reasonableness
in many things which now appear to us to be accidental than with having
been a merely blind partisan of the reasonableness of whatever happens ! "
(p. 225). " I am very willing then to hear people condemn the a priori ;
for I notice that they do so on a priori grounds" (p. 254). Royce's own
attitude in respect of contemporary controversies in philosophy is briefly
described on page 258: "Personally I am both a pragma tist and an
absolutist ... I believe each of these doctrines involves the other, and
. . . therefore I regard them not only as reconcilable but as in truth
reconciled".
There are several misprints. On p. 7, 1. 8 from the bottom, it seema
that for 'metaphysical' we should read 'physical' and that * meta-
physical ' should be inserted in the next line before * researches '. On
p. 63 the date of the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason is given
as 1871 (for 1781) ; on p. 172, 1. 6 from the bottom, for 'as ' read ' is '.
C. C. J. W.
Das Denken und die Phantasie. Psychologische Untersuchungen nebst
Exkursen zur Psychopathologie, Aesthetik und Erkenntnistheorie.
By R. MULLER-FREIENFELS. Leipzig : J. A. Earth, 1916. Pp. xii,
341.
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. In the author's opinion the
popular meanings of Denken and of Phantasie give a rough indication of
the scope of his work ; and that is enough for him. Indeed, he does not
try to analyse the contrast between Denken and Phantasie until he reaches
page 253, and even then he seems indifferent to the issue for he is content to
leave it after five pages of somewhat perfunctory discussion in which he con-
cludes that the difference between the two consists solely in the Wirklich-
keitswert of the former. What is more, he is barely consistent in these
pages ; for he is prepared to call primitive folk-lore imaginative on the
ground that it has no Wirklichkeil swert for us, while he also maintains that
children are unimaginative because their so-called imagination proves only
that they are lacking in the critical faculty which distinguishes reality from
illusion.
His intention, in fact, is to show, on strictly psychological grounds, and
ostensibly without prejudice to any theories which are but partially psycho-
logical, that our thinking processes are not affairs of Vorstellungen (in the
sense of reproductions), but are phenomena of response, reactive processes
with a strong feeling-tone. VorsteUung, when it occurs, is relatively unim-
portant. Thinking itself is Einstellung, or Stellungnahme.
This line of thought, of course, has many prophets to-day, and our author
freely acknowledges his debt to James and Schiller among English-speaking
philosophers, to Binet, Ribot, and others in France, and to many psycho-
logists and philosophers in his own country. On the other hand, he claims
(most justly, I think) that he has worked the problem out for himself ac-
cording to a single fundamental principle. The nature of this principle
NEW BOOKS. 229
and of the author's introspective method appeal's very clearly indeed in his
first main chapter (pp. 41-90), and this chapter, in many ways, is the most
original, and the best, in the book. Here he undertakes a systematic de-
scription of all the primary Vorstellungen, beginning with the sense of
smell and ending with the sense of sight ; he describes his own experience
with the most meticulous care, and with very great skill ; and he succeeds
throughout in seeing himself with his own eyes and without borrowed
spectacles. In the result, while he admits that some Vorstellungen are repro-
ductions, he denies that many are, and he endeavours to explain away
many of the cases in which reproductive Vorstellungen are supposed to be
obvious matter of fact. He insists, for example, that internal articulations
in the way of sound must be sharply separated from auditory images, and
he gives some interesting examples to show that many ' auditory images '
are really illusions in which some sound in the neighbourhood is misinter-
preted and taken to be a subjective memory-image. He applies this type
of argument to all the senses, and even in the sense of sight he concludes
with Ribot that 'les representations visuelles sont toutes motrices'. In
a word, he substitutes affective-motor Einstellung for the Vorstellungen of
classical theory in all the principal varieties of sensory knowledge.
The obvious reply to this analysis is that our author is a * motile ' who
has generalised far too rashly and uncritically from his own experience.
Ho lays himself open to this reproach, I think, but I am debarred from
criticising him effectively in this regard since I also am a motile in so far
as I am anything, and therefore I have to take the reproach on trust. I
cannot help thinking, however, that the author makes his case far too easy
by arguing, at a pinch, that a VorsteHuna is not, properly speaking, repro-
ductive unless it is an exact reproduction. I wonder what he would make
of the case of Lieut. Jones, for example, who tells us, in The Road to En-dor,
that he was able to visualise an ouija-board upside down (although he had
never seen it in this position), and so was able to outwit his friends in the
ingenious test they set him. Such visualising is not exact reproduction,
but it is certainly not an affective- motor phenomenon.
Our author then proceeds to give us chapters on Analytic Attention,
Reification and Typifying in Perception, Judgment and Idea in Perception,
and The Abstraction of Ideas. These chapters are always careful and in-
teresting, and he supplements the discussion of one of them in the penulti-
mate chapter of his book by a more elaborate account of the relations be-
tween Language and Thought. His principal contentions, however, seem
to be reached in his sixth chapter in which he criticises the theory of Associa-
tionism, and in the seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters in which he deals
with purposive thinking in detail. This latter triad of chapters is perhaps
rather discursive and diffuse. At any rate it does not add so much as it
claims to the position he has already sketched in outline, but tue chapter
on Associationism is very closely argued, and very well worth reading.
Let me quote some sentences from its conclusion (pp. 241-242).
" We must reject altogether the theory of well-rounded, deposited ideas
which range themselves in series like dominoes. The elements of con-
sciousness are phenomena with quite elusive boundaries. They are rather
a gener.il tendency and setting towards something-or-other, than anything
clearly determined, and it is only occasionally that they assume determin-
ate forms in words or images. . . . The contents of consciousness are
waves in a river, and the element which is the bearer of ideas is feeling
whose tendency towards fuller inclusiveness and whose propensity to
spread is a manifest piece of fact. . . . The problem of advance in know-
ledge is therefore not that of linking together " pictures " already painted,
but one of purposive dissociation "
This bald statement, to be sure, may seem very commonplace nowadays.
230 NEW BOOKS.
It should be noted, therefore, that Herr Miiller-Freienfels tilts with living
philosophers, and disdains a combat with shadows.
The digressions into psycho-pathology, aesthetics, and theory of know-
ledge which are promised in the sub-title of the book, do not occupy very
much space or interfere with the argument. As the author of two works
on aesthetics, Herr Miiller-Freienfels is naturally at home in that field,
and his examples are well chosen. His remarks on psycho-analysis are to
be found principally in his eighth chapter, and do not pretend to probe
very deep. And he is to be congratulated on the restraint which keeps
his argument within the domain of psychology. He has no intention of
developing his psychological results into a metaphysical theory, although
he is aware, of course, that these results are bound to affect the philosophy
of mind. Still, except for his short concluding chapter (modestly printed
in small type), and for a rather apologetic section at the close of his fourth
chapter, he sticks to his last. And his book is none the worse for that.
JOHN LAIRD.
The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions, By CARVETH READ, M.A.
Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii, 350.
THIS very interesting book meets a long-felt want on the part of British
psychologists, as well as of British students of folk-psychology in
particular. It comprises in part material which now sees the light for the
first time, and in part work which the author has already published,
mainly in the British Journal of Psychology. The latter constitutes by
no means the least important part, and most readers will be glad to have
the various valuable papers from the Journal collected together and
presented as parts of the whole to which they belong.
Starting from his hypothesis of the descent of Man from a branch of
the larger anthropoids, which took to an animal diet a ' wolf -ape/
Lycopithecus and in so doing departed from the habits of the anthropoids
by becoming dwellers on the ground and hunting in packs, Mr. Carveth
Read traces first, in Chapters I. and II., the various physical and mental
changes which were involved in this departure, arguing that the new life
afforded an opportunity for, and demanded, precisely those modifications
of body and of mind which differentiate Man from the other anthropoids.
He passes on to a consideration of Belief and Superstition (Chapter III.),
Magic (Chapter IV.), Animism (Chapter V.), the relation between Magic
and Animism (Chapter VI.), Omens (Chapter VII.), the Mind of the
Wizard (Chapter VIII.), Toteinism (Chapter IX.), and Magic and Science
(Chapter X.). The hypothesis of the ' wolf-ape ' and the hunting pack may
be regarded as representing a thread on which the various topics are
strung, very loosely it must be confessed. The whole makes a very
excellent book, not so comprehensive as Wundt's Elemente der Volker-
psychologie, but in many respects much more satisfactory.
At several points the discussion is of great interest for general
psychology. That being so, it seems almost ungrateful to suggest that in
certain instances a fuller treatment than that given would perhaps have
been desirable. In Chapter II., for example, we get a discussion of the
psychology of the hunting pack. Now, if the hunting pack is to be taken
as representing the first human society, its psychology should obviously be
of high significance for social psychology in particular, as well as for
psychology in general. Unfortunately at least so it seems to us the
discussion is rather too general to be helpful. Various vexed questions of
the instinct level might have been treated in a most illuminating way
NEW BOOKS. 231
from this point of view. That the author is awake to this particular line
of argument is indicated by his references in the chapter to both Freud
and McDougall. He appears to have missed a golden opportunity. Of
course the exigencies of space necessarily imposed limitations, but a
detailed consideration of the social nature and tendencies of man as he now
is, in relation to the characteristics of the hunting pack, would have been
exceedingly valuable. In Chapter III. the treatment of Belief is open to
the same kind of criticism. One would have imagined that the psycho-
logical foundation of the chapter, and indeed of the whole book in one
important aspect, must necessarily be laid in a systematic psychological
treatment of Belief itself. Apparently it has not seemed so to the author,
and one result is that the reader is to some extent left guessing as to the
exact sense in which 'belief is used, and the precise psychological
phenomena covered, right through the chapter. It is true that a
definition of * Belief ' is given on page 76, but the definition is obviously
not meant to be a rigorous one, nor is the psychological analysis which it
prefaces intended to be at all searching. We cannot help thinking that this
is a pity. The distinction drawn between * perception beliefs ' and
' imagination beliefs ' is an interesting one. Is there also a ' conception
belief,' and, if so, how is it related to these? How is 'superstition'
related to ' make-believe ' ? What are the conditions upon which differ-
ences in degree of conviction depend ? Many such questions remain
unanswered.
As we have said, it seems ungrateful to ask for more when we have got
so much. The book as a whole is a very valuable contribution to
psychology. It gathers together from many sources facts, observations,
and theories, bearing upon magic, animism, totemism, and the like, which
have not hitherto been easily accessible to the psychologist. It interprets
these facts and observations in an illuminating, often in a convincing, way,
and always \\ ith a fine sanity of judgment. The reader feels throughout that
theories are made to wait on facts, not, as in some books that could be
mentioned, facts sought and selected in order to support ready-made
theories. Several of the chapters are of quite special interest, notably
perhaps those on " Magic," and "The Mind of the Wizard," respectively.
The last represents a fine piece of psychological analysis, and is in itself
sufficient to give high value to the book. The first starts with a distinction
between Magic and Animism drawn by Westermarck, and too often
forgotten by the psychologist to the great detriment of some parts of
his science. This distinction between the mechanical and the volitional
explanation of processes outside the natural or familiar is accepted by the
author. The two types of explanation are also different, he maintains,
in their origin. Magic arises as belief in certain mysterious forces from
the confusing of coincidence with causation, whereas Animism arises from
a confusion between dreams and ordinary experience. The chapter goes
on to trace the course of the evolution of Magic, the development of its
main types, and its final dissolution. The chapter on Animism is not so
striking as either of these chapters, and the same is true with regard to
the chapter on Totemism. In both cases this inferiority should be set
down to the difficulty, complexity, and obscurity of the subjects, rather
than to the fault of the author.
Altogether, as may be gathered from what has been said, itfr. Carveth
Read's book is a very welcome addition to the library of the psychologist,
filling a place which no English work has hitherto filled, and filling it
adequately.
JAMES DREVER.
282 NEW BOOKS.
The General Principle of Relativity in its Philosophical and Historical
Aspect. By H. WILDON CARR. London: Macmillan & Co., 1920.
, Pp. K, 165. 7s. 6d. net.
Zur Einstein' schen JRelativitatstheorie : Erkenntnistheoretische Betrach-
tungen. Von ERNST CASSIRER. Berlin : Bruno Cassirer, 1921.
Pp. 134.
Both of these books aim at giving the philosophical background of Ein-
stein's ihooxy, but adopt somewhat different methods of doing so. The
greater part of Prof. Carr's work is occupied with a historical account of
some of the main speculations that have been put forward with regard to
the nature of space, time, and matter. The Zenonian paradoxes, the
atomic theory of Democritus. the vortex theory of Descartes, the Newtonian
system of absolute space and absolute time, Leibniz's view of space as the
order of coexistences, all of these are briefly and interestingly presented.
Students of philosophy will be particularly grateful to Prof. Carr for the
account of Descartes' physical theories and of Newton's fundamental
views, which are often not included in their knowledge of the history of
thought The anticipations of the theory of relativity in Descartes' con-
ception of motion as purely relative, and in Leibniz's view of space as no
objective entity, but a mere order of confused perceptions, are clearly
pointed out. Prof. Carr s own leanings are, as is well known, towards a
Leibnitian view of reality, but this does not prevent him from giving a
sympathetic account of the other great systems of thought which he de-
scribes. This whole part of the book forms an interesting and useful in-
troduction to the study of relativity. The section devoted to the theory
itself covers ground which has recently become very familiar, and Prof.
Carr's presentment of the theory is in some respects less clear than some
others which have been published ; it may be doubted whether it will re-
move anv of the doubts which many people feel about the intelligibility of
the theory. One must, for instance, be well advanced in the relativist
frame of mind to be able to understand such a passage as the following.
(Prof. Carr has supposed two persons to travel from London to Edinburgh
by trains going respectively thirty and sixty miles an hour.) ' Let us go
back to the two railway journeys. According to the classical mechanics,
one is double the velocity of the other. According to the principle of re-
lativity, the .velocity of each is identical because in each train the observer
is at rest. The difference is in the space and the time. These are elongated
for the traveller in the slow train, shortened for the traveller in the ex-
press. To common-sense this appears contradictory, but reflection will
show that it is a simple alternative to the common-sense view, and logically
an exact equivalent. It is simply equal to saying, what is also fact, that in
oor two journeys neither I nor you moved at all, but our destination
moved to iis, and in doing so traversed double the space in double the time
in comir^g to me that it did in coming to you ' (p. 122). Or again, it is not
obvious why Prof. Carr should sayithat * gravitation is a phenomenon which
is connected' ' essentially connected' is apparently meant 'with a rota-
tional system* (p. 143).
In the last chapter Prof. Carr expresses his conviction that the relativity-
theory finally cuts the knot of the Zenonian paradoxes and the Kantian
antinomies fcy allowing us to think of the world as in reality non-spatial
and non- temporal. The world is infinite, but 'infinity is not the affirma-
tion of space, but its disappearance' (p. 152). The \*orld is an infinite
number of non spatial, non-temporal monads. The general contention of
the book may perhaps be said to be that the theory of relativity confi.ms
the truth of Leibniz's scheme of the universe ; and there can be no doubt
that its affinities are with some such scheme.
NEW BOOKS. 233
Cassirer does not fojlow the historical order, but groups his reflections
under such subjects as ' measure-concepts and thing-concepts,' * the em-
pirical and conceptual foundations of the theory of relativity,' ( the philo-
sophical concept of truth and the relativity-theory,' 'Euclidean and
non- Euclidean geometry'. His discussion shows, however, as might be
expected, a wide kuowledge of the history of modern speculation on the
subjects which interest both philosophers and men of science. The general
point of view is Kantian, and though the machinery creaks occasionally in
the process of fitting the new views into the Kantian system, the attempt
is on the whole not unsuccessful. The book leaves on the present reviewer,
however, rather the impression of a skilful use of the vocabulary of a par-
ticular system than of a mind really at close grips with the facts. The
crudities of Einstein's philosophy appear on the whole preferable to this
rather too smooth exhibition of a method which, one feels, could with
equal facility prove anything to be reconcilable with anything else. One
of Cassirer's main objects is to show that the theory of relativity in some re-
spects only ca ries to a further point tendencies which have been at work
throughout the history of modern science, e.g., the tendency to be interested
in measurements or in laws rather than in ' things ' having the objectivity
which common sense assigns to bodies ; and he is able to show by well-
chosen quotations from the works of leading scientists that this is so. But
whether there is any sense in talking of measurements which are not the
measurements of objective entities, or laws which are not the laws of their
behaviour, us a question to which he gives no satisfactory answer. A point
which is brought out well and with full and interesting documentation is
the mutual influence exercised on one another by epistemological theory
and physical theory, and it would be hard to find anywhere so good an ac-
count of the way of thinking which leads many physicists to suppose that
on philosophical grounds, apart from experimental discovery, position and
movement in space must be purely relative.
A conflict may be noted between Prof. Carr and Cassirer about the po-
sition of Lorenz's theory as against that of Einstein ; the former says (p.
130) that experiments have disproved the truth of Lorenz's view, the
latter says p. 36) that an experimental decision between the two views is
impossible, and that Einstein's is preferable solely on epistemological
grounds, i.e., in virtue of the Leibnitian 'principle of observability.' The
latter seems to be the position of most physicists.
One of the points on which Cassirer most strongly insists is that the
effect of the relativity-theory is not purely destructive of absolutes ; in
declaring space, time, and movement to be relative it leaves us something
that is absolute 'those relations and those particular size- values which
. . . maintain themselves not only for one system, but for all systems'
(p. 41 \ i.e., not only the velocity of light, but the entropy of a body, its
electric charge, etc. (p. 34). ' The object is not reached and known by
passing from empirical determinations to what is no longer empirical, the
absolute and transcendent, but by uniting: the totality of the observations
and of the measure-determinations given in experience into a closed
whole ' (p. 41).
Like Prof. Carr, Cassirer emphasises the fact that the relativity-theory is
in a sense a return to Descartes's abandonment of the dualism of space and
matter (p. 61). An interesting passage is devoted to the difficulties in
reconciling the supposed properties of ether (p. 70). One of the most
interesting chapters is that on Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry;
the author has nothing new to say, but he gives an interesting account of
the various phases of thought on the subject. His work concludes with a
useful bibliography.
W. D. Ross
234 NEW BOOKS.
La Filosofia di Giovanni Locke. By ARMANDO CARLINI. Vallecchi,
Florence. Vol. I, pp. xciv, 287. Vol. n, pp. 379.
This monograph on our greatest English philosopher by an Italian author
is significant of the force and direction o\ the present philosophical
movement in Italy. The book is a critical and historical study of the
first importance, original in its standpoint, profound and comprehensive
in its treatment. The only work to which it is comparable is Prof. J.
Gibson's Locke's Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations (1917).
Prof. Gibson's book is not included in the Bibliography which Signer
Carlini has compiled in his Introduction although the omission of it is
noticed as an Erratum at the end of the second volume. The reason no
doubt is that Carlmi had completed his study so far as its general design
is concerned before he knew of it. The bibliography ends with the date
1912. It is proof, however, of the wideness of the author's reading that
he refers to and quotes from an article by Prof. Gibson on Locke in this
journal in 1896.
To present Locke's philosophy to Italian readers can be no easy task.
Locke's terminology offers no difficulty to us for the simple reason that
he has imposed it on our language to such an extent that we are inclined
to regard his mean ngs as standardising our terms. In philosophy, in
fact, we feel called on to explain whenever we use one of Locke's terms in
any other sense than that which he gave to it. But when Locke is trans-
lated into a foreign language there is a peculiar difficulty, one which
cannot be removed by a glossary, for it is continuous. We cannot but
sympathise with our author therefore when he says: "Mind (il sog^etto
auto-cosciente) non corrisponde esattamente ne a spirito (come opposto a
* materia '), ne a mente (perche mind e anche volere) ; understanding e
piuttosto intelligenza che intelletto ; consciousness (consapevolezza di se,
riflbs^ione interna), in inglese, e diversa da conscience (che ha un signi-
ficato piuttosto morale)," etc. These are difficulties, however, which, to
some extent, apply to all authors in every age. The real difficulty in
interpreting as distinct from translating Locke is of a different nature^
A first and indispensable condition for a true valuation of Locke's
philosophy is the historical reconstruction of his thought. It is to this
task the author has primarily devoted himself and we can congratulate
him on having achieved a notable success.
The most remarkable thing about Locke is his philosophical detachment.
His method is original. He shows an almost complete lack or interest in
the systems of philosophy and in the philosophical theories around which
the main controversies 01 his age were raging. He is possessed with the
feeling that the philosophical problem is not abstruse, that it is easy of
solution if we only go straightforwardly and directly to the study of our
ideas and of our mental processes, without obscuring everything in a
smoke-cloud of logical, metaphysical or philological definitions. In fact
he devoted himself exclusively to the study of his subject without regard
to what others had done or were doing. It has sometimes seemed in-
credible that he should not- have read the works of his great contemporary,
Hobbes, whose theory of knowledge had such striking points of resem-
blance to his own, yet the way in which he refers on occasion to the
writings of Hobbes, whom he joins with Spinoza, show not only that he
was unsympathetic but that he must have been positively unacquainted
with his philosophy. A characteristic story is told of Locke in regard to
Newton, the authority for which for the moment escapes my memory.
Newton he read and admired warmly but before committing himself to
the consideration of the philosophical bearing of his discoveries he asked
NEW BOOKS. 235
a mathematician friend whether he could assure him that it was safe to
assume the correctness of Newton's mathematical demonstrations.
Signer Carlini has had to aim, therefore, at revivifying the historical
period in which Locke worked. He has striven to place us in, and make
us breathe, as it were, the philosophical atmosphere which Locke's pre-
decessors and contemporaries created, rather than to set before us the
definite doctrines they held. We are made to feel the life of the world in
which Locke's thought found expression.
What is particularly admirable in the general treatment is the way in
which the author manages to combine and weave into one fabric an ex-
position of the doctrines and their historical setting. Thus in his first
part, entitled "The Formation of Locke's Philosophy," he begins with
an exposition of the treatise on "The Conduct of the Understanding "
and follows it immediately with a discussion of Locke's relation to Bacon,
to Descartes, and to Hobbes. This leads to an illuminating chapter (one
of the best in the book) on the philosophical influences and directions in
seventeenth-century England. We are then shown how naturally the
problem of the origin of ideas arises.
The second of the four parts into which the book is divided deals with
the theory of knowledge. The third part deals with the polemical writings
and the minor doctrines. It is in some respects the most important part,
and it is certainly the most original and interesting. The famous polemic
against innate principles in the first book of the Essay, is not, according
to our author, mainly or directly concerned with the definite doctrine of
innate ideas as we find it formulated by Descartes and his followers. It
comprehends these philosophers no doubt, but if it be read as a simple
criticism of anything Descartes, or any particular Cartesian, actually pro-
pounded, we must pronounce judgment against Locke for complete mis-
apprehension. On the contrary, Carlini argues, what Locke has in mind
is that widely accepted but generally vague and indefinite notion of a
kind of light of natural reason, a voice of conscience, implanted in the
human mind. It was implicit rather than actually expressed in current
theories. It is the basal idea of the natural theology, very generally and
uncritically accepted in the seventeenth century, which became definite
and pronounced in the Deism of the eighteenth century. It was against
this theory that Locke's polemic was directed. The only criticism of a
direct nature which he engaged in was against the philosophy of Male-
branche and his followers. The Vision in God and the occasional causes
were doctrines in every sense repugnant to him.
The fourth part of the book deals with the later development of Locke's
doctrine in the theories of Berkeley and Hume and in the philosophy of
Condillae. In an appendix the author has compiled a useful descriptive
list of the chief works written in direct criticism of Locke from his own
time down to times present.
H. WILDON GARB.
The Messsage of Plato. By E. J. URWICK. London : Methuen & Co-
Ltd., 1920. Pp. xii, 263.
Prof. Ur wick's title-page is not a little misleading. What he is really
setting himself to expound is the "message" of the Vedanta, and the
great superiority of Vedantism as a " way of life " to Christianity, a
religion about which he does not seem to be very well informed. That
the "message " of the Vedanta is also the "message " of Plato he asserts
very confidently, but it is not hard to convict him of being wrong out of
his own mouth. His method of exegesis consists, in fact, of a combination
236 NEW BOOKS.
of the suppressio veri with the suyyestio falsi, both, of course, practised
in the absolute good faith which comes from propagandist enthusiasm
unche -ked by any infusion of historical sense. This may seem a hard
verdict, but I will proceed at once to submit evidence in justification
The book, apart from the assault on Christianity in the irrelevant final
chapter, purports to be an exposition of the Republic. Its main thesis is
that the " philosopher" of the Republic is a non-social Yogi who ha - risen
above the necessity of practising the civic virtues and is following the
"higher path" of aiming at the spiritual suicide of absorption into
"Brahm". Of course Prof. Urwick must know that neither in the
Republic nor anywhere else in Plato is there one word about " absorption "
of the philosopher's selfhood in the impersonal. Here, then, is the
suggestio falsi. Also he must know that on his own showing the Republic
demands that the philosopher should be trained in the whole of the
highest science precisely that he may be fitted for his task of ruling with
adequate knowledge and insight. Yet he asks us to believe that the
philosophers of the central books of the Republic are intended to be self-
centred adepts who have left the stage of social duty behind them and
are going in for what Schopenhauer calls " will-less contemplation".
Here is the suppressio veri.
After this it is not surprising to be told that Plato cared nothing for
anything which we call science and was not even serious in his show of
being concerned with questions of education and government. One
naturally asks, why then did Plato make it the business of his life to
found the Academy ? We happen to be rather fully informed about the
kind of science pursued in the Academy. Plato and his personal associates,
Eudoxus, Theaetetus, and others whose names are all known, worked at
planetary theory, the geometry of irrationals, solid geometry, conic
sections, and the foundation of what we now call the Infinitesimal Calculus,
as well as at the problem of zoological classification. I submit that this
is what we call "science," and though Mr. Urwick has a right to his
opinion that interest in science prevents mankind from enjoying the
vision of God, he has no right to foist the opinion on Plato, h ven if
Plato's works did not teach expressly tjiat science reveals the divine, the
absurdity of Mr. Urwick's thesis would be adequately demonstrated by
what we know of the actual achievements of the Academy, just as the
absurdity of the th'sis that Plato was not really interested in 'polities'
is sufficiently proved by the arduous and dangerous part he played at
Syracuse. If Plato had been the kind of man Mr. Urwick supposes, why
did he, at the age of sixty, attempt to direct the political education of
Dionysius II ? And why was the Academy so active, a few years later,
in the " liberation " of Syracuse ? Of course I need hardly dwell on the
historical difficulties of the assertion that there is any connexion be-
tween Platonism and what Mr. Urwick calls "the Indian philosophy".
(H.> does not seem, by the way, to know that there is any Indian philos-
ophy other than Vedantism. Has he never heard of the Sankhya ?) It
is as certain as can be that before Alexander there was no way by which
Indian philosophical speculations could have reached the West. The
idea is really refuted by asking the simple question in what language we
are to imagine the communication as taking place. Nor do the best
authorities on Sanskrit literature seem to regard the Vednnta philosophy
as having anything like the antiquity Mr Urwick ascribes to it. It was
really his duty to make out his case for the existence of the Vedanta in
the Vth (or possibly the Vlth) century B.C. He is content to dispose of
the difficulty in a few lines by asserting in his Preface that some Sanskrit
literature (he seems to assume without proof that Vedantism may be
found in the oldest hymns of the Veda) is six thousand years old !
NEW BOOKS. 237
There is a great deal more that might be said, but I think I have said
enough to show that, as an interpretation of the Republic, a book which
exhibits so complete an ignorance of the historical background of Plato's
life and thought and proceeds on such arbitrary exegetical principles is
not worth the paper on which it is written. Mr. Urwick speaks very
disrespectfully of a whole series of modern students, Grote, Jowett, D. G.
Ritchie, Adam, Dr. Bosanquet, Prof. J. A. Stewart. I should not like to
adopt a 1 the opinions of any of these distinguished men, but at least
thny have all been scholars, and one of them, Grote, a scholar of the very
highest eminence Mr. Urwick has still to learn what scholarship means,
and T will add, what proof of a statement means. You are not in the
positioa to have a right to confident views of your own about Platonic
exegesis unless you begin \*ith an adequate knowledge of the Greek
language and literature (such as would, e.g., prevent the making of the
foolish remark that the name P thagoras is Indian and means Pitta
[? Pita] Guru, "Father Guru"), and a sound understanding of the social
and intellectual life of the Greek communities in the period 450-350. To
dogmatise without this knowledge is at bottom charlatanism. It is be-
cause Mr Urwick's book is one long dogmatising without knowledge that I
feel bound to put, it on record that of all bad books on Plato his is the very
worst. It is highly discreditable to the firm which publishes it that they
should "push" such wares by the impudent "puff" which appears on
the wrapper.
A. E. T.
The Psychology of Nationality and Internationalism. By W. B.
PILLSBURY. Appleton, N.Y. and London, 1919.
Prof. Pillsbury tells us in his preface that this book "was suggested
by contact with the American Greeks returned to Greece to fight in tho
Balkan War". He points out very clearly that nationality is not a
matter of race or of language. "If you are to know," he truly says, " to
what national group an individual belongs, the simplest way is to ask
him ". In what is perhaps his best chapter, that on 'hate as a social
force,' Prof. Pillsbury observes that "in the attitude of the native
American to the war, one was struck by the vastly greater effect of hate
and resentment against the cruelty of the German than of sympathy with
the victims," from which he deduces the consequence that "the war as a
whole constitutes a definite refutation of the German doctrine of fright-
fulness ". The " influence of a common hate " not only makes for national
unity but plays a not unimportant part in the development of the uni-
versal system of social levels. It is also seen in the socialistic opposition
to war less as a "source of suffering" than as "an instrument of the
capitalistic class devised to keep labour in subjection". When a nation
becomes the victim of a war of aggression "hate is still the most im-
portant factor in national defence," and " while it is not true that had
there been no war or if wars were to cease there would be no nationality,
it is certain that coherence is emphasised where there is opposition".
While there is much truth in these remarks, it is perhaps worth observing
that at the beginning of the late war, hate (even in the very general sense
here used) of the Germans was not the prevalent sentiment among
Englishmen nor was it among the principal motives which roused the
nation to enter into the struggle.
The following chapter on 'Nationality in History' is weak. The
history of the middle ages in particular is not well understood and the
238 NEW BOOKS.
influence of the universal claims of the Holy Roman Empire in delaying
the accomplishment of national unity in Germany and Italy is not even
mentioned.
Chapter v., on nationality in the process of naturalisation, is interest-
ing ; an American writer has here special opportunities of observing
relevant facts. Prof. Pillsbury laments the prevalence among Ameri-
cans of an ignorant conceit of superiority which makes them unfair to
foreigners, but remarks that by this attitude "the process of naturalisation
is hastened ". He notes the readiness with which the German immigrant,
"usually better trained in languages" than the Englishman, and "keen
to acquire a new one," soon " adopts the speech of the new home and
gradually loses his own ".
A chapter on 'the Nation and the Mob Consciousness' is sensible.
The author clearly distinguishes the nation from the mob, and wisely
points out that, even as regards the mob, "one is justified in the statement
that a man in a crowd is somewhat similar in his acts to the man hypnot-
ised, not that he is hypnotised". We should remember, he adds, that
"in one sense all that we do is done through suggestion". But it is very
questionable whether suggestion is really "nothing more than habit on
the one hand and association of ideas on the other".
In d'-aling with "the national mind" Prof. Pillsbury does well
to remind us that "to explain the consciousness of the social whole in
terms of the relation of the individual consciousness to separate elements
is to attempt an explanation by means of something that is itself far from
fully known". If he does not himself throw much light on the problem
of a "national mind" he is careful to avoid the extremes of denying the
existence of any such thing on the one hand and making it a mind
additional to those of the citizens on the other. His attitude to the
project of a League of Nations is marked by a similar sobriety. He is
wholeheartedly in favour of the formation of such a society and holds
that no reasonable objection to it can be based on the psychology of
nationality. But he also thinks that it is not likely that "the sentiment
of loyalty to separate nations would ever be greatly reduced" and that,
if it happened, the reduction "would be a much to be deplored result ".
Prof. Pillsbury's remarks on the emphasis laid on different aspects
of freedom in different countries, and especially in this country and in the
United States (pp. 42, 229), are worthy of note and throw light on some
recent developments of American legislation which are apt to astonish
Britons. He has a just comprehension of England's difficulties in respect
of the Irish problem, and many of us perhaps will be inclined to agree to
his pessimistic conclusion that "no solution proposed holds any great
promise of success ".
One may doubt whether it is generally true that the Englishman of a
quarter of a century ago "gloried in being Teuton" whatever may have
been the case with a certain group of historical scholars ; and may wonder
whether indeed the Germans were not disastrously misled by mistaking
in this instance an academic fashion for a national sentiment.
The absurd use of the phrase 'Platonic love' on page 120 is unworthy
of a cultivated writer. I have noticed slips or misprints of ' cleanliness '
for * uncleanliness ' (p. 44), 'prosecution' for * persecution ' (p. 75),
' nation ' for ' state ' (p. 273) ; and wish that Prof. Pillsbury had en-
lightened my insular ignorance by explaining his allusion to ' the devotee
of Peruna ' on page 201.
C. C. J. W.
NEW BOOKS. 239
Knowledge, Life and Reality. By GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. Yale
University Press, pp. xxiv, 549. 15s. net.
Before the publication of this book Prof. Ladd's philosophical opinions
were expressed in a series of monographs dealing with [ articular questions.
The present work represents his attempt to express in "semi-popular"
form the philosophical system to which he is led by considering together
the conclusions of these inquiries. This system seems to be largely
determined by ce.tain presuppositions which he elaborates, the first of
which is his view of the nature of the functions of philosophy. These are,
Prof. Ladd thinks, to examine the categories of the positive sciences and to
synthesise their conclusions; we are told, however, that this synthesis
must be of such a nature that it is "in accord with humanity's most
important and persistent ideals" (i. 8), that is, man's moral, aesthetic and
religious ideals ; and later Prof. Ladd asserts that no system which is
other than monistic will achieve this, since he thinks that to attempt to
explain the world as the product of two independent principles whether
they be matter and mind or good and evil is to deny the possibility of
an explanation. Philosophy must discover "a supreme Reality which
may serve to explain and interpret both kinds of existence," (i.e., the
existence of matter and mind) "in their reciprocal relations and forms of
behaviour" (p. 58).
The second group of presuppositions are those connected with the
nature of knowledge. Prof. Ladd thinks that the only knowledge which
may be regarded as certain is knowledge of ourselves ; and this knowledge
reveals the capacity to will as our do ninant characteristic, the character-
istic indeed which serves as a criterion of whether or not an entity is to
be regarded as a self. The volitional aspect of our self enters into the
state of knowing ; for Prof. Ladd thinks that there is no such mental state
as a pure act of cognition : there is always also a volitional element
present in addition to feeling. Indeed he believes that " only beings
that have wills of their own can know. And the beings which these
wilful beings know as other than themselves, are known only as they
are recognised in terms of opposing wills " (p. 07). That is to say, they
are known only as they are selves And here we come upon a tenet
which Prof. Ladd repeatedly enforces as to the nature of our knowledge,
which would seem to introduce a scepticism at least as great, if not
greater, than that of Kant which he so much deplores. Starting from
the premiss that all our knowledge must be human knowledge a
proposition harmless in itself since it is a tautology he interprets this
to mean that the objects of our knowledge in order to be known by us
must behave more or less as we know ourselves to behave : that is they
must be more or less self-like.
At this point we make the transition from his presuppositions to the
results of his system. That objects of all kinds are more or less self-like
is being progressively established by science, in as much as the causal
laws according to which they behave are becoming more and more definite.
Now to be a cause is, according to Prof. Ladd, to will in accordance with
an idea ; indeed we only come at the conception of cause through the
knowledge of this process as it occurs in ourselves. It is easy now for him
to pursue his unifying ideal, and the stages by which he proceeds are
familiar, for they are more or less common to those philosophies which
envisage the universe in terms of ethical Idealism. Scientists, he thinks,
have a faith in the unity of the physical universe, in the sense that there
is some one Force or Will which will account for all the conclusions
reached by the different positive sciences. He believes that this ide-il is
being gradually approached although its attainment is still very distant.
240 NEW BOOKS.
He believes that there is a Being of the World whose spirit is immanent
in the physical universe (it is on this account that physical entities appear
self-like) and which is realising a plan therein the nature of which it is
for the scientist to discover, that is to say in so far as he ;s a meta-
physical scientist ; and all scientists are bound to be n ore or less so
preferably more than less, thinks Prof. Ladd if they do anything more
than observe phenomena. He then considers the ethical, aesthetic and
religious ideals of man. In each case he gives an extremely interesting
account of their psychological development, and proceeds to discover what
"ground" (to use his own term) they have in reality. These psycho-
logical discussions lead him to the conclusions that ethical, aesthetic and
religious states of consciousness have always been present in the con-
stitution of the human mind in a less or greater degree of development,
and further that their history shows them to be evolving steadily towards
certain ideals, which may be characterised. The ethical ideal, he thinks,
is that of ideally good people (by which he means those who possess the
virtues to the greatest extent compatible with their harmony) living
together in a society. The aesthetic ideal is the recognition and
appreciation to the greatest extent of the aesthetic qualities (such as
sublimity, proportion, grace, prettiness) in the physical universe and in
man. The religious ideal is that of monotheism, i.e., the belief in the
existence of a personal God, combining within himself the ideals of
ethics and aesthetics, and worthy of our worship, whose spirit is .im-
manent in thj universe, in the sense that he is progressively realising
himself therein. Such are man's ideals, and since they are part of his
experience they demand an explanation by philosophy. Is the universe
of such a kind that they may be realised ; and is there any reason to
believe that they are not merely man's ideals, but ideals of the universe
apart from man ? Yes, thinks Prof. Ladd. The physical universe from
which man is evolved must itself possess in some degree those qualities
which constitute man a moral being, since it would otherwise have been
impossible for it to produce them in man. Also, he thinks there is
empirical support for the belief that the physical universe shares man's
moral characteristics ; for, he argues, biologists speak of the improvement
of species as a result of what would prima facie appear to be nature's
wasteful and painful methods, and sociologists have no doubt that nature
favours right conduct. Similarly he thinks we observe more and more
the beauty of nature's processes ; how what would appear to be ugly is
only a necessary condition of something beautiful, and how nature is
succeeding in producing in itself more and more those qualities which
give rise to aesthetic app eciation. Finally our belief in God is justified
because such a Being must exist in order to explain our experience. The
universe appears to us as a planful, moral and aesthetic unity of such a
kind that it must be the work of a mind which is itself characterised in
this way, which is manifesting itself in the universe. God must exist
in order to unity our experience.
M. LEBUS.
Universite de Louvain. Annales de I'lnstitut Superieur de Philosophic.
Tome IV. Louvain, 1920. Pp. 623.
The reappearance of this handsome Year-Book is welcome evidence of the
courage and vigour with which all clashes in Belgium are addressing
themselves to the work of relieving the injury done to national life by the
infamous German invasion and occupation. To the sentimentalists of
Oxford who are so eager to resume public relations with the Herren
NEW BOOKS. 241
Professoren who applauded this villainy I recommend the prefatory note
in which it is explained that the absence of all contributions to experi-
mental psychology, a leading feature of former Year-Books, is due to the
thoroughness with which the invaders destroyed the Louvain laboratory
and all its contents.
Space permits of no more than a brief summary of the contents of the
volume.
M. DEFOURNY. Aristote et I' education. [A full account of the educa-
tional theories of Aristotle marred by strange historical misconceptions.
It is absurd to suppose that aliens at Athens, like Aristotle and his pupils,
were interested in propounding a scheme for the reform of Athenian
education. The whole course described in the Politics is patently meant
not for any existing community but for the little aristocracy of Aristotle's
dreams in which the "goodness of a man" and the "goodness of a
citizen" are the same. Nor was there any such educational "crisis" at
Athens in Aristotle's lifetime as the author imagines. It is quite false
to say that Athenian education had ever been regulated by the State, and
the legend of the demoralisation of society by the "sophists" has long
been known for the idle tale it is. M. Defourny actually carries back the
supervision of the ephebi, as fixed just before Aristotle's death by Lycurgus,
to the age of Solon ! Aristotle's relation to Plato is also quite miscon-
ceived. Plato was not an enthusiast for Spartan "education". In the
Republic itself Sparta is given by name as an instance of a community
where things are already going wrong from " neglect of education ". In
the Laws we are told that the Spartan system, though professing to teach
" virtue," only teaches one subordinate virtue, and not the whole of that.
Again it is ludicrous to accuse Plato of making "conquest" or " military
process" the end of the State. It is from the Laws tint Aristotle has
borrowed the Baying that it is peace which is the real serious business of
life. And it shows either lack of knowledge or want of candour to dwell
on the "secondary school" system of Hellenistic times without mention-
ing that the very idea of the "secondary school" was introduced into
Greek thought in the Lau*s.]
G. COLLE. Les quatre premiers livres de le Morale a Nicomaque. [A
poor summary of Ethics I-IV with unfavourable criticisms, mostly due to
mis understanding. The article is not worthy of its author.]
R. RREMER. JRemarques metaphysiques sur la causalitc. [A good ex-
planation of the Thomist doctrine. The author might have pointed out
that its sources are Plotinus and Proclus rather than Aristotle.]
E. JANSSENS. La morale Kantienne et V eudtfmonisme. [Criticises
Kant's hostile attitude to all forms of Kudsemonism. The author rightly
.says that Kant's account would be very unfair if taken as a description of
the doctrine of Aristotle or St. Thomas. He forgets that Kant had prob-
ably never studied either of these philosophers and that the " eudae-
monism " he attacks is that of the eighteenth -century British "moral
sense writers ". As against Hutcheson or Hume I think it would be easy
to show that Kant's complaints are justified. ]
F. DE HOVRE. Pestalozzi et Herbart. [Perhaps the best essay in tho
volume. A careful study of the educational theories of both thinkers and
of the influence of Pestalozzi on Herbart. The writer's conclusion is that
neither can be safely neglected by the modern " pedagogue".]
P. NEVE. La philosophic francaise a la veille de la guerre. M. D.
WXJLP. L'ceuvre d'art et la beaute*. (Extract from a forthcoming volume
on ^Esthetics. A good defence of the objectivity of beauty against Lipps,
Vernon Lee, Croce and others. But why is " pragmat sm " ca led an
"Anglo-Saxon" way of think ng ? It came from America, to be sure,
but the United States is not, and probably does not consider itself,
16
242 NEW BOOKS.
" Anglo-Saxon". And it must be by a slip that Lotze is described as
an lt Hegelian".]
YVES DE LA BRIERE. Le droit international' chre'tien. [That war
should be, as far as possible, prevented, or, if that cannot be, limited to
cases where one party has a iusta causa, by a "League of Nations," is
fully in accord with the teaching of Christianity. But, in the writer's
opinion, a League of Nations must have the Pope as its head. I am afraid
the British Empire could show a iusta causa for declining to enter the
League so constituted.]
E. DUTHOIT. Un sociologue catholique : Henri Lorin. A. D. SERTIL-
LANGES. L'ide'e de creation. [Very brief but admirably lucid.] J.
MARITAIN. De quelques conditions de la renaissance scolastique. [The
condition chiefly insisted on is that every "philosophical principle" of
Thomism, whether primary or subordinate, shall be insisted on. In
philosophy, as distinct from science, there must be no concessions to
the " moderns ". The consequence of this will be that the rigid Thomist
will come to understand the " moderns " better than they understand
themselves and so to extract truth from their errors. I own I should
have been more impressed if the writer had spoken of Descartes with
decent courtesy and had abstained from lamenting that the peace of
Westphalia secured political rights to French Protestants.]
A. E. T.
An Introduction to Sociology for Social Workers and General Readers.
By. J. J. FLNDLAY. Manchester and London, 1920. Pp. viii, 304.
Prof. Findlay has written an excellent introduction to Sociology. It is
well balanced, lucidly written and shows throughout a philosophical
detachment in face of the many burning questions that are touched upon
with fine judgment. The book is especially interesting by reason of the
fact that it has been written in the midst of the present great upheavals
of social organisations, with all their possiblities of disaster and hopes of
progress, and the author has not neglected the opportunities offered by
them to the philosophical sociologist. He bases his sociology frankly
upon psychology, and is content to pass skilfully over the difficult question
of the boundary between the.se sciences. Perhaps the most severe
criticism that could be made is that he has not used his psychological
groundwork sufficiently ; and this defect is due to his not having attained
a sufficiently definite psychological position, and is perhaps attributable
to the state of psychology rather than to any deficiency on the part of the
author. It is illustrated by his discussion of the gregarious instinct,
which leaves the reader uncertain whether he accepts or repudiates it as a
constituent of human nature. His polemic against the gregarious instinct
seems to have been prompted by Mr. Trotter's riotous application of the
conception as the key to all sociological problems, which naturally enough
tends to provoke a reaction against all such speculative application of
psychological conceptions. The author's general attitude may be described
as sanely and optimistically democratic. It is well illustrated by the
following passage "Every day it becomes more clear that one of the
chief tasks of statesmanship will hereafter be concerned not so much in
governing the people by superior authority as by organising in harmonious
schemes the manifold groups devoted to occupation, to locality, to culture ;
and by using these, in friendly rivalry with each other, for the highest
purposes of national and international advancement ".
W. McD.
NEW BOOKS. 243
The Psychology of Persuasion. By WILLIAM MACPHERSON, M.A
London, 1920. Pp. 256.
This is a brightly written popular exposition of the methods and role of
* persuasion ' as a factor in social life. The word * persuasion ' is used
in a wide sense to include all that is more technically called * suggestion,'
as well as appeals to reason and sentiment. The author does not aim at
psychological precision or subtlety, but there is little or no serious fault
to be found from the psychological standpoint. He has brought together
many interesting illustrations of the principles he expounds.
W. McD.
/ Primi Scritti di Kant (1746-1760). By AUGUSTO Guzzo. Naples,
1920. Pp. vii, 126.
The author reviews successively the early ' pre-critical ' writings of Kant
from the essay on the True Measure of Vis Viva to the Reflections on
Optimism called forth by the famous earthquake of Lisbon. There is a
conditional promise of a continuation in which Kant's work from 1760 to
1731 will receive similar treatment. The criticisms are made from the
general standpoint of a non-theistic spiritualistic pluralism. One may
doubt whether the whole point of view is not too far removed from that
adopted by Kant at any period of his thought to make such criticism
specially valuable. But much of Kant's * pre-critical ' work is excellent
reading, and most of it is much less generally known than it deserves to
A. E. T.
The Psychology of the Future. By EMILE BOIBAC. Translated and
edited with an Introduction by W. DE KERLOB. London : Kegan,
Paul, Trench, Trubiier & Co. N.D. [1918]. Pp. x, 322.
In his Psychologic Inconnue, of which a second edition appeared in 1912,
and his Avenir des Sciences Psychiques (1917), which also Dr. de Kerlor
has now translated, M. Boirac showed himself to be one of the most
philosophically competent, level-headed, and scientifically-minded of the
writers on psychical subjects, and his books richly deserved to be trans-
lated. He tends indeed a little too much to classification, and the inven-
tion of technical terms, as if he thought that they were very important
and really contributed to rendering a subject more scientific, and what is
more serious, though he has evidently experimented and claims to have
had considerable success, he nowhere gives an account of his experiments
full enough to enable his reader really to appraise their value. This
would appear to be an error of tactics, for however great the confidence a
writer may inspire by his sobriety and candour, the subject is not yet in
such a condition that writers on it can rely entirely on the impression of
good faith and competence which they may produce. The translator has
equipped the book with some illustrations of M. Boirac's methods, though
they are not expressly stated to be his ; he has also taken some liberties
with the text, mostly by way of omission. The translation cannot be pro-
nounced good ; errors like ignorer 'ignore' (p. 57), assistants 'assistants'
fpp. 150, 206), etre parti de, 'to be a partisan of (p. 94) are inexcusable.
F. C. S.S.
244 NEW BOOKS.
Le Neo-Rtfalisme Ame'ricain. By RENE KREMER, C.SS.R., Louvain r
Institut de Philosophic, 1920. Pp. x, 310.
It was no slight task Father Kremer of Louvain set himself when he
undertook to give to the world a complete account of the doctrines, ante-
cedents, and affiliations of American ' Neo-Realism '. For not only is
the literature extensive, scattered, controversial and not easily rendered
coherent, but, as he himself notices in quoting the complaints of James
and Santayana (pp. 21, 106), it is too often couched in a repulsive and
illiterate style. Nevertheless he has read, collated and considered everything,
and so produced an exhaustive work which will be found a good and trust-
worthy guide through the labyrinth. The more so that his attitude to-
wards his subject is one of neutral interest ; he interprets and combines
neither in a hostile nor in an apologetic spirit, and even the conviction he
is bound to hold, viz., that all this ew realism, in so far as it is true, is only
a re-discovery of the old truth delivered to S. Thomas Aquinas, is not ob-
truded. The book is a credit to the philosophic school of Louvain.
F. C. S. S.
Hie Field of Philosophy : an Introduction to the Study of Philosophy.
By JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON. Second, revised and enlarged,,
edition. Columbus, 0. : R. G. Adams & Co., 1919. Pp. viii, 485.
So Ion-/ as philosophers attempt to teach philosophy by narrating its history,
there will probably be a continuous flow of ' Introductions ' to philosophy.
For as such histories must be necessarily highly selective, each professor
will want to make his own, and they will all grow antiquated, because,
when new points arise and new issues become important, the old selec-
tions will always be found to have omitted the anticipations of them in
the earlier philosophising. The present work, which attempts to include
too much, and so is rather too crowded and compressed, follows in the
main the path of safety along conventional lines. But it has the merit of
being clearly and simply written, from a moderate rationalist standpoint ;
which, being interpreted, means, without too pedantic a regard for consist-
ency. Prof Leighton is anxious to exhibit the religious * God ' on good
terms with the philosophic ' Absolute,' and hedges judiciously on the
burning questions, new and old.
F. C. S. S.
An Examination of William James's Philosophy : a Critical Essay for the
General Reader. By J. E. TURNER. Oxford: B. H. Blackwell,
1919. Pp. vi, 76.
Mr. Turner's attitude towards William James's philosophy is neither very
profound nor very consistent. His interest in philosophy has apparently
a religious motive, and in the last chapter ("Religion and the Sub-
conscious ") he applauds James's fundamental contentions.
* Certainly it is in the sphere of religion, if anywhere, that Pragmatism
comes into its o * n ; for here at least we can never exclude for a moment
the practical results of our principles ; here it is eternally true that ' By
their fruits ye shall know them ' " (p. 65).
Nevertheless, Mr. Turner is " sincerely of the opinion that James is not
'on the side of the angels ' " (Preface, p. vi.). The only ground for this
opin on seems to be Mr. Turner's personal affection for the absolutist con-
cept on of truth. He makes the curious assertion that the coherence-
NEW BOOKS. 245
theory of truth " is one which James does not appear to have dealt with
At all " (p. 26) ; presumably because James himself prefers to deal with
it in the more concrete form of monism. It is not surprising, therefore,
that Mr. Turner fails to understand the pragmatic alternative to that
strangely incoherent theory ; and has not realised the sceptical implications
of his own assertion that "it is an almost obvious commonplace that no
system of pure principles, and no high ideal, will 'work' in our actual
world ; what ' works ' there is never truth, but compromise " (p. 14). In
Mr. Turner's view, if theories do not fit facts, so much the \vorse for the
facts even if they really are facts. But surely there is some point at
which neglect of facts ceases to be an adequate expression of our devotion
to the truth ?
H. V. KNOX.
Xpace and Time in Contemporary Physics : an Introduction to the Theory
of Relativity and Gravitation. By MORITZ SCHLICK. Translated by
H. L. BROSE. Introduction byF. A. LINDEMANN. Clarendon Press.
Pp. x, 88.
This little book, by the professor of philosophy in the University of
Rostock, may be confidently recommended to all those who want an
accurate and non-technical account of the concepts of Einstein's theory of
relativity, and the reasons that have rendered some such overhauling of
traditional physics indispensable. One very great merit of the book is that
it really is consistently relativistic from beginning to end. After reading
many expositions of the theory one has an uneasy feeling that a view
which recommended itself at the outset by its success in laying the ghosts
of absolute space, time, and motion, has ended by becoming obsessed with
them in its cosmological speculations. This may be due simply to verbal
carelessness in the writers ; but it is liable to produce great bewilderment
in the reader. Prof. Schlick does devote a chapter to Einstein's later
cosmological theories about the finitude of the world, but he manages to
express himself in such a way that they appear to be as, I believe, they
really are quite compatible with the most complete relativity of space,
time, and motion. The book ends with a chapter on the connexion of the
new theories with epistemology and the psychology of sense-perception.
The author regards the extreme phenomenalism of Mach as possible ; but
he holds that it is not necessitated by the facts, and that it is unduly
restrictive of the possible contents of the physical world.
The translator is to be congratulated on presenting the British public
with a valuable introduction to this vitally important subject in an agree-
able and accurate form.
C. D. BROAD.
Hauptlinien der Entwicklung der Philosophie ven Mitte des 19 Jahrh.
bis zur Gegenwart. HARALD K. SCHJELDERUP. Kristiania : Jacob
Dyswad, 1920. Pp. viii, 278.
This work in its original form was awarded the Monrad gold medal by the
University of Christiania ; the translation into German has been accom-
plished by the author himself, and it certainly inspires confidence in his
ability to interpret the numerous philosophers of that race who are dealt
with in his sketch of the modern developments of thought.
He recognises that his task has both an artistic and a scientific side
artistic, because every philosophy is the expression of a distinctive
246 NEW BOOKS.
personality, an individual achievement and scientific, because the move-
ment from one system to another is co-determined by the general tend-
encies of the environment, economic, scientific, cultural and religious, a
well as by the previous history of philosophy itself. He takes the function
of the historian, here as elsewhere, to be that of the observer and reporter
not of the critic or the judge. His treatment is, as far as it can be so,
purely objective, although here and there one may get a glimpse of his
personal sympathies. There is an over-emphasis, perhaps, of materialism ,
positivism, pragmatism ; English philosophy in general hardly receives
sufficient justice ; Green, Bradley, Sidgwick, Bosanquet, Bertrand Russell
are all out of the picture ; in pragmatism, Schiller has the barest mention.
On the other band, the psychological tendencies in modern thought and
their influence on both science and philosophy are clearly recognised ;
admirable outlines are given, for example, of the work of Fechner, Wundt,
Guyau, Munsterberg and James. The purely scientific aspects and in-
fluences are also skilfully handled ; atomism and energetics, the relativity
theory (the earlier "special" relativity of Einstein, not the later
"general" relativity), the evolution- theories, vitalism, etc.
The Introduction describes " the collapse of speculative idealism," and
the remarkable upward movement in science in the earlier part of the
nineteenth century ; the main work is divided into four sections of vary-
ing length, (1) the development of natural philosophy from Materialism
to Energetics ; (2) Inductive Idealism ; (3) Positivism ; (4) N co-Idealism
and Neo-Romanticism. In the second section, the chief figures are Fechner,
Lotze, von Hartmann and Wundt ; in the third, on positivism, there are
various subdivisions, the foundations of positivism in Comte and Mill ;
the correlativism of Laas and Schuppe : the biological and pragmati^t
development in Spencer, Mach, Avenarius, and James ; the idealistic
trend in Lange and Vaihinger ; and finally the "transformation of values "
in Nietzsche. The last section refers mainly to Miinsterberg's metaphysic
of values, to Bergson, and to James' mysticism.
The more recent movements are treated sympathetically,, especially the
main trend back to a more direct and immediate appreciation of reality,
to the "fresh, bright morning- world of our childhood and of the young
races" ; it is shown in pragmatism, "an uncritical, popular philosophy,"
yet a movement of great interest to the historian as a "very typical sign
of the times " ; in the anti -rationalism of Vaihinger's philosophy of the
"as if," with its reduction of thought to fiction; in Windelband and
Miinsterberg's definition of the sphere of philosophy as the world of
values, treated " not as facts, but as norms" ; and in Bergson 's treatment
of thought as "an annex of the world of action ".
The counter-movements are not given the space or even the mention
that they may be thought to deserve ; but with that reservation the
volume should prove a most useful guide through the maze of modern
philosophy.
J. L. M.
La Psychologic Franpaise Gontemporaine. By GEORGES DWELSHAUVERS.
' Paris : Alcan. Pp. xi, 256.
AT the suggestion of the late Th. Ribot the author of this book has striven
to do for French psychology what Ribot himself had done for the German
and English psychology of the last generation. He has obviously spared
no pains to carry out his task and has produced a survey of French
psychology well calculated to support the claim, "que le sceptre de la
psychologie, reserve a la France depuis le xvi e siecle, n'a pu lui etre-
NEW BOOKS. 247
enleve et qu'il appartient sans conteste, aujourd'hui comme a 1'epoque
classique, au pays de Montaigne et de Pascal, de Descartes et de
Malebranche, de La Rochefoucauld et de Vauvenargues " . The survey
starts with the work of Maine de Biran and ends with that of Bergson.
The several chapters trace the main currents of psychological thought :
the inspiration of Maine de Biran, the contributions of Jouffroy and the
eclectic school ; the opposition thereto expressed in the positivism of
Comte, in the sociological psychology of Durkheim, Levy Bruhl and
Le Bon, in the rational psychology of Cournot and Renouvier and in the
neo-Aristotelianism of Ravaisson ; the development on the one hand of a
scientific psychology by Taine, Ribot, Binet, Janet, Paulhan and Tarde,
and on the other of a philosophical psychology by such representatives of
idealism as Fouillee, Lachelier, Hannequin and Lagneau, and of a
psychology of religion by Boutroux. In the final chapter the author gives
not only a summary of Bergson's philosophy and psychology but also an
interesting criticism of his leading psychological ideas.
The stream of thought is thus shown to have had many and varied
currents, but from the survey certain features emerge for the reader as
characteristic of contemporary French psychology : (a) the influence of
vitalism which manifests itself again and again in the dynamic treatment
of consciousness, in the repudiation of the attempt to view mental
phenomena as elements and compounds, and in the rejection of mechanism ;
(6) the faith in the method of self-observation, whether it be simply as a
source of psychological data, as in Maine de Biran, Taine, Binet, or as a
source of philosophic truth, reflexion, "the thought of thought," as in
Lachelier and Ravaisson ; (c) the interest in the concrete psychology of
human beings as persons, witness the "Essais" of Taine, the character
study of Fouillee and Paulhan, the use of pathology and experiment by
Ribot, Binet and Janet as methods subserving this interest rather than
as methods for studying detached psychological processes ; (d) the close
connexion between psychology and speculative philosophy and religion
and again between psychology and art.
M. Dwelshauvers appears to have no knowledge of present day English
psychology. It is always alluded to in terms which can only fitly refer
to the psychology ot James Mill or to that of Spencer. Similarly his
references to German psychology are restricted to physiological and
experimental work. To expect such knowledge is perhaps to expect too
much from one who has made such a detailed study of the writings of his
own countrymen, but its absence entails the loss of interesting parallels in
the development of psychological thought.
A greater consistency in the practice of inserting dates and lists of
principal works would increa.se the value of the book, which is one to be
heartily recommended to all students of contemporary psychology.
BEATRICE EDGELL.
Hlpiritualism and the New Psychology. An Explanation of Spiritualist
Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge. By
MILLAIS CULPIN, with an Introduction by Prof. LEONARD HILL.
London : Edward Arnold, 1920. Pp. xvi, 159.
Dr. Culpin's book is intended as a counterblast to modern credulity and
the willingness to ascribe any puzzling psychical phenomenon to the
agency of * spirits '. It attacks these tendencies by an * explanation '
constructed out of the theory of dissociation and the theory of the
'unconscious' (after the fashion of Freud) and fused together by an
ingenious suggestion of his own that the malingerer may grow into an
248 NEW BOOKS.
hysteric by a ' repression ' of the knowledge of his own deceit, so that
"a man believing firmly in his own honesty may yet practice elaborate
trickery and deceit " (p. iii). With this explanation he traverses the
whole field of the 'occult,' in a simple and attractive, though rather
elementary, style, and finds no difficulty he cannot surmount. It is clear
throughout that his practical experience of the subject has been derived
from the study of * shell-shock ' cases, while his theoretic convictions are
those of a very advanced irrationalism, which comes out well in the con-
clusion that "the ideal human mind would be perfectly integrated, there
would be no logic-tight compartments, all its complexes would be apparent
to the consciousness, all memories available when needed, all emotions
assigned to their proper cause and all instincts recognised and well
directed ; and the owner of it would find life in our world intolerable "
(p. 157). But if so, what is the use of argument ? And if "it is useless
to attack rationalisations in an effort to penetrate a logic-tight compart-
ment ; as soon as one defence is broken down, another is built up "
(p. 131), does it not occur to Dr. Culpin that beliefs which are necessary
to the carrying on of life cannot in the long run be declared * false ' ?
Prof. Hill's Introduction, though it hardly strengthens the argument
of the book, provides an excellent and typical specimen of 'medical
materialism '.
F. C. S. SCHILLER.
-Received also :
J. B. Pratt, The Religious Consciousness : A Psychological Study, New
York, The Macmillan Co. , 1920, pp. viii, 486.
H. S. Langfeld, The ^Esthetic Attitude, New York, Harcourt, Brace &
Howe, 1920, pp. xi, 287-
77*e Letters of William James, edited by his son, H. James, London,
Longmans, Green & Co., 1920, Vol. I., pp. xx, 348; Vol. II., pp.
xii, 382.
G. Gentile, Giordano Bruno e il Pensiero del Rinascimento (II Pensiero
Moderno, III.), Florence, Vallecchi, 1920, pp. 290.
J. McT. E. McTaggart, The Nature of Existence, Vol. I., Cambridge
University Press, 1921, pp. xxi, 309.
B. Sparenta, La Liberia d'Insegnamento, Florence, Vallecchi, pp. 187.
A. Gabelli, II Metodo di Insegnamento nelle Scuole Elementari d' Italia,
Florence, Vallecchi, 1921, pp. 64.
M. Carotti, Introduzione alia Pedagogia, Florence, Vallecchi, 1921, pp. 107.
F. Mentre, Les Generations Sociales, Paris, Bossard, 1920, pp. 471.
Essays in Critical Realism, by D. Drake, A. O. Lovejoy, J. B. Pratt,
A. K. Rogers, G. Santayana, R. W. Sellars, and C. A. Strong,
London, Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1920, pp. ix, 244.
R. Briffault, Psyche's Lamp : A Revaluation of Psychological Principles as
Foundation of all Thought, London, G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1921,
pp. 240.
J. O'Calkghan, Dual Evolution, London, G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1921, pp.
viii, 259.
L. T. Hobhouse, The Rational Good : A Study in the Logic of Practice,
London, G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1921, pp. 165.
P. H. Wicksteed, The Reactions between Dogma and Philosophy illustrated
from the works of S. Thomas Aquinas, London, Williams & Norgate,
1920, pp. xx vi, 660.
NEW BOOKS. 249
J. Wahl, Les Philosophes Pluralistes d'Angleterre et d'Arne'rique, Paris,
F. Alcan, 1920, pp. 322.
Kd. Claparede, Psychologic de I' Enfant et Pedagogic Experimental, Geneva,
Kundig, 1920, pp. xl, 571.
J. N. Poynting, Collected Scientific Papers, Cambridge University Press,
1920, pp. xxxii, 768.
L. Oamazian, U 'Evolution Psychologique et la Litterature en Angleterre,
1660-1914, Paris, F. Alcan, 1920, pp. viii, 269.
W. Brown, Psychology and Psychotherapy, London, E. Arnold, 1921, pp.
xi, 196.
F. Sedlak, Pure Thought and the Riddle of the Universe, Vol. I., Creation
of Heaven and Earth, London, G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., pp. xv, 375.
D. Fawcett, Divine Imagining : An Essay on the First Principles of
Philosophy, London, Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1921, pp. xxviii, 249.
M. Blondel, L'Azzione, translated by E. Codignola, 2 vols., Florence,
Vallecchi, 1920, pp. 286, 376.
K. Carpita, Educazione e Religione in Maurice Blondel, Florence, Vallecchi,
1920, pp. 83.
F. Weltsch, Gnade und Freiheit, Munich, K. Wolff, 1920, pp. 157.
D. Juan Zaragiieta Bengoechea, Contribution del Lenguaje a la Filosofia de
los Valores, Madrid, J. Rates, 1920, pp. 223.
<T. R. Malkani, Metaphysics of Energy, Amalner, Indian Institute of
Philosophy, pp. viii, 180.
G. R. Malkani, Method of Philosophy, Amalner, Indian Institute of
Philosophy, pp. iii, 45.
J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition, London, A. & C. Black,
1920, pp. viii, 375.
J. Wahl, Du Role de I'Ide'e de V Instant dans la Philosophic de Descartes,
Paris, F. Alcan, 1920, pp. 48.
Berkeley, La Siris, translated by G. Beaulavon & D. Parodi, Paris, A. Colin,
pp. viii, 159.
O. de Ruggiero, Modern Philosophy, translated by A. H. Hannay and
R. G. Collingwood, London, G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1921, pp. 402.
U. Spirito, H Pragmatismo nella Filosojia Contemporanea, Florence,
Vallecchi, 1921, pp. 223.
A. A. Robb, The Absolute Relations of Time and Space, Cambridge
University Press, 1921, pp. viii, 80.
Zur Relativitdtstheorie, von O. Kraus, F. Lipsius, P. F. Lincke, J. Petzold
(Annalen der Philosophic, II., 3), Leipzig, F. Meiner, 1921, pp.
333-500.
J. Drever, Instinct in Man, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1921,
pp. x, 293.
h. Kraepelin, Manic-Depressive Insanity and Paranoia, translated by
R. M. Barclay, Edinburgh, E. & S. Livingstone, 1921, pp. xv,
280.
J . Ralph, The Psychology of Nervous Ailments, Torquay, J. Ralph, pp. 62.
J. C. M. Garnett, Education and World Citizenship, Cambridge University
Press, 1921, pp. x, 515.
< '. Gill and C. W. Valentine, Government and People, London, Methuen &
Co., Ltd., 1921, pp. xi, 307.
W. T. Jones, The Training of Mind and Will, London, Williams & Nor-
gate, 1920, pp. 70.
W. T. Jones, The Making of Personality, London, Williams & Norgate,
1920, pp. 72.
Oh. Lalo, L'Art et la Vie Social e, Paris, G. Doin, 1921, pp. 378.
VII. PHILOSOPHICAL PEEIODICALS.
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY (the title is shortened as from 1921;.
xvii. (1920), 16. H. W. Wright. 'The Basis of Human Association.'
[" Is personal communication carried on through discussion, co-operation
and emotional concord."] L. J. Henderson. * The Locus of Teleology
in a Mechanistic Universe.' [Reply to Holt in xvii., 14.] K. S. Miller.
' The Logical Necessity of a Constant in the Concept of Space.' [Argues
against Relativity from the assumption that absolute change is incon-
ceivable.] xvii., 17. H. T. Costello. * Professor Dewey's ' Judgments
of Practice ".' [Distinguishes truth-claim, truth, use and verification, but
urges against Dewey considerations he would himself insist on.}
F. C. S. Schiller. 'The Place of Metaphysics.' [Shows historically that
the notion has always been ambiguous, and that three conceptions of the
relation of metaphysics to the sciences had been in vogue according
as metaphysics had (a) claimed to determine the principles of science,
(6) to be independent of the sciences, or (c) to systematise scientific
principles. The first alternative having been confuted by the history
of the sciences, and the second demanding for metaphysics a distinctive
subject-matter and method, which it failed to establish, it is open to
the third to raise the question of value both about the real and the
known, and to introduce an allowance for the valuer ; with the result that
metaphysics actually achieves what it desired, by undoing the abstraction
from values and personality which was assumed in the sciences.]
J. E. Turner. ' The Bases of Croce's Logic ; A Criticism. ' [Concludes
that since "science 'is composed of pseudo-concepts,' it must falsify the
pure concept, falsify ' the universal that is truly universal,' " which, never-
theless, it establishes !] xvii., 18. R. S. Lillie. ' The Place of Life in
Nature.' [A plea for recognising alongside of the mechanical and
calculable "in nature an element making for the production of novelty/'
while admitting that " to call this novelty-producing or creative element
in reality 'volitional,' or to ascribe to it consciousness, purpose and
ethical intention, is in a sense to anthropomorphise nature".] L. E.
Hicks. 'Shall we Exclude Elementary Judgments from Logic?'
[Versus R. C. Lodge.] xvii., 19. S. P. Lamprecht. ' Ends and Means
in Ethical Theory.' [Admits the great value of pragmatism, but thinks
that it "has failed to emphasise the importance of intrinsic goods".]
A. W. Moore. 'Some Lingering Misconceptions of Instrumentallsm.'
[In W. Fite and G. P. Adams.] R. H. Dotterer. 'The Distribution of
the Predicate.' [Defends it against Toohey.] xvii., 20. E. S. Bright-
man. 'Modern Idealism.' [Is hopeful about the outlook for 'per-
sonalist' idealism as opposed to 'speculative'.] T. de Laguna. 'The
Lesser Hippias.' [Defends its authenticity.] xvii., 21. S. P. Lamp=
recht. 'The Need for a Pluralistic Emphasis in Ethics.' [There is
' ' neither one unified summuin bonum nor one single course of right con-
duct," because "the goods of life are utterly incommensurable " and "we
must recognise an ultimate pluralism of goods which no pious wishes can
synthesise into a simple monism" by any formal principle. There
PHILOSOPHICAL PEEIODICALS. 251
results "a pluralism of obligation or duty, such that it is impossible to
maintain that one and only one, among several possible choices, is alone
morally right".] S. Cody. 'Enlarging the Scope of Mental Measure-
ment.' [Sensible comment, from a practical point of view, showing up the
composite character of the * general intelligence' tests.] H. W. Carr.
' Dr. Wildon Carr's Theory of the Relation of Mind and Body.' [Reply
to J. E. Turner in xvii., 10.] xvii., 22. A. O. Lovejoy. 'Pragmatism as
Interactionism,' I. [Apropos of Creative Intelligence: discovers a 'shift
of emphasis ' in pragmatism to the efficacy of intelligence which makes
mechanistic naturalism its chief enemy. However it also repudiates
dualism and denies the existence of any specifically * psychical ' element in
experience or behaviour, so that it seems to come out finally as " an anti-
mechanistic materialism".] H. H. Parkhurst. 'The Obsolescence of
Consciousness.' [Man dotes upon consciousness as something "cherished
for its own sake " and desires it "in maximum intensity and duration en-
tirely irrespective of any end to be accomplished ". Yet it is always slipping
from him into the unconscious as habits and traditions grow up. This
conduces to efficiency, but is mone the less deplorable. ] J. E. Turner.
'Relativity, Nature and Matter.' [Criticises Eddington's article in MIND,
No. 114.] xvii., 23. H. B. Alexander. 'Philosophy in Deliquescence.'
[A tirade against academic professionalism which has ' abdicated the in-
heritance of Plato ' and shinks from intervention in live issues.] A. O.
Lovejoy. ' Pragmatism as Interactionism/ II. [Shows that pragmatism
cannot dispense with the ' psychical ' side in behaviour, because intelligent
action, ' practical judgments ' and ' plans of action ' all imply the presence of
the future (and of the past) in thought. Consequently psycho-physical
dualism is not avoided, and the ' efficacy of intelligence ' involves a form of
interactionism which should be developed further.] A. R. Chandler.
' The Nature of Esthetic Objectivity. ' [It is an aspiration towards which
actual aesthetic judgments may converge, and is to be found by looking
"forward into the richest and most harmonious forms of possible ex-
perience".] xvii., 24. D. S. Robinson. 'Reality as a Transient Now.'
[Dialectical criticism, objecting that it cuts off the past and the future,
makes progress impossible, reduces to solipsism, nnd con eluding that "the
attempt to find a standing-place of certainty on the rock of the now in
the stream of time is utterly futile".] A. A. Roback. 'The Scope
and Genesis of Comparative Psychology.' [The term should neither be
equated with animal psychology nor dropped from the Psychological
Index , but kept for comprehensive surveys of the psychological field.]
P. H. Weber. 'Behaviourism and Indirect Responses.' [Contends
against J. B. Watson that in his notion of the substitution of one
reaction for another there still lurks a reference to consciousness, purpose
and value.] xvii., 25. L. Buermeyer. 'Professor Dewey's Analysis of
Thought. ' [Criticism of How We Think as not being sufficiently detailed
in its analysis, though Dewey's view of the nature and function of thought
is accepted.] Ai. W. Calkins. 'The Metaphysical Monist as a
Sociological Pluralist.' [Contends that these two persons may be one.]
H. Alexander. A Lover of the Chair. [Review of a book by S. B.
Gass.] xvii., 26. E. E. Sabin. ' Giving up the Ghost.' [' Mind ' is a
'ghost,' "like gravity, sickness, or vital principle, simply an abstract
name for certain concrete desirable relationships," but now "this most
stubborn of ghosts must make room for what is valuable a description of
consciousness as a unique relationship which may maintain on occasion
between a living organism and its world ".] L. P. Boggs. * A Glimpse
into Mysticism and the Faith State.' [Regards as the essence of mysticism
a pleasurable emotional state of relaxation in which antagonistic ideas have
dropped away.] xviii. (1921), 1. G. P. Conger. 'Santayana and
*252 PHILOSOPHICAL PEEIODICALS.
Modern Liberal Protestantism.' [Even this need not swallow Santayana's
reduction of religion to 'myth'.] B. H. Bode. 'Intelligence and
Behaviour.' [Reply to Lovejoy in xvii., 22, 23. Contends that "the road
of progress does not lead through the psycho-physical problem at all but
.around it," and that "unless we abandon the category of interactionism
we are back on the level of mechanistic naturalism, from which the position
of instrumentalism is intended to provide a means of escape ". By taking
the ' psychic 'as "a distinguishable aspect, but not a separate link, in the
chain of causation," the efficacy of intelligence and the denial of interaction
can be combined.] xviii., 2. S. Unna. * A Conception of Philosophy.'
[" The final test of a philosophy is its power to satisfy an aesthetic demand,
a passion for order and harmony and lucidity."] R. C. Lodge. 'Modern
Logic and the Elementary Judgment.' [Reply to Hicks, xvii., 18.]
E. E. Slosson. ' Eddington on Einstein.' [Review of Space, Time and
Gravitation. ]
REVUE NEO-SCOLASTIQUE DE PHILOSOPHIE. Louvain. xxii e Annee.
No. 88. November, 1920. M. de Wulf . L'Individu et le Groupe dans
la Scolastique du xiii e Siecle. [Social theory was the last part of philosophy
to be developed by the scholastics. Their serious study of it begins with
William of Moerbeke's translation of Aristotle's Politics, c. A.D., 1250,
This is followed by Guibert of Touraai's Eruditio regum, the de regimine
principum of St. Thomas, etc. The fundamental thesis of all scholastic
social philosophy is that the state exists for the good of the citizen, not the
citizen for the good of the state. Th.3 ethical foundation of this theory
is the conception of the infinite worth of "personal happiness," a conception
naturally enforced by the theological doctrine of the redemption of the
soul by Christ. Society is necessary simply because the individual cannot
attain the supreme personal felicity of knowledge and love in a solitary
state. (This, though the author does not say so, is of course a reversion
to ths Platonic standpoint; cf. Republic, 369 b.) Unlike Aristotle, St.
Thomas or Dante does not regard the " city " as the supreme social organism,
but rather the provincia (St. Thomas) or the reynum (Dante). This is, of
course, due to the actual political developments of the thirteenth century.
Since the "community" exists for the service of the individual, its good
= the personal good of each and all of its members. Non enim cives
propter consules nee gens propter regem, sed e converso (Dante). From this
non- Aristotelian individualism follows the belief of the schoolmen in im-
prescriptible ' natural rights ' independent of the * state '. The sacro-
sanctity of these rights depends in the end on the metaphysical position
that the single person, unlike the collective ' personality ' of the state, is a
substance. (Possibly M. de Wulf exaggerates a little in what he says
about the non- Aristotelian character of these ideas. The emphasis on the
claims of the individual is new, but, as M. de Wulf of course knows, it
would be easy to cite texts from the Politics which contain the germs of
the theory of 'natural rights'.) This line of thought is worked out by
the jurists and canonists who brought the state or the church under the
principles of the Roman law of corporation, since the Roman view of the
corporation is that it is neither more nor less than an association of
individuals. This refusal to ascribe real personality to a corporation
shows the eminent sanity of the political thought of the schoolmen. Meta-
physically the unity they ascribe to a social group is simply a unitas
ordinis, i.e., unity of the members in functioning together for certain
specific ends. The view that the middle ages knew nothing of the worth
of the ' individual as such ' rests on a misunderstanding of the whole
doctrine. The comparison of the church or the state with a human body,
PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS. 253
common from the time of John of Salisbury onwards, is meant for na
more than an analogical illustration, like Tennyson's comparison of the
"mob" with a milliped. The metaphysical doctrine of the individual
person as a substance is thus the very foundation of the ethics and
social theory which protect * personal ' rights against the encroachments
of the 'leviathan'.] E. Gilson. Mete'ores Cartesiens et Mete'ores Scolasti-
ques. [A learned and interesting examination of the decree to which the
Meteores of Descartes is influenced by scholastic Meteorology and the
points in which Descartes departs from the tradition. The article, of
which the present issue contains only the first part, is too technical for
summ try here, but should not be overlooked by any student specially
interested in Cartesian Natural Science.] W.Jacobs. Quelques Observa-
tions sur la Synthese Asymetrique. [Deals with the light thrown by recent
experiment on the reticular structure of crystals.] Note on the Oxford
Philosophical Congress. Obituary of the well-known Austrian philosopher,
Otto Willmann (d. July, 1920). Reviews (one of A History of Mediaeval
Political Theory in the West, by R. W. and A. J. Carlyle). List of recent
publications.
VIII NOTES.
"COMMON SENSE AND THE RUDIMENTS OF PHILOSOPHY."
IN the October number of MIND (under " New Books ") Mr. L. J. Russell
makes some appreciative references to my book on " Common Sense and
the Rudiments of Philosophy," while indicating what I fully admit
that its discussion of philosophy is rudimentary and needs developing.
(Page 14 contains reference to problems " reserved for a future treatise ".
On this I have been for long, and am still, at work.)
Unfortunately two of Mr. Russell's criticisms are based upon (doubtless
unintentional) misquotations. The worst case is the first, where he quotes
ma as saying that the mental image ( ' begins to exist when something
handled or seen is recognised, not merely as similar to what we have
handled or seen before, but as the very same thing which we previously
recognised/' and adds the query, " On what, then, is the recognition
based?" The words actually contained in my book (on p. 17) are "pre-
viously perceived," not "previously recognised," so that my critic has
here sub- consciously created the fallacy which he indirectly charges me
with !
In the other case it is said that "sense-data" (the critic quotes) are
described by me as giving us our fundamental knowledge of the physical
world. The sentence referred to (on p. 79) does not mention "sense-
data," but reads, "It is, however, in referring to material objects of
visible and tangible dimensions that touch and sight give us our funda-
mental knowledge of the physical world ". In a subsequent sentence, I
say, " We at least believe that we perceive, not merely sense-data as such,
but things themselves through the immediate sense-data ".
Now I certainly should not say that touch and sight are sense-data.
In the first place, these terms mean something more than actual touching
and seeing. In the second place, actual touching and seeing mean some-
thing more than the immediate sense-data of the respective senses.
" Touch " and "sight" signify permanent aptitudes, or capacities, on the
part of the individual, for touching and seeing, and cover all his successive
personal experiences of these orders. Some of these experiences are
evoked by stimuli, such as being pushed or struck, or seeing an infuriated
bull approaching, which enforce attention independently of our own wills.
Others the more important sort for scientific observation proceed from
a deliberately inquisitive or explorative attitude ; from touching with
intent to ascertain the nature of the thing touched, or focussing the eyes
on something with a similar purpose. In the latter case we solicit fresh
and clear sense -data from something already vaguely sensed and consciously
referred to as outside ourselves, with the object of knowing it better. In
both cases, however, the conscious reference to externality accompanies
the sense-data felt, and it is only because it does so that touch and sight
can be said to ' ' give us our fundamental knowledge of the external world ".
While sense-data (or particular passing sensations of specific sorts)
are, for psychology, exactly what they appear to be to the person who has
them, for epistemology they mean much more than they are. They are
taken as signs of real relationship between the percipient and the per-
NOTES. 255
ceived. The relation is, on one side, essentially cognitive, but it indicates
the circumstantial spatial relations of actual contact with, or direction
of the eyes towards, the object. These relations may be observed to
subsist when two persons shake hands or take hold of the same rope, or
when one person sees another looking at the same object which has at-
tracted his own attention.
CHARLES E. HOOPER.
ANGLO-AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FOR
CENTRAL EUROPE
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS,
CLARE MARKET, W.C. 2.
1st February, 1921.
To THE EDITOR OF "MIND".
SIR,
In connexioD with the above Library, we are endeavouring to
supply the various university libraries on the Continent with the scientific
journals they urgently need.
Among the periodicals for which we have received a pressing demand
MIND is frequently mentioned, and I very much hope that you will be
good enough to publish this letter in your columns, so that any of your
readers having copies of your journal from 1914 onwards may hear of our
appeal. Any numbers of the periodical which readers may feel they can
dispense with, will be most gratefully welcomed.
The Library is entirely non-political and non-sectarian, its sole object
being to enable humanity at large to benefit in the future, as it has done
in the past, from the research of European scholars. Such research has
been brought almost to a standstill from the fact that European centres
of learning have been cut off since 1914, first of all by the blockade and
more recently by the exceedingly unfavourable position of the foreign
exchanges, from English and American thought.
I fervently hope that some of your readers may be able to help in
supplying the literary needs of Central Europe. A copy of the prospectus
of the Library will gladly be sent to anyone desiring a fuller account of
its work and objects.
I am, Sir,
Yours very truly,
B. M. HEADICAR.
Hon. Secretary.
INVITATION FROM THE SOCIETE FRANQAISE DE
PHILOSOPHIE.
Monsieur Xavier Leon, President of the Societe Fra^aise de Philosophie,
has sent the following letter to Professor Wildon Carr, Honorary
Secretary of the Aristotelian Society (107 Church Street, Chelsea,
S.W. 3), as representing the English Societies which took part in the
Congress of Philosophy at Oxford in September, 1920.
Paris, le 28 Fevrier, 1921.
CHER MONSIEUR WILDON CARR,
J'ai le plaisir de vous informer que, dans sa reunion du 24 Fevrier, la
Societe fram;aise de philosophie a decide adresser aux Societes anglaises de
256 NOTES.
philosophic qui 1'ont invitee a participer au meeting d' Oxford 1'offre de
venir a Paris assister a une session extraordinaire de la Societe fran^aise
de philosophie qui sera donnee en leur honneur.
Elle a attendu, pour pouvoir leur iaire cette offre, d'avoir rassurance
qu'elle pourrait publier les memoires presenters : elle avait fait, a cet
egard, une demande de credit au miuistere competent. Elle a eu tout
dernierement la satisfaction de voir cette demande accueillie et elle s'est
aussitot reunie pour prendre la decision que je m'impresse de vous
communiquer.
La date proposee serait la semaine qui separe le Noel du premier jour
de 1'an, epoque a laquelle nos collegues sont en vacances et n'ont pas
d'examens a faire passer comme au mois de Juillet. J'espere qu'elle vous
conviendra.
Notre ami E. Halevy qui doit venir bientot a Londres s'entendra avec
vous sur les modalites de la participation. Des maintenant je puis vous
dire que nous comptons organiser quatre sections distinctes : Logique et
philosophie des Sciences; Psychologie et Metaphysique ; Morale et
Sociologie ; Histoire de la Philosophie. Les memoires presented ne
devraient pas depasser quinze pages d'impression.
Je vous serais reconnaissant de bien vouloir transmettre 1'offre de la
Societe franpaise de philosophie aux Societes qui 1'ont si gracieusement
recue 1'an passe et auxquelles elle adresse son souvenir reconnaissant.
Croyez, cher Monsieur Wildon Carr, a mes sentiments cordialement
devoues.
XAVIER LEON.
MIND ASSOCIATION.
The Annual Meeting of the Association will be held in Cambridge on
Saturday, 9ih July. The hour and place of meeting will be announced
in the July number of MIND.
NEW SERIES. No. 119.] DULY, 1921
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
L FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT
PSYCHOLOGY.
BY G. C. FIELD.
MOST students of Psychology are introduced at an early
stage in their studies to the Fallacy of the Faculty Psychology.
It is explained to them that this consists in dividing up the
human mind into different faculties and explaining the
different kinds of conscious experience or mental activity by
referring each to its appropriate faculty. It is pointed out
that the faculty for any kind of action merely means the fact
that we are capable of it, and to say, for instance, that we
can speak because we have a faculty of speech is merely re-
peating the same thing twice over. It is no explanation at
all, any more than it was when Moliere's doctor explained
that opium produced sleep because of its soporific qualities.
And the student is very properly warned against the frequent
tendency to take such sham explanations as giving us real
knowledge. It is generally assumed that the fallacy in this
particular form is finally disposed of. But the warning
against it is valuable if it makes us keep our eyes open for a
possible recurrence of the same fallacy in a different form.
And I propose to ask here whether there is not a great
danger for certain lines of speculation in modern Psychology
of erecting Instinct and the instincts to the same false position
as was formerly occupied by these ' faculties '.
I would suggest that the fundamental error of the Faculty
Psychology lay in thinking that it was possible to explain, to
use Dr. McDougall's phrase, mental function by and in terms
of mental structure, whereas, as a matter of fact, it is only
possible to talk or think of mental structure at all in terms of
17
258 G-. C. FIELD I
mental function. The distinction between function and
structure is, of course, fundamental, whether we express it
in Dr. McDougall's phraseology, or talk, in Aristotelian phrase,
of the distinction between permanent dispositions and the
activities in which they express themselves. But in using it
there are two things which it is essential to remember. In
the first place we must remember that the only evidence we
have or can have of the existence of any permanent disposi-
tion, of any piece of mental structure, is the activity which
we observe in others or experience in our own consciousness.
And more important still is it to remember that the only
way that we can think of or describe the permanent disposi-
tions is in terms of the activity. We can only speak of it as
the disposition to this or that activity. We can only de-
scribe a tendency as the tendency to act, think, or feel, in
this or that way. The tendency or disposition by itself is an
X, an unknown quantity, which simply means nothing to us
unless and until it is expressed in terms of the activity to
which it leads. This is just the difference between a mind
and a machine. We can look at a machine at rest and ob-
serve its shape and the way in which its parts fit into one
another, and that helps us to understand why, when it is set
in motion, it works in a certain way. And this knowledge
that we have of it at rest may be something more than and
different from our knowledge of what it does when at work,
and is then, so far as it goes, a true explanation of what it
does. But the mind is not like this. We cannot examine it
while at rest. We only know it when in activity, in our own
conscious experience or in the perceivable actions of other
people, and its permanent structure can only be deduced
from and described in terms of these forms of activity.
The application of these considerations to the Faculty
Psychology is obvious. How does it apply to the treatment
of Instinct ?
r- Take any ordinary definition of Instinct. An instinct is
' often defined in some such terms as these : An inherited or
innate tendency to act in a certain way, normally conducive
to the preservation of the individual or the welfare of the
species, without previous experience and without foresight of
the end to be attained. Such a definition tells us generically
that it is a tendency to action, and specifically it tells us
(i) how it got there, i.e. that it was inherited or inborn,
(ii) what results it normally produces, i.e. the preservation of
the individual or the race, and (iii) negatively, that the action
takes place without, or if we cannot quite accept that, in-
dependently of certain other kinds of mental activity or
FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY. 259
conscious experience, i.e. foresight of the end to be attained;
and previous experience of the action. Other more elaborate
definitions may modify this in unessentials, may expand it or
may add to it by describing other forms of mental activity
which are supposed necessarily to accompany actions of this
kind, as when Dr. McDougall maintains that they are ac-
companied by a specific emotion, or Mr. Shand asserts the
invariable presence of a feeling of impulse. But from all
these definitions one thing emerges clearly, that we can only
describe or think of any such tendency in terms of that to
which it is a tendency. We cannot examine it or describe it
by itself, or say anything about what it would be like when
it was not actually issuing in action.
To say, then, that any action is instinctive or due to In-
stinct gives us valuable information. It tells us, if the
definition is sound, something about the preconditions of the
action, something about its probable results, and something
about the conditions which accompany it and about the con-
ditions which do not necessarily accompany it, although
they may accompany other actions whose external physical
features are similar. But it does not explain the action by
describing something else different from the action, in the
sense that we can explain a particular motion of a machine
by describing the permanent structure of the machine. This
* something else ' in the case of Instinct, can only be thought
of as that which leads to the action. We think of Instinct
as something in our innate mental structure of which all that
we can say is that by virtue of it a person or an animal per-
forms certain actions without previous experience and without
foresight of the end.
But now what happens when we cease to talk about
Instinct and begin to talk about the instincts? What in-
formation does it convey to us when we are told that a certain
action is due not only to Instinct but to some particular
instinct ? If such a statement is to give us any real informa-
tion, it must tell us something more than the general facts
which are conveyed to us by saying that the action is in-
stinctive, and what is more important, it must tell us some-
thing more than we can gather from an inspection of the
action itself. Thus if we see bees building cells and some one
tells us that they do this because they have a cell-building
instinct, the word "instinct," it is true, tells us something
important about this action, but the word * cell-building '
is entirely superfluous and tells us nothing at all that we did
not know already from the inspection of the action. Particu-
larly it must be remembered that, when we are speaking of
260 G. c. FIELD:
our own actions or of those of beings like ourselves, the
ascription of an action or of any kind of conscious experience
to any particular instinct must, if it is to give us any genuine
information, tell us something that cannot be derived from
an inspection of our own consciousness at the moment of the
experience.
The case is different when we ascribe two or more qualita-
tively different actions or different experiences to one and
the same instinct. What could such a way of speaking
mean ? What information is it supposed to convey to us ?
The question must be carried further back, and we must ask
how, if we are going to speak of different instincts at all, we
are going to classify the instincts and on what principles we
are to distinguish one from the other. The question seems
to lie at the root of a great deal of discussion on the instincts^
and yet it is difficult to find anywhere any satisfactory answer
to it. Thus psychologists dispute about the number of
different instincts which we are to recognise : James distin-
guishes nineteen, McDougall a dozen, while Trotter, in his
Instincts of the Herd, says that there are really only four.
To decide such disputes the essential preliminary would seem
to be a clear and definite statement of the principium
divisionis, of the standard of what makes one instinct.
It is clear from what has been said that there is only one
way of distinguishing and classifying the different instincts,
and that is by distinguishing and classifying, on some principle
or another, the different forms of activity to which they lead.
And these may be classified in different ways according to
the exact point in which we are specially interested.
Thus, if our interest was primarily biological, we might
classify instinctive forms of activity by their external results.
We might perhaps start from two great classes of instincts,
those which tended to the preservation of the individual
organism, and those which tended to the preservation of the
species. The former class might again be sub-divided into
those which tended to preserve the individual by aiding it to
gain food, those which tended to preserve it from the attacks
of possible enemies, and so on. This would be quite a
scientific method of division. If we classified instincts on
this principle and then ascribed some particular action to one
or other of these instincts, the information that we should
be giving about the action would be (a) that it was instinctive
in the sense defined above, and (b) that it tended to produce
certain results beyond itself. Or we might adopt another
principle of division, and classify instincts by the resemblances
in external form of the actions which they produced. Thus
FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY. 261
we might distinguish the cell-building instinct of the bees
and the web-making instinct of the spider, the instinct of
flight from danger and the instinct of immobility in face of
danger. But all these divisions tell us nothing about the
instincts themselves they are simply descriptive distinctions
between the different visible features of actions which we
declare to be instinctive.
If our interest was primarily psychological, we might
attempt to classify the different kinds of instinctive action by
what they felt like, by the difference in the conscious ex-
perience which accompanied them. The possibility of doing
this obviously depends upon what we think about the
psychical accompaniments which always and necessarily are
found with instinctive action. If, for instance, we hold with
Mr. Shand that the invariable accompaniment of instinctive
action is a feeling of impulse, then it is clear that this will
give us a valuable test for distinguishing instinctive action
from other kinds of action, but will not give us any guidance
in classifying the different instincts. For the ' feeling of im-
pulse,' whatever it may mean, does not differ qua feeling of
impulse from one kind of action to another. It can only be
distinguished as a feeling of impulse to this and that kind of
action. And so we should be back once more at the difference
between the external features of the different actions as our
only principle of division.
If, on the other hand, we adopted Dr. McDougall's view
that instinctive action was necessarily accompanied by some
emotion, we might seem to have got a valuable principle of
classification. For emotions differ in kind, and we might
therefore classify different kinds of instinctive action by the
different emotions with which they were accompanied. But
we should have to guard against the danger of imagining
that such a principle of classification gave us more informa-
tion than it really did. It would not, for instance, enable us
to decide whether a particular emotion always accompanied
a particular kind of action, whether, for instance, the emotion
of fear and the instinctive action of flight were necessarily
connected with one another. That would be a matter of fact
to be decided on the evidence in each particular case. Our
principle of classification would be once more simply de-
scriptive. We should have to group together all actions
which were, as a matter of fact, associated with this particular
emotion, and we could, if we chose, apply to this group the
name of a particular instinct. But the ascription of a partic-
ular action to this instinct would tell us that the action was,
in fact, accompanied by this emotion, and it would tell us no
262 G. C. FIELD:
more than that. I am not concerned here to discuss whether
instinctive actions are in reality always accompanied by a
particular emotion. As a matter of fact, the available
evidence seems to me decisively against this view. But the
assertion that it is so is perfectly intelligible, and if it were
true it would give us a perfectly intelligible system of classi-
fication.
Perhaps a word should be said here about another possible
principle of classification which might be legitimate for
certain purposes within the biological universe of discourse.
We might group together all the types of instinctive action
which were in the same historical line of descent. Supposing
we found reason to believe that one sort of instinctive action
had developed by imperceptible variations in succeeding
generations into another sort, we might, for purposes of
historical exposition, group together all the successive forms
of this. But the grouping would have no application outside
these limits. Above all, in no intelligible sense of the word
could we say, neglecting the variations, that the actions
were the same or due to the same instincts. It is possible
that man has developed by a series of variations out of an
amoeba. But if we said that, because of this, we might ex-
pect men to act in the same way as the amoeba, and still
more if we said that, in any sense of the word, man w r as the
same as the amoeba, we should be talking meaningless non-
sense.
Finally, there is another theoretical possibility, though it
is doubtful whether it is ever realised in fact. If we found
types of behaviour, differing both in their external features,
and in their psychical accompaniment, which nevertheless
were always found together in all cases in which they occurred,
and if we found that the strength of the tendency to the one
type always varied in exact proportion with the strength of
the tendency to the other, we should have some justification
for supposing that there must be some deep-rooted connexion
between the two in the permanent mental structure. In
such a case we might be justified in speaking of them as
being due to one and the same instinct. But we might
equally well for it would tell us just as much or as little
say that they were due to two different instincts which were
necessarily connected with each other. For the point would
be that they were somehow connected so that if we found
the one we might also reasonably expect to find the other in
the same individual.
In all these cases, we are speaking, as we must do, of the
permanent disposition in terms of the activity to which it
FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY. 263
leads. But now suppose that it is a question of two entirely
distinct types of behaviour, with no felt resemblance in the
conscious experience which accompanies them, and not
always or generally found together. In such a case we
cannot possibly speak of them as being due to the same-
instinct. Not only is there no evidence of any kind for it,
but it is strictly meaningless. It involves speaking of an
instinct, not as that which produces a certain type of be-
haviour, but as a definite thing within the mind, of which we
can have some idea apart from the behaviour which it pro-
duces, and which may show itself in entirely different kinds
of behaviour or conscious experience. And this is unintel-
ligible. Such an idea cannot be thought out. We only think
it has some meaning because we escape our own notice in
the illegitimate use of physical and mechanical metaphors in
dealing with things of the mind. It is exactly the fallacy of
the Faculty Psychology. It involves thinking of the mind
as a machine which we can look at at rest or at work. It
involves the idea that we can understand and think of
mental structure or permanent disposition apart from
mental function or activity, and can explain the latter by,
and in terms of, the former. And this is just what we can-
not do.
And yet, as it seems to me, there is a great danger in
psychological thinking of falling into this error. And I
believe that it can be clearly detected in certain modern
psychological discussions, where it threatens to put the whole
line of investigation on the wrong track, and to lessen or
destroy the value of the results which might be or have been
reached.'
I find it, for instance, prominent in the writings of Freud
and his school. They tell us that many very different forms
of behaviour are due to one and the same sex-instinct. But
it is impossible to find in their writings a clear and satisfactory
statement of what they mean by this one instinct, of what
their standard of unity of an instinct is. We could under-
stand it, for instance, if they ascribed to the sex-instinct any
kind of behaviour which was accompanied by or influenced
by some stimulation of the physical sex-organs. This would
be a perfectly intelligible criterion of the working of this
particular instinct, though it might be difficult to make a
similar principle the ground of classification in other cases.
But it is evident that they extend its meaning much more
widely than this. Dr. Ernest Jones, for instance, speaks of
the localisation of the sex-instinct in the sex-organs as
occurring only at a relatively 'advanced stage of development.
264 G> C. FIELD :
It was perhaps considerations of this kind which have led
Jung and his followers to replace the special sex-instinct by
the general libido.
We may find the same way of speaking in writers who
have been influenced by Freud without adopting the whole
of his views. For instance, in Dr. A. G. Tansley's The New
Psychology we find throughout phrases like the following :
'" the use of energy belonging to a primitive instinct in what
is commonly called a 'higher channel,' " "a large amount of
sex energy is, of course, constantly diverted to other channels,"
" the use of the energy derived from a primitive biological
instinct in higher conations belonging entirely to the mental
sphere". [Italics my own.] As I am not writing a criti-
cism of this book, I do not wish to discuss whether these
expressions are merely occasional lapses into a loose use
of language, or whether they represent a point of view
that underlies the whole thought of the author. But let
us consider them as they stand and ask what they can
mean. If we are asked to think of the psycho-physical
organism as something endowed with a limited amount
of energy which can be released in different directions
in different circumstances, the description has some mean-
ing for us. Only then we cannot talk of the energy of
or belonging to or derived from this or that particular in-
stinct. The energy ' belongs to ' the whole individual and is
only applied in this or that form of instinctive behaviour.
Any other way of speaking involves the unintelligible notion
of the energy as something which can be divided up into little
bundles, each quite distinct from the other, perhaps even
qualitatively different, and each the property of a particular
instinct, which can use it itself or hand it over to some other
impulse. And this involves the fallacy that we have been
considering, of thinking of ' the instinct ' as an individual
thing in itself.
We find, perhaps, the most striking examples of the
tendency I am criticising in a different field, the field of the
so-called Social Psychology. It is claimed by many workers
in this field that a great increase in our understanding of
social phenomena is to be looked for in an application to them
of our knowledge of the instincts of human beings. It
cannot be said that, judged by results, the success of this
line of approach has so far been very striking. And this is
hardly surprising if the investigators start from such radically
misleading assumptions about the nature of the instincts as
those which I have been attempting to criticise. That in too
many cases they have so started seems certain. I will illustrate
FACULTY PSYCHOLOG-Y AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY. 265
my contention on this point by a brief examination of some
of the arguments in a recent book of popular Social Psy-
chology, Mr. Trotter's Instincts of the Herd. The treatment
of the instincts in this work seems to me to illustrate better
than any other example the ways of thinking against which
I am protesting.
The first point to notice is Mr. Trotter's classification of
instincts. He objects to the tendency of some authors ' to
ascribe quite a large number of man's activities to separate
instincts ' as being 'based' upon too lax a definition or want
of analysis '. There are really, he maintains, only four main
instincts, the instincts of self-preservation, nutrition, and
reproduction, and the herd-instinct. He nowhere tells us
what is his principle of division or his criterion of what
makes one instinct, so that we are forced to try to discover
this from the classification that he gives us. But on looking
at this it is impossible to escape the impression that he is
unwittingly using more than one principle of division.
Take, for instance, the * instinct of self-preservation '. Self-
preservation is not, of course, one single kind of action, the
same for all creatures an all circumstances. We have to look,
therefore, for the principle of classification in this case in the
results. Every ' inherited mode of reaction ' which tends
towards the preservation of the life of the individual organism
would, on this principle, be ascribed to ' the instinct of self-
preservation '. It might be asked why, on this principle, the
' instinct of nutrition ' should not fall under ' the instinct of
self-preservation/ as a sub-class. For clearly the taking of
food is as necessary for the preservation of the life of the
organism as, say, protection from the attacks of enemies.
We need not, however, press that point, for the most interest-
ing thing is the relation of the herd-instinct to these other
instincts. If we are classifying instincts by their results, we
have to ask ourselves what are the results of the tendency of
certain animals to congregate together in herds or packs.
And we find, as Mr. Trotter himself points out, that the
biological result of the tendency is, in some cases, protection
from external enemies, and in others increased capacity for
hunting and catching prey. So that it is clear that, if we
adopted this principle of classification consistently, we should
ascribe the instinctive * herd-activities ' in some cases to the
instinct of self-preservation and in other cases to the instinct
of nutrition.
The fact that the herd-instinct is distinguished from the
others shows that in speaking of it Mr. Trotter has slipped
over to another principle of classification. But what exactly
266 G. C. FIELD :
this is it is difficult to discover. In one passage he seems to
suggest that all actions are due to the herd-instinct which da
not necessarily " favour the survival of the individual as such r
but favour its survival as a member of a herd ". This would
be once again to put the principle of classification in the
results, and not in anything in the psycho-physical structure
itself. But it is difficult to see how this can be intelligibly
applied. Take the primary gregarious instinct itself. The
tendency, say, of cattle to congregate in a herd favours their
survival. To say that it favours their survival as members
of a herd is simply an identical proposition. And to say
that it does not tend to favour the survival of the individual
as such, is meaningless. It would be as reasonable to say
that the tendency to run away from danger did not favour
the survival of the individual as such, but only of the in-
dividual as running away from danger.
Judging by the variety and diversity of actions which he-
ascribes to the herd-instinct, he seems really to ascribe to it
any kind of behaviour which is in response to any stimulus
arising from the relations of the creature to the other mem-
bers of the group or society in which it lives. It is obvious
that such a classification of forms of behaviour would have a
limited value for certain purposes. It would serve to mark
off the field of investigation at the beginning of our inquiries..
But, in doing this, it would by itself tell us nothing. It would
merely ask a question or suggest a problem. It would not
be in any sense an explanation of all the different kinds of
reaction to the herd or the group which had been observed..
Above all, it would not enable us to attach any meaning to
the notion of a single herd-instinct which was somehow the
same thing whatever the difference in the kind of behaviour
that it caused. The only things which are the same are
some of the most general features in the circumstances in
which the different actions take place.
Mr. Trotter, however, evidently thinks that the ascription
of any kind of behaviour to the herd-instinct gives us a great
deal of valuable information. And he describes many social
phenomena which he claims to explain or make intelligible
by referring them to this one herd-instinct. The list of all
the different forms of behaviour which are due to the herd-
instinct is a truly remarkable one. In it we find gregarious-
ness in the limited sense, the tendency, that is, to join to-
gether in groups, the tendency to imitate the actions of other
individuals, the susceptibility to leadership, the dislike of
innovation, the respect for old age, religion, altruism, and
many other forms of behaviour. Among these latter we find
FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY. 267
the antagonism to the spread of altruism which may some-
times lead to its violent suppression. " This," Mr. Trotter
writes, " is a remarkable instance of the protean character of
the gregarious instinct and the complexity it introduces into
human affairs, for we see one instinct producing manifesta-
tions directly hostile to each other prompting to ever ad-
vancing developments of altruism, while it necessarily leads
to any new product of advance being attacked." All this
certainly seems an overwhelming amount of work for one
instinct to get through. And it becomes more and more
difficult to understand what possible meaning there can be
in talking of one instinct in all the different cases, unless we
are thinking of an instinct in a way which, as we have seen r
is wholly illegitimate and ultimately unintelligible.
Consider it in the light of particular instances. We find
what is usually called the gregarious instinct strongly de-
veloped in cattle. Without, so far as we know, feeling the
slightest affection for, or indeed interest in, one another in-
dividually, they yet are impelled by an irresistible tendency
to keep constantly together in a herd. And on the other side
let us set an instance of altruism in the highest development,
say, the Good Samaritan, who out of the purest love and
sympathy and human kindness, succours the wounded
traveller. What can be meant by saying that the cattle and
the Good Samaritan are acting under the influence of the
same instinct? We might ask, further, what is meant by
saying that the Good Samaritan's action is due to instinct at
all. If it simply means that it proceeds from his inherited
character, that he was born with a sympathetic and pitiful
nature, no one would object to the statement, except perhaps
those fabulous monsters, the ' rationalisers ' or * intellectualists,'
with whom Mr. Trotter, like certain other psychologists,
delights in carrying on a continual skiomachy. If, on the
other hand, it is meant that his actions were, like the cattle's,
not the result of the feeling of love and sympathy, or that
they were taken without foresight of the end, then it is, of
course, a simple misdescription. But even if this question is
satisfactorily answered, the first difficulty remains. When
we are dealing with two different types of action, whose ex-
ternal features and whose conscious psychical accompaniment
are entirely different, what possible meaning can there be in
saying that they are due to the same instinct? Under
certain circumstances we might find it useful for certain
purposes to treat different actions as due to the same cause,
even though we could have no idea of what that cause
was in itself apart from the actions. If we always found
268 G. c. FIELD:
gregariousness and loving sympathy combined together in the
same individuals and if the two always varied in intensity in
the same proportion, there might be some point in it. If we
could understand the Good Samaritan's state of mind better
by studying the habits of cattle, or if the study helped us to
breed or educate Good Samaritans, or to judge what people
would be likely to show themselves Good Samaritans, or how
the Good Samaritan would act in other circumstances, there
might be some reason for classing the two kinds of behaviour
together. But obviously none of these conditions are fulfilled
in this case. And the assertion that the cattle and the Good
Samaritan are moved by one and the same instinct remains
not only unprovable but unmeaning.
I do not wish, in all this, to appear to deny that the social
phenomena to which Mr. Trotter calls attention are worthy
of careful study from a psychological point of view, or that
they are in many cases acutely observed and well described
by him, even though with a considerable degree of exaggera-
tion. But I do maintain that there is nothing to gain
and everything to lose by lumping them together in an un-
discriminated mass, as the products of the herd-instinct.
And I maintain further that the actual description of the
phenomena themselves could be equally well carried out by
an observer who had never heard of the herd-instinct and
who did not use the term ' instinct ' at all, and that the only
addition that is made by talking about the herd-instinct is
the addition of an empty name which tells us nothing and
obscures much.
It would be difficult, perhaps, to find another such instance
of a whole book based throughout on this modern form of
the Fallacy of the Faculty Psychology. But there are traces
of it in the work of many writers. There is reason to suspect
its influence, for instance, even in the work of so careful a
writer as Dr. James Drever. When he writes in his Instinct in
Man of the gregarious instinct, as seen, e.g. in the behaviour
of cattle, that its impulse ' takes the form ' of active sympathy
at the human level of development, it is very difficult to
attach any meaning to this which can be accepted as intel-
ligible consistently with the principles that have been laid
down. There may be such a thing as a felt impulse to keep
together in a crowd in the cattle. But we can tell from our
own experience for we certainly at times feel such an im-
pulse ourselves that it is an entirely different thing from
the feeling of active sympathy, that the two are not neces-
sarily found together at all, and that still less do they vary in
intensity with each other. That being the case, it is difficult
FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY. 269
to see what can be gained or what can be meant by ascribing
them to the same instinct.
May we not, again, suspect the presence of this fallacy in
a great deal of the controversy about the exact number of
the instincts, between the 'splitters ' and the ' slurnpers, ' to
use the lively American description? If it were simply a
question of classifying the different forms of instinctive
activity, we could only criticise a view on the ground that the
activities themselves had been wrongly described in some
way or other, or else on the merely practical ground that the
principle of division employed was not the most convenient
for the purposes of the particular investigation. But I think
that there is a good deal more than that in the controversy
as it is actually carried on. And I confess to an uneasy
feeling that the distinguished psychologists who have taken
part in it may be found to have been wasting their time over
one of M. Bergson's ' questions qui ne doivent pas se poser '.
Supposing that the principles laid down above were
accepted, how should we proceed in our investigations into
Instinct and instinctive action ? We should begin, in the
first place, by an examination not of ' the instincts ' but of
instinctive behaviour. And by 'behaviour' I mean not
merely the physical movements of the body, but any kind of
activity, physical or mental, the * behaviour ' open to inspection
by introspection just as much as that open to inspection by
sense perception. The first task would be a correct de-
scription of that, so far as it was possible, and so far as it
was necessary for our purposes. We should then have to
decide what characteristics of behaviour should be taken as
the essential mark of instinctive behaviour, and what other
accompanying characteristics were invariably found with these.
The first problem, if the description was correct, would be
mainly a matter of practical convenience, and the second a
matter of correct observation and description. From this
point of view we should see in its true proportions the prob-
lem of the extent of the field of behaviour to which we
applied the term ' instinctive,' the question, for instance,
whether we were going to confine it to action in the sense of
bodily movements, or were going to extend it to any form of
conscious mental activity, emotions or desires or anything
else. This would become partly a question of fact, whether
certain bodily movements and certain forms of conscious
experience were necessarily connected together, and partly
a question of convenience, whether the use of the same term
for different kinds of behaviour did or did not tend to obscure
differences which were actually there and lay too much stress
'270 FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY AND INSTINCT PSYCHOLOGY.
on comparatively unimportant resemblances. So far as we
did attempt classification and division it would be on one
or the other of the principles which we have recognised as
legitimate. Above all, we should studiously avoid the Fallacy
of the Faculty Psychology of attempting to describe what we
know in terms of what we cannot know, and of putting
forward the latter as in any sense an ' explanation ' of the
former.
I will conclude with what to some may seem the most
debatable proposition that I have yet put forward. The
moral of this seems to me to be that these and many other
confusions arise from the premature attempt to emancipate
Psychology as a separate science from Philosophy. I do not
mean by this that Psychology should or can be treated
merely as a branch of one of the other recognised divisions
of Philosophy. I mean that a separate science can only be
pursued as such if, as a general rule, its assumptions and
categories are accepted and used without the constant need
for a critical examination of them. But in Psychology, as it
seems to me, we have not yet arrived anywhere near the
point where there is anything like a general agreement or a
clear realisation of these assumptions and categories. And
therefore it is essential that, for the present, throughout our
psychological investigations we should preserve the philo-
sophical point of view which examines assumptions and
criticises categories, a procedure which in a science that has
arrived at an independent status would be unnecessary and
indeed, in general, a hindrance only.
II. STATEMENTS AND MEANING.
BY ALFRED SIDGWICK.
IN view of the lack of connexion noted by Dr. Schiller in
MIND, No. 118 between the different parts of the three-sided
discussion of ' Meaning ' in No. 116, there may perhaps be
room for an attempt to re-state the question from a starting
point which is common to us all. Something will at least be
gained if by this method the points at which the divergences
arise should become clearer.
We all agree, I suppose, in recognising the difference between
meaning as a quality of assertions and meaning as a quality
of facts observed as when it is said that a certain look of
the sky or change of wind means a change of weather. I
propose here to raise no inquiries about the latter kind of
4 meaning,' but only about the meaning which belongs to
assertions as such, and which sometimes fails to belong to
statements ; linguistic meaning and its interpretation, as
contrasted with the interpretation of facts.
Various purposes mightlead us to make a study of linguistic
meaning, and the purpose we happen to have in view will
naturally influence the course of the study. We might, for
instance, want to know the way in which the customary
meaning of words changes and develops, and then we should
find an etymological dictionary useful. Or we might be
interested in the simpler task of discovering the correct or
the technical meaning of words that are strange to us words
like agnail or zedoary. But here the purpose proposed is
that of inquiring into the conditions of meaning, specially in
order to note the chief sources of those misunderstandings
which are so notoriously troublesome in discussion. Mis-
conceptions of meaning will thus be our chief centre of
interest ; and since meaning is a two-sided affair we shall
have to think not only of the case where an audience puts a
wrong interpretation on a speaker's statement, but also where
the audience rightly complains that a statement is ambiguous
in one of two ways : either because the speaker vacillates
272 ALFRED SIDGWICK:
between two meanings or because he fails to recognise a dis-
tinction which is thought by the audience important. Of
these three branches of defective meaning the first may here
be called mistakes, the second vacillations, and the third
shortcomings.
I.
Mistakes of meaning are broadly divisible into those which
are simple or careless, admitting of prompt remedies, and
those which are subtler, more excusable, and therefore more
persistent. Such a distinction does not pretend to be anything
but rough, and its purpose here is to allow us to pass lightly
over the least interesting and difficult part of the subject.
Perhaps the simplest of all mistakes are those which are due
to ignorance of the customary meaning of words ; and they
are so easily corrected or avoided by reference to a dictionary
that we need not here say any more about them. Almost on
the same level of simplicity would come those which are due
to well-established double or plural meanings what used to-
be called ' equivocal ' words. Here the difference between
the meanings of a word in different contexts is as a rule
plainly marked. The word fine, for instance, has three differ-
ent meanings as applied respectively to the weather, a distinc-
tion, and the result of proceedings in a police court. In these
different contexts the meaning of the word is noticeably
different, so that a dictionary can make the three meanings
clearly distinct. Plural meanings of this sort seldom mislead
anyone, and never seriously or persistently, since it is as
easy to recognise such mistakes as to recognise a pun. We
can all see at a glance the influence of context upon meaning
to this extent.
Plural meanings of a rather more troublesome kind are
those where two opposite ends of a scale shade off into each
other and we encounter the familiar difficulty of drawing the
line. What generally causes misunderstanding here is the
existence of some hidden difference of standard. Pairs of
words like good and bad, hot and cold, long and short, depend
for their application on variable standards, and we often fail
to see at first what standard a speaker has in mind. As a
rule, however, it is not difficult to get such mistakes set right
by a little explanation; and in many cases we avoid any
mistake by asking for the explanation beforehand. When
the tired pedestrian is told he has ' not far ' to go he naturally
wants an answer expressed in miles or minutes before feeling
any wiser. He is annoyed, rather than misled, by the vague
statement.
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 273
But there are some special cases of hidden standard where
misunderstanding is more difficult to avoid. One, for instance,
is where the standard of strict accuracy is contrasted with
a looser treatment, and in the name of strict accuracy a
statement is made which seems paradoxical. Here the un-
usual standard is difficult to keep in view not for want of
being openly stated but by its appearance of being impractical,
or even meaningless, so that the audience can hardly accept
it seriously. Some of the statements in Einstein's theory
might perhaps serve as examples, but let us take one that
will be more familiar to logicians. Suppose it be said that,
strictly speaking, all definite words are indefinite. We may
dismiss at once the formal and superficial objection that this
statement is void of meaning because it is self-contradictory,
by explaining that it speaks only of so-called definite words.
It tells us that the commonly accepted distinction between
definite and indefinite words has only a limited value and that
if pressed too far it misleads us. Even when further explana-
tions 1 are given, the difficulty is that at first it seems such
a far-fetched piece of truth that it is better neglected like the
truth that it is possible to produce the complete works of
Shakespeare by drawing letters of the alphabet at random
from a bag.
Now if we try to generalise about differences in ' point of
view ' we are led to an extended conception of the influence
of context upon meaning. When we think of the context of
a word we commonly think only of the other words in the
statement in which the word occurs, and by difference of
context accordingly we commonly mean difference of sub-
ject matter; e.g., the difference between 'fine' weather
and a ' fine ' distinction, or between ' foot ' as a part of an
animal, and ' foot ' as a measure of length. But it is not
only single words that have a variable context which affects
their meaning ; the same is true of statements also. The
whole meaning of a statement the whole intention of the
speaker is far from being always evident by mere inspection,
however careful, of the statement taken by itself. We require
to know in addition "what he wants to do with it," as in
De Morgan's example 2 of the Cambridge Professor when
asked to admit that the whole is greater than its part.
1 E.g. (1) that only descriptive words are here spoken of, since it is
only to them that the distinction between definite and indefinite can
apply 5 (2) that the whole value of definiteness in a descriptive word con-
sists in the completeness of description it gives when used as predicate ;
and (3) that descriptive words, so used, necessarily give an incomplete
description of the subject, whether * sufficiently ' complete or not.
a Formal Logic, p. 264.
18
274 ALFEED SIDGWICK:
Some light may be thrown upon this difficulty by remember-
ing that all reasoned thought consists in the application of
general rules to particular cases ; a truth that, I suppose,
underlay the old syllogistic system and was obscured by its
accidental accretions. But anyhow this account of the nature
of reasoned thought seems true, since particular facts are
related to the general rules they come under exactly as facts
are related to their interpretation ; and all reasoned thought
is, directly or remotely, concerned with the recognition and
interpretation of facts. Whenever a critic thinks he discovers
something definitely wrong with a piece of reasoning he has
no other resource, if he cares to explain his dissent, than to
find fault either with the facts on which the reasoning is
based or else with the interpretation put upon them. There
may be a ' downright ' error of fact, as where false statistics
are given, or again there may be a gross misinterpretation of
a fact, as where an eclipse of the sun is taken as presaging
calamity ; but there are also an immense number of reason-
ings where the truth of a statement of fact cannot be
judged until we know what inference is intended to be drawn
from it. No one can tell, for instance, whether it is true or
false that a certain dish is wholesome until we know whether
the statement, as made at a particular time, refers to ordinary
healthy people or to some one not quite so healthy, with whom
it might disagree. This further question and its answer
thus become part of the meaning of the statement ; and not
only a part of it but the finally decisive part as regards the
question whether the statement is true or false. All other
doubts about its meaning sink into insignificance beside
this one, since this remains for settlement even when all the
others are settled. So long as it remains doubtful the other
inquiries give no decision. It is sometimes forgotten that
every dispute between two parties takes place on a particular
-occasion with all its own set of circumstances.
The way in which the truth of facts is dependent upon
the inferences for which they are used may become clearer
when we remember that the only facts that can ever come
before us for judgment are facts as conceived or stated. For
the purpose of judging the truth of a fact there is no such
thing as a ' fact-in-itself '. It is always some one's conception
that we have to deal with ; it may be our own conception or
it may be some one else's as indicated by a statement. And
facts, as we all know, admit of being conceived in a variety
of ways dependent upon the selection that happens to be
made among their various aspects. Every fact is composed
of details some of which must inevitably be left out of sight
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 275
in conceiving it, thus emphasising the remainder; and the
required emphasis rightly shifts according to the purpose
the inference for which the fact is conceived or stated. The
same fact thus becomes true for one purpose and false for
another, just as the same food may be meat or poison accord-
ing to the person who eats it. Think of any conjuring trick
where an audience is deceived. The fact as seen by them
consists of a selection among the total number of details, and
the conjurer has succeeded in getting them to overlook some
details that were important, thus emphasising the wrong set.
The deceived audience actually did see part of what happened,
and so far as that goes the fact as conceived by them is
' true ' ; and yet it is at the same time false, since they are
deceived by it. They have conceived the fact in a way which
has led them to a false inference.
This example, however trivial in itself, illustrates typically
the tempting and excusable errors of fact into which we are
constantly falling, but it fails to illustrate directly the mis-
takes of meaning to which a statement is liable, since a con-
jurer's audience does not report what it sees but watches the
operations in silence. The difference is, however, accidental.
We may, for instance, imagine a serious committee making
a report of the ' facts ' observed at a spiritualistic seance.
Or if this also be considered a trivial affair we may find other
examples in scientific research. There, just as in watching
a conjuring trick, mistakes are made by overlooking important
details. But the importance of a detail is a quality than can
only exist in relation to some inference drawn from the fact.
When a mistake is made the fact as it is conceived allows of
one inference, but as it ought to be conceived it allows of
another ; so that the fact is true for the former purpose and
false for the latter. We cannot, therefore, call the statement
of it either true or false till we know which inference is in-
tended ; and when the fact is stated the intended inference
thus becomes part of the meaning of the statement.
Thus the doctrine that every statement has a context on
which its meaning depends is based upon the familiar experi-
ence that different ways of conceiving or describing the same
occurrence bring it under different rules of inference, and so
make it a fact for some purposes and a delusion for others,
the ' purposes ' here referred to being the various inferences
that the fact may suggest or justify. The only thing that
stands in the way of our regarding these different purposes
as different contexts with a difference of meaning dependent
on them is our common superficial view of meaning as some-
thing inherent in words and forms of sentence, so that ' the '
276 ALFRED SIDGWICK :
meaning of any statement can be discovered without respect
to any arriere pensde that may be in the speaker's mind.
This is a rough and ready procedure, useful enough in its
way, and corresponds exactly to the function of dictionaries
and grammars. In fact it only breaks down at the point
where the value of these aids to understanding ceases ; that
point being precisely where the serious mistakes of meaning,
as contrasted with the trivial ones, do actually arise.
II.
Vacillation between two meanings, when it occurs in the
early stages of an inquiry, is if not entirely harmless at any
rate almost unavoidable as a temporary condition. But as
concerned with the failure of meaning in disputes the chief
harm of vacillation is in connexion with accepted truths,
where it takes place between a meaning which makes a
statement undeniable, and a meaning which makes it nearly
but not quite true, and therefore on occasion importantly
false. On such occasions the effect of the former kind of
interpretation is to hinder us in learning the defects of the
statement when taken in its latter and commoner meaning..
We are tempted to use the undeniable statement as a refuge
from troublesome doubts, and to fall back into the other
interpretation in which the statement is questionable as
soon as the doubts blow over. Thus the doubts do not get
a fair chance of being sufficiently recognised.
The classical instance of this shifty performance is to be
found in the use that is made of the Laws of Thought in
Formal Logic. The assumption they there surreptitiously
involve is that the distinctions we use are unquestionable ;
that what is called A must deserve that name, and that the
line between A and not-A is beyond our power to criticise.
But they do this in the guise of axioms which are undeniable
only because they are tautologous. No one can deny, for
instance, that A is A, but when we try to interpret this axiom
for application in actual cases it does nothing whatever to-
settle the question whether we have before us a genuine case
of A or not. What it does, rather, is to obscure our vision of
this useful doubt, and therefore to check our efforts to meet
it. Similarly no one can suppose that A is not-A except
when we begin to apply the distinction in difficult cases, and
the attempt to hide this difficulty from ourselves by repeating
the Law of Contradiction in its undeniable form is some-
times only too successful. There is even an instance where
a philosopher of some standing 1 has persuaded himself that the
1 Mr. F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 136 (1st edition).
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 277
Law of Contradiction provides for us an " absolute criterion ".
Ultimate Keality, he tells us, is such that it does not contra-
dict itself. Incidental!}^ he here forgets that it is only in
statements that self-contradiction is possible, and that, since
ultimate reality does not make statements at all, it is free
from all danger of making self-contradictory ones. But
passing this over, and trying to put some meaning into the
doctrine, we see that it at least involves the belief that a self-
contradictory statement is necessarily false; or in other
words that ultimate reality is bound by the present conditions
of human language. If he had said only that the meaning of
statements is thus limited we could all agree with him ; we
could agree that a self-contradictory statement has no mean-
ing and therefore makes no intelligible assertion. But what
has this admission to do with the nature of Keality, unless
we confuse the abstract, tautologous Law of Contradiction
with that Law as applied in actual cases ? When we are
trying to state any fact, why attempt to hide from ourselves
the doubt whether what we take to be A may not be better
described as non-A, or as something between the two ? The
undeniable and tautologous Law of Contradiction does
nothing but avoid meeting these doubts.
The effect of this bad habit may further be seen in the
reasoning by which the confusion is officially supported.
Against the above criticism only one defence has ever been
attempted, and it is complacently repeated on each new oc-
casion. The commonest form it takes is to say that whatever
objections may be raised against the Law of Contradiction
these very objections tacitly assume its validity. But why
' tacitly ' ? In fact they assume its validity in the most open
manner possible ; they recognise the Law of Contradiction as
one of the conditions of intelligible language, and since any
critic of the Law wishes his remarks to be intelligible he
naturally observes those conditions in expressing them. Part
of his contention is that a self-contradictory statement is
devoid of meaning, and if the Law of Contradiction were in-
terpreted as saying no more than this its ' validity' would be
above suspicion. All that is claimed is that the Law in its
tautologous interpretation gives us no help in understanding
the facts of the world ; that the moment we apply the Law of
Contradiction to facts it speaks of so-called A, and therefore
ceases to be necessarily true. It cannot guarantee any case
of ; A ' against being wrongly so called. Nor, for instance,
can it prevent our recognising change as one of the most real
and important facts of our experience. That the conditions
of our existing language prevent our expressing clearly what
278 ALFEED SIDGWICK:
happens when a change occurs is perhaps to be regretted ;
but to say that the ultimate nature of things is dominated by
the present limitations of our power to describe them is to
assert more than we can seriously pretend to know. Perhaps
less fettered means of expression will some day be discovered,
and meanwhile a denial of the reality of change leads us no-
where -and would merely stultify all human effort. Dogmatic
assertion about Reality is never necessary since we may
contentedly call any of our beliefs a working hypothesis
but a dogma which tries to ignore the need of having a work-
ing value can hardly pretend to be even a genuine belief.
Perhaps a better hypothesis is that the Eleatic tricks of argu-
ment are only a development of a futile though ingenious
verbal game.
The intellectualist use of the Laws of Thought is, however,,
only one rather extreme example of a temptation which exists
in subtler forms wherever a rule claiming to be universal is
obstinately defended against attack. We are all accustomed
to the use of rules of inference which are admittedly rough and
vague, and the admission carries with it some readiness to
question the rule's value in particular applications. It is not,
therefore, rules of this looser kind that tempt us to vacillate
between tautology and faulty generalisation ; the temptation
arises specially with rules that claim certainty. The stronger
our belief in a rule's strict universality the more inclined we
are to explain away instances that appear to contradict it.
Now to explain away what looks like an exception to a
supposed rule is to raise questions of definition. The supposed
rule being 'if X, then Y,' an apparent case of X without Y
can only be accounted for so as to save the face of the rule
by claiming that the case in question is wrongly described as
X. And since wrong description of a fact is common enough
this method of defending a rule is often justified in particular
instances. But it is not an easy matter to fix the limit to
which the method can be usefully carried, and there is a
temptation to carry it on to the point at which the whole
meaning of the rule evaporates. For as soon as by definition
we deny the correctness of the predicate X in all cases which
are not Y, the rule becomes a mere tautology.
As further examples of supposed axiomatic rules we may
take Jevons's ' Substitution of Similars ' and Mill's inductive
canons. Jevons put forward his axiom in the form " whatever
is true of a thing is true of its like," which in its most
natural interpretation tells us that from likeness in one respect
(or in many respects) we may safely infer likeness in another.
But in view of the notorious fact that false analogies are
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 279
possible we see at once that the word ' likeness ' must not
here be taken in its ordinary wide meaning. And by pressing
for closer definition we find that in order to save the face of
the rule it is only * sufficient ' likeness that can be spoken of.
And then what the rule in effect solemnly tells us is that
likeness sufficient to warrant an inference is sufficient for that
purpose. How does such a rule give us any information
when we try to apply it to a given inference which is disputed ?
As to Mill's inductive canons, their vacillation between
two- meanings is not so directly managed by definition, but
the only defence by which their ' truth ' can be supported is
of essentially the same kind. Interpreted in any sense in
which they are applicable in cases of doubt in any cases
therefore in which a rule is called for they are misleading ;
they are risky generalisations. And in order to take from
them this element of risk in application the only way is to
interpret them so that they become inapplicable and therefore
devoid of information. If, for instance, we ask what is meant
by the " one circumstance " which the method of difference
so glibly speaks of, no one can tell us. What looks like one
circumstance may always be in fact two, or more. A circum-
stance can always be analysed, if we think it worth while,
into innumerable parts each of which is also a circumstance.
The important question, before we know whether the infer-
ence is sound, is whether we have carried the analysis far
enough. The canon tells us only that if we have done so the
inference is justified. In other words it tells us that sufficient
analysis is sufficient. We might have guessed that without
the help of the canon, but it does not help us to solve any
doubt about a given inference.
Our glimpses of causation come somewhere between
supposed axioms and consciously rough rules. A rule that
X causes Y claims to be universal but does not make the
claim with quite as much assurance as an axiom. Although
fifty years ago science was often inclined to be dogmatic,
there must now be very few of those engaged in research
who do not recognise the endless subtlety of causation to the
extent at least of being aware that there is always room for
a more discriminating view of any particular event than we
have reached at a given time. In so far as we do recognise this,
and therefore regard our causal inquiries as always incom-
plete, we welcome exceptions for the sake of the problems,
they set. But the old Adam of dogmatism dies hard and
still has some effect in those departments of science where
there is most risk of taking a too abstract view of the facts.
In a laboratory we are forced to pay more attention to the
280 ALFEED SIDGWICK:
individual things we deal with than, for instance, when we
theorise about the facts of a world- wide industrial system of
immense complexity, and simplify our view by making sharp
divisions between classes like producers and consumers, or
between capitalists and the proletariat. It is easy to make
out that ' capitalism ' is an evil thing if we are content to
define the word so as to include only the evils of the system.
III.
A meaning may be said to suffer from shortcomings when
it needs further elucidation ; when the definiteness of a state-
ment is not sufficient to give to a particular audience a clear
conception of what the statement is intended to assert. No
situation is commoner, and for the most part it is easily dealt
with, at any rate where the assertor is willing to face criticism.
But sometimes when an assertor is asked to choose between
two meanings he fails to understand the point of the request.
Through ignorance of some of the relevant facts he fails to
see an ambiguity which is seen by the audience, and he
therefore cannot sympathise with their need for more ex-
planation. They seem to him to be raising merely verbal
points in a spirit of logomachy.
It is here that the common distinction between verbal and
real questions loses its value. Doubts about an assertor' s
meaning, when raised by a critic who discovers ambiguity in
them, are in a sense verbal as referring to the meaning of
a word but they are also real because they arise from know-
ledge (or supposed knowledge) of facts which the critic thinks
important. They thus raise questions of fact though on the
surface they are questions about a meaning. It is their false
appearance of being merely verbal that gives a shifty assertor
his chance of escape from criticism by pretending to con-
demn the question as a quibble, or by offering to lend the
critic a dictionary or an elementary text-book. The assertor
then pretends that the question ' What do you include under
X' is answered by giving the dictionary definition of that
word, while in fact that is not what the critic is asking lor.
What his question really amounts to is a claim to have found
the dictionary definition insufficient for the occasion. He
claims that the word X is used in the statement so as to
obscure the important distinction between AX and BX. The
importance of the distinction consists, he alleges, in the fact
that the statement is true if X is taken to mean AX only,
but false if it is taken to include BX. The only way in
which such criticism can be straightforwardly met is by
discussing the question whether the distinction has or has
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 281
not the importance claimed for it. Even when the assertor
has no wish to shuffle, but only dislikes the trouble of the
inquiry, a mere assumption that the critic is mistaken does
no more than evade the issue that is raised.
What helps to give this kind of evasion some plausibility
is the difficulty of seeing that a statement thus challenged
has, for those who find it ambiguous, no meaning at all until
the ambiguity is removed. We naturally think of an am-
biguous statement as having a meaning though not a
perfectly clear one ; especially where, as often happens, each
word in the statement is familiar and ' definite ' and the form
of the sentence is grammatical. To say that the statement
has TIO meaning therefore seems on the face of it absurd.
The puzzle disappears, however, as soon as we remember
that we are here considering a discussion between two parties
on a particular occasion. From this point of view it does
not matter how much meaning the statement may have for
other audiences on other occasions. What matters is that
here and now its meaning has entirely vanished for the time.
The critic, let us suppose, knows very well that AX is Y, but
doubts whether BX is so ; if the latter assertion is made he
will dispute it. Meanwhile he cannot find out, without the
assertor's help, whether it is made in the statement or not.
As between those two parties, therefore, the statement fails
to answer the only question that is asked, and so might just
as well be expressed in an unknown language. And if it be
said as Formal Logic insists that a statement about the
general connexion between X and Y must be intended to
cover every sort of X, the answer is that in the interpretation
of doubtful language there is no such necessity. Most state-
ments, and especially those that are disputed do not bear
unmistakably on their face the full meaning that is in the
speaker's mind. Life would not be long enough to allow of
such explicitness of expression except where the statements
are of an unusually simple and uncontroversial kind. As
things are we habitually compromise between too much and
too little explicitness, wishing on the one hand to avoid in-
sulting or confusing our audience by excess of explanation,
and hoping on the other hand that the risk of being mis-
understood is negligible. A speaker's actual meaning is thus
usually more or less a matter for guessing or judging as best
we can, and the rigid rules of meaning laid down in Formal
Logic become ludicrous if they claim authority to say what
must be intended on a given occasion.
Remembering, then, that some of the intended qualifica-
tions of a statement are usually left unexpressed, the critic
282 ALFEED SIDGWICK:
cannot be blamed for asking whether a particular qualifica-
tion is intended or not. To him the difference between AX
and BX seems important, and if he is wrong in thinking so
he would be glad to know what his error is. His only
alternative indeed is to give a flat denial of the original state-
ment without first trying to find out what the assertor means
by it. And while either method may in the end lead to
further explanations the latter has at least no visible advantage.
Indeed a critic who makes reasonable allowance for difficulties
of expression will usually do more towards harmonising con-
flicting views than one who pedantically takes his stand 011
the strict letter of the statement. There can be no harm in
giving the assertor a chance of amending the form of his
assertion.
But in any case shortcomings of meaning, when due to a
definitely seen ambiguity, are for the time destructive of
meaning altogether. When and while we see an ambiguity in
a statement we can see no meaning there. We are in effect
asked to accept we know not what assertion, with all that
may be remotely implied in it.
The general result of the above remarks may be shortly
summarised as follows. Our attempt has been to find the
sources of the plausibility of certain lapses of meaning which
are liable to occur in discussion between two parties. For
convenience we have distinguished roughly three main
divisions of the subject : the mistakes made by an audience
in interpreting a speaker's statement ; a speaker's vacillation
between tautology and rash assertion, under pressure of
criticism ; and a speaker's failure to understand the charge
of ambiguity brought against his statement. In all three
branches of the inquiry we find the same need of keeping
clear the distinction between meaning as it exists loosely for
people in general, and meaning as required to constitute a
clear issue between the parties to a dispute. The former
view of the nature of meaning takes no account of a state-
ment's special context, or the thoughts that happen to be
in the minds of the disputing parties. It corresponds to the
rough general account that is given of the meaning of
separate words by a dictionary ; and it assumes that a
statement's meaning is decided simply by the dictionary-
meaning of the words used in it and by the form of the
sentence. For the purpose of our present inquiry this view
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 283
of the nature of meaning will not suffice. . The meaning
which constitutes an issue between two disputing parties is
a more complicated matter. Instead of being known to us
through our acquaintance with words and forms of speech,
it is only suggested to us by such acquaintance, and is not
capable of being decisively known by means of it. Ignorant
or careless misunderstandings are indeed occasionally met
with, but little difficulty or logical interest attaches to them.
The context of a statement, we have found, is often ex-
cusably doubtful until further explanations are given. In
this respect it differs from the context of a word, since the
latter is found at once in the sentence in which the word
occurs. The most serious mistakes of meaning arise from
wrong assumptions on the part of an audience as to the in-
ferences (or corollaries) intended by a speaker to be drawn
from a fact or a rule asserted by him. Unless we reckon a
statement's corollaries as included in its meaning, our view
of its meaning stops short at the very point where difference
of opinion is most likely to be hidden, and where accordingly
the statement may escape needed criticism. On the other
hand it is also notorious that when we do try to read between
the lines of a statement we are liable to see behind it corol-
laries that were not intended. Recognition of these two
opposite risks is a first step towards their prevention.
As regards vacillation, the chief motive for it is the
speaker's excessive devotion to some belief which he has ac-
cepted uncritically. There is always a temptation to simplify
our general views e.g., our views about particular causes
and effects by ignoring exceptions. And many speakers
feel a desire to defend by any available means a view to which
they have committed themselves. When better means are
not forthcoming they are tempted to use for this purpose the
simple plan of so defining the words of the statement as to
make its denial a contradiction in terms. What they then
forget is that a statement the denial of which is self-contra-
dictory, and therefore devoid of meaning, is for that very
reason devoid of meaning itself. The first and fundamental
condition of meaning in a statement is that acceptance and
denial of it shall be equal possibilities until a choice is made
between them. In other words, a statement makes no
assertion unless it claims to answer a question which has
meaning as expressing real doubt. So that a statement
which cannot be questioned is one that makes no assertion
and is an empty form of words.
A speaker's failure to see an ambiguity which his audience
sees is, we found, due to a difference in the view of the facts
284 ALFEED SIDGWICK:
that is taken by the two parties. This does not mean that
it is impossible for an ambiguity to arise from the ' double
meanings ' which so many words have, but only that this
simpler kind of ambiguity is so easily corrected that it is
hardly worth considering here. The ambiguity that really
causes trouble and against which we can never be finally
secure is that which occurs where different views are taken
of the importance of the distinction between AX and BX.
It follows from what was said above about a statement's con-
text that the predicate term in any statement of fact (S is X)
and the antecedent term in any statement of rule (if X, then
Y) are always the middle term of a syllogism. They must
in fact be so if either statement is to have a meaning at all,
since a descriptive name has no meaning unless something
can be inferred from it, and a statement of rule has no mean-
ing except so far as it contemplates being applied in particular
cases. That is why a statement found to be ambiguous is
for the time entirely devoid of meaning. Whether it be a
statement of fact or of rule, the audience distinguishes be-
tween two possible inferences from it, one of which seems
to them false while the other seems true. And until a clear
indication is given of -the inference actually intended by the
speaker the question that is nominally put before them for
acceptance or denial is a sham one. Their only possible
answer is Yes and No till the speaker can make up his mind
to choose between the two suggested meanings.
The liability of our statements to be found ambiguous,
then, corresponds exactly to the incompleteness of our know-
ledge of facts and of the rules that, applied to the facts, throw
further light upon them. When the critic of a statement is
right in his claim that the distinction between AX and BX
is important, the position between the disputing parties is
that the assertor is given a chance of learning something new
to him. It is therefore only the dogmatic assertor who can
resent or try to evade the question as to his meaning. Any-
one who realises the difficulty of reaching truth welcomes
the accusation of an ambiguity in his statement. For even
when he disputes the importance of the critic's distinction,
that dispute itself turns upon a question of fact that requires
settlement.
Taken together, these views of meaning may help to
explain some of the expressions that have been used by
STATEMENTS AND MEANING. 285
praginatists about the nature of truth. Pragmatism preserves
consistently the distinction between truth and reality, regard-
ing the former as a quality attaching to assertions, not to
things or events. And since assertions are recognisable and
open to criticism only in the form of statements with a
meaning, the question whether a given assertion is true cannot
begin to be considered so long as there is any doubt about
the statement's meaning. Now we have seen that though
a statement is always made by putting words together, its
meaning is not decisively found by putting together the
separate word-meanings. The question " what the assertor
wants to do with it" is the decisive factor, and uncertainty
on this point is the chief effective source of misunderstand-
ings. That is to say, we must consider the consequences of
a statement in order to find its meaning. It is only in this
sense that truth is concerned with consequences. Meaning
depends on consequences, and truth depends on meaning ;
but that is very far from saying that the question whether
an assertion is true depends on whether we approve of the
consequences of believing it. No pragmatist, even though
he recognises the occasional value of ' bias ' in the attain-
ment of truth, can ever have wished to deny its much more
frequent misleading power. Whatever may be the short-
comings of pragmatism, a disregard of the most elementary
and best-known sources of error is not among them.
Another doctrine that has given trouble is that all recognis-
able truth is truth for a purpose. This has sometimes been
taken as denying that the search for truth can ever be free
from sordid interests. Here again an excuse can be made
for the mistake, since pragmatists do insist on the necessity
for taking an interest in a question before we can try to
answer it. Unfortunately both purpose and ' interest ' are
words that are capable of a low interpretation which may
naturally raise suspicions. But the mistake may also be
made less extravagantly by giving the pragmatist credit for
some loftiness of intention and supposing him to mean that
when the purpose is respectable enough every other considera-
tion must give way to it. Under this misconception of
pragmatism its doctrine is supposed to be useful in Christian
apologetics ; as saying, for instance, that if the fear of hell
helps us to lead good lives, that would be a satisfactory proof
of the real existence of hell.
It is arguable that one or two expressions used by William
James give some excuse for this supposition, but even then
it does not follow that any such doctrine is essential to prag-
matism. At any rate, if we take ' purpose ' as meaning
286 ALFEED SIDGWICK: STATEMENTS AND MEANING.
inferential purpose we are free to understand the pragrnatist
view as merely condensing what has here been said about the
effect of the context of statements upon their meaning. If
it be true that the meaning of a statement depends on what
the assertor ''wants to do with it" that is to say, on the
assertor's "inferential purpose" in making the statement
then the inference is an essential part of the assertion made
by him. His statement may be true for that purpose while
it is false for another ; or vice versa. In other words, its
truth or falsity depends upon the meaning given to it. The
purpose of a statement thus becomes indistinguishable from
its meaning ; and since there cannot be truth without mean-
ing there cannot be the recognition of a truth without taking
account of its purpose. Similarly 'interest' need mean no
more than the desire to solve a difficulty or remove a doubt.
Pragmatism emphasises the fact that every assertion, as such,
is an answer to a question an attempt to remove a doubt
that exists before the assertion is made. So that a statement
which professes to be strictly undeniable thereby confesses
its lack of meaning and its failure to assert anything at all.
It is of course admitted that a statement may be true even
though you or I do not understand its meaning, but unless
or until some one understands it there is no recognition of
its truth. About unrecognised truth, as such, pragmatism
has nothing to say. Since truth, for pragmatism, is a quality
of assertions, not of things, its recognition requires a state-
ment and a person for whom that statement's meaning exists.
The commonest attitude of our minds towards any truth
we recognise is that we understand some but not all of the
purposes (inferences) for which it may be used. Thus room
is left for the progress of knowledge, successful new uses of
old truths being in effect new truths, and the failure of old
truths in new uses being needed limitations of their value.
So long, therefore, as any truth serves the purposes for which
we use it there is nothing to complain of, and when we find a
purpose for which it does not serve we are still acquiring
further knowledge ; we have learnt a further piece of truth
which also has its purpose. A ' truth ' from which nothing
at all could be inferred would only be a statement without
meaning.
III. LITERARY TRUTH AND REALISM, THE
ESTHETIC FUNCTION OF LITERATURE AND
ITS RELATION TO PHILOSOPHY (I).
BY P. LEON.
THE realistic movement in literature is now past its heyday,
and if it is not true to say that a reaction has set in against
it, it is at any rate beyond the self-conscious stage, and its
contribution to literature and criticism, though not precisely
analysed, is taken as granted, with acquiescence but without
insistence. Such terms as "real," "true to life," "living,"
or their longer and more disguised equivalents, still form, as
they did long before its advent, the staple of written as well
as oral criticism. If, in the attempt to elicit what underlies
these terms, metaphysical and logical theories have been
summarily and roughly stated, indulgence may be asked on
the ground that, though some philosophical standpoint is
necessary for the proper understanding of the problem, the
conclusion here drawn does not wholly depend upon the
particular principles employed.
The above-mentioned terms all seem to imply a reference
to an external reality and a demand for conformity with it.
To begin, then, from the beginning, some reflection on our
commerce with this reality, and on the meaning of this
reference, will be desirable. The intelligence as dealing with
the real may be characterised as theoretic (scientific and
philosophical), practical (economic and ethical, to use recent
terminology), and aesthetic. In this last aspect it traces in
the real, connexions variously described as tragic, comic,
grotesque, bizarre, etc. "Contrasts" seems the most com-
prehensive term (here we but name the problem, allowing
a general definition to follow rather than precede the particular
inquiry). But there is a stage antecedent to this differenti-
ation of aspects, and at this first stage the real has been said
either to be feeling or to be given us in feeling. Fewer
difficulties ensue if we say that at first we apprehend reality
unanalysed, and the object, together with our relation to it,
can be characterised only by a specific modification of our
288
feeling. The important point is that it is in this way and
in this way only that we grasp the whole of any object,
beginning and end in one, at any moment of time (say
"London" or "Aristotle's Ethics"), as contrasted with our
piecemeal reference to it, which is spread over a period of
time. This holds true even when the apprehension has-
been reached or at least modified by discursive reflection and
learning. It is in this way also, if at all, that we grasp the
totality of reals in religious, mystical, or cosmic emotion.
We have here a starting point which we never leave and
which is also a final stage, and since it is the only communion
with totality, it is rightly considered basic, the alpha and
omega of experience. It is this that " intellectualists " are
said to falsify and to it all judgments are referred whenever
conformity with reality is demanded. For what we are here
given is deemed reality par excellence. But if at this point
the intelligence is dowered with all the riches of the universe,
it is also extremely poor. Having everything, we yet have
nothing. For we can say nothing about our possessions.
As soon as we begin to do this, we select and abstract. As
theoretic, the intelligence tears out general characters from
their concrete context, traces universal connexions, forms
laws and systems, never, of course, exhausting any whole ;
as practical, it concentrates on ends and means, on those
characteristics of reals which make for their acceptance or
rejection. At the very least, that division is involved which
is necessitated by discursive thinking and talking, and that
divorce from totality which is required to constitute relevance
in any universe of discourse. Falsification is entailed by taking
the part for the whole, and modification at least by the very fact
of diremption from the whole. A corrective is supplied by
opposition of a different; abstraction or by supplementation,
and both are effected by a continual return to the stage
where we have apprehension of totality. It is. this return
and beginning anew that would seem to constitute all testing
of judgments by comparison with "reality".
Now, leaving creation or invention out of the question,
and granting that the poet (this term will have to stand for
every artist in words) deals with the reality with which the
scientist deals, if the aesthetic intelligence also operates by
abstraction, in insisting on taking literature as an account
of anything and on testing it as such, we shall have to allow
for the abstraction at least. Literature does involve ab-
^straction and modification, and what determines these is
, relevance to a situation or effect. This is obvious from many
^considerations : we may reflect on the manipulation of facts
LITEEAKY TRUTH AND REALISM. 289
by the writers of historical dramas and novels and by the
literary or rhetorical historians among the ancients ; or we
may point to the saying that in actual life there is neither
tragedy nor comedy and no climax, and to the attempt of
Zola and others to dispense with these on the ground of
their distorting influence. Zola also protested against the
omissions of certain writers and provided his grime novels as
a corrective and addendum. He saw, in fact, that abstraction
was involved in two ways : (a) in obtaining any aesthetic
effect at all, and (6) in obtaining a particular effect. For the
same material seen from different angles, or submitted to a
different abstraction, may be variously a tragedy, a comedy,,
a tragi-cornedy, etc. The truth of this is well illustrated by
a whole species of w r riting which we may perhaps class as-
" supplementary literature," corresponding to variations on
a theme in music. The characters or situations of one writer
are taken up by another, and by means of certain rearrange-
ment, or by supplementing what may be considered an
omission, a quite different effect is produced, there being all
along an accompanying reference to the original work. This
is not always parody. The dramas of the different Greek
tragedians resulting from different handling of a common
tradition, look almost like rejoinders to each other and some-
times were this. In this light we may regard the treatment
of ancient themes from a modern standpoint.
Necessary and obvious as this abstraction is, nevertheless
the desire for the wholesale conformity of the impression we
get from a book with the impression we get from life seems
inexpugnable and, together with its inevitable disappoint-
ment, it is attested in many ways. Young people especially,
as we are warned, form false ideas about life from books,
and are rendered discontented with it. This is no doubt an
evil, and is due to not knowing what to look for in literature.
The poetic discontent with life is familiar and results from
the discovery that life is not a poem, not even a bad and
very long epic. In Flaubert's Madame Bovary the whole
drama centres upon a woman's desire that life should be a
romantic novel. To a certain extent we are all Don Quixotes
riding forth with the craving to meet with the adventures
we have read of. Yet meeting with these adventures will
never satisfy us, and the craving can be allayed in one way
only, by re-reading the particular books or by applying to
life the aesthetic abstraction and selection and so producing
similar or different aesthetic works ourselves.
The same demand appears in many different forms, but
we may sum it up as a requirement for the conformity of
19
290 P. LEON:
the impression left on us by a work of literature with the
normal view of life. Stated in this way, many objections
can be urged against it. In the first place, each man's view
of life is unique and the normal view is not properly anyone's.
Then, any individual's mind is at different times either at the
level of almost mere animal sensation, or at the stage of
apprehending totality, or, departing from that stage, the
mind enters on its abstracting work and is preoccupied
either by scientific or practical interests at different times.
With which of these experiences is the conformity to be?
Only the second can be called a complete view of the whole
of life, but no duplicate of this experience can be expected.
We may return from our abstractions to it, but we cannot
PSxpect these, the parts, to be the whole. Literature which,
/ like science, abstracts without exhausting, cannot give us
totality any more than science can. Nor can we demand
/^hat the aesthetic experience should conform with the purely
theoretic or ethical experiences, unless we think that it is
the same as these. Is the conformity to be, then, with our
normal aesthetic view? But even when, by exclusion, we
take up the purely aesthetic attitude towards the whole or
any whole, we still have a total which can yield every
aesthetic effect, tragic, comic, etc., effects which obtain their
individuality by isolation, but which, in the lump, collapse
into the continuum of undifferentiated potentiality. To
demand conformity with this, or to require a differentiation
to be the same as, or like, the undifferentiated, would be
absurd. It would be equally absurd to require conformity or
identity between one differentiation and another, i.e., to ex-
pect a particular effect (e.g., the tragic) to conform with a
different effect (e.g., the comic), or the tragic of a particular
kind to conform with the tragic of another kind. We can
only demand, then, that an effect shall conform with itself,
be itself, which is no demand for conformity at all, and
means the giving up of reference to or comparison with
anything. Again, the aesthetic function of the intelligence,
in the majority of people, is dormant or weak or not receptive
of a great variety of effects. The treatment of life that
makes the most general appeal is the humorous or grotesque,
and often of the Rabelaisian kind. But it involves as much
arrangement and abstraction as does the treatment of life as
.a tragedy or magnificent pageant, and though it is as justifiable
as any other treatment, it cannot be set up as the only right
one. The impression of life left by a writer's works (say
mainly tragic) will not always conform even with his own
view of life, because, firstly, his tragedies are invented and are
LITEEAEY TRUTH AND REALISM. 291
not slices of actual life, secondly, if they were this, they
would there at any rate be weakened and blunted by being
in a context mainly non-aesthetic or at any rate non-tragic,
thirdly, because the writer's attitude is not always aesthetic
but sometimes theoretic or practical.
This reference of whole to whole as between a work of art
and life is seen, then, from the nature of the aesthetic in-
telligence to be impossible. A similar reference is applied
to parts, and is involved in the use of such terms as " im-
probable " or ''impossible," at any rate if taken strictly.
Certain characters in literature are said to be impossible, or
abstractions, or unreal ; certain coincidences are condemned
as unlikely : or, on the other hand, Meredith and Henry
James are praised for their exact analysis of characters and
minds, as if this were the essential merit of their works ; and
the novelist or poet has been said to be the best psychologist.
He may be ; but the exactness of the analysis, whatever its
value, does not constitute the essence of the artistic merit,
and the question is whether it can be judged as exactness or
accuracy. It has been assumed that the imaginative writer
is dealing with an actual particular, and since judgments
about actual particulars can be criticised by testimony and
the evidences of the senses, his work, too, should allow of the
same test. 'But the assumption is not legitimate. The
imaginative writer imagines. He is not talking about Smith
or Jones whom we know or can get to know. Confirmation
or refutation can come only from knowledge of universal
connexions, and for the criticism to be really as authoritative
as it pretends to be, our knowledge would have to be much
more axiomatic than it is, and reality would also have to be
more of a system. We do not possess an exact ethology to
tell us in detail what a human being can or cannot do, and
much, if not the greater part of, reality is mere brute fact.
If we cannot see why some of it should be as it is, we cannot
say either that it could not be different. Horace disapproves
of the painter in whose picture " a woman fair to the waist
were to end foul in the tail of an ugly fish ; " but our know-
ledge cannot assure us of the impossibility or even the im-
probability of such a phenomenon.
To apply such criticism at all involves taking characters
in literature generically or as types, and to this there are
strong objections. If we urge that Othello or Macbeth
ought not to be made to act thus, because a jealous man or
a murderer would not act in that way, the answer is that
they are not, the one a jealous man, and the other a murderer,
but Othello, jealous if we like, but only in that particular and
292 P. LEON:
perhaps unique way, and Macbeth who murdered a king,
and behaved in that particular way. Shakespeare is not
analysing a jealous man or a murderer but Othello and
Macbeth, and they are what Shakespeare has made them.
Then there can be no further argument. No number of
laws can assure us that those concrete individuals in those
particular circumstances will not act in that particular way.
Part of the peculiarity of their characters may be those very
actions we object to. In actual life our judgment on men
does not generally prophesy their future, but rather waits on
it for its own completion. As no verification is then possible
either by evidence or deduction from universal principles,
the question of truth, reality, probability and possibility is
really finished with.
The literature of the " type " has long since been condemned
both on the score of truth and of art, but the theory that art
gives us the universal in the individual is sometimes sup-
posed to be different from that which says that it gives us
the typical. It is hard to see that it is different or that it is
not an abuse of logical terms. But if it means that we are
presented with an attribute inherent in an individual stripped
of irrelevant detail which obscures that attribute, art will
still have to be condemned, judged by the realistic standard.
For in concrete reality, qualitatively, no detail is irrelevant
or insignificant absolutely. It qualifies both the whole and
the parts. Therefore, so far as the universal can be presented
in the individual, not only does the one suffer by being
crushed (for it is always too large for the individual) , and the
other by being magnified, but both are modified by the
stripping of the irrelevant detail. For the very obscuration
is an essential quality, and its removal causes the colours to
be more pronounced and glaring as it were, and the forms
to stand out harder and more clearly defined than they are
in reality. This may not be an aesthetic defect ; but it is a
defect if the test of reference to reality is admitted.
It is not of course always admitted, even by those who use-
the terms " probable," " possible," etc. History, it is allowed,
is a network of coincidences and improbabilities, and is full
of extravagant and unlikely characters. In life we meet with
people who, we sometimes say, are unreal or as much ab-
stractions as the thinnest character in a poor novel. Again,
the life in literature is said to be more probable and more
real than actual life. But as nothing can be more real than
the real, the terms in the above cases are obviously abused.
They are used to denote aesthetic qualities, those of being
striking or of possessing a certain order and unity, and ol
LITEKARY TRUTH AND REALISM. 293
course there is nothing to be objected to this, except that
we may protest against misleading terminology.
Zola's Le Roman Experimental is the locus classicus for
the view of the function of literature here examined. His
mere statement of the ideal of literature as an experimental
science or as a science at all, is enough to throw light on its
real nature. It is sufficient to ask which part of the novel is
the datum, which the analysis, which the new conditions
introduced, the result, the hypothesis, the verification and
proof. At the most it could bear an analogy with the mere
setting forth of an hypothesis, but this is not the whole of
scientific investigation and still less is it experiment. What
Zola actually does in his novels, is to incorporate assump-
tions or conclusions r data of science. But this is to make
use of science, not to contribute to it as he thought he was
doing. If science were more demonstrative than it is, we
could refute or confirm some of Zola's assumptions, and that
is all his relation to science. He made use of police reports,
statistics, medical journals, etc. ; and the scientist has to do
this. But he does this in order to prove some universal con-
nexion. But what does Zola prove ? He merely restates,
and wrongly, since what in the scientific datum may be a
conjunction in a concrete, in his novel, to be considered from
the point of view of information and knowledge at all, will
be treated as a universal connexion. Thus if L'Assommoir
is to be taken as the description of a particular case, it is a
mere re-hash of Zola's original information, and anyhow it
is not accompanied by the evidence, which is the most vital
thing ; if its import is general, then it is a generalisation from
that information without argument or proof, and presented
not as a system of general propositions, but as an attempt at
exhausting a concrete whole by means of singular judgments,
which is absurd. For Zola would not admit his book pre-
sented a particular aspect only of a social class. He would
say he gave the truth about that class. But how could he
give all there was to be said about a whole social class, and
that, too, in what has at the same time to be the history of a
few particular families ?
Yet novels are sometimes spoken of as valuable contribu-
tions, at least in the way of material, to psychology or
sociology. But can they be this ? As a matter of fact the
psychoanalyst makes use of the records of actual dreams, not
of dreams in a novel, the sociologist of statistics of poverty
and not of the descriptions of it in novels, the doctor of actual
cases of delirium tremens, not of Zola's picture (Zola made
use of the doctor's description). Nor could this be otherwise.
294 P. LEON:
We must repeat, literature does not admit of verification..
It is professedly not an account of the actual and it professedly
does present us with the concrete. If, then, it is to be treated
as an account at all, verification would only be possible if
reality were such that every feature in a concrete were there
necessarily, by a necessary connexion with every other. If
literature is a science, everything in it must be looked on as
a case of " a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter ". The
scientist does of course make use of testimony, and descrip-
tions or enumerations of the details of a concrete. But of
course this concrete must be actual. By information we do
mean information about the actual, and what does not admit
of verification or questioning is not information.
Moreover, those descriptions the scientist uses are such as
are relevant to his science ; or at any rate that is all in them
that can interest him. But to what science are the details in
some realist novels and the order in which they are presented
relevant ? They are intended, apparently, for all the different
sciences, and the novel should then ideally be an undigested
miscellany. In fact, as they did not admit the claim of
aesthetic relevance (because, as they said, this involved falsi-
fication) and as they did not look to any particular science,
the utterances of delirium, where there is no conscious selec-
tion or arrangement, should have been the strict ideal of the
realists. If they do not quite come up to it, this is because^
in spite of their protestation, they were actuated by aesthetic
motives. As Brunetiere observes, they had the making of
good Vaudevillists. This is particularly obvious in Nana r
the value of which Zola himself imagined was that it
brought damning evidence against a social class, but which
is interesting because in most of it grotesque of a high order
is achieved.
It is because there is an essential difference between the
theoretic and the aesthetic activity that imaginative works
digressing into reflection or information are difficult. If the
main motive has been aesthetic, the information may be
discounted or passed over as information without our enjoy-
ment suffering much ; but if the work is passed on to the
theoretic intelligence as material, the aesthetic influence can-
not so easily be discounted. Keordering, different emphasis,,
and elimination are essential ; above all the aesthetic linger-
ing on points that are to the theoretic intelligence meaning-
less is offensive. Virgil's Georgics for the practical farmer
would be an unmitigated nuisance. Lucretius' science is less
of an offence to the poet than his poetry is to the scientist,
and Plato's philosophy suffers more from his literature than
LITERARY TRUTH AND REALISM. 295
his literature from his philosophy. In modern novels, often
so ambitious to satisfy the theoretic interest, the conflict is
most acute. On the one hand they deal with concrete persons
and their story, on the other hand with general problems,
psychological or sociological'. Now as no number of general
problems will exhaust anything that will look like a concrete,
and on the other hand not everything in a condrete can be
relevant to a general problem, there is continually a dis-
crepancy between the two kinds of interest. Besides, a general
problem we want stated in a way that will admit of argument,
and the latter can always be eluded in a novel or play, under
the plea of particularity, which yet not being of the actual, is
beyond the criticism of evidence also.
As History in a way attempts to exhaust concrete reality,
literature, it might seem, should be compared with it. Now
when this comparison is made, it is obviously not the history
which, like science, traces universal connexions, nor the
history which is a criticism of testimony, that is thought of,
but the history which tries to give a picture. Very often
such history is obviously moulded by aesthetic motives.
Livy wrote melodrama, Tacitus macabre, and Thucydides
has been accused of being a Greek tragedian. And it is a
question whether, when personal idiosyncrasies and prejudices
of politics, morals, religion, etc., have been eliminated, the
esthetic factor which influences at least the arrangement
and emphasis, can be eliminated also. If history tries to
avoid it, does it not become mere criticism of testimony, or
chronicle, or a picture plus an appendix of corrigenda et
addenda which, if incorporated in the main body, would make
any picture impossible ? Still, without laying down the ideal
of finality or absoluteness for a synoptic view or aesthetic
effect, criticism on the ground of truth is here possible, just
because history does deal with an actual individual concrete
;md not with an imagined generalised concrete.
Besides, literature would seem to be much more ambitious
than history. It does not always confine itself to a particular
period or place, and we should have to claim for it the func-
tion of a generalised picture of the concrete universe. Indeed
it has been said that while science abstracts, art gives us the
individual and, by implication, the whole. It is true that it
builds up a concrete, but not a whole, if that whole is any-
thing outside the work. Literature has its own abstraction,
that required for aesthetic order, and it abstracts as much as
science. There is, as we have seen, only one way of ap-
prehending totality which involves no abstraction at all ;
296 P. LEON:
but all we can say of this is that it is a mere point of contact
with reality.
It remains to be seen whether, in our many particular
judgments on literature, we do consistently demand truth or
-conformity with reality, or whether a different interpretation
of them is not possible. We have already seen how " pro-
bable," "possible" and " real " are used to denote aesthetic
qualities. Some other cases may help. When we condemn
the coincidences in the Vicar of Wakefield, we do so not
really because such coincidences may not occur in real life ;
they very well might. But a world in which there is such
continual interference by the deus ex machina is too me-
chanical to produce any genuine aesthetic effect. So the
drama of intrigue and of elaborate cycle and epicycle of plot
is faulty, not because it is unreal, but because it can produce
nothing more aesthetic than the bothered surprise felt
:at the explication of a Chinese puzzle or at the performance
of a piece of jugglery. On the other hand the supernatural
does not jar or obtrude itself in Homer or Coleridge's
Ancient Mariner, because no aesthetic defect results. There
may even be good novels without "real" characters.
It may be hard to decide whether Hardy's heroes and
heroines are persons or world forces ; but for the aesthetic
effect for which they are used, the question does not arise.
Many so-called impossible characters in novels or plays are
really mad or at least so capricious or imbecile that we cannot
take an interest in what they do or say. Or generally they
are not what the author intended them to be ; and this is
the important point. For, once we enter the world of any
imaginative work, we do not get out again to compare it with
our own world ; but in it we do pass valuations just as
we do in ours. These valuations are suggested and invited
by the author himself. This is done either by the expressed
commentary of the writer or by the requirements of the
situation or aesthetic effect. Either the author himself
declares, or the whole work demands that such a person be
taken to be of a certain sort, e.g., heroic, knavish, foolish, clever,
etc., and this person must strike us as being what he is in-
tended or required to be, or else the effect cannot be produced.
This is the real conformity demanded. To take one example :
It is not very serious to urge against Prince Muishkin's eight-
page harangues in Dostoievsky's Idiot that in real life brevity
is enforced by interruption even in the most patient and polite
conversational company ; for even if that were the case, de-
ture from reality in one direction or another is necessary.
Again, to decide whether such an extraordinary character is
LITERARY TRUTH AND REALISM. 297
possible or not, we might want more experience of human
beings than we possess ; or we might think that nothing is
impossible or improbable in human character, and that close
scrutiny shows every one to be extraordinary ; at any rate we
find in history stranger characters than Prince Muishkin.
But we can all say what we think of him, and if his actions
struck us as foolish from any point of view, his speeches as
unctuous or empty, and himself as a shallow Salvationist, that
would affect our appreciation of the novel considerably. We
should not be able to regard the Prince as the Man-God with
wisdom and love so great and simple that to ordinary men
it appears idiocy, and yet they turn to it instinctively each
in his time of stress. And if we did not regard him thus,
the whole novel would be out of shape. There can be no
situation, no contrast, no movement, no novel in fact, except
to the man whose mental and moral equipment allows him
to judge the Prince as Dostoievsky did. -^
Differences of literary appreciations, as Burke observed,
are to a large extent not due to difference of aesthetic outlook
or endowment. Melodrama is not melodrama to the man
who enjoys it, but drama, and this it would perhaps be to
us too, if the hero and heroine seemed to us good and the
villain bad instead of their all appearing equally stupid
nonentities. What makes the difference is wider experience
and keener and more critical insight in human affairs.
Hence it comes that, as we grow older, we cast aside the
favourite books of our youth, without necessarily changing
our literary taste. To produce work which will make a
lasting appeal, a writer must then possess right sense and
right feeling to enable him to judge of men and appraise
them aright. At any rate he must possess these if he is to
appeal to men endowed with these qualities. But the latter
are only necessary conditions, not the essence of his artistic
power. They concern the means only, necessary to produce
the aesthetic end in a certain medium and appealing to cer-
tain men. And our valuations are not the aesthetic criticism
or appreciation itself, though they are in a subordinate way
inevitable. It is through them and after them that the
other is attained. And about it little can be said, and it is
a fact that criticism and literary history, except when purely
technical, have little relevant to say. The opinions of the
author, his moral outlook, his biography, the history of the
times, etc., are discussed at large, but they are not to the
point. Of course we can usefully name, compare, and classify
different effects, attempt the interpretation of one art through
another or of one literary work through criticism which is
298 p. LEON :
itself another artistic creation, and in history trace the-
emergence of new effects if there are such. We may say
that pathos, for example, and the inclusion of the comic
within the tragic are comparatively modern. It is true that
every aesthetic work is unique, but so is everything else, and
naming or classification has its use here no more and no less
than elsewhere.
In this way we can interpret the realist movement itself
so as to discount the implications of its name. It was
valuable not as a revolt against what was untrue or unreal
and not because it yielded more truth and reality itself, but
because it broke down limits to the aesthetic activity, them-
selves based on no aesthetic grounds. Just as there had been
no reason why the dramatis personae should be mainly royal
or classical or mythological, or why their minds should be
confined within a limited range of ideas and subjects, so, later,
there was no reason why in tales and novels the characters
should be mainly mediaevalist or have a peculiar attitude to-
nature and their souls, although there was no reason why
they should not. New fields were opened for the old aesthetic
effects, and thus new creation, instead of imitation, was
possible. At the same time new aesthetic effects emerged.
The grime literature, for example, when successful, was
justified in its comparative exclusion of the good and pleasant,
because thus it extracted a peculiar development in gloom,
not present in that form before. It was something new, too,
to dwell on the contrast between the baffling pointlessness
of life and the expectation of purpose or system cherished by
the writer or reader. That was the working out of the mood
of interrogation. In so far as these effects were well worked
oat they were justified ; but their justification does not lie in
the fact that life is either grimy or pointless any more
than the justification of ^Eschylus' tragedies lies in the fact
that Destiny really works in the way in which it works in
them.
We conclude, then, that the essence of literature is to create
what we prefer to call certain contrasts, using also such terms
as order, movement, measured development ; and our enjoy-
ment lies in the contemplation of these. That and nothing
else is its significance.
This may seem to bring the Muses down from their heights,
and it will certainly shock the moralist and didactic view
which in general is openly condemned and latently assumed
by most critics. It is admitted that in literature we cannot
expert metaphysics in the way in which we do from a
philosopher, and also that it is not a sermon, or didactic in
LITEBAEY TRUTH AND REALISM. 299
any way. Such dicta as that poetry is the criticism of life
or the noble expression of noble ideas, may perhaps seem
old-fashioned. But yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the
idea that the value of a literary work and our appreciation of
it, are in some intimate way connected with a philosophy
and lebensanschauung ; that if the work does not preach, it
at least shows us or makes us aware of the significance,
value, intensity, nobility of life : and to the philosophically
minded it might appear that through literature we have per-
haps the best loophole into the nature of ultimate reality.
But the truth behind such ideas is one that can be put into
a tautological judgment. " Significance," " value," ''in-
tensity," "nobility," are used in an aesthetic sense, i.e., " in-
teresting," or "striking" ; and aesthetic qualities cannot be
spoken of in terms of ethical qualities, except so far as we
always speak of one thing in terms of another, which is a
gain as well as a loss to the understanding. We mean, then,
that literature shows us life as interesting, or, more precisely,
not life, but the life in the story, drama or poem, and this is
the same as saying that an aesthetic work is aesthetic. Every
view that in any way attempts to resolve the aesthetic activity
either as creative of order, contrasts, etc., or as contemplative
of these, into a statement or implication that anything is
this or that, i.e., into any act of attribution or predication,
must be condemned.
For if an author's general opinions and philosophy are
materially connected with his work, as they must be for him
to teach us anything directly or indirectly about the meaning
of anything, how is it that when they clash with our own
opinions, that makes no difference to our appreciation ?
Why do we not contradict ? If we do not have the views
on psychology and the pre-existence of the soul, which
Wordsworth had when writing the " Ode on Intimations of
Immortality," that poem does not prove or show to us anything
about life's origin or goal or value. But yet we enjoy it, and
the question of psychology or the problem of pre-existence or
of the value of life does not occur in the enjoyment but only
in subsequent analysis, and is dismissed again in a second
aesthetic reading. The same may be said of Shelley's atheism
or pantheism and Browning's optimism, at any rate as long
as they write poetry and not mere argument or dogma. If
in spite of the obsoleteness of ^Eschylus' belief in the work-
ing of Ate, his tragedies, which are developments of that one
theme, still appeal to us, that is because the aesthetic interest
is in the mere contemplation of the rhythmic development
of the theme, and is entirely indifferent to its intellectual or
300 p. LEON:
moral significance. Hardy presents us with a universe which
is the plaything of a blind or malignant Aphrodite enthroned
as omnipotent Fate, while in our world Aphrodite is a powerful
but subordinate deity. In Dostoievsky we get a vision of
life as an Inferno seen through blood, out of which Love,
the Eedeemer, leads us to a beatific Paradise; but neither
his pessimism nor his optimism may convince or enlighten
us. Again, how, we may ask, can we enjoy reading a man
who mocks at the things we most reverence, and although
Jingoism, especially that of other nations, is to us an
abomination, how can we enjoy even Deutschland uber alles ?
The mere putting of these questions is tainted with the vice
of referring the artistic work to an outside reality. Strictly
speaking, the author mocks not at our world but at the world
in his book, and so do we ; the world and the mockery are
created pari passu. The Deutschland that should be uber
alles is the Deutschland in the song, and so it should. As far
as our immediate appreciation goes, Dostoievsky sees an
Inferno and Hardy a fateful Aphrodite not in the world, but
in the world of their books, and so do we ; and, what is really
to the point, such a world deploying itself in that particular
way is aesthetically striking or interesting.
Whatever the author's general view or synopsis of life is,
all that matters is that he should be able toimake correct partic-
ular valuations or at least such as agree with ours. He must
recognise a good, brave, bad, clever or astute man when he
sees one, and his valuations of his own characters, expressed
or implied, must be ours. For it is only through, though
not in, these, that we get the aesthetic appreciation. To
that extent we do not commit ourselves to what is or-
dinarily meant by art for art's sake. The great writer does
need great wisdom and profound insight into life, at least as
a necessary condition to the possibility of his appealing to
wise men ; and so literature is in some way a criticism of
life. But, and this is important, the wisdom and criticism
are not such as can be expressed in general judgments or
formulae. If we are not careful we shall soon refer to external
reality again. Those valuations are not on general qualities ;
they are on concrete wholes, those in the book. Ours, too,
should be this, and if we make them anything else we do so
at our own risk, and in any case we are getting away from
the essential interest of the work, which is not even in the
particular valuations but in the contrast or movement
presented, the valuations being only a means, .though of
course we intend here a distinction not a division between
end and means.
LITERARY TRUTH AND REALISM. 301
We can from the analysis of an author's different works
extract a body of general opinions, and from a knowledge of
the man or his biography we may feel sure that our formula-
tion is correct. Every author, as every other man, no doubt
holds some general opinions, even when not explicitly formu-
lated, and he must hold them sincerely. He cannot manu-
facture them ad hoc. If Hardy had " got up " his pessimism
from Schopenhauer's books, and used it as a working
hypothesis to compose gloomy novels, these could not have
been what they are. These particular opinions are neces-
sary conditions for the production of this particular work.
But so are many other things : that the author should have
been born in a certain place, live in a certain period, marry
or be unmarried, or divorced, etc. The artistic product is an
essence distilled from his complete personality and experi-
ence ; but it itself is not these, and the aesthetic interest in it
is not an interest in the writer's personality, experience, and
thought or any part thereof. It is not really an appreciation
of his wisdom, penetration, sensibility, etc. These have to
have been there, but they are all subsumed under the aesthetic
function, and we do not notice or value them until their
absence interferes with our enjoyment, i.e., interrupts our
aesthetic absorption and activity.
When we speak of a certain function or faculty working,
we do not, of course, speak of an independent and isolated
entity ; we mean that the whole man concentrates in a certain
activity, and all his other interests are contributory but sub-
ordinate. That contribution in subordination will be possible
in appreciating a successful work of art. The intelligence
qua theoretic and ethical is content not to be roused to con-
tradiction ; its satisfaction is quiescence. But if the writer
shocks our value judgments, or in a running commentary
makes general reflections, or by labelling or obtrusive implica-
tion invites us to judge his work as testimony, then that sub-
ordination is broken and interests non-aesthetic are brought
into prominent action. The view of art for art's sake is wrong
in so far as it suggests that the aesthetic act can exist in
splendid isolation instead of being concreted in the whole
personality and requiring the whole of the individual's experi-
ence ; it is, however, right in insisting that the aesthetic ap-
preciation is of aesthetic qualities and of no other. The
division is wrong ; the distinction is right.
When, then, the aesthetic activity, from the point of view of
literature at any rate, has been seen to be the creation and
contemplation of contrasts, movement, development, and has
been marked off from everything else, we cannot ask for or
302 P. LEON : LITEBAEY TKTITH AND KEALISM
explain its significance, value or reality in such a way as to
confound it with the theoretic or ethical intelligence. It is
itself, and its significance or value can be discussed only in
the same way as that of thinking, or the moral life, or experi-
ence as a whole.
(To be continued.)
IV. REALISM AND IMAGINATION.
BY JOSHUA C. GEEGOEY.
IF Charles Lamb could be induced to discuss " Space, Time
and Deity" he would approve of the order of statement in
this essay. Its propositions have not been matured but
brought "to market in the green ear". It discusses " de-
fective discoveries, as they arise, without waiting for their full
development," and, like the minds which Lamb preferred, is
"suggestive merely". The arrival of a great system of
thought is a time for passing suggestions to and fro. Before
it can be fully understood and justly appraised there must be
a period of twilight when we perceive dimly and think fitfully.
Minerva cannot be "born in panoply " : she must be pano-
plied step by step. Attempts to understand, suggestions
arising from these attempts, criticisms hesitatingly based
upon these suggestions, are all this essay pretends to give.
Geographical travelling is relatively independent of its
starting-point : a circuit of the globe begun at London need
only differ in order of visitation from a circuit begun at New
York and the same scenes are experienced whatever the order
of visitation. Geographical routes are fixed and geographical
starting-points merely entries into them. One circumstance
connected with geographical travel, however, prepares us for
a fundamental distinction between geographical and mental
routes. An estimate of London by a Chinaman will differ
from the estimate by an American because the two have
-different mental eyes. Their mental models are different :
the one compares London with Oriental life, the other with
life in the Western limit of civilisation. Mental starting-
points determine the nature of mental routes because they
provide for thought its primary models of comparison.
Alexander remarks that a theory of knowledge whose point
of departure is the mental image will differ from a theory of
knowledge which begins with the facts of perception. 1
If the thinker begins with memory and is dominated by the
1 Space, Time and Deity, Book I., pp. 24-25.
304 JOSHUA c. GREGORY:
circumstances of memory he will incline to a theory of per-
ception which accepts these circumstances as typical ; if he
begins with perception he will incline to model memory on
perception rather than perception on memory.
When an incident or a scene is recalled in memory the
mind seems, whatever the truth may be, to REFER to the past
through a mental, or memory, image. A dream of the past
event or object SEEMS to disclose in the mind a power of
referring to it by picturing it. The picturing seems to be
done by the mind and the memory-image to form part of it.
Since we remember because we have first perceived, percep-
tion seems to be essentially a bestowal on the mind of the
power to form a mental image to represent what has been per-
ceived. It is then an easy step to suppose that this imaging
is also concerned with what is BEING perceived. When the
mental route runs from memory to perception, the inquirer
naturally assumes that an image, an "idea," stirred in the
mind by the perceived object, is the direct or immediate
object which he perceives.
When the mental route runs from perception to memory,,
when perceiving is the primary model and not remembering,
a perceived image, so to speak, is replaced by a remembered,
object : memory is as much an actual interview with the
object, though under different conditions, as was the original
perception. In perception, our sense of life, remarked James,
knows no intervening image. 1 Perception seems to face the
physical object directly and if, there is no intervening mental
image there, none is available for memory. Modern realism
adopts this route, models all knowledge on perceptive
experience, and describes remembering as a method of perceiv-
ing past events or objects formerly perceived.
Images may be anticipatory as well as recollective. The
hesitating realist is troubled by the logical demand to make
anticipation a method of perceiving the future : " Forecasts
of the future," writes Laird, " are certainly not the future
itself . . . ". 2 He condemns realists to maintaining a contrast
between images and perceived things which shall not interfere
with their identity of status. 3 He observes the letter of this
law by regarding memory as the mind's awareness of past
things themselves ; 4 he seems to fail in this observance when
anticipation requires an explanation from him. The realist
soon realises that, if remembering is perceiving past things
and anticipating is perceiving future things, time and space
1 Essays in Radical Empiricism, p. 12.
*A Study in Realism, p. 61.
3 Loc. cit., p. 65. 'Ibid., p. 56.
REALISM AND IMAGINATION. 305
must be accommodated to this view. This accommodation
seems less urgent for the past than for the future : it is less
disturbing to believe that we can continue to perceive events
which have happened than to believe in our ability to perceive
those which have not yet occurred.
Lossky, whose intuitional theory of knowledge requires the
presence of the object in memory and anticipation, realises
that, on realistic principles, " Every element of reality, even
a fleeting event in the far-off past, remains eternally one and
the same, identical with itself". 1 He also realises that
ontology must construct a theory of space and time to dis-
sipate the apparent impossibility of events separated from
the knower by space and time being present in his acts of
judgment. 2 Alexander, in Space, Time and Deity, has
attempted to conform space and time to Lossky's ontological
demand. He is compelled to this attempt because, like
other modern realists, he regards remembering as perceiving
past things : " The percept of him and the memory of him
are two different appearances of him which in their connexion
reveal the one thing, the man, whom we know to be to-day
by perceiving, and to have been yesterday by remembrance ". 3
He is compelled to this attempt because he regards anticipat-
ing as perceiving future things : " Expectation is precisely
like remembering except that the object has the mark of the
future ". 4 The manipulation of space and time to which he
is thus forced may be a crisis for realism. A system of
thought can usually choose fundamental assumptions which
strongly resist criticism but is usually liable to be more open
to successful challenge when it is driven into deductions from
these assumptions. Alexander's space-time may make the
fortune of realism, but it MAY mar it.
His ontological remedy for the realistic affront to common
sense, seems, at first sight, to be desperate. Common sense
stares when a memory is declared to be as much a physical ob-
ject as a percept, even with the qualification " in so far as it
obeys the laws of physics ". 5 This deduction is enjoined if a
past event or object is PERCEIVED in memory, for the image is
the event or the object under a different aspect. The homo-
genisation of percept and image, thus enjoined, is secured in
part by composing them both of space-time, which is the
stuff of which all things are made, whether as substances or
under any other category.* Space and time, even when
1 The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge : Duddington's Trans., p. 272.
*Loc. cit., p. 274. 3 Space, Time and Deity, Book I, p. 114.
4 Loc. cit., Book L, p. 115. Ibid., p. 114.
Ibid., p. 341.
20
306 JOSHUA C. GREGORY:
fundamentally and irrevocably conjoined into one ultimate
entity which takes the place of the absolute in idealistic
systems, 1 seem to be poor material for constructing a universe,
and thus, from the start, the provided ontological remedy
seems desperate. Mere ultimate identity of composition out
of space-time is not enough to confer the status of a physical
thing upon the image, since there are non-mental objects,
like universals or numbers, which are not physical though
they are composed of space-time. 2 The remedy seems to
become more desperate still when the physical status of the
image is connected with its location in the same place as the
object of perception : " the image of a town belongs to the
actual place of the actual town ". 3 Forcible hands seem to
be laid on space, as they certainly are upon common sense
notions of it, when the memory picture of the Sphinx which
rises in a mind in London is said, or apparently said, to
occupy a place in the Egyptian desert.
Similar location in space need not be similar location in
space-time. When two rectangular axes, X and Y, are used
to define positions in a plane two points may be equidistant
from the X axis and unequally distant from the Y axis. If
the X axis represents tridimensional space and the Y axis
represents time, the two points represent events or objects
located similarly in space but differently in space-time. This
seems merely to defer, by one step, the final collapse of the
assumption that anything once perceived as present can be
perceived as past (remembered), for bilocation in space-time
apparently duplicates the object. Obviously, the relations
between space and time in space-time cannot be so simple
as the above representation implies.
" The real existence is Space-Time, the continuum of point-
instants or pure events." These "pure events" are "not
qualitied " : if a qualitied event, like a flash of red colour, be
stripped in supposition of all its qualities and bared down to
space and time there remains the concept of the "pure
event". 4 All other existents are groupings of these bare
events, whirlpools within the ocean of Space-Time which they
compose, crystals in and inseparable from this matrix, and
their qualities are correlated with groupings of these motions. 5
Now if these point-instants or bare events be regarded as
corpuscles stripped of their materiality the bilocation difficulty,
the apparent duplication of the object to serve perception and
memory, still remains. The grouping of point-instants which
1 Space, Time and Deity, Book I., p. 346. z lbid., p. 16.
*/6wZ., p. 99. *Ibid., p. 48. 5 Ibid., p. 183.
REALISM AND IMAGINATION. 307
is the perceived Sphinx with its own location in space-time
seems also to be the remembered Sphinx with its different
location in Space-Time. The Sphinx, be it noted, can be
simultaneously perceived by one mind and remembered by
another. The relations between space and time cannot,
therefore, merely allow to the point-instant the mode of
existence represented by the conceptual baring of a corpuscle
down to its space and time.
Laird, arriving at similar conclusions from similar realistic
premises, concludes that the Mont Blanc which Smith re-
members has its place in Switzerland exactly like the
Mont Blanc which he perceived. He indicates the line for
ontological revision of space and time when he adds "if the
temporal and spatial meaning of imaged things should never
be identified with the spatial and temporal meanings of
present perception, it is possible to maintain that the
4 memory-images ' which Smith is said to recollect during
his narrative are ' images ' whose date is in the past and
whose place is in Switzerland. . . "- 1 The same object is
to have one location in space and more than one date. The
dating must in some way be connected with perspectives
through which the object can be apprehended as past when
the apprehender is not perceiving nor located for perceiving.
The object, as before, must not be multiplied, as an object,
by its datings. Again it is evident that special relations be-
tween time and space are ontologically requisite.
It is easier to grasp the necessity for such special relations
than to understand how " Space, Time and Deity " endeavours
to supply them. The correspondence between points and
instants is one-many : one instant occupying many points
and one point occurring at more than one instant. These
repetitions of time in space and of space in time, 2 understood
as Alexander understands them, may give the first cue to the
nature of these special relations. Is the space of the Sphinx,
so to speak, spread continuously through time with its earlier
and later which are, as it were, the past and future of physical
time itself, 3 so that it can be either expected as future
later, or remembered as past, earlier ? Succession from past
to future through the present belongs properly to psychical
time, but by defining a moment of physical time as present
by its relation to an observing mind, physical time, which
properly only contains earliers and laters, may be spoken of
as having past, present and future. 4 If " in total Space-
1 A Study in Realism, p. 30.
2 Space, Time and Deity, Book I., p. 48.
3 Ibid., p. 45. 4 Ibid., p. 44.
308 JOSHUA C. GREGORY:
Time each point is in fact repeated through the whole of
time . . "- 1 the grouping of points which is the Sphinx
may be mentally interviewed as present (perceived), or inter-
viewed as past (remembered) the two interviews correspond-
ing to the earlier and later which time can confer on the
same object or event. If the later in physical time is the
present in relation to the apprehending mind, apprehension
of the later is perception and of the earlier is remembering.
If the earlier in physical time is the present in relation to
the apprehending mind then apprehension of the earlier is
perception and of the later anticipation. Alexander illustrates
the difference in dates in space, in a perspective from any
instant when a human percipient is supposed to be at the
point of reference, by our apprehension of Sirius nine years
after the event. 2 "The position of Sirius is occupied by
some time or other through infinite time": 3 Lossky's
" fleeting event in the far-off past " thus seems to be secured
in an eternal identity with itself by the perpetuating effect of
time. This perpetuating effect seems to depend on the in-
dissoluble union between space and time, on their indispens-
ableness to one another, on the temporality of space and the
spatiality of time, 4 on the supplying by space of a " second
continuum needed to save time from being a mere 'now,' " 5
on the converse relation to this, on the presentation of space
which we apprehend with different dates, 6 on space being
variously occupied by time as time is spread variously over
space. 7
It is difficult to accept the statement that pastness is a
datum of experience, directly apprehended. 8 It seems in-
consistent with it to say that reflection is needed to discover
the different dates with which the space we apprehend is
presented. 9 We do not realise directly that we see Sirius as
it was nine years ago. If all physical events are anterior to
our apprehension, 10 and if, in remembering, the object is
before my mind bearing the MARK OF FASTNESS, 11 all per-
ceived things should, it would seem, appear to be past.
There is, of course, a difference between remembering and
dating: in remembering there is conceiving and " in addition
the act of remembering it, the consciousness that I have
had it before" 12 and Caesar's death may be dated without
being remembered. 13 We should, however, it would seem,
1 Space, Time and Deity, Book I., p. 81. 2 Ibid., p. 70.
3 Ibid., p. 80. 4 Ibid., p. 44. 6 Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 73. 7 Ibid., pp. 82-83. 8 Ibid., p. 113..
9 Ibid., p. 73. 10 Ibid., p. 96. " Ibid., p. 113,
19 Ibid. I3 lbid., p. 120.
REALISM AND IMAGINATION. 309
date all physical events in the past if they are actually
previous to our apprehension of them and if they bear upon
themselves the mark of pastness. Perhaps we simply ignore
" pastness " till we are compelled in some way to apprehend
it directly. Laird avoids the difficulty by supposing that
earlier events are not themselves perceived but signified by
the fact which is. 1 Eecollection, however, seems to him to
be direct acquaintance with the past itself : 2 we remember
the very things we perceived. 3 But he shirks Alexander's
direct apprehension of pastness : " a dated memory is some-
thing that we remember in its context ". 4
One apparently curious consequence of Alexander's version
of space and time is an apparent contemporaneousness of
past, or future, and present : "In memory or expectation we
are aware of the past or future event, and I date the past or
future event by reference to the act of remembering or ex-
pecting which is the present event". 5 It appears strange to
learn that " The past object is earlier than my present act of
mind in remembering". 6 It is difficult to pass from the
conception that the space occupied by the Sphinx confers
upon it the unity underlying its appearances, which are then
its appearances in perception, to the conception that the
volume of space-time occupied by it confers this unity upon
it, 7 when its appearances are in remembrance as well as in
perception. It is also somewhat perplexing to learn that in
the present act of remembering " both its object and what
we may call its mental material (the past act of mind which
experienced it) are past ". 8 This suggests that we remember
the OBJECT BEING PERCEIVED, which would explain the de-
pendence of recollection upon previous perception. It is,
however, apparently inconsistent with Alexander's denial to
the mind of any power to " contemplate its own passing
states " * to admit to its remembrances past processes of
perceiving. Remembrance and perceiving differ, according
to Alexander, in their methods of securing the compresence,
or togetherness, of the non-mental object and the correspond-
ing mental process in the apprehensive situation : in imaging
the act of mind is provoked from within, " in sensory ex-
perience compresence with the physical revelation of a
physical thing is brought about through the direct operation
of the thing upon the senses." 10 Compresence, the together-
ness of object and mental process, begins in perception with
1 A Study in Realism, p. 48. 2 Loc. cit., p. 52.
3 Ibid., p. 55. 4 Ibid. 5 Space, Time and Deity, Book I., p. 95.
6 Loc. cit., Book I., p. 114. 7 Ibid., p. 115. 8 Ibid., p. 126.
'Ibid., p. 17. 10 Ibid.,p. 25.
310 JOSHUA c. GREGOEY:
the physical object, which is then joined by the mental pro-
cess ; in remembering it begins with the mental process
which is then joined by the object. This preserves the de-
pendence of remembrance upon previous perception, but a
serious difficulty seems to arise at this point. No action of
the mind is possible without its object. 1 There is an object
in perception ; there is also an object in remembering. The
provoking of the act of mind from within is obviously con-
ditioned by the existence of the object, without which there
can be no process of remembering. This may simply appear
strange because of the common sense prepossession in favour
of the mind's private power to recollect when it is out of per-
ceptive range of the object. But constructive imagination
appears to be impossible if, like all mental processes on
realistic assumptions, it must have non-mental objects and if
there can be no action of the mind without its object. Error
is a crucial problem for realism because it seems to involve
apprehension of non-mental objects, independent of the-
apprehending mind, which are not there. Human inventive-
ness, analogously, seems to involve the contemplation of
objects which reality does not provide. Laird regards the
"imaged Gorgon as a combination of elements which the
mind has put together ". 2 This seems to stir the mind from
the contemplative role assigned to it by realism into a some-
what startling manipulation of reality. This manipulation,
perhaps, must not be too rigorously compared with the con-
structive hand which arranges bricks into a house. It is
more a selective apprehension of reality which corresponds
in conscious contemplation to combining and separating
things in physical manipulation: "Images, in a word, are
parts of the physical world imaged, and that is what we dis-
cover through the fancy". 3
Alexander says of the illusory object that it is non-mental
and chosen from the world of things. 4 Constructive imagina-
tion or invention resembles illusion in its contemplation,
common to both, of objects which are not directly supplied by
an independent reality. When Alexander adds " The object,
with which the mind is brought into compresence by virtue
of an act initiated by itself, is transferred from its place in the
world into a place to which it does not belong," 5 though he is
speaking of error, he describes the cognate operations of con-
structive imagination. Imaginative construction like "The
illusion is a transposition of materials ". 6 Eealism cuts oul
1 Space, Time and Deity., Book I, p. 25. " A Study in Realism, p. 81..
3 Ibid. 4 Space, Time and Deity, Book II., p. 214. ' Ibid. s Ibid.
REALISM AND IMAGINATION. 311
the causal action of the object on the mind and apparently
replaces it by a causal action of the mind on its objects,
Fancy, Alexander adds, distinctly including invention with
illusion, HANDLES physical things in thought. 1 Again, how-
ever, the strict comparison of mental procedure to a fashioning
hand is avoided : illusory appearances, and also, presumably,
fanciful combinations, are perspectives of the real world seen
under abnormal conditions. 2 The " dislocation of elements
in reality," illusion in its nai've form of misinterpreted percep-
tion, is "a mentally distorted perspective of the real". 3 It
seems, at first sight, to be possible that " the mind squints at
things and one thing is seen with the characters of something
else," 4 but it also seems curiously complaisant of non-mental
reality to submit to perspective views which misrepresent it.
Homer describes the Chimera as a monster with a goat's
body, a lion's head and a dragon's tail. In imagining
(imaging) this composite creature, on Alexander's principles,
processes are stirred in the mind corresponding to these three
separate portions of it as objects. The perspective of the ap-
prehending mind unites for it these three objects into one, as
the tip of a distant spire might appear to protrude from a
chi iimey when an observer sees them in line. Now, such
perspective combinations as that of the chimney and spire
are limited by the relations of the objects combined, and, as
an observer at any point of space is limited to certain possible
appearances, an observer situated anywhere in space-time is
presumably limited to certain illusory appearances or imagin-
ative combinations. If, however, there is an infinity of per-
spectives, 5 there is, in principle, no limitation upon possible
imaginative combinations. In practice, there would seem to
be such a limitation upon a finite human individual because
he cannot indulge in the whole infinite range of perspectives.
This limitation may exist, though it offends our sense of free-
dom in imagining.
There seems, however, to be a more serious difficulty in the
realistic account of imaginative combinations. The chimney-
spire combination is only possible in certain very sharply
defined lines of vision : it is not possible to see the spire pro-
trude from the chimney when the observer moves out of these
lines. The Chimera, on the other hand, seems to be perman-
ently possible as an object of imagination. It seems as though
either we were able to assume the necessary perspective with
great ease or that the combination of images constituting the
1 Space, Time and Deity, Book II., p. 221. 2 Ibid., p. 216.
- Ibid., p. 225. * Ibid., p. 216. 5 Ibid., p. 80.
312 JOSHUA C. GREGORY I REALISM AND IMAGINATION.
Chimera were presented as an appearance in all our perspec-
tives. The difficulty may be apparent and not real. Failure
to realise the full significance or nature of our perspectives of
the world may be responsible for a failure to realise the truth .
We are not always thinking of the Chimera and doubtless
our mental preoccupations may actually prevent us, at certain
moments, from thinking of it. But a suggestion so easily
brings the Chimera before the mind when that mind is
familiar with it that it seems to be an appearance presented
by many of its perspectives. If this be so it is not conclusive
against realistic interpretations of fancy or imaginative com-
binations but it is a point which requires discussion and
elucidation.
V. DISCUSSION.
THE MEANING OF 'MEANING'.
MAY a ' critical realist,' whose sympathies in this discussion are
mainly with Mr. Bussell, explain how in his opinion the sensation-
alist-behaviourist theory ought to be enlarged, so as to meet the
objections of Dr. Schiller and become intelligible to Prof. Joachim V
I start from a concrete example. Suppose I hear the sound of
an explosion. The explosion is a physical event, taking place at a
distance from my body. The sound, on the sensationalist view, is
a state of myself, occurring in or in close connexion with my body.
As my only access to the explosion is through the sound, I react
to the latter as if I had to do, not with a state of myself, but with
the actual distant event : in other words, I objectify the sound.
From the outset I never take it as a state of myself although in
truth it is one but solely as a revelation, almost a sensuous em-
bodiment, of the external event. Its sharpness, suddenness, loud-
ness are regarded as characters of that event.
The sound has thus not so much acquired, as become converted
into, a meaning. That, here, which means is the sound as a state
of myself and it is thus / who mean ; that which is meant is the
physical explosion ; and the meaning, which is present to my
mind in that a state of myself carries it, is the objectified sound.
Here (since we are dealing with the lowest of cognitive faculties,
sense-perception) is the place where meaning first comes to exist
for the mind.
It will be objected that, on this theory, the function of meaning
or intending, since it depends on the bodily reaction to the ex-
plosion, lies without the mind, and is represented within it only
by a sensuous state. This is so, and is the behaviourist aspect of
the doctrine ; but if it seems to contradict experience, I would
point out that, in the case considered, the bodily reaction, which
is one of excitement and straining towards the object, itself con-
tributes sensuous elements to the state, which constitute the
feeling of intending ; but which become an awareness of the in-
tending only when we turn our attention to ourselves, and use
them to mean that act, as we used the sound to mean the explosion.
When we do not thus use them, they simply modify the sound,
and give to us our total feeling of having to do with an external
event.
Now, to mean something is to conceive or rather treat it as nob
314 C. A. STRONG :
wholly revealed to the mind at the moment. The real explosion
has characters (how many of them !) which the mere sound is un-
able to express. Hence, when we see as well as hear an explosion,,
and the flash and smoke and flying fragments are added to the
sharp, sudden noise, it is possible for these so disparate sensuous
states to mean the same thing. Sight, sound, odour, vibration all
serve merely to bring before us the one homogeneous external
occurrence, which is what they all mean. And their merely sen-
suous characters of luminosity, sonority, etc., sink into insignifi-
cance beside the intensity and the spatial and temporal values, in
short, the revealed nature of the activity, which is their true
meaning.
The enlargement of the sensationalist-behaviourist theory which
appears necessary is, then, to recognise that the sound as a mean-
ing is distinct from the sound as a sensuous state, and that distinct
from both is the external explosion which is the thing meant, and
without the existence of which this meaning would have no
meaning.
From the doctrine as thus sketched it follows, (1) that when I
see an explosion the same meaning essentially is presented to my
mind as when I hear it ; (2) that when I think of an explosion by
means of mental images, it is still the same meaning that I have
present to me, and the mental images do not mean the sensuous
sights and sounds as such but what was seen and heard ; (3) that
even when I use the word ' explosion/ I do not mean by it the
mental images or the visual and auditory sensations, but strange
as it may seem the same external occurrence.
We can now see how far Dr. Schiller is right in his contention
that meaning is personal. If it takes a body and a sensuous self
to hear and react, and if the sense of intending is the feeling of
his bodily straining towards the object, then it is indeed true that
the function of meaning presupposes a self. It is another question
whether the sensuous sights and sounds require to be absorbed
into the " swirl " of his personal existence, as Dr. Schiller appears
to desire. He would, I fear, be quite unwilling to construe the
a,ct of meaning in the way I have indicated, and his preference is
for a self that is nob concrete or sensuous, but that shoots out
intellectual a particles and " swirls". And, since such a self can-
not be known by the ordinary processes of cognition, it has to be
apprehended in a back-handed way by that disreputable bonne a
tout faire, experience.
If I am to make out a case for the sensationalist theory, evidently
I must explain how it deals (as I myself hold it) with the difficult,
question of our knowledge of the self. Of the ' I,' I mean ; for
1 am not one of those who believe that the ' I ' and the empirical
self are different persons. And this question requires to be treated
first from the point of view of psychology, and then from that of
theory of knowledge.
It seems to me a great mistake to imagine that, because sensuous.
THE MEANING OF ' MEANING '. 315
states are concrete and definite, they cannot be states of the self.
But Dr. Schiller thinks he has ' experienced ' a deeper self than they,
and caught it in the act. I suspect (following in this William James r
and despite Dr. Schiller's caveat) that what his attention really
fastens on is some obscure bodily sensation if not the tension in
his head-muscles, then the rush of blood in his arteries, or some
form or detail of the sense of his body not the activity of aware-
ness or a punctiform existence that exercises it ; these things, as
James keen observer that he was had at last the courage boldly
to declare, are illusions, and we cannot be aware of anything
psychical that is not more or less concrete and sensuous. What is
non-concrete and non-sensuous is always a meaning, a sense (if I
may risk the word) of that unfathomed beyond which we cannot
contemplate but can only intend.
We have no difficulty, in the case of some sensuous states e.g. r
pain in recognising that they are states of ourselves. Eeally light,
sound, colour are just as much so ; but we are apt to overlook it,
because we are so in the habit of using them to signify objects. At
the moment when we hear a sound, it is (usually, at least) taken as
a meaning as a * given ' external event. But at the next moment
we can, if we will, become aware that this sound which rings in
our ears, this brilliant light which fatigues our eyes, is not merely
an external occurrence or the sign of one, but, at the same time, a
state (it may be an exhausting one) of our own being. A moment
ago, when we heard the external sound, it was an ' enjoyment '
(not ' enjoyed,' for that illegitimately brings in contemplation into
the midst of the enjoyment, and what we contemplated was ex-
clusively the external object) ; it has now become an object of ' con-
templation '. But by what mechanism ? As, before, it contemplated,
or enabled us to mean, an external occurrence, so now it is itself
contemplated and meant as an internal occurrence ; and I can only
suppose that, as before what contemplated the explosion was the
sound as a state of the self, so what now contemplates the sound
is another, slightly later, state of the self which, presumably, is a
reproduction of the sound. In other words, we contemplate the
sound as a state of the self by means of a mental image. If this
supposition is correct, we should have here in ' introspection '-
the same three categories of the thing meant, the state that means
it, and the meaning, that we had in sense-perception ; but since the
thing now meant is a sensuous state, and since that which means
it is another sensuous state as closely similar to it as a mental image
is to a sensation, the chances are that the meaning would much
more exactly hit off the thing meant than in external perception,
where we have to do with things relatively alien to our own nature.
According to this view, the self is really characterised by sounds
and colours " the soul is dyed by the thoughts," % as Marcus
Aurelius has it ; you have a blue soul, or a little blue corner in your
soul, when you look up at the sky, etc. This, however, is perhaps
to attribute too great adequacy to our retrospective cognition of the
316 C. A. STRONG : THE MEANING OF ' MEANING '.
self ; the blueness may be only a rough, undiscriminating way of
apprehending those inconceivably fine activities which make up the
tissue of the soul, and of which we catch a glimpse from without
when we perceive (or should if we perceived) the dance of atoms in
the brain. Blueness, in short, qua irreducible, may be a mere ap-
pearance to introspection, and what really " swirls " in Dr. Schiller's
brain may be the aether.
I trust it will now be intelligible to Prof. Joachim how an advo-
cate of this theory can hold that a visual picture may be ' inside the
skin,' and be ' a physiological event ' ; in such wise that " one day
we may hope by skilful vivisection and preparation, and by using the
appropriate chemical reagents to observe the images as they occur
inside another person's skin". Precisely so. It is* not his own
projected visual sensations which this happy physiologist would
observe, it is what they mean : namely, the event, whatever it be,
occurring at that point of the person's nervous system. And if the
physiologist should chance to have pointed his instrument at the
place where the physical correlates of consciousness occur, then, in
very truth, that event would be identical with the event which the
owner of the consciousness observes when he looks back at a visual
sensation that occurred a moment before.
Ex uno disce omnes. If Prof. Joachim has found it possible to
understand my explanation, he will, I think, be able to attach a
meaning everywhere to Mr. Eussell's theory as I have amended it ;
and will no longer be able to object that we are maintaining some-
thing which we cannot possibly think.
C. A. STRONG.
VI CEITICAL NOTICES.
The Nature of Existence. By J. M. E. MCTAGGART. Vol. I. Pp..
xxi, 310. Cambridge University Press, 1921.
DR. MCTAGGART is one of the few writers of eminence at the
present day who seriously believe that important results about the
universe as a whole and about our probable position and prospects
in it can be reached by pure metaphysical speculation. He is
impenitently ' pre-Critical '. His book is of fascinating interest ;
it is not easy, but, like all his work, it is written with crystalline
clearness. In some of the later chapters, e.g., the important ones
on ' Determining Correspondence/ the argument is difficult to
follow because he has to express in words certain complex logical
relations which simply ask for translation into symbols. It is a
remarkable achievement for a writer to have kept his head among
all these complexities without the help of elaborate symbolism.
The book in many ways recalls the best type of Scholastic meta-
physics ; a comment which in the eighteenth century might have
been regarded as an insult, but which will be taken as a very high
compliment by all properly instructed persons at the present time.
In this volume the arguments and the results reached are all
d priori and highly abstract ; but a second volume is promised in
which they will be applied to give probable information about
more concrete problems.
I will first give some account of McTaggart's general method.
The argument throughout is deductive, and is of the ordinary type.
It is not dialectic in Hegel's sense. McTaggart thinks that there
is no antecedent objection to such a type of argument as Hegel's,
but that the categories do not in fact have the kind of relations
needed by that method. The earlier categories are not rejected in
whole or in part at later stages ; it is merely shown that they can-
not be the whole truth and that they must be supplemented in
certain definite ways. As regards the premises they fall into two
different classes : (a) Ultimate Empirical Beliefs and (b) Synthetic
d priori Propositions. Only two of the former are used, viz., one
to prove that something exists, and a second to prove that the
existent is differentiated into parts. It is held that the latter can
also be proved d priori. An ultimate empirical belief differs from
a synthetic d priori proposition in that the object to which it
corresponds may be private to the person who has the belief (e.g.,
it may be himself or one of his sensa). McTaggart gives at the
318 CBITICAL NOTICES :
end of the book a list of all the notions that are introduced in the
course of the argument ; it would be desirable to add a list of the
premises, with the section in which they first occur. There is
evidently no need to defend such a method from the charge either
of paradox or of sterility, assuming that the new premises really
are self-evident and really are synthetic. The result of the argu-
ment is that Eeality as a whole or every part of it must have
certain properties. It may then be possible to prove that certain
characteristics which are commonly thought to belong to Reality
as a whole or to some parts of it (e.g., Space and Time) cannot do
so. And we may be able to suggest that such and such a char-
acteristic with which we are familiar belongs to every part of
Beality or to it as a whole, because this is the only characteristic
that we know or can imagine which does fulfil the necessary con-
ditions. But at this stage there enters an empirical factor, viz., the
de facto limitations of our perception and imagination. Hence
such positive results are never absolutely certain.
The first two chapters attempt to prove that in dealing with the
existent we are dealing with the whole of reality. Neither reality
nor existence can be defined, but the latter is a species of the
former. Eeal substances and events (which, as a matter of fact,
are substances in McTaggart's sense) exist, and the qualities and
relations of existents exist. It is also assumed that the qualities,
relations, and parts of existing qualities and relations exist. It has
been held that propositions, characteristics in general, and possi-
bilities can be real without existing. In answer to this McTaggart
denies the reality of propositions, and deals with alleged real but
non-existent characteristics as follows. Let x be any characteristic.
Then either some existent has x or no existent has it. If the
former, x exists ; because it is a characteristic of a real substance.
If the latter, every existent is non-ic. Non-# is therefore an ex-
istent characteristic. But it contains x as a part, and the parts of
existent characteristics exist.
This seems to me a most doubtful argument. The word ' part '
is highly ambiguous. Is it certain that in every sense of part the
parts of an existent characteristic exist ? Doubtless if men exist
and man is a rational animal it is reasonable to say that rationality
and animality exist. But x is not a part of uon-x in the sense in
which rational and animal are parts of human ; for what is the
other part ? What sort of a characteristic is ' non ' ?
The question of propositions leads to a theory of truth and
falsehood. I think McTaggart somewhat mistakes the grounds on
which Meinong, e.g., believed in objectives or propositions.
McTaggart always takes the position against which he is arguing
to be that propositions are what judgments correspond to. He
then objects that, since the truth or falsity of the propositions will
itself depend on their correspondence or non-correspondence with
facts which are not propositions, propositions are a useless tertium
.quid. I am inclined to agree with his conclusion, but I am sure
j. M. E. MCTAGGART, The Nature of Existence. 319
that most believers in propositions never held that the relation be-
tween them and judgments was one of correspondence. Meinong's
view simply was that objectives are the immediate objects of judg-
ments or Annahmen, just as sensa are supposed to be the im-
mediate objects of sensations. Meinong's reason for believing that
there are objectives was that all judgments have immediate objects
expressed by the phrase ' that so and so . . .' and, since many
" judgments are false, these objects cannot in general be facts. For
this reason many of McTaggart's arguments about propositions
seem to me to be somewhat beside the mark. The essential
question is : Can we deal with false beliefs if we accept nothing
but judgments and facts ? McTaggart holds that we can. A false
belief is denned as one that has non-correspondence to all facts.
Now every belief professes to refer to some fact, and it does refer
to a certain fact on which its truth or falsehood depends. I take
it that the point is that every belief does refer to a definite object
either by perception or description. It then asserts something
further about this object, i.e., it asserts that the object is not only a
constituent of the fact by which it is referred to but also that it is
a constituent of another fact of a certain kind. If it is not a con-
stituent of any such fact the judgment is false.
The remaining difficulty that has to be faced by such a theory
as McTaggart's is to analyse true beliefs about the non-existent.
Such beliefs are always about implications of characteristics. But
McTaggart thinks he has proved that all characteristics exist, by
the argument about negative characteristics discussed above.
Hence any true belief about the implications of characteristics
-that do not directly belong to any existent does nevertheless corres-
pond to a fact whose constituents are existent characteristics.
The second Book deals with Substance. It is neither analytically
nor synthetically a priori that something exists. Nevertheless it
-.follows, by an argument like Descartes' Cogito, from empirical pre-
mises that each person grants for himself. Next, everything that
exists must have some quality beside existence. For there are
other positive qualities ; and, for every positive quality q that is
denied of any s, a negative quality non-g must be asserted. (This
would only prove that there must at least be negative qualities in
every substance.) It is argued, however, that every substance
must have at least two positive qualities, viz., existence and the
quality of being ' many-qualitied '. (The latter, however, is a
second-order quality. It has not therefore been proved that any
substance need have more than the one positive first-order quality
of existing. And the last is merely analytic, since existence is
part of the definition of substance.) In 59, however, a different
argument is used. If something existed and had no other property
it would be ' a perfect and absolute blank ; and to say that only
this exists is equivalent to saying that nothing exists '. This
argument seems to me to play on the ambiguity of ' nothing '. It
would follow that ' nothing ' in the sense of ' no thing ' exists. But
320 CEITICAL NOTICES :
then we are warned that ' something ' here does not mean ' some-
thing ' but only etivas. And nothing ( = no thing) is not contra -
dictory to something (= etwas). I think that McTaggart would
have done better here to make his proposition synthetic and
d priori. If he is to be taken literally he is making it analytic,
and this seems to be a mistake.
It is further assumed that there are at least three incompatible
qualities. It follows from this that every substance has at least
two negative qualities since it must have the negatives of at least
two of these.
Quality as such is indefinable. Qualities are either simple or
non-simple. In the latter case they are compound (like ' black-
and-blue ') or complex (like ' vain,' which involves several simpler
qualities in relations other than the merely conjunctive tie). The
nature of a substance is the compound of all its qualities of all
kinds and orders. It appears to me that the nature of a substance
so defined would be an impossible aggregate, since it would have
to contain itself as a part. It is strongly asserted that all non-
simple characteristics must ultimately be analysable into simple
ones, although these might in some cases be infinite in number,
and therefore no human mind might be able to perform the analysis.
In this, as we shall see, characteristics are sharply contrasted with
substances. The chief discussions on this point are to be found
in 64 and 175. In the former we are told that * if we ask what
any particular quality is what we mean when we predicate it of
anything the answer is, in the case of every quality that is not
simple, that this depends on what the terms are into which it can
be analysed '. In 175 it is said that ' to be aware of a character-
istic is to know its meaning,' and that ' we cannot be aware of a
compound characteristic without being aware of the simple char-
acteristics of which it consists'. Lastly the possibility of a char-
acteristic being real and simple depends on its ' being a universal,
or being significant '.
Now I would like to begin by pointing out the extreme ambiguity
of 'meaning', (i) There is a person's meaning 'what we mean
when we predicate', (ii) There is the meaning of words, (iii)
There is the meaning of characteristics. This is supposed to be
of two kinds : (a) the meaning of simple characteristics, which
apparently depends on the fact of their being universal (cf.
' being a universal or being significant ') ; and (b) the meaning of com-
pound characteristics. The latter is assumed to consist of analysa-
bility into simple characteristics with meaning in sense, iii (a).
McTaggart speaks as if such analysability were the only sense in
which compound characteristics could have meaning. This can
hardly be true if the meaning of a simple characteristic be just its
universality. A simple characteristic does not have meaning in
sense iii (b) and does have it in the sense of being universal. But
a compound characteristic, whether analysable or not, is universal
and therefore would seem to have meaning in the same sense in.
j. M. E. MCTAGGABT, The Nature of Existence. 321
which a simple one has it. I suppose therefore that McTaggart's
position must really be that universality is necessary but not
sufficient for a simple characteristic to have meaning, and that the
additional factor whatever it may be is not present in compound
characteristics which are not analysable into simple parts. Now,
so far as I can see, the only factor required to give meaning to a
simple characteristic beside universality is that someone shall mean
it, i.e., shall take up a certain mental attitude towards it. In fact it
would seem best to say, not that simple characteristics have mean-
ings, but that they are capable of being the meanings of persons.
If this be accepted I think McTaggart's argument against char-
acteristics which are not analysable into simple ones might be put
as follows : Every characteristic must be capable of being the mean-
ing of someone ; a compound characteristic can only be the mean-
ing of a person who knows its analysis into simple characteristics ;
therefore a characteristic that was not analysable into simple ones
could not be meant by anybody ; therefore there could be no such
characteristic. Now, I am by no means convinced by this argument,
I can see that a characteristic must be universal, but I do not see
why it need fulfil any other condition. This condition is indepen-
dent of its analysis. Again it is by no means obvious to me that I
cannot mean a compound characteristic without knowing its
analysis. I seem to mean something when I use the word ' justice.'
But I certainly do not know the proper analysis of justice. To be
aware of a complex universal and to be distinctly aware of all its
constituents seem to me to be two quite different things, and I do
not see why the first cannot happen without the second. If this
happens I can mean it without being aware of its meaning in sense
iii (b). If it be incapable of analysis into simple parts it has no
meaning in sense iii (b). But this does not prevent it from being
someone's meaning ; it places it in no worse position than any
simple characteristic, for this equally has no meaning in sense
iii (b). Thus to McTaggart's assertion in 64 that such a com-
pound universal ' would be nothing in particular, and we should
mean nothing by predicating it, ' I should answer as follows. Such
a characteristic would be itself; the fact that it had no simple
factors would distinguish it from all which did have them ; and it
would be distinguished from all other characteristics of the same
kind by having a different, though equally interminable analysis.
Moreover, by predicating it, we should not ' mean nothing ' but should
mean it ; and we can mean it, though it has no meaning in sense
iii (b), just as we can mean ' good ' though l good ' has no meaning
in this sense, if it be a simple predicate. (I think that the fact that
simple predicates have no meaning is obscured by the two facts
that their names always have a meaning and that people who
predicate them have a meaning. The meaning of the word and
of the people is the same, viz., the simple predicate, which has no
meaning but is the meaning of the name and of the people who use
it. If it still be insisted that even simple predicates have a meaning,
21
322 CRITICAL NOTICES:
this appears to amount to nothing more than the statement that
they are universal. And, in this sense, characteristics with an
interminable analysis would equally have a meaning.)
We can now pass to Substance. A substance is denned as an
existent which has characteristics but is not a characteristic. In
this sense there seems to me to be no doubt of the reality of sub-
stances, and no doubt that at one end of every series of existent
characteristics there comes a substance. McTaggart points out
that many things are substances in this sense to which that name
would not usually be given (e.g., a flash of light, or the group com-
posed of a flash of light and a chair). Once it is seen that the ad-
mission of substances amounts to little more than the admission that
there are particulars and that no complex of universals is a particular,
there should be little difficulty in accepting McTaggart's conclusion.
One interesting and important point that is made is the follow-
ing. If S has the quality P there is a relation between S and P ;
but this is a derivative relation. S, which is P, is not a complex
composed of S and P related by the ' predicative relation '. I think
that the distinction drawn by Mr. W. E. Johnson between relations
and * ties ' is important here. The connexion between a substance
3-nd its qualities seems to be a tie and not a relation in Johnson's
sense. Ties cannot be reduced to relations, for the latter require
ties.
McTaggart holds that relations are not reducible to qualities,
though every quality involves a relation and every relation involves
in its terms the quality of standing in that relation. There is thus
an infinite hierarchy of derivative qualities and relations. The
qualities which a substance has independently of its relations to
others are called Original. Its original qualities + those that
are immediately derived from its relation to others are called
Primary. There is no reason why two substances should not agree in
their original qualities, but McTaggart holds that no two substances
can agree in all their primary qualities. This principle he calls the
Dissimilarity of the Diverse ; it seems to me highly plausible. It
follows that every substance must have an exclusive description.
This however may involve a reference to other substances ; if this
reference cannot be got rid of ultimately, substances will not
necessarily have sufficient descriptions. A sufficient description
of S is one that involves nothing but characteristics. E.g., it
would be a sufficient description of S if it were the only substance
that has the original quality q, or if it were the only substance
that has the relation E to substances with the original quality q.
Now McTaggart holds that it follows from the fact that every
substance has an exclusive description that it must have a
sufficient description. Suppose A is the substance that has E
to B, B is the substance that has S to C . . . and so on. If
this series finally returned to A the description would be sufficient
tfor A could be described as the substance which has E to the sub-
stance which has S to the substance which has ... to the sub-
J. M. E. MCTAGGART, The Nature of Existence. 323
stance which has W to A itself. If the series never returns to
A it will be infinite. Now the existence of A requires that of all
the substances that are required in its exclusive description.
Therefore the series must be completed for A to exist.
So many of McTaggart's arguments depend upon infinite regresses
that it is a pity that he has not devoted a chapter to the question
which of such series are vicious and how precisely they differ from
those which are harmless. The objection here is that the existence
of A requires that of all the later terms, and ' therefore requires
that the series be completed, which it cannot be ' ( 100). We must
remember that it is not the mere infinity of this series to which
McTaggart objects. If there were an infinite number of simple
substances the regress would be harmless ; but he holds that there
are no simple substances. McTaggart distinguishes two senses of
infinity, viz., the infinity that consists of having an infinite number
of simple parts, and that which consists of having no simple parts.
I notice that he speaks as if the two sorts exclude each other. So
they would, of course, if ' part ' were unambiguous ; but it is not.
McTaggart evidently holds, e.g., that the current mathematical
doctrine is that a line consists of an infinite number of simple parts,
viz., points. Yet it would be equally true to say that the current
mathematical doctrine is that a line has no simple parts. We must
distinguish between two senses at least of part and whole, viz., the
sense in which a point is part of a line and the sense in which a
little line is part of a bigger one. In the first sense we mean by
' part ' a term or constituent in a related complex which is of a
different nature from its terms. A point is a part of a line in the
sense in which McTaggart is part of Trinity. In the second sense
we mean by ' part ' something which is of the same nature as the
whole. I do not know of any other examples of this sense of part
and whole except extensive magnitudes. Let us call parts in the
first sense 'constituents' and in the second sense 'components'.
Then the current mathematical view, as I understand it, is that a
line has an infinite number of simple constituents and no simple
components. Now the existence of a line implies the existence of
all its components ; obviously the existence of a line an inch long
implies that of its first half inch, and this implies that of its first
quarter inch, and so on. And there is no end to this series. Any
line is therefore in the position in which a substance would be on
McTaggart's . view if no substance had a sufficient description.
Nor does the fact that a line also has an infinite number of simple
constituents help matters ; for none of these constituents are terms
in the series of its components. For my own part I cannot see any
objection to the existence of one substance requiring that of an
endless series of others, or to the existence of a line requiring that
of an endless series of non-simple components. Anyhow the two
must stand or fall together. It therefore does not seem to me
certain that every substance must have a sufficient description.
The next very important subject is what McTaggart calls
324 CEITICAL NOTICES:
Extrinsic Determination. This is introduced in Chapter XII. and
further explained in Chapter XIX. The principle amounts to this.
Suppose that there is a certain substance which in fact has at a
certain moment the characteristics X, Y, and Z. We can imagine
a substance with Y and Z unchanged but with X' substituted for X.
But we have no right to suppose that this substance could exist ;.
we have no right to suppose that if one attribute had been different
the others could have been the same. We can go further than this..
If the substance A has in fact X, Y, and Z and we imagine X
absent or different we are ipso facto imagining the universe to be
different, for it is a characteristic of the actual universe to have the
substance A as a part at this moment. We therefore have no right
to assume that any feature of the universe would have been the
same as it actually is. Now one feature of the actual universe is
that it contains the substance B; we therefore have no right to
suppose that if A were in the least different from what it actually
is any other substance B could be the same. The principle then is
that if we suppose that any feature, however trivial, in the existent
had been different from what it actually is we have no right to
suppose that any feature, however pervasive and important, would
have been what it actually is. Extrinsic determination is thus uni-
versal and reciprocal, and it is a connexion between characteristics
which are actually present in substances. Intrinsic determination,
on the other hand, is merely an implication between characteristics
as such which enables one to infer that if the first is present in
one kind of substance the other will be present in the same or a
different kind of substance. It is neither reciprocal in general,
nor, so far as we know, universal. I think that the principle of
extrinsic determination must be admitted, though of course we
must be very careful not to slide from the negative statement that
we cannot be sure that if anything had been different anything
would have been the same to the positive statement that we can be
sure that if anything had been different nothing would have been
the same. The only practical difficulty that seems to arise. is in
the application of such ideals as perfect gases or perfectly rigid
bodies to the actual world. This is dealt with by McTaggart. We
do say : If this lever had been perfectly rigid (which it is not) it
would have behaved in such and such a way (which it only
approximately did). And we argue from the behaviour of the
hypothetically rigid lever to the actual lever. The solution is that
we are allowed to conceive hypothetical substances and they will
have any attributes that are intrinsically connected with those
which we ascribe to them. We cannot be sure that if this had
been perfectly rigid it would have been a lever ; since ' this,' which
is a lever, is not perfectly rigid, and therefore nothing perfectly
rigid can be ' this '. Still, it may be easier to see the intrinsic con-
nexions of characteristics in simple hypothetical cases than in the
complexities of actual substances. And once we have seen them
we can apply them to the actual substances in which these char-
j. M. E. MCTAGGART, The Nature of Existence. 325
acteristics occur. It must be noticed that this implies a special
view about empirical laws. We must assume that the only
difference between a law of nature and an a priori law is in the
way in which they are discovered and proved. We must not hold
that an d priori law is an intrinsic connexion between attributes as
such, whilst a law of nature is something peculiar to the existent
world. For if we were to assume the latter we should have no
right to suppose that the laws of nature would connect the attributes
of hypothetical substances or conversely. It is essential that laws
of nature shall not be regarded as properties of any existent sub-
stance, e.g., the universe, for then we should have to say that if any
characteristic were different from what it is the universe would be
different, and therefore we could not be sure that the empirical laws
connecting characteristics would be the same. The view that all
laws are of the same character has, I think, rarely been combined
with the view that no laws are merely properties of the existent
universe ; most philosophers (e.g., Prof. Bosanquet) who have held
the former have combined it with the contrary of the latter.
An important and difficult notion in this book is that of Groups
of Substances. A group is a collection of substances or of collections
of substances or of both. It is not the same as a class, because it
cannot be denned, but can only be described through its members.
All groups have several members and no group is a member of
itself. Two classes (e.g., animals with cloven-feet and animals that
chew the cud) can have the same members, but two different groups
cannot have exactly the same members. The members of a class
form a group. The members of a group may be related in all sorts
of different ways. E.g., Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson may
be a bridge-party and a business firm. All members of a group are
parts of it, but groups have parts which are not members of them.
Thus Kent is both a member and a part of the group of English
counties, whilst Canterbury and Wessex are parts without being
members of this group. . In what sense is this true ? The meaning
of membership of a group is clear ; Kent is a member of the group
of English counties because in enumerating this group it has to be
mentioned ; Canterbury and Wessex are not members because they
do not have to be mentioned. The great difficulty is as to the
sense in which (a) Canterbury, (b) Wessex, and (c) Kent itself is a
part of the group of English counties. Canterbury is a part (in the
sense of a component) of Kent. If Kent be a part, in this sense
of the group of English counties, it will follow that Canterbury is a
part of this group. But if (a) Kent be not in any sense a part of
the group, or (ft) if it be a part, in the sense of a constituent but
not in that of a component, it will not follow that Canterbury is a
part, in any sense, of the group. Jones is a constituent of a bridge-
party : Jones's front teeth are components of Jones ; it is certainly
not obvious that his front teeth are parts of the bridge-party, either
in the sense of components or of constituents. We had therefore
better turn to the question of Kent. Is Kent a part of the group
326 CRITICAL NOTICES I
of English counties, and, if so, in what sense? Kent is a com-
ponent of England, so are Canterbury and Wessex. Now in
Chapter XVI., where McTaggart discusses compound substances,
he does say that a compound substance is each of its sets of parts.
Hence England is the group of English counties. If ' is ' = 'is
identical with ' it would of course follow that Kent, Canterbury,
and Wessex are all components of this group. For they are all
components of England. But ' is ' here cannot mean ' is identical
with '. For England is also the group of English parishes and
extra-parochial places. This is a different group from the group of
English counties, and England cannot be identical with two groups
that are different from each other. Hence ' is ' must here stand
for some peculiar relation. Let us call it the relation of ' being
adequately analysable into '. Then England is adequately analys-
able into the group of English counties, and Kent is a member of
this group. Wessex and Canterbury and Kent are components of
England. Thus there seems to be one sense in which Kent,
Wessex, and Canterbury are all parts of the group of English
counties, viz., they are all components of a substance which can be
adequately analysed into the group of English counties.
We have thus given a meaning to the statement that Kent is
not only a member but also a part of the group of English counties.
This meaning, however, assumes that we are dealing with a spatial
or temporal whole, or something very much like it. The sense in
which England is adequately analysable both into the English
counties and the Kingdoms of the Heptarchy is that the members
of each of these groups exactly fit together to make up England.
Most compound substances and most groups, however, are not of
this kind. Take the group composed of Smith, Brown, Jones,
and Eobinson. This is an adequate analysis of a certain compound
substance on McTaggart's view. Smith is a part of this group ;
so are his front teeth ; and so is the group composed of Brown and
Robinson who are, let us say, brothers-in-law. Now in what sense
is this group of four men an adequate analysis of a certain com-
pound substance? Evidently not in exactly the sense in which
the counties of England and the Kingdoms of the Heptarchy are
adequate analyses of England. Smith, Brown, etc., do not just
' fit together ' to make up the substance in question. I think the
sense in which this group is an adequate analysis of the substance
in question is the following. The substance does include all the
relational complexes of which Smith, Brown, Jones, and Eobin-
son are the only constituents, e.g., the bridge-party and the business
firm which they form. It also includes many other relational
complexes of which they are not, as such, terms, e.g., the complex
composed of Smith's teeth and Brown's thumb in their mutual
relations. But the constituents of all other complexes contained
in the compound substance are either constituents (or components)
of Smith, etc., or are complexes whose constituents are some of
the four men, or are complexes whose constituents are some of
J. M. E. MCTAGGAET, The Nature of Existence. 327
these men and constituents (or components) of some of them. The
original group seems to be all the relational complexes whose con-
stituents are just Smith, Brown, Jones, and Bobinson, and nothing
else ; and Smith is a part of it in the sense that he is a constituent
of all these complexes. Smith's teeth are a part of it in the sense
that they are a component of a constituent of all these complexes,
though they are themselves neither components nor constituents of
these complexes, so far as I can see. To work all this out in detail
would take us beyond the limits of a review. I will therefore con-
fine myself to the following general remarks. Although McTaggart
recognises groups whose members are not components but only
constituents, he unfortunately confines himself almost entirely to-
groups whose members are components when he is discussing the
notions of Content, Sets of Parts, etc. This is most unfortunate.
A component of a component of x is a component of x ; a com-
ponent or constituent of a constituent of x is in general neither a
component nor a constituent of x. Thus statements which are
highly plausible about a whole of composition, like England, and
about a group of components, like its counties, are often highly
paradoxical when applied to compound substances which are not
wholes of composition. I am sure that all this part of the book
needs to be carefully worked over again with the distinction be-
tween components and constituents kept clearly in view. Even
if all components be constituents, many constituents are not
components. Here I must leave the matter.
We now come to the divisibility of substance. McTaggart holds-
it to be self-evident and synthetic that all substances are complex, in
the sense of having parts which are substances. This, he holds,
narrowly escapes leading us to a contradiction. Happily, however,
the contradiction can be avoided by one and only one assumption.
This assumption has therefore to be accepted, though it is not
intrinsically self-evident ; and it leads to highly important and
desirable consequences about the universe as a whole. I simply
cannot make up my mind as to the self-evidence of this principle.
If all substances be wholes of composition I think it would be
self-evident. It might be said that this would not prevent them
from being also wholes whose constituents were simple. (Cf. the
line which has no simple parts, in the sense of indivisible lines,
and an infinite number of simple parts, in the sense of points.)
In the case of lines and durations, however, I am inclined to take
Whitehead's view that the genuine parts are simply shorter lines,,
whilst the points are entities of a different logical type, definable
in terms of the components and their relations. It is not, however,,
clear to me that all substances are wholes of composition, especially
if the reality of time be denied, as it is by McTaggart. So I must
just take the complexity of all substances as an hypothesis. Why
does it lead to difficulties ?
Take, e.g., a certain straight line S, three inches long, and let us
assume that it has no simple parts. The three inch-lines AB, BC,
328 CBITICAL NOTICES:
and CD form a set of pa'rts of S. So do the lines AX, XB, BC,
CD. The latter set is said to be sequent to the former. Since S
in fact has an unending series of sets of parts the existence of S
requires the existence of each of these sets. S, being a substance,
will have a sufficient description. Each set of parts of S, for the
same reason, will have a sufficient description. Hence any suffici-
ent description of S requires that there shall be sufficient descrip-
tions of all S's sets of parts. Now often X requires Y without
implying Y ; this practically means that you can infer from X
that there must be a definite Y but cannot inter from it what in
detail this Y must be. In such a case X is said to presuppose Y.
If you know that ABC is a triangle you know that it is either
isosceles or scalene, but you cannot tell which it is. If in fact it is
scalene we say that it presupposes scaleneness. Hence a sufficient
description of S either implies or, if not, presupposes sufficient
descriptions of the parts in all S's sets of parts. Now X may pre-
suppose Y and presuppose Z, whilst Z implies Y but Y does not
imply Z. E.g., if ABC be in fact an equilateral triangle, its tri-
angularity presupposes both isosceles and equilateral character,
but the latter implies the former. In such a case there is no need
to mention both presuppositions ; it is enough to say that it pre-
supposes the equilateral character. This is called the Total
Ultimate Presupposition. Now the alleged difficulty about sub-
stances is that their sufficient descriptions must and cannot have
a total ultimate presupposition. Let us suppose that L is any set
of parts of S, and M a sequent set. A sufficient description of the
parts of M implies a sufficient description of the parts of L. Hence
the latter is no part of the total ultimate presupposition of the
description of S. But every set of parts has another which is
sequent to it. Therefore the sufficient description of S has no
total ultimate presupposition. The only solution is that there must
be a sufficient description of S which implies sufficient descriptions
of all its parts. This means that there must be some intrinsic
connexion between a sufficient description of S and certain sufficient
descriptions of all its parts, so that the latter could be inferred
from the former. As regards this contradiction I can only say
(a) that I am not persuaded that every substance must have a
sufficient description, and (b) that I do not see that it has been
proved that if X has any presuppositions it must have a total
ultimate presupposition. I should have thought that the latter
was merely a question of logical elegance. It is inelegant, but not
fallacious, to define a square as a figure with four equal sides and
four right angles. It is an inelegance that can, and therefore ought
to be, avoided. In the present case we have an inelegance which
cannot be avoided, but I do not see that this converts it into a
logical contradiction. Why could an opponent not equally retort
to McTaggart that there must be and yet cannot be a total ultimate
implication on his view ?
However this may be, McTaggart holds that if contradictions are
j. M. E. MCTAGGAKT, The Nature of Existence. 329
to be avoided substances must be subject to a certain sort of relation
-called Determining Correspondence. This is introduced in Chapter
XXIV. and exemplified in Chapter XXVI. The reader who finds
the abstract account difficult should pass to the examples and then
return to Chapter XXIV. in the light of them. I am going to put
the definition of determining correspondence in my own words and
symbols, because in 197, where it is first introduced, McTaggart's
statements are hard to follow, and one of them (viz., that the rela-
tion is one-one) is inaccurate, as the question raised in 199 shows.
It seems to me that the following expresses McTaggart's meaning.
Let K represent the relation of a part of a substance to the whole
substance. Let K X be the class of sets of parts of the substance x.
Then the statement O.IK X means ' a is one of the sets of parts of x,'
and this means that the members of a just fit together to make up
-x. Let E be a relation of determining correspondence for the
substance A. Then there is a set of parts of A (call it a) with the
following properties, (i) The domain of E consists of the parts of
the members of a, i.e., anything that has E-correspondence to any-
thing is a part of some member of a. We can write this in
the form D'E = K"a. (ii) The co-domain of E consists of the
members of a and the parts of these members ; i.e., everything to
which anything has E-correspondence is either a member of a or a
part of some member of a. This can be written in the form
<TK = a u K"a. (iii) E itself is not (as McTaggart mistakenly says)
assumed to be a one-one relation. What is assumed is the follow-
ing series of propositions. (1) E, with its co-domain confined to
a, is one-one, (2) E with its co-domain confined to E u a is one-one,
(3) E with its co-domain confined to E"E u a is one-one, and . . .
so on. (iv) If x is a member of the set of parts a, and /* be any set
of parts of A, then the parts of x which have E-correspondence to
the members of ft form a set of parts of x. This may be written :
(v) If uR,x and vR>y, and x is a part of^y, then u is a part of v.
This may be written in the form E I K | &C K. (vi) If some part
of x has the relation E to y then there is a sufficient description of
y, which includes this fact about y, and implies a sufficient descrip-
tion of the part of x in question.
If all these conditions be fulfilled sufficient descriptions of the
members of the particular set of parts a will imply sufficient
descriptions of parts within parts of A to infinity. Let us see
how this comes about. Suppose, e.g., that a contains just the two
parts B and C of A. Then by (i) the domain of E consists of the parts
of B and the parts of C. By (ii) the co-domain of E consists of the
parts of B, the parts of C, and B and C themselves. Hence E
correlates the parts of B and the parts of C with B and C themselves
and with their parts. Now B is a member of a, and the group
[B, C] is a set of parts of A. Hence from (iv) the parts of B which
have the relation E to B and those which have this relation to C
330 CBITICAL NOTICES :
form a set of parts of B. But E here has its co-domain confined to
a and is therefore one-one ; hence we can speak of the part of B
which has E to B, the part which has E to C and so on. [Cf. (iii)
(1)]. Thus B breaks up into a set of two parts, one correlated
with B and the other with C. These may be written in McTaggart's
notation as l B ! B and B ! C. For precisely the same reasons C
breaks up into a set of two parts, one correlated with B and the
other with C. These may be written C ! B and C ! C. Now since
B ! B and B ! C fit together exactly to make up B, whilst C ! B and
C ! C fit together exactly to make up C, and B and C themselves
fit together exactly to make up A it is clear that the four parts
B ! B, B ! C, C ! B, and C ! C, fit together exactly to make up A.
Hence they are a set of parts of A. We can therefore apply (iv)
to them. Take B, to start with, as before. It is a member of a.
And the group just constructed is a set of parts of A. Therefore
by (iv) the parts of B which have the relation E to the members of
this group form a set of parts of B. Now here E has its co-domain
limited to E u a. For E"a is the class of things that stand in the
relation E to the members of a. And the members of a are B and C
in the present example. Hence E"a is the group B ! B, B ! C, etc.
Now by (iii) (2) E with its co-domain thus confined is one-one.
Hence we can speak, e.g., of the part of B which has the relation
E to B ! B. This can be written B ! B ! B in McTaggart's notation.
The result is that B splits up into the set of four parts B ! B ! B,
B ! B ! C, B ! C ! B, and B ! C ! C ; whilst C splits up into the set of
tour parts C ! B ! B, C ! B ! C, C ! C ! B, and C ! C ! C. The eight
form a new set of parts of A, and the process can be repeated
indefinitely.
So far we have not needed to use assumptions (v) or (vi) . Assump-
tion (v) is needed for the following reason. Since E in general is not
assumed to be one-one it would be possible, apart from (v), that, e.g.,
B ! B (i.e., the part of B that has the relation E to B) should be the
same as B ! B ! C (i.e., the part of B that has the relation E to the part
of B that has the relation E to C). But by (v) we see that B ! B ! C
must be a part of BIB since B ! C is a part of B. Thus (v)
secures that at each stage each part of the previous set of parts is-
divided. Assumption (vi) is of course essential for avoiding the
difficulty which McTaggart finds in infinite divisibility. Granted
(vi) it follows that a sufficient description of the set a (i.e. of B and
of C) implies a sufficient description of B ! B, B ! C, C ! B, and C ! C.
On the same assumption this in turn implies sufficient descrip-
tions of B ! B ! B, etc., and so on for every stage in the division.
A class such as a is called a set of Primary Parts. It is clear
that a set of primary parts of a substance A is CE'E - D'E, where
E is a relation of determining correspondence for A. This means
that it is a set of parts to which things stand in the relation E, but
which themselves do not stand in the relation E to anything.
Certain further refinements and generalisations are introduced by
1 B ! B - (w)(xKB ^ R B) ; B ! C = (ix)(xKK . xRC) ; and so on.
j. M. E. MCTAGGAET, The Nature of Existence. 331
McTaggart ; but anyone who has followed my account of determin-
ing correspondence will easily understand these, and no one who has
failed to follow it is likely to understand them at all. The upshot
of the matter is that if a substance has a set of primary parts a
sufficient description of these will imply sufficient descriptions of
sets of sequent parts within parts to infinity, and the alleged con-
tradiction will be avoided.
In Chapter XXVI. McTaggart discusses a number of suggested
illustrations, and rejects them all except one taken from perception.
B and C are here percipients who perceive each other, themselves,
and their parts. It is assumed that they perceive nothing else and.
that perception is the sole activity that they have. It is further
assumed that the part of x which perceives y is a part of the part
of x which perceives z, provided that y is a part of z. With these
assumptions B ! B ! C, e.g., is the part of B which perceives the part
of B which perceives C. Again, B ! B and B ! C are, respectively,
the part of B which perceives B, and the part of B which perceives-
C ; and these are supposed to be a complete set of parts of B.
Obviously B and C are percipients whose powers and limitations
differ a good deal from ours ; but one can anticipate the application
that will be made of this example in Vol. II. in favour of a spiritual
pluralism.
I will confine myself to two remarks about determining corre-
spondence (1) I am not sure that I clearly understand the important
assumption which I have numbered (vi) : ' if some part of x has
the relation R to y then there is a sufficient description of y, which
includes this fact about y, and implies a sufficient description of
the part of x in question '. Let < be a set of properties of y, which
do not include the fact that some part of x has the relation R
to y. Let the property <, together with the proposition (gw) ,
w~&x . w~Ry, be a sufficient description of y. The latter proposition
is equivalent to 7/fi I Kx. We will suppose that y is the substance
which has the property <f> and the relation fi| K to x, i.e.,
y = (iz){<f>z . z& | Kx}.
Now suppose that this sufficient description of y intrinsically de-
termines a sufficient description of x\y. What exactly will this
mean ? It seems to me that it must mean that there is a certain
set of properties if/, such that (a) anything that has them is identical
with x ! y, and (6) such that if anything (e.g. , z) has the property
<f>z . z& \ Kx we can infer that x ! z will have the property ^ ; i.e.,
(gp/r) :\l/w .= w .w = x ! y : <f>z . zE \ Kx . \, x .if/xlz
If this be the right interpretation assumption (vi) may be written
\\fx\z\y = (iz){<t>z . zE I Kx}.
If this be not the right interpretation I confess I do not know
what is. Now a difficulty that strikes me is that McTaggart evi-
dently holds that only some sufficient descriptions of y will intrinsi-
cally determine a sufficient description of x ! y, whereas I should
332 CEITICAL NOTICES :
have thought that any sufficient description of y would have done
this. For if <j> be any such description of y it is surely an ex-
clusive description of y to say that it is ' the part of x which has the
relation E to that substance whose sufficient description is </> .'
And this description is also sufficient, for it contains no substance
but or, and x being a primary part is supposed to have a sufficent
description. Does McTaggart mean that there is always some
sufficient description of x \ y which does not involve the fact that it is
the E-correlate of y ? If so, he ought to have said so. His examples
in Chapter XXVI. do not accord with this view of his meaning.
His view seems to be there that, if C has a sufficient description,
B ! C (i.e., the part of B which perceives C) is sufficiently described
as the part of B which perceives the substance which has this
sufficient description. If this be all the description of B ! C that is
in view, assumption (vi) becomes trivial, so far as I can see. And
it is certainly not meant to be trivial.
(2) Doubtless the intention of McTaggart' s argument and his
examples is ultimately to suggest that the universe must consist of
spiritual substances in certain specially intimate cognitive or other
relations. It has struck me (I am probably wrong) that all his re-
quirements would be equally well fulfilled if every substance were
(or were correlated with) an ordinary extensive magnitude like a
straight line. Take a straight line AB. Bisect it ; it consists of
the set of parts AX, XB. Bisect these in turn ; they consist re-
spectively of the sets AY, YX, and XZ, ZB. The four are a new
set of parts of AB. This process of bisection can be continued ad
infinitum. Moreover, any part in this infinite series of sets of parts
has a simple sufficient description. It can be described as, e.g., the
wth member of the ?ith successive bisection of AB. If then
there exists any sufficient description < of AB it would seem that
every part in this infinite series could be sufficiently described as,
e.g., the rath member of the th successive bisection of the sub-
stance with the property </>. Is anything more than this needed,
and if so, why precisely ?
I must close this long yet inadequate review. McTaggart's book
contains, beside what I have noted, admirable discussions on
causation and on the basis of induction. I have chosen to describe
and discuss its hardest and most original parts. To me it is very
difficult to follow highly abstract arguments and to estimate the
evidence of highly abstract principles. I therefore express no final
opinion as to whether. the author has succeeded in proving im-
portant conclusions. That he has produced a monument of deep
thinking, clear writing, and acute criticism is beyond dispute.
C. D. BROAD.
JOHN LAIRD, A Study inEealism. 333"
A Study in Realism. By JOHN LAIED, M.A., Professor of Logic
and Metaphysics at the Queen's University of Belfast. Cam-
bridge : at the University Press ? 1920. Pp. xii and 228. 14s..
UNTIL quite recently Eealism amoDg English thinkers has been a\
ferment and a point of view rather than a philosophy fully thought
out. Its literature consisted mostly of scattered papers, in which
its fundamental principles were, one by one, set forth amidst,
polemics against Idealism, or else were applied, in a tentative and;
experimental way, to this or that special problem. But the year
1920 has changed all this. It has given us Prof. Alexander's
monumental Gifford Lectures on Space, Time, and Deity, which
Realists can proudly match against Bradley's A2Jpearance and
Reality or Bosanquet's Principle of Individuality and Value. And,
on a much smaller scale of ambition and performance, but still as
a most valuable addition to the critical examination and defence of
Realism, it has given us this present book of Prof. Laird's.
Laird is, I think, unduly modest when, in his Preface, he dis-
claims having attempted " more than an underling's work ". He
has done work of a kind which urgently needed to be done, and if
his is an underling's way of doing it well, let us have more under-
lings ! Realism has long stood in need of just such a patient ex-
amination of its hypotheses as it here receives at Laird's hands.
Moreover, the book's literary quality makes it a delight to read.
Laird has a turn for neat epigram (e.g., " intelligence at the helm
is worth a whole cargo of instincts "), and his wide reading sup-
plies many a happy allusion and apt quotation. We may be glad,
too, that he has not, in writing, sought to efface the prickly vigour
of his temperament, the natural combativeness of which is but im-
perfectly chastened by the humility of the Preface. In general, he
is a blend of robust common sense and analytical subtlety. If he
owes the former to his Scotch descent, he surely owes the latter to
his Cambridge training. He suggests shall I say? a Reid
sophisticated by Russell.
In his Preface (p. viii), Laird declares his firm belief " that
realism is a truly philosophical theory of knowledge " and can be
consistently sustained throughout the whole territory of knowledge.
What, then, is this theory of knowledge ? The answer to this
question may be summed up in the following eight assumptions
from the Introduction (pp. 8-14) :
(1) Things can be known as they really are.
(2) Subject to proper precautions, anything is precisely what it
appears to be.
(3) These " genuine " appearances cannot contradict one another.
(4) For us human beings to have true knowledge of a thing does
not logically imply that we need know all its conditions or con-
nexions.
(5) Knowledge always implies that the mind is confronted with
an object : object apprehended and process of apprehension are
never identical.
334 CRITICAL NOTICES :
(6) The object of true knowledge is in a certain sense independent
.of our knowing it.
(7) Indirect or representative knowledge implies direct acquaint-
ance at some point.
(8) The plane of observation and logic is the only possible plane
of truth. 1
It will be readily seen that Laird's realism runs true to type, and
that this catalogue of realistic assumptions is determined through-
out by antithesis to the miscellaneous positions which are currently
lumped together under the label of " idealism ". Thus, tfye as-
sumption of independence (6) challenges the esse est percipi prin-
ciple. The assumption of the trustworthiness of finite knowledge
(4) challenges the principle that nothing but the whole truth is
wholly true. In other assumptions (1, 2, 7) the Lockean theory of
knowledge as consisting of intra-mental representations of extra-
mental realities is decisively rejected. The sharp distinction between
mind and object (5) protects the object effectively against any taint
of being " mental " ; it cannot in any sense be said to be " made "
or " constructed " by mind. Laird never tires of insisting that all
so-called constructing is instrumental to " finding," and that even
mental products have to be simply apprehended for what they are,
after they have been produced. The same assumption (5), taken
together with the last (8), shuts out Bergsonian intuition, the
mystic's identity of knowing and being, the immediacy of Bradley's
Absolute Experience in short, all theories of knowledge which
minimise or deny the " final truth " of the distinction between
knower and known. Throughout, it is clear, realism has no room
for any Absolute or Whole : such a thing is not " found " and thus
is nothing, or, at least, may " logically " be ignored. For, whilst
" realists need not deny that the universe as a whole is a sublime
unity sempiternally perfect," they " may logically accept the facts
which they find without referring to the whole which they do not
know " (p. 146). In short, the realistic " defence of human know-
ledge " is based on the assumption (4) of " logical pluralism " (p.
149), which means that a judgment may be wholly and finally true
irrespective of its connexions with other judgments, and that a
physical thing may be perceived as it really is even though the
mind does not perceive the whole of it. The same pluralism leads
Laird to insist in the realm of values " on the full reality of good
and evil as we find them " (p. 146), and to encourage the temper
of a manly meliorism : " Throw a man on his own resources and
he may do something worth while. Make a pensioner of him and
1 Cf. also the following passage : ' ' The assumptions of realism are that
knowledge is always the discovery of something : that anything discovered
is distinct from and independent of the process of recognising it : that
nothing which is known is therefore mental except in the way of being
selected by a mind : and that if any selected thing is mental or mentally
tinged de facto, this circumstance does not affect the kind or validity of
our knowing of it " (p. 181).
JOHN LAIRD, A Study in Realism. 335
he will repay your alms with feeble dependence " (p. 148). These
sentences make a very effective " curtain " for the chapter on values
(ch. vii.), but they leave one wondering helplessly just what Laird
would make of the truly religious temper in Christ, for example,
or in St. Francis of its sense of dependence on God, and of our
strength being weakness. In fact, these sentences are symptomatic.
For all that Laird suggests in his Epilogue that our civilisation
suffers from our not paying enough attention to God, his realism
runs true to type in this, too, that it is weak just where most
idealisms are strong, viz., as a philosophy of religion. Even Prof.
Alexander's discussion of Deity may fairly be said to break with
every great historical religion. Realism is the philosophy of minds
who either are wholly devoid of mysticism, or else, like Mr. Eussell,
distrust it so profoundly that they insist on keeping it at all costs
out of their philosophy.
Turning now to the details of Laird's argument, it is well to re-
member that for him " the principal problem of this essay is to
consider whether things are literally discovered by the mind " (p.
81). In fact, the whole realistic platform, set out above, consists
of the assumptions necessary to support a theory of knowledge as
the discovery of independent objects by, or their revelation to, an
apprehending mind. The book is devoted to testing this theory by
applying it, successively, to Things Perceived (ch. ii.), Things Re-
membered and Expected (ch. in.), the Stuff of Fancy (ch. iv.), the
World of Common Belief (ch. v.), Principles (ch. vi.), Values (ch.
vii.), The Mind (ch. viii.). Let us pass in review the most striking
points in the argument.
The analysis of perception in ch. ii. is noteworthy for Laird's
sharp criticism of Russell's " sensory atomism," i.e., the theory that
-" we perceive sense-data and we perceive nothing else " (p. 18).
Laird's own view is that sense-data are as much signs as facts ;
that hence " we always perceive sign-facts " (p. 24) ; that, in other
words, sense-data have meaning and that " meaning is directly
perceptible just like colour and sound " (p. 27). This recognition
of meaning has two important corollaries. First, it enables Laird
to say that whatever we perceive carries with it a reference to more
of the same world, which reference is our clue to the existence of
a single world, though this is " only a signified thing clinging with
a tag of meaning to the fragments we perceive " (p. 26). Secondly,
meaning enables us to construe physical things not, after Russell's
fashion, as mere classes or collections of sense-data, but as indi-
vidual " continuants " signified by sense-data. Things are relatively
enduring, whereas percepts are " momentary glimpses " of things,
and whilst we cannot ascribe the limitations of percepts to things,
we must, in principle, hold that percepts, so far as they go, reveal
the positive characters of things. This theory of meaning seems
to me so vast an improvement on current realistic analyses of per-
ception, that J, for one, am not disposed to quarrel with Laird when,
as a good realist, he labours to show that meaning is discovered,
not added, by the mind.
336 CRITICAL NOTICES:
The outcome of ch. iii. is that memory can, but expectation
cannot, be construed as discovery. " Expectation is only the
present sign of a hidden future " (p. 53). " Forecasts of the future
are certainly not the future itself " (p. 51). But recollection, with
strong probability, is " the mind's power of returning, again and
again, to precisely the same event in the past " (p. 52). Objections
to this view are met by Laird it is his favourite strategy when in
a corner : he uses it also for error (p. 103) with the bold assertion
that " it is plainly impossible to explain the fact of memory itself.
Memory is possible, and that is all we need to know " (p. 59).
Ch. iv. deals with images and dreams on the principle that
" images are the mimics of percepts " (p. 62), and that for realistic
theory " images must have the same status as percepts " (p. 63).
Laird's defence of this thesis ranges from space- and time-difficulties
to psycho-analysis, and culminates in the statement that " images
are precisely what they appear to be, spatial, temporal and physical,
yet without a home in the perceived order of time and space "
(p. 74).
Ch. v. resumes the argument of ch. ii. What we perceive is
a fragment of the physical world, which latter is a " believed thing "
(p. 83). Now what we believe are propositions, and, following
Meinong, Laird deals with propositions in the truth of which we
believe, as " asserted objectives ". Personally, I cannot agree at
all with Laird's sharp distinction of perceiving and judging, 1 per-
cept and objective, but here I have no space to argue the matter.
Of course objectives, like percepts, are " discovered," but more im-
portant than this vindication of realism is Laird's protest against
the analyses of other realists who " cheat us with objectives and
sense-data " and " ignore " the physical things, as continuants, -
which are bodily, so to speak, both perceived and judged. This
account is held to be true at any rate for judgments of perception
(other types of judgments Laird does not discuss). The principle
is "we refer to things in judgment, not to objectives, precisely as
we perceive things and not percepts " (p. 88). When I see a red
book, the percept qua fact, is " literally identical " with so much
of the thing, and the objective, " this book is red," similarly is a
selection from the total being of the thing and reveals it just so
far, provided, of course, the objective is " a truth ". Those fellow-
realists of Laird's whom he here criticises may be trusted to take
care of themselves. To me, Laird's doctrine appears, once more,
to be a considerable improvement, but, then, it only expresses in
1 It is worth noting that whilst most realists appear to distinguish be-
tween perceiving and judging chiefly on the ground that the former is
exempt from error (see, e.g., Russell's Problems of Philosophy), Laird
explicitly extends error to " every species of apprehending" (p. 41). I
am inclined to think that, after this admission, any insistence on the dis-
tinction between perceiving sign-facts and judging objectives becomes
purely verbal. In saying this, I intend no pun on Laird's view which,
apparently, is that the distinction comes in with " verbalisation " or the
use of language.
JOHN LAIED, A Study in Realism. 337
realistic language what, in idealistic language, has been familiar to
every student of Bradley or Bosanquet. The chapter ends with a
most interesting examination of the Kant-Hume controversy on
causality. Hume, it appears, proved invulnerable to Kant, but
now succumbs to Laird. Hume's analysis is defective " because
he overlooked the perceived meaning of perceived things " (p. 78).
According to Laird, we perceive more than bare conjunction. We
perceive connexion, but not necessary connexion. Both perception
of physical things and experience of voluntary movement contain a
causal, or rather " precausal," meaning " a presumption which is
the nucleus of a principle " (p. 99). But common sense does not
discover that universal sway of uniform causal laws which science
postulates. In the world of common sense, some causes may be
"as capricious and irregular in their behaviour as a woman's wit "
(p. 100).
Ch. vi. is devoted mainly to a discussion of the question, " what
kind of being a principle or category has" (p. 106). More par-
ticularly, the problem is whether the dualism of particulars which
exist and universals which subsist can be avoided. The answer is
that an ultimate difference between v&rites eternelles and verites de
fait remains (pp. 117 ff.). But the former, like|the latter, realistically
" confront the mind and reveal themselves to it " (p. 120).
Ch. vii. is a criticism, on lines by now in principle familiar, of
the alleged subjectivity of value. Truth not being, for Laird,
a value, 1 the discussion deals only with aesthetic and moral
values, the principle being that value " can be recognised by the
mind like any other quality " (p. 125). A human action, e.g., is
morally good in the same sense in which a cherry is red (p. 144).
So far we have followed that branch of the realistic " pheno-
menology of knowledge " (p. 12) which is concerned with the
various kinds of objects known. Ch. viii. is devoted to the other
branch, which is concerned with knowing, or, more generally, with
mind or consciousness. Consistently enough with his principles,
Laird holds this branch to be identical with Psychology, though he
is in difficulties at once because psychologists (a) give widely
divergent accounts of consciousness, and (6) are much divided
over the question of introspection or the mind's observation of
itself. Into the thick of this fray Laird throws himself with lusty
polemical blows. His basis is: we "find" consciousness; we
know what it is, for the mind can notice its own operations. On
this basis he rejects the American realists' theory of consciousness
as a cross-section of the objective universe defined by the responses
1 On the other hand, " true knowledge " is for him a value, where by
"true knowledge" I suppose he means the apprehension, or rather
assertion, of objectives which are true. The difference on this point be-
tween Professors Alexander and Laird is instructive. And, in general, it
is both amusing and amazing to watch how realists, once they go beyond
the abstract generalities of their assumptions, develop profound differences
from each other on nearly every concrete problem.
22
338 CKITICAL NOTICES :
of a nervous system, with arguments very similar to those which
Prof. Alexander employs for the same purpose. On the other hand,
Laird would, I think, have to reject Prof. Alexander's theory of
" enjoyment" on the same ground on which he rejects Bergson's
theory of intuition, viz., that ordinary self-observation is possible
and suffices for knowing the mind.
There remains ch. ix., entitled " The Larger Outlook ". This is
the most ambitious but, to my thinking, the least successful chapter
of the book. Laird acknowledges that realists have generally con-
fined their discussions within too narrow a field, and failed "to
include a conspectus of the achievements of the human spirit " (p.
180). This raises high expectations, but they can hardly be said
to be fulfilled by the exceedingly miscellaneous contents of the
chapter which follows. It begins with some remarks on con-
structive imagination in the physical sciences, and identifies such
imagination with probability and hypothesis. It passes on to
biology and a condemnation of Bergson's intuition, considered as
a " substitute for thinking " (p. 187). Economics, history, the
philosophy of history, art, and finally religious experience, are
next passed in review. Much of the detail of the discussion is of a
high order of interest, but the total effect is, to me at any rate,
disappointing. Again and again I get the impression as if Laird,
just on the point of losing himself, to his own and his readers'
delight, in his subject, were forcing himself back to his nominal
topic of realism, and to the making of some such point as that
apprehending a construction is different from constructing it ; that
" anything which is known is therefore given " (p. 203) ; that art
primarily just accepts the beauty revealed to man, and only
secondarily expresses and constructs, etc. The concluding criticism
of mystical experience only makes one wonder whether Laird
knows by acquaintance what the mystics are talking about. He
recognises himself that he is so far removed from them, that
"argument is as useless as soft words before a tempest" (p. 215).
But he gives us three further pages of argument all the same.
I have tried to pick out and present what is positive in Laird's
book, in the hope of thus sending all the readers of this review to
the book itself for the reasoning by which its conclusions are
supported. In conclusion, I must content myself with one general
comment. Idealism is a Protean thing which to some presents the
paradoxical shape of Berkeley's esse est percipi and to others the
rich body of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Realists are much
more plausible in their criticisms of idealism in the former than
in the latter sense. It is only, I think, because even objective
idealists are encumbered by the historical associations of their
terminology that they still seem to be in the thrall of the esse est
percipi principle. So far as this is so, realists have created a new
situation which makes it urgently necessary for idealists to over-
haul their language and restate their position without some of its
traditional ambiguities. Meanwhile such a realism as Laird's
DRAKE, ETC., Essays in Critical Realism. 339
strikes me as being insufficiently in earnest with its own principle
that " anything is what it appears to be ". In one passage in ch.
ii., Laird himself speaks of " improvement in perception " as in-
volving " transformation of the whole texture of the perceived
thing " (p. 41). But his absorption in the arid task of maintaining
the antithesis of knower and known makes him blind to the extent
to which this "transformation" of the world perceived and be-
lieved in may be carried, by expanding its " meaning " with the
help of those types of experience which, like the social and religious,
we customarily call " spiritual " par excellence. The doctrine of
"degrees of truth " reflects the dialectic of these transformations,
or completer interpretations, made possible by a fuller use of the
resources of human experience. The strength of idealism in this
direction, and the sources of that strength, Laird hardly appears to
appreciate. Nor has Realism produced any work which comes
within measurable distance of challenging the master-pieces of
recent idealism in this field, except Prof. Alexander's Gifford
Lectures. But when Prof. Alexander comes to these topics, it is
noticeable that " mind " increasingly bears the chief burden of his
tale.
, B. F. ALFRED
Essays in Critical Realism ; A Co-operative Study of the Problem
of Knowledge. By DURANT DRAKE, ARTHUR O. LOVEJOY,
JAMES BISSETT PRATT, ARTHUR K. ROGERS, GEORGE SANTA-
YANA, ROY WOOD SELLARS, C. A. STRONG. London : Mac-
millan & Co., Ltd., 1920. Pp. vii, 244.
THE form and method of this collection of essays by seven American
professors of philosophy make it typical in more than one respect
of some important tendencies in modern philosophy. The authors
conceive philosophy as a subject which can be split up into a
number of separate and clearly-defined problems, each of which is
to be attacked in a purely empirical way. And it is this concep-
tion of the subject, no doubt, which makes possible the co-operation
of a number of writers to study one question in detail. The way
in which this volume has been composed marks it out as something
a little different from a mere collection of papers by writers who
share only a general agreement on principles. All the writers, we
are told, have held the general position set out in these essays, for
several years. Some of them have published separate volumes de-
fending substantially the same view. But all the essays here pub-
lished have been specially written for this volume, and are the
result of much discussion between the various writers. In some
cases the essays have been redrafted several times in the course of
the discussion.
" Our belief in the value of co-operative effort," the authors state
in their preface, "has been fully justified to our own minds by the
340 CRITICAL NOTICES :
result " ; and one need not doubt that much of the value of the
theory here expounded is due to the careful preliminary discussions
between the essayists. But I hope I shall not seem ungracious if
I say that the authors might have distinguished between the best
method of arriving at results and the best method of presenting
those results to the philosophical public. I cannot help feeling
that the method of exposition which they have chosen is not a
happy one. Perhaps the very familiarity of the writers with one
another's different modes of expression has made it difficult for
them to appreciate that the reader is not in the same favourable
position. But the book is not an easy one to read. To some ex-
tent the essayists share a common terminology, but each has also
favourite terms of his own ; the essays overlap a good deal, and
are in agreement on most points, but with certain differences a&
regards details ; the result is that it is often a matter of consider-
able difficulty to decide whether one essayist is or is not trying to
say, in his terminology, just the same thing which another is ex-
pressing in his.
But these, after all, are matters of detail ; let me pass on to the
substance of the book. The problem selected for treatment is that
of the nature of knowledge, and the discussion is confined as far as
possible to that problem. " No agreement," we are told in the pre-
face, "has been sought except on the epistemological problem . . ..
and, actually, the members of our group hold somewhat different
ontological views. . . . We have found it entirely possible to iso-
late the problem of knowledge."
Of the seven essays four those of Profs. Drake, Pratt, Sellars,
and Strong give the completest account of the theory. Most of
the writers acknowledge obligations to Prof. Santayana as having
done most to make clear one of their leading conceptions (that
of " essence ") ; but in his contribution to this volume he has con-
tented himself with giving several general proofs of realism, and
does not go so much into detail as some of the other essayists.
The remaining two essays defend Critical Eealism in the way in
which Zeno defended the doctrines of Parmenides by adverse
criticisms of other theories.
If one were to divide realist theories of the nature of perception
into those which are chiefly concerned to find a philosophical basis
for physics and those which want simply to do the best they can
for Common-sense, then the present theory would fall within the
latter class. I do not mean that the writers have any superstitious
respect for the views of the plain man ; they are at least as anxious
to give a theory which will satisfy the physiologist as to give one
which will square with Common-sense. None the less, Critical
Realism is, I think, in several important respects nearer to the
common-sense view than a good many other theories of knowledge.
Common-sense seems to assert (a) that we do perceive real
physical objects and (b) that the way in which each individual
perceives them depends to some extent on subjective factors..
DRAKE, ETC., Essays in Critical Realism. 341
But the difficulty is, of course, that there is an apparent contradic-
tion between these two assertions. One philosopher after another
has triumphantly fastened on this fact, and has pointed out to
Common-sense that it really must give up one or other of the
two. And poor Common-sense, which has of course never reflected
on the matter, has nothing to say. It does not really like the
simpler accounts of the matter which are offered by a Berkeley
or a Prof. Holt; the first abolishing real objects and leaving us
with nothing but ideas, the second asserting that all the qualities
which anybody ever perceives really are out there in space. But
it has no reply to give when it is challenged to state its own view
in clear and unambiguous terms. Something like the theory of
" representative perception" seems at first sight to provide a
refuge ; it at least recognises real physical objects and subjective
differences of perception ; but the theory of representative percep-
tion has proved unable to withstand philosophical criticism. First
and last then, between idealism, subjective or objective, and a
realism either too naive or too sophisticated, Common-sense has
had a bad time of it.
The writers of this volume, however, have convinced themselves
that none of the simpler theories give a correct description of the
actual situation in perception ; in their striving after simplicity
these theories have falsified the facts, and Nemesis overtakes them
when they attempt to account for error. Common-sense does
seem, after all, to be right in both the assertions it makes ;
only it makes them in vague language, it is not in pos-
session of the conceptions necessary to state such a position
clearly. In order so to state it, the present writers think, a new
conception is required, which has not hitherto been employed by
epistemologists. This is put very clearly by Prof. Strong in a foot-
note (the footnotes to this volume seem to contain the most
mature expression of the theory): "I had long been convinced
that cognition requires three categories for its adequate interpreta-
tion ; the intermediate one between subject and object corre-
sponding to the Kantian ' phenomenon ' or ' appearance '. At one
time I used to designate this category as ' content,' since it agrees
with the current conception of a ' content of consciousness ' ; but,
in my efforts to conceive it clearly, I was continually falling off
either into the category of ' object ' or into that of ' psychic state '.
What was my relief when at last I heard Mr. Santayana explain
his conception of ' essence,' and it dawned upon me that here was
the absolutely correct description of the looked-for category."
The exact nature of this category will become clearer if we
glance briefly at the reasons given for distinguishing it from both
object and psychical state. It is admitted by everyone that in
all varieties of knowledge, whether perception, conception, or
memory, there is something immediately before the mind, some-
thing intuited or given. This entity is called the datum in
the present volume. Our question then is as to the nature
342 CEITICAL NOTICES:
of this datum. Now there are two well-known theories as
to what the datum is : (1) that it is a psychical state, and (2) that
it is the real object. Neglecting for the moment the first view,
which has been the target for the criticisms of realists of all
schools, let us consider the objections which the present writers
bring against the second view.
The paradoxical results which follow from a thorough-going
acceptance of naive realism are well known, and a careful summary
of them is given by Prof. Drake in the opening essay. It is not
only that those results are repugnant to Common-sense ; they also
fit in badly with what physiology tells us of the mechanism of
perception ; and they make it difficult to give a reasonable theory
of error.
But if the datum is not a real object, what is it ? The answer
of Critical Eealism to this question seems at first sight rather
startling; to quote Prof. Strong, "the datum ... is recognised
not to be psychological, and, since we have shown it not to be
physical, the chances are that it is logical, an entity of the
peculiar type belonging to logic." But this way of stating the
position is, I think, unnecessarily paradoxical ; by calling the
datum a logical entity Prof. Strong means simply that it is not an
existent, but a universal. Profs. Drake and Sellars use the term
*' character-complex " to express the same thing, and Prof. Pratt
often speaks of it simply as a " meaning ". But most of the writers
admit that Prof. Santayana's term " essence " is perhaps the best ;
it is worth while therefore to quote his definition. "By
1 essence,' " he says, " I understand a universal of any degree of
complexity and definition, which may be given immediately,
whether to sense or to thought. Only universals have logical or
aesthetic individuality, or can be given directly, clearly, and ail
at once. . . . This object of pure sense or pure thought, with
no belief super-added, an object inwardly complete and individual,
but without external relations or physical status, is what I call
an essence." And Prof. Strong makes this a little more definite :
" These non-existents are in the broadest sense universals. Yet
they vary greatly in their degree of concreteness ; a centaur is
more concrete than a perfect square, a perfect square is more
concrete than virtue. The question will be whether a datum can
be so concrete as even to have sensible vividness, and yet not be
an existence, but only an entirely concrete universal, a universal
of the lowest order. This would mean that the same datum
exactly might be given to another person, or to the same person
at a different time and place ; in such wise that the datum as such
would not be in time and space."
The words which I have italicised bring out the point in the
doctrine which most people will find it very hard to accept. It
is certainly difficult to convince oneself that what is immediately
given to sense is not in time and space. In defence of this
position, however, Prof. Strong brings forward a number of argu-
DEAKE, ETC., Essays in Critical Eealism. 343
ments, which merit a detailed consideration impossible to give
within the limits of a review. Suffice it to say, then, that he
holds that "the affirmation of locality has reference only to the
physical things that the visual data bring before us, not to the
visual data as such ". This statement raises the question, what
then is the object of knowledge, and what is the relation of the
datum to the object ? The answer given by Critical Realism to
this question is most completely expounded in the essays of Profs.
Pratt and Sellars, to which I now turn.
It is clear that if data are not existences, and yet what is known
in perception is an existent world, the data themselves cannot be
the objects of knowledge. In other words, knowledge cannot be
a simple relation between a mind and objects. What we have,
according to the Critical Realist, is an essence immediately given,
which has a reference to an external object. As Prof. Pratt puts
it, "the quality-group which one finds in perception is not the
object of perception but the means by which we perceive ". This
gives us the key-note of the theory. We know objects by means
of essences or contents which are intuited ; the objects themselves
are never intuited, they are "known. In Prof. Pratt's words,
" Knowledge . . . makes an assertion about something and is
therefore always mediate in its nature. It is not just a bare
experience. It means more than it is." For this reason, the
writers accept, with some reservations, the description of their
theory as " epistemological dualism," to distinguish it from
" epistemological monism," which works with a relation of im-
mediate awareness as the fundamental cognitive relation.
At this point it will strike the reader that the theory has a con-
siderable degree of kinship with the theory of " representative per-
ception," and that it tends to cut us off from the real world. This
latter charge is one which the writers evidently anticipate, and are
anxious to meet. Both Prof. Pratt and Prof. Sellars (whose essay
is one of the most interesting in the volume) give much attention
to the point. Their contention is, in effect, that the charge is a
good one against the " representative " theory, because that theory
offers us as datum an idea, i.e., an existent, from which we could
only infer the existence of the external object ; but that the charge
iails against their theory, since for them the datum is only an
essence. We can know the object through the essence just be-
cause (when our perception is a correct one) the essence is the
essence of the real object. So in a sense the object is given but
it is only given as to its essence, not as to its existence. The
writers indeed admit that their view of knowledge implies " trans-
cendence," but far from considering this to be a disadvantage, they
claim it as one of the merits of the theory. It is quite clear, they
say, that past events or other people's experiences cannot be directly
given to the knower ; so unless knowledge is transcendent, we can-
not know the past and we cannot know other people's experiences.
The question of the relation of data to psychic states is not, I
344 CRITICAL NOTICES:
think, so important for the theory as that of their relation to ob-
jects ; I shall only touch on it briefly. And it is, as a matter of
fact, a question on which the various essayists are not at one.
Four of them hold that the psychic state is quite distinct from the
datum ; the other three contend that the two blend, and that the
datum always contains all the sensations through which it is given,
though it usually contains more as well. The precise points of
difference and agreement are not easy to grasp from a reading of
the separate essays ; but Prof. Drake comes to the rescue with two
footnotes, which go some way towards clearing up the difficulty.
The self (or psyche, as it is usually called by the essayists) is, of
course, also a necessary factor in knowledge. But its nature is not
discussed in this volume, since such a discussion would go beyond
the boundaries of epistemology into ontology ; and for the same
reason nothing is said about the ultimate nature of physical objects.
The theory of which I have just given an outline has some very
considerable attractions. There are a good many students of philo-
sophy at the present time who would welcome a theory of know-
ledge which could give a clear meaning to the statement that we
perceive real physical objects but that those objects may appear
differently to different people, and appear sometimes wrongly. And
the theory under review is not the only one which attempts to do
this ; one may mention Prof. Laird's recent volume as an attempt,
from a somewhat different standpoint, to do substantially the same
thing.
But while many people might be ready to admit that the true
analysis of knowledge is possibly something like this, I do not
think that many will be able to accept the detailed working-out as
a very plausible account of the matter. I shall note only a few
difficulties.
In spite of Prof. Strong's arguments, it is very hard to convince
oneself that the datum in perception is a mere essence and, as
such, not in time and space. When I try to get the matter quite
clear to myself, it seems obvious that what is given is a particular
existent, and not merely a bundle of loose predicates. Prof. Strong's
contention is, of course, that in supposing the datum to be in space
we confuse the datum itself with what it refers to ; it claims to be-
long to a real object, but its connexion with the real object is only
affirmed or believed by us, it is not given. But here I find a diffi-
culty as to how exactly this claim is made, if the datum is only a
logical universal. Take for instance the case where I perceive (or
think I perceive) a red pillar-box. What is given here, it is con-
tended, is only a universal of a certain degree of complexity ; this
claims to belong to an existent object, and if there really is such an
existent object there, then my perception is correct. My objection
to this is that the theory cannot explain the meaning of the phrase
"if there really is such an existent object there 1 '. It is obviously
not enough that there should be a pillar-box somewhere ; the pillar-
box must be in the place I perceive it to be in, if my perception is
DRAKE, ETC., Essays in Critical Realism. 345
to be correct. But how, if what is given is only a universal, can
it contain a reference to a particular point in space ? Some existent
or other surely must be given as well, if we are ever to be able to
attach our universals to real things in a real (and not merely con-
'Ceived) space.
All the essayists however seem to be agreed that existence can
never be given. To a great extent they rely, to prove this, on the
fact that we can know past events, which obviously cannot be
present to us as existent. But Prof. Drake, at least, goes further
than this and seems to contend that there is an a priori impossi-
bility that existence should ever be given. " The objects themselves,
i.e., those bits of existence, do not get within our consciousness.
'Their existence is their own affair, private, incommunicable. One
existent (my organism, or mind) cannot go out beyond itself liter-
;ally, and include another existent.'' Surely to say this is to beg
the whole question of the nature of knowledge ; at this time of day
the matter cannot be settled by using spatial metaphors.
But throughout the book the writers seem to employ far too
confidently the distinction between essence and existence. At times
one would almost suppose one was reading Spinoza ; and as in the
case of that philosopher, the separation of a thing's being into two
parts, its existence and its essence, seems doubtfully legitimate. The
essayists are right, no doubt, in trying to separate their epistemo-
logical discussion from questions of ontology ; but it is not easy to
discuss any question at all without having settled questions of logic,
and the present book seems to call for a discussion of the relation
of universals and particulars as an essential preliminary. In some
of the present essays, at least, the existence of a thing appears, like
substance in Locke, to lie entrenched behind its qualities.
Finally, one would desire from Critical Realism a more careful
consideration of the question whether there may not be different
types of the knowledge-relation (to use a term which the writers
reject). Throughout the book the term " knowledge " is used rather
loosely ; it usually means perception, but one is often uncertain, in
any particular context, whether it is being employed simply as
equivalent to perception or in a wider sense. (This criticism does
not hold so much against Profs. Sellars and Strong.) But is it not
quite possible that, even if our knowledge of past events is only
mediate, we may have immediate knowledge of some things ? To
prove that there is some knowledge which is not immediate aware-
ness is not the same as to prove that immediate awareness never
can be knowledge.
The essays of Prof. Lovejoy and Prof. Eogers do not directly ex-
pound the new theory, and interesting as they are, I must pass
them over with a bare mention. Prof. Lovejoy examines Pragma-
tism as held by Prof. Dewey, and attempts to show that Critical
Realism has good claims to the adherence of Pragmatists. Prof.
Rogers' s essay on The Problem of Error is a criticism of the ac-
counts of error given by idealists, neo-realists, and pragmatists ; it
is written in a fresh and pointed manner.
346 CRITICAL NOTICES :
It is impossible, within the limits of a review, to do justice to all
the argument, always vigorous and often subtle, which this book
contains. But this matters the less since these essays (and it is
the fate, one is sure, their authors would desire for them) will
certainly form the starting-point for much discussion.
ALAN DORWAED.
Wirklichkeitslehre : Em Metaphysischer Versuch. Von HANS
DBIESCH. Leipzig : Verlag von Emmanuel Eeinicke, 1917.
THIS work, it is said in the Foreword, is metaphysical in the strictest
sense. It is not a Theory of Knowledge, substituted for a metaphysic..
" It claims to be metaphysic as science, to treat of the real scientific-
ally. It does this in full consciousness of the inadequacy of human
reason to the task. Our knowledge is everywhere fragmentary,
and above all is it so here. But the fragment is better than nothing,
and that fragmentary knowledge of the real is possible, it is the aim
of this work to show."
This statement gives the general standpoint, especially distin-
guishing the theory from all those for which logic furnishes the
key to the nature of reality. Agnostic it might be called on the
ultimate questions, e.g., Monism or Dualism, yet claiming a value
for probable propositions, where demonstration is impossible; in
some respects confessing to irrationalism, yet through the conception
of the real as primarily " Wissen," guarding against a Bergsonian
form of irrationalism, in spite of some affinity with Bergson. We
find at the end that in regard to the " higher stages " of the doctrine of
reality there are no certain conclusions. The object was, however,
" to prepare the way for these as questions that have meaning and
justification," to show that they " must emerge at the end of a
theory of the real," e.g., the problem whether the dualism of
experience is ultimate, the problem of a timeless becoming. The
point of view is qualified by the peculiar outlook of the writer in
which he supposes himself to be somewhat isolated amongst con-
temporary thinkers.
At the close of the Foreword he refers to the character of his
work as "erdenfluchtigen," and as strange to an age which inclines
to identify the moral with the merely social, the " inner- worldly "
in the sense of spatio-temporal conditions with the real, and
explains his standpoint as involving the position that the kingdom
of man in the deepest sense is " not of this world ".
" In our time philosophy should seriously bethink herself, that
the earthly is only a small part of her domain. And this not
merely on theoretic grounds for the much-be-lauded "Inner-
worldliness" has led to that deification of the state, the terrible
results of which our generation has experienced." The book was
enterei upon in 1905, but not published till 1917. From the
author's doctrine of order it derives the method of approach tc>
HANS DRIESCH: Wirklichkeitslehre. 347
metaphysics, though only, he observes, as regards the most general
principles of order. It is not dependent on any special logical
method. His doctrine of the starting-point of philosophy is at
least, however, of great importance for the succeeding stages. This
is the basis " I experience and have knowledge of something"
or simply, " Ich habe etwas," the consciousness of this original ''I"
being raised above the distinctions of unity and multiplicity, and
of time. It is thus not to be likened to the Cartesian first act of
thought. This is what Prof. Driesch describes as his solipsism
of method not of theory carrying with it a sharp distinction
between immediate objects which belong to the original fact, and
mediate objects which the I is driven to postulate, on account, in
the first instance, of the fact of becoming in the field of conscious-
ness. The full significance of this method is brought out in the
little book, Wissen und denken (1919). For the metaphysician it
means fundamentally that there is no object except in relation to
consciousness, materialism in any form being thus rejected. The
sciences may work independently in their own sphere, but, for
philosophy, chemistry must always be "my chemistry". Further
since this " methodic solipsism " is a solipsism of knowledge it is
bound up both with the conception of knowledge as the original
and type of all relations, and with the culminating speculation con-
cerning the whole as " thinking upon itself and desiring to complete
its thought, and working at this task through me and those like me,
in actual temporal existence". And when adjusted to the philoso-
phy of history which develops from the author's theory of life in
the individual and the whole of which it is member, the doctrine
of knowledge leads to the position that in the evolution of man and
society the only sure direction of advance is in the line of advanc-
ing knowledge. It would seem (though this is not explicitly stated)
that we are to see in the growth of knowledge the expression
through the process of experience of the reality whose nature
can only be conceived under the category of knowledge. Why this
expression is so imperfect, is a question the answer to which is
given, if at all, in the considerations which lead to provisional
dualism. Prof. Driesch thus attempts to reconcile the extreme
opposition between systems which make consciousness as thought
their starting-point and those which start from the experience of
becoming, or whilst ascribing in some sense reality to the process
he endeavours to avoid the results of a consistent philosophy of
change. The peculiar form he gives to this combination is de-
termined by that biological philosophy for which he is probably
best known in this country through his Gifford lectures, 1907-8.
To understand his theory of reality we have then to bear in mind
his " Philosophy of the Organism ". The passage to this philosophy
from logic takes place, on the one hand, because in the organic
world there is best expressed that ideal of ordered unity, wholeness,
which is the aim of logic. In the organic being we have the com-
pleted unity which it is the function of thought to seek. The goal
348 CEITICAL NOTICES :
of thought would be to see the universe itself as such a whole.
The relation of logic to metaphysics is, however, not so simple as is
suggested by monistic systems of metaphysics. It is only possible
here to refer very briefly to the stages through which we pass from
the first act of consciousness to the positing of objects which are
not merely " als ob " independent, which have more than the as-
sumption of independence made for the worlds of nature and the
soul the first order of mediate objects. The further objects are
beyond the contents of thought as " fur mich," they have also an
independence " an sich ". In the first instance this is only a wish
or an ideal of logiq which wills to rise above itself, in the double
Hegelian sense of " aufheben," and in the end the metaphysical
undertaking remains a wish. In the strict sense there cannot be a
refutation of idealism, and Kant does not really prove the existence
of an " An sich ". The spirit of Driesch's metaphysic is indicated
in his question Granted the impossibility of a dogmatic metaphysic,
why would not Kant admit as legitimate a speculative metaphysic ?
There is, however, he holds, a quality peculiar to metaphysical
propositions, viz. a certain "Tonung," which distinguishes them from
all logical propositions, and in this there is the hint of a special
metaphysical faculty. In the notion of " Tonung," Driesch admits
that he makes a concession to ontologism. For in this peculiar
quality lies the significance of " wirklich," as something which is
more than related to the I, and with it goes the distinction between
the real and the apparent. In spite of the emphasis he lays on
this quality, Driesch does not treat it as the chief criterion of truth
(or truth that "makes itself manifest"). The criteria of meta-
physical truth, " wahrheit," include those of logical validity,
" richtigkeit," and more. Not only the principles of economy and
non-contradiction are required, but also the test that reality must
be such as both to account for experience and to be more than
experience, and this is much harder to apply, and less certain. 1
Our conception of reality, it appears, must be adequate to making
possible the system of knowledge, but it has also to give meaning
to experiences which are beyond the sphere of logic as we find at
the higher stage of metaphysics. Illustration of Driesch's method
of applying the principle that the conditioning must not be poorer
than the conditioned in its degree of manifoldness may be found in
his treatment of the spatial relation. He concludes that "near"
has the same significance for reality that it has for nature ; geometry
is not merely subjective but sign of a definite structure of relations
in the real. But even in the sphere of nature apart from personal
subjective experience there is a kind of becoming which is not
experienced in spatial relations viz., the spaceless becoming of
that which Driesch describes as " entelechy," in his philosophy of
the organism, and which, as he considers himself to have scientifi-
cally proved, must be regarded as a factor of nature. The
1 See Wissen und Denken, vii., 4 and 5.
HANS DBIESCH : Wirklichkeitslehre. 349
Spinozistic doctrine that every quality of substance in the sphere
of its unfolded being natura naturata has a spatial aspect, is on
this as well as on other grounds rejected. In the connexions of
organic nature, only the effects of becoming, and not the preceding
stages, are marked by the relation of contiguity. The becoming
of a whole presents itself only in an uncertain and fragmentary
way in the spatial system. Again the metaphysical significance
of becoming must be such that to earlier and later, as conditions
of nature and the soul, correspond distinctions in the real ;
yeVeo-ts is more than " schein ". Becoming is taken as more
fundamental than time. It is ultimately on the ground of this
law of method, the maintenance in reality of the degrees of
the manifold in becoming, that we can affirm " Ganzheit "
of reality ; i.e., that kind of wholeness which is an actual element
of the structure of the real experienced by us under the form
of temporal becoming. In the principle of "ganzheit" the de-
mand of logic for an ordered system has its metaphysical justifi-
cation. It is in the development of this conception that Prof.
Driesch brings out the full results of his biological philosophy, and
taking the clue of the spaceless stages of becoming in the individual,
makes an exceedingly interesting attempt at an interpretation of
the history of life and human history by a free use of the idea of an
" entelechy " guiding the evolution of larger wholes. He fails how-
ever to trace any unmistakeable signs of a real evolution correspond-
ing to that of the growth of the individual to the goal of maturity,
either in the development of the species, or history, whether of the
animal race or of humanity as a whole. On the one hand there is
no discernible goal in phylogeny, and the immense variety of
species together with their arrested development remains a mystery.
On the other hand, there is in the sphere of human history, in
the first place, no sufficient ground for taking races or nations as
intermediate wholes : the main lines of advance have been common
at least to great groups of peoples. He does not admit a ground
of real distinction in the contribution of the national ^05 to cul-
ture. This is part of his hostility to Hegelianism. A history of
the essential line of evolution we have in the sciences, philo-
sophy, art, could be written without any reference to political
or national conditions, though in this line we ought to see the
true source of all history. For what is gained here cannot be
lost, so long as there is memory preserving the past in the present.
In the second place neither can the evolution of the super-personal
be traced in the history of humanity as a whole. So-called historic
laws concern the results of fortuitous cumulation of conditions,
not connected in an evolutionary way. Yet there are many im-
pressive signs of " wholeness " even in the inanimate world. Only
the spell which Darwinism exercised over the latter half of the
nineteenth century blinded us, in Driesch's view, to the truth of
that concept of the harmony of nature with the conditions of life
which Darwinism itself does not destroy. In the organic world
there are the facts at least of reproduction and inheritance. But
850 CRITICAL KOTICES :
though the totality of life might be conceived as a self-evolving
whole, yet, inasmuch as there is no temporal goal for such an evolu-
tion, its ultimate nature would have to be sought in the sphere of
the spiritual. Turning to human history Driesch finds a striking
harmony between social need and individual vocation, and between
functions mutually related, as those of teacher and taught, and
also in what Hegel calls the " List der Vernunft," over-riding
individual purposes for common ends.
If some of these speculations appear fantastic, we are on firmer
ground in his interpretation of the moral consciousness in its two
expressions, duty with its attendant phenomenon of remorse to
which great significance is attached, and sympathy indicating
individual membership of a whole. Any consistent monadism is
then disproved, it is argued, by history. As earlier noticed, how-
ever, the only undeniably evolutionary line is the growth of
knowledge, and all steps of " progress " in ethics, art, politics, etc.,
result from this. In general, then, although no scientific proof of
a real evolution in history as a whole can be given, it is concluded
that this conception is the ideal of a scientific history. The evolu-
tionary conceptions are regarded both as logically required by the
facts, and as justified in the sphere of individual biology. The
category of the super-personal, however, can only be applied to
the whole of history, if we allow the conception of a non-spatial
process, fragmentary phenomena or by-products of which are ex-
perienced in their spatial expression. The total human process
would then be at the most only a part of history as evolution, with
no earthly reXos. At the least the total fact of human existence
on earth might signify only a single stage in the evolution of the
unknowable. Since all that is non-evolutionary in this sense, is
regarded by Driesch as in the most essential respect " Zufall,"
with its special forms of error and evil, the treatment of the prob-
lem of " Zufall " is obviously of the first importance. In its simplest
interpretation "Zufall" seems very near to Aristotle's TV'X?/ ; it is
all that is not intelligible in relation to the whole teleologically con-
ceived, it is " nicht-ganzheit ". It is, moreover, in the end referred
for its source to the material, v\rj. Very characteristic of Driesch's
standpoint is the combination of the criticism of knowledge, for
which since knowledge is the original relation the question is,
why the whole is not truly reflected in the mind of every individual
knower, with the criticism of practice, for which evil and pain are
more formidable obstacles to monism than error, since they are
not only " nicht-ganzheit " but " gegen-ganzheit ". The analysis
of error suggests that the knower, with his foreknowledge of order,
and the known are parts of a single whole, whilst the nature of
wholeness is obscured. Why is knowledge only pure in the case
of the pure or categorical concepts of order, the original signs
this, such, different, etc., and the Kantian categories which, as
follows from Driesch's l solipsistic starting-point, are not primordial,
1 Cf. Wissen und Deiiken, v., 5.
HANS DKIESCH: Wirklichkeitslehre 351
Ijut must be postulated if nature is not to be chaotic ? If know-
ledge is the original relation, why is it clouded in the case of
empirical universals ?
The suggested solution is that this occurs because the acquisi-
tion of knowledge is bound up with materiality, the sense-organs,
the nervous system. In the application of this explanation to the
case of memory, Driesch, as he observes, agrees for the most part
with Bergson. The universality of the relation of knowledge dis-
cioses itself, however, in the mind's consciousness of this limita-
tion. We are then brought up against the ultimate problem
What must be the nature of reality to account for this experience
^hot through with dualism as " nicht-ganzheit," error and evil?
Either there must be a corresponding dualism in the real, or
wholeness in reality together with a fundamental incapacity of
the " I " to comprehend the whole. The latter alternative might
seem to be favoured by Driesch' s statement of the one proposition
that is metaphysically certain, viz., " Eeality is such as to make
possible knowing individuals, who, in spite of all the chance and
error of their experience, posit and give value to the conception of
t/he world-order ". But neither thus would dualism appear to be
avoided. The strongest argument for a rejection of Spinozistic,
and of other forms of, monism, Driesch finds in the fact that
certain manifestations of chance, viz. disease and evil, are not only
negatively lacking in organic character, but positively hostile to it.
In this metaphysical distinction between error and evil, he is
again opposed to Hegelianism. Dualism, then, is the last word of
a completed experience, metaphysically interpreted, a dualism
which recognises not only the combination of " Ganzheit " and
" Zufall " but the fundamental unintelligibility of "here" and
" now ". This opposition must be carried over into the original
relations, as an opposition of the same character. There is, how-
ever, what Driesch calls a higher stage of metaphysics at which
the problem is considered from a somewhat new standpoint. It
is this part of the work which is perhaps most independent of
tradition as well as most speculative, and in which the method
may appear most vulnerable to criticism. It is here that answers
are suggested to questions which the general method recognises
as unanswerable.
Prof. Driesch's contention in regard to metaphysical propositions
on the whole, that they may have legitimacy and value although
not more than probability can be ascribed to them, appears just, if
the metaphysical impulse does, as he argues, proceed from the
necessities of thought an argument which would be more con-
vincing if not hampered by his solipsistic starting-point. The
further 
