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 so 
