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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. 

Ross (Prof. G. R. T.), Government College, Rangoon, Burma. 

Ross (W. D.), Oriel College, Oxford. 

ROWLANDS (Prof. W. S.), Robertson College, Jubbulpore, India. 

RUSSELL (Hon. B.), Trinity College, Cambridge. 

RUSSELL (L. J.), Brousterland, East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, N.B. 

SAUNDERS (Prof. L. P.), 54 Parliament Street, Westminster, S.W. 

SCHILLER (Dr. F. C. S.), Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 

SCOTT (Miss E. S.), 63 Wellesley Avenue, Belfast. 

SCOTT (Prof. J. W.), University College, Cardiff. 

SETH (Prof. J.), 20 Braid Avenue, Edinburgh. 

SHAND (A. F.), 1 Edwardes Place, London, W. 

SHEARMAN (Dr. A. T.), University College, London, W.C. 



128 MIND ASSOCIATION. 

SHELTON (F. D.), Bruce, Alberta, Canada. 

SHELTON (H. S.), 98 Braybrooke Road, Hastings. 

SIDDHANTA (A. K.), 33 Amherst St., Calcutta. 

SIDGWICK (A.), Trewoofe Orchard, St. Buryan, Cornwall. 

SIDGWICK (Mrs. H.), Fisher's Hill, Woking, Surrey. Hon. Member 

SMITH (A. H.), New College, Oxford. 

SMITH (Prof. J. A.), Magdalen College, Oxford. 

SMITH (Prof. N. Kemp), The University, Edinburgh. 

SORLEY (Prof. W. R.), St. Giles, Chesterton Lane, Cambridge. 

STEWART (Prof. H. L.), Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

STEWART (Prof. J. A.), 14 Bradmore Road, Oxford. 

STOCKS (J. L.). St. John's College, Oxford. 

STOKES (Prof. G. J.), Queen's College, Cork. 

STOUT (Prof. G. F.), Craigard, St. Andrews, N.B. Hon. Member. 

STRONG (Prof. C. A.), c/o Credit Lyonnais, 19 Boulevard des Italiens,. 

Paris. 

STURT (H.), 5 Park Terrace, Oxford. 
SDTCLIFFE (J. W.), 14 Clifton Road, Halifax, Yorks. 

THORBURN (W.), 2 Crick Road, Oxford. 

TITCHENER (Prof. E. B.), Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., U.S.A. Hon* 

Member. 
TOLANI (M. N.), Fitzwilliam Hall, Cambridge. 

UNDERBILL (G. E.), 10 Northmoor Road, Oxford. 

WALLEY (J. T.), Chardleigh Green, Chard, Somerset. 

WARD (Prof. J.'), 6 Selwyn Gardens, Cambridge. 

WARREN (Mrs. Fiske), 8 Mount Vernon Place, Boston, U.S.A. 

WATERLOW (S. P.), 3 Temple Gardens, London, E.G. 

WATT (W. A.), 183 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow. 

WEBB (Prof. C. C. J.), Holy well Ford, Oxford. 

WIDGERY (Prof. A. G.), The College, Baroda, India. 

WHITCOMB (P. W.), Shawnee, Osborne Road, Walton-on-Thames. 

WILLIAMSON (C. C. H.), 7 Park Mansions, South Lambeth Road, S.W. 8. 

WILSON (S. F.), 2 Sherwood Street, Warsop, Mansfield, Notts. 

WOODS (Miss A.), St. Ives, Cross Path, Radlett, Herts. 



Those who wish to join the Association should communicate 
with the Hon. Secretary, Mr. HENRY STURT, 5 Park Terrace, 
Oxford ; or with the Hon. Treasurer, Dr. F. C. S. SCHILLER , 
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to whom the yearly subscrip- 
tion of sixteen shillings should be paid. In return for this 
subscription members receive MIND gratis and post free, and 
are entitled to buy back-numbers both of the Old and the 
New Series at half price. Members resident in America can 
pay their subscription ($4) into the account of the Hon. 
Treasurer (Dr. F. C. S. Schiller) at the Fifth Avenue Bank, 
44th Street, New York. 



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