Full text of "Philosophical essays presented to John Watson"

See other formats

Publications of the Faculty of Arts in Queen's University

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

PRESENTED TO

JOHN WATSON

M.A., LL.D. (Glasgow), LL.D. (Toronto) , D.Litt. (Michigan),
D.D.(Knox College)

Charlton Professor of Moral Philosophy in Queen's University
October 1872-September 1922

PUBLISHED BY

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY

KINGSTON CANADA

DR. JOHN WATSON

lOHANNI . WATSON

QVINQVAGINTA . lAM . ANNOS

PHILOSOPHIAM

APVD . REGINENSES

STVDIIS . DOCTRINA . VIRTVTE

INLVSTRANTI

HAEC . OPVSCVLA

DONO . DICAMVS

AMICI

4^.xo i'G

CONTENTS

PAGE

A School of Idealism : Meditatio Laici .... 1

James Cappon, M.A. (Glasgow), LL.D.(McGill)

Professor Emeritus of English Literature and late Dean
of the Faculty of Arts in Queen's University.

Beati Possidentes 3'^

R. M. Wenley, M.A., D.Phil., LL.D. (Glasgow) , Sc.D. (Edin-
burgh), Litt.D.(Hobart), D.C.L. (University of the South)
Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michigan.

Moral Validity: A Study in Platonism . . . .63

Rupert Clendon Lodge, M.A.(Oxon)

Professor of Logic and History of Philosophy in the Uni-
versity of Manitoba.

Plato and the Poet's eiSooXa H^

A. S. Ferguson, M.A. (St. Andrews, Oxon)

Professor of Mental Philosophy in Queen's University.

Some Reflections on Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy . . 158

G. S. Brett, M.A. (Oxon)

Professor of Philosophy in the University of Toronto.

The Function of the Phantasm in St. Thomas Aquinas . 179

H. Carr, B.A., LL.D. (Toronto)

Superior of St. Michael's College in Toronto.

The Development of the Psychology of Maine de Biran . 204

N. J. Symons, M.A. (Oxon)

Assistant Professor of [Philosophy in Queen's University.

A Plea for Eclecticism 254

H. W. Wright, B.A., Ph.D. (Cornell)

Professor of Philosophy and Social Ethics in the Univer-
sity of Manitoba.

Some Present-Day Tendencies in Philosophy . . . 275

J. M. MacEachran, M.A. (Queen's), Ph.D. (Leipzig)

Professor of Philosophy in the University of Alberta.

Evolution and Personality 298

J. G. Hume, A.M. (Harvard) , Ph.D.(Freiburp)

Professor of Philosophy in the University of Toronto

Emergent Realism 331

J. Muirhead, M.A.( Glasgow, Oxon, Birmingham), LL.D. (Glas-
gow)

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy m the University of

Birmingham.

Appendix 343

Bibliography of Publications by Dr. John Watson.

Note

The first two essays may be taken as introductory. They
treat of the philosophical background in Scotland and on this
Continent fifty years ago, when Dr. Watson came from
Glasgow to his chair in Queen's University.

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

Meditatio LaicL

The philosophy of Edward Caird was an offshoot from the
great systems of thought developed by Kant and Hegel, but
as taught by himself and a group of eminent academic teachers
who had been his scholars, it had its own formulas, its own
characteristic applications and phrases, and of course its own
way of encountering the new problems which are always
coming up in philosophy. It had even, at least in the case of
Caird and Watson, a well-defined public, whose needs and
receptivities counted for something in the form which their
teaching took. It had a true organic relation to its environ-
ment in this respect. A certain sobriety of speculation was
impressed upon it by the need of adjusting its highest thought
to a watchful and inquiring public which was not confined to
academic circles. Even its language, apart from the neces-
sities of technical exposition, tended towards the plainer usage,
as something that was meant to reach a wider public. Caird
and Watson were great Kantian scholars and profoundly
influenced by the ideas of Hegel, but their thinking was
moulded in a form which had little of the severely scholastic
character of German metaphysic. They accustomed them-
selves to use a language which was as readable as that of
Locke or Hume, only that it carried more of the natural
refinement and complexity of modern thought.

My idea in this article is to give readers who may not be
very metaphysical a definite idea of the work Caird did and
the way in which he did it, and partly also of the place it has

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

in the culture ol" our time. I would like also to give some idea
of the intellectual and spiritual effort it involved. It is already
saying a good deal when one says that Caird laid down the
ground-lines of the work of the school. That means a fabric
which has risen from some depth of thought and has been in
many ways truly adjusted to the needs and the pressure of
the time. His system was no pure product like Spinoza's of a
solitary thinker reacting on world-thought alone. There was
that element in it, of course, as there must be in anything
worth calling a philosophy, but it bears in a greater degree
the marks of immediate contact with its environment, contact
which in the deepest sense was not unsympathetic, though on
the surface there was a good deal of quiet struggle and
conflict. But on the whole Caird's thought is conciliatory,
benevolent, optimistic, and has but little suggestion of the
work of a thinker who is struggling in an alien or opposed
world, only of a world to be redeemed from illusions and
elevated above its natural self.

His environment in his earlier days was decidedly theo-
logical. He grew up in the atmosphere of religious excitement
and discussion created by the great secession of the Free
Church. The eloquence of Chalmers and Guthrie and of his
own brother, John Caird, already famous in the pulpit, and
of other eminent preachers of the day were common, almost
central, topics of discourse in the ordinary Scotch family of
the middle-class. He himself had meant to enter the church,
and during his undergraduate career had been studying
Divinity, Church History and Hebrew at Glasgow and
St. Andrews. In any case it was almost the only way in those
days for one who looked forward to the contemplative life of
the scholar and thinker, outside the two great English univer-
sities at least. In Scotland university appointments were then
rare events, the Arts curriculum hardly requiring more than

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

nine or ten professors, generally attaining longevity. The
few assistants employed occupied only a temporary or
hopelessly inferior position. Caird seems to have found
nothing in the theological halls to awaken a deeper interest
in him. The Higher Criticism had not yet begun to perturb
the Presbyteries, and the professors were mostly drowsing
comfortably over the old lines of Apologetics. Caird would
occasionally speak of their grotesque eccentricities — that
Professor of Church History, for example, who began his
lectures with the Creation and ended them with a fantastic
description of Og, King of Bashan.' The Universities are
sensitive enough now to all currents of thought and even to
popular opinion, but in that day professional theology in
Scotland saw no movement on the waters worth noticing,
such phenomena as Mill and Carlyle being evidently regarded
as disturbances in an alien outer world.

But outside there was life enough in the religious conscious-
ness, even a very exceptional vigour of life. The great
Disruption of 1843 had stirred Scotland as no event of that
kind is likely ever to stir it again. The question at issue was
one of independence in church government, a question which,
when once raised, was likely to move, as it had moved before,
a people who loved their preachers to stern and decisive action.
On this occasion it seemed to call back into being something
of the spirit of Covenanting and Cameronian days. The new
Free Church was born in a swell of enthusiasm which left its
mark on Scottish life for many a day. Naturally the new
church took with it the more fervent and militant type of
evangelicism amongst the ministers, and for a generation at
least there was a well defined difference of tone in the pulpits
of the old church and the new. The mass of the following
contained the true leaven of the old Scotch spirit. It was

^Life of Edward Caird, by Jones and Muirhead.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

rather hard and formalistic in temper, always something of
a laughing-stock to the laxer Southern temperament on
account of its dogmatic intensity, its rigid Sabbatarianism and
its contemptuous rejection of aesthetic accessories in worship.
Scotchmen of that day will still remember types like Dr. Begg
of Edinburgh who conducted the sternest of campaigns against
the introduction of the organ into church services; 'a kist of
whusstles was an abomination in the house of God.' In its
later phases — under the leadership of Principal Rainy — it
lived perhaps too much on Disestablishment politics, but at its
best it was a vital reinforcement of Scotch character, shaping
its spirit in a very firm mould. Its unquenchable faith in the
very letter of the word gave a kind of glorification to the
poorest existence that is not quite replaced by anything I see
now, though there is a wider and more active interest in
political life. The shoemaker in the little town or burgh who
read his Bible and perhaps Josephus' History of the Jews, had
the emotion, perfect at least as a sensation, of contact with
the Absolute. In all the churches, old and new, the services
were profoundly reverent and on special occasions, such as
Communion-day, surcharged with a weight of spiritual feeling
which pervaded every look and attitude. Yet the Free Kirk
service had a tense quality of its own which is only describable
as the superior consciousness of the elect. I remember when
Principal Rainy came down — in the midst of a fierce Disestab-
lishment campaign — to preach in the old Free Kirk of the
Scotch burgh where I lived. He was neither a Guthrie nor a
Caird in the pulpit, but preacher and congregation reached
heights all the same on invisible wings. I belonged to the
older church and felt very much as if I had got into a hillside
meeting of Peden's. His text actually was, 'Ye are the salt
of the earth', and the application did not need to be, and was
not made too obvious.

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

Of course there were plenty of influences at work even
then modifying the severer form of tradition. There always
had been in a political and intellectual sense, from the great
days of Jeffrey and the Edinburgh Revieiv. And new influ-
ences, of a more spiritually alterative kind, were beginning to
penetrate. In literature Matthew Arnold and Clough were
giving a fine, if somewhat plaintive, expression to the spiritual
unrest of the time. The poetry of Browning was a great
liberating influence and that of Wordsworth broadened and
calmed, but neither, though the older poet was at his end, had
come into its full rights with the general public in the fifties
and sixties. Mrs. Browning with her vivid flashes of feeling and
sympathy with social wrong and suffering, was still very
generally considered a better poet than her husband. The
great stimulating forces of that time, for thoughtful youth
especially, were Tennyson and Carlyle. The former with his
'there lives more faith in honest doubt' and general temperate
Anglican recognition of the claims both of the new and the
old, had a wide appeal, all the more that his poetic form was
a perfect popular expression of the new aesthetic chords that
had passed into poetry with Keats and the aesthetic school.
But the great intellectual stimulant of that time was Carlyle
with his new idealistic treatment of life and fundamental
questioning of the whole social fabric. The stirring pages of
his French Revolution, the new and profound form of his
biographic essay, connecting the surface of achievement with
the deep stream of spiritual life in the man and reaching thus
a fuller form of judgement, the vigorous criticism of society
in Sartor Resartus for its lack of moral unity and its laissez-
fairey and its commercialized spirit which had turned indus-
trial life into a fierce scramble for wealth and made its religion
a convention; all that, even partially understood and assimi-

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

lated amidst an undiscerning professional criticism from the
Reviews, made Carlyle one of the cults of studious youth.

Caird had been, in early days, according to Professor Nichol,
one of a circle of 'flaming worshippers.' 'The greatest literary
influence of my student days,' Caird says of Carlyle in an
address which he gave in later years to the students at
Glasgow. That address is an ample recognition of Carlyle as
a spiritual and moral force. In his calm judicial way he notes
with unfailing discernment the fundamental qualities in
Carlyle's work as a thinker and historian. No philosophic
'universal' in it, at any rate, is missed; his power of pre-
senting the world as the manifestation of spirit, his new
interpretation of history 'by what was almost a new kind of
insight' into the inner forces of life, his true dramatic power
of presentation, etc. He can even say that Carlyle, passing
beyond the categories of ordinary historians, gave us that
'ultimate interpretation of events by that moral necessity
according to which, as Schiller said, the history of the world
is the judgement of the world (das Welt- Gericht) .' Never-
theless, as Jones in his chapter on Caird notices, there is a
certain reluctance in the appreciation. Even Caird's mag-
nanimity could not perhaps — at this period — overlook
Carlyle's disparaging phrases about metaphysical 'air-castles,
in which no knowledge would come to dwell.' In particular
he baulked at parts of Carlyle's social criticism. The denunci-
atory manner of the modem prophet and his terribly candid
way of referring to decent make-believes and pretentious
official mediocrity were very alien to Caird's temperament.
Caird was a true Liberal also, with all the optimism of
Liberalism in the seventies and eighties, and Carlyle's con-
temptuous treatment of the great Liberal principles, extension
of the suff'rage, the use of the ballot-box, etc., as machinery
which had in itself no virtue to produce good or wise govern-

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

ment, while it contained a truth, was to Caird only the half
truth which lies in negativity. Even Carlyle's criticism of
Laissez-faire, which time was to show was a whole truth,
would not find any sympathetic reception from a Liberal of
the eighties. There was a cool period therefore in his attitude
towards Carlyle. But, for all that, the unfailing sense of
justice and the intellectual insight of Caird make the address
a very comprehensive estimate. Later he warmed again
considerably, I think, in this direction, recognizing how much
akin after all, below all technical differences of thought,
Carlyle's insistence on the spiritual values of life was to his
own. His later writing is full of appreciative quotations from
Carlyle.

One thing Carlyle did for him as for many others. He
introduced him to German literature, the literature of Schiller,
Goethe, Lessing and Herder, with its freedom of thought and
new spiritual attitude. It meant a deeper and more compre-
hensive view of life than was to be found in the Diderots,
D'Alemberts, Voltaires and Fontenelles who, though they
might be very suspect to the British public in general, were
still really the classic names in European literature — outside
at least of what was then called Belles Lettres. Carlyle here
had rung the bell for a new era with his usual vigour, and did
really 'change the signals' for thinking British youth of that
time. Caird, indeed, while he was still an undergraduate,
went to Germany to see for himself how things were there.
His attention there was chiefly given, according to Dr.
Watson,'- not to philosophy but to literature, especially to
Goethe. What Goethe then meant to men is finely reflected in
many a page of Caird, Matthew Arnold and others of that
time.

'■^The Idealism of Edward Caird, Philosophical Review, March, 1909.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

When he went to Oxford in 1860, Caird came into close
contact of course with new currents of thought. Oxford was
a meeting place for them all, Philosophical Radicalism, Broad
Churchism, ^Esthetic Classicism, Tractarianism, or the relics
of it. Caird's circle included, in its larger circumference at
least, men like Bryce, Pater, Addington Symonds, Green,
Dicey, Pater, Maurice, Nettleship ; his tutor was Jovvett, whose
finely comprehensive spirit was equally at home with Paul or
Plato or Thucydides. It was a high type of culture with fine
moral and social poise, Puritan reserves of self-control, and a
profound response to Greek thought, all of which obviously
helped to determine Caird's course and bearing in the world.
In most there was a decided and in some a very active interest
in philosophical and religious speculation, but it generally
rested on some characteristically Anglican form of com-
promise in thought, at bottom rather inconsistent. Caird was
seeking for something more fundamental and does not seem
ever to have given much attention to the philosophizing of
Maurice, or Mansel, or the followers of Coleridge any more
than he did to Sir William Hamilton's. The philosophic
radicalism of Mill and Grote lay more outside, but was still
the strongest current of the time. Caird could not approve
of its philosophic basis and principles but he always was
much in sympathy with its ideals of progress and practical
reform, the extension of the advantages of civilization to the
people, free education, women's rights, removal of clerical
tests and restrictions and the like. The principle of Utility
might be philosophically defective and often tending in
practice to a deadly displacement of higher interests, but it
was a very effective weapon in the fight for reform. The
economic side of it was successfully pressed by the Free Trade
School of Manchester and became practically the oflficial policy
of Liberalism. It was a genuine English product from the

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

philosophic point of view, a practical English form of the
French Enlightenment. Caird had much respect for its clear,
logical, rationalistic mode of discussion in men like John
Stuart Mill, Spencer and Huxley, and perhaps a thread or two
from its discipline passed into him this way. But its philo-
sophy was an empiricism which cut at the very roots of the
religious consciousness, and Caird, for whom the religious
consciousness was simply the necessary synthesis of all ethical
and ideal values in life, had to consider upon what principles
it could best be defended. He found his chief help here in the
idealistic philosophy of Germany. The influence of Jowett and
in particular that of Green seem to have been decisive in this
direction. The latter at this period was a sort of fellow-
worker with him, a philosophic brother-in-arms in the fight.
But, as Dr. Watson notes,' while Green began by a vigorous
destructive attack on the principles of the empirical school,
Caird with a characteristic avoidance of polemics began by
an exposition of the philosophy of Kant which sought to show
that Kant's cautious and critical analysis of human reason
involved principles and points of view which led to Hegel's
more idealistic view of the world. It was a much more signi-
ficant work than such 'Examinations' usually are, perhaps
not so much in the patient thoroughness with which
he carried it out, as in the way in which he did it and the
purpose he made it serve. For it constituted a sort of double
base for his own work, and it was the bridge over which the
whole school travelled to the higher form of Idealism.

'We are conscious of ourselves in relation to and in dis-
tinction from a world and therefore of a unity which is beyond
this distinction.'

'Idealism of Edward Caird, Philosophical Review, March, 1909.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

'The parts of the intelligible world mean nothing except
in the whole and the whole means nothing except as contri-
buting to the parts.'

These are typical sentences in which Caird was accustomed
to state his fundamental position. Of course, it is in the
lowest or simplest form of experience, the act of perception,
that most difficulty is encountered. There is a world of
ambiguity lurking in any way of presenting such a truth as
'Things exist for us only as known.' To begin with, it seems
to involve that distinction which he and Green drew so sharply
between the consciousness of the individual as the empirical
growth which psychology chiefly studies and the consciousness
which manifests itself as the universal reason or mind 'within
which all objects of knowledge are contained', as he wrote in
the early article on Metaphysic in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Green in his Prolegomena to Ethics, treated this unity with
some boldness of language, as the eternal self -consciousness of
the world which maintained 'the relations of fact' in the time-
less unity of knowledge, and demonstrated in a brief but very
vigorous and independent way the reality of its existence in
the ordinary experience of life. Caird's process of approach
here was long and elaborate, and shows the thorough manner
in which he had sought to establish the truth for himself and
the caution with which he introduced the new Idealism to his
public. Taking Kant's system with its epistemological method
as a basis, he follows its procedure step by step, explaining
the growth and connexion of the ideas, criticizing, modifying
and correcting, picking up deftly the filaments of thought, the
unconscious dialectic, as he calls it, in Kant by which he can
lead the whole up to his own Hegelian point of view. Kant's
severe severance of scientific from moral truth had led him to
present the truths of higher experience first as incapable of
being connected with the world of fact in scientific form, and

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

then to show what validity they might have from the point of
view of a higher Reason. His system was thus an excellent
methodology by which Caird could bring the problems of
philosophy and the question of the limits of human reason
before his public. Hegel's manner of presenting philosophy
and his dialectical method were then impossible. Hegel was
then, in spite of Hutchison Stirling's work, or perhaps partly
because of it, a doubtful kind of Magus to the Scotch mind
generally, and any affiliation with him then exposed a teacher
at least to the danger of being misunderstood. Hegel's highly
technical language, too, the very last word of a bold idealizing
thought, was hardly fitted to win a hearing from a public
accustomed to the comparatively plain speech of Hamilton
and Mill. Kant's language, it is true, was technical enough
also, but still his system was built up, so to speak, from the
ordinary consciousness of things, and below the technical
surface its general articulations and divisions were those of
ordinary logic. In any case I doubt if there was much dis-
position in Caird to use the Hegelian dialectic. He could and
did use it freely enough, as you see in his Letters, by way of
short-hand illustration or argument, and necessarily, in his
criticism of Bradley's system. But he was really nearer Kant
in temper and intellectual ways, cautious and critical with all
his idealism, and very careful always, it seems to me, in his
way of expressing and encircling the great truth of the
ultimate unity of being and knowing.

I have heard a good student of Caird's say that his Critical
Philosophy of Kant was a harder book to read than the original
Critiques. It is a work requiring very close thinking and
the technical apparatus of Kant is at times oppressive. But
even for a layman like myself there are brilliantly clear and
comprehensive chapters in it, presentations from the Kantian
point of view of man's relation to the universe, such as the

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

chapters on Teleological Judgement and Natural Religion ; with
tine supplementary criticism from Caird showing how near
Kant came to a view of Nature and History 'as the mani-
festation of a divine reason, trust in whom turns morality into
religion.' Modern refinements of the idea of purpose,
doctrines of 'conation' or 'satisfaction', or of the uniformity
of nature as a guarantee of moral reality, of course lie outside
the point of view, but the problem of reconciling the natural
and spiritual aspects of man's being is brought fully before us
with all the weight of thought and logical clearness charac-
teristic of Caird. I can enjoy even the excursions with Pauline
theology, which look a little old-fashioned now, but were very
much in the mode of that time, one of Jowett's own lines of
work, and relevant enough to Caird's conception of philosophy
as 'a vindication of the religious consciousness.' The chapter
on the Moral Will, Muirhead says, is not only abreast of the
times but still, in some ways, a little ahead of them. It is very
likely. The Moral Will is a very old thing, and Caird was as
likely to see anything essential about it as most psychologists.

But though the Critical Philosophy/ of Kant is Caird's
foundational work and a notable landmark, it seems to me, in
British philosophy, it is in his small work on Hegel that his
philosophical idealism finds free expression. Kant, as Caird
held, had shown that the world is dependent for its objectivity
on thought, but as he never got so far as to regard all the
elements in knowledge as a unity, as a whole which could
determine reality, the world in his system remained in phe-
nomenal contrast with reality. In Hegel this separation of the
elements of knowledge was corrected and the idea that the
principle or character of the whole manifests itself in our
knowledge received its clearest and fullest development from
him. He showed Thought in the full concreteness of its move-
ment as at one and the same time the distinction and the

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

relation of things. Nothing exists in bare identity but
contains from an absolute point of view its own negation and
passage into something else. The principle of contradiction
took a new meaning as a positive, dynamic aspect of thought
and gave a logical form to the essential unity of things. The
irreducible abstractions and antinomies of Kant disappeared.
Thought, as Caird was fond of saying, could heal its own
wounds. At any rate it got new wings for speculation; the
merely ideal possibilities took on the form of reality. For
Thought here meant not simply the function in consciousness
which relates things and organizes experience into a systematic
whole, but a consciousness in which the self and the world are
bound together in a form of unity which involves the ultimate
unity, the infinite element, in the consciousness of the finite.
It is a difficult conception to reason out to the end in the face
of the ordinary realistic consciousness, a conquest of idealistic
thought at the height and in all the pride of its vigour in the
three great successors of Kant. But the higher the form of
experience is which you interrogate, the more clearly does
some essential truth in it appear.* The newer Idealism which
denies it, has by fnevitable logic to deny some of the most
essential elements in our higher experience. For Caird it was
a central principle, well worth the life's work he devoted to
establishing it and interpreting it in the most important
relations to experience, from its ambiguously simple form in
perceptual judgement to its clearer forms in the moral con-
sciousness and in the historical evolution of thought. He did
not underrate the difficulties, he says in one of his letters.
One of them was the difficulty of reconciling the conception of

••You can see Dr. Watson's firm loj^ical way of leading up to 'the
idea of an absolute subject-object' in chap, viii of his Outlitie of Philo-
sophy, and compare the comprehensive third chapter in The Interpreta-
tion of Religious Experience, Part II. .Muirhead has also a careful
chapt<^r on the subject (Metaphysical Foundations) in the Life of Caird.
See also his essay, The Doctrine of the Concept, for its loprical aspect in
Judgement.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

God as manifesting Himself in development 'with a conception
of Him as eternally complete in Himself.' There is an 'ulti-
mate antinomy' for him in the timelessness of the Absolute.
So he writes to Miss Talbot. He does not seem to rely much
here on the Hegelian dialectic of the Trinity and is evidently
seeking for some logic of his own. In his treatment of
Plotinus and Neo-Platonism in the later chapters of The
Evolution of Theology, vol. ii, he seems to say all
he has to say on the subject. Also on 'the maintenance
of the individual life' he does not see his way to 'any positive
conclusion from philosophical principles,' but tells his friend
to 'wait in tranquillity and confidence in the justice of God,
who has not made the world for nothing, or lighted the fires
of spiritual life in order to produce nothing but ashes.' His
letters to Miss Talbot are interesting as showing the way in
which his Christian consciousness troubled the waters. He is
candid enough to her on the Resurrection and such questions ;
a firm Kantian in his treatment of the temporal historical
element in Christianity. He disclaimed 'cocksureness' in
general for his philosophy, but it is evident he felt great
security in his high doctrine of the self-consciousness and
what it involved. There is almost a religious exaltation in
the way in which he states it in his little book on Hegel — on
this side at any rate there was a true aftmity between them :

'The essential unity of all things with each other and with
the mind which knows them, is the adamantine circle, within
which the strife of opposites is waged, and which their
utmost violence of conflict cannot break. No fact, which is
in its nature incapable of being explained or reduced to
law — no law which it is impossible ever to recognize as
essentially related to the intelligence that apprehends it —
can be admitted to exist in the intelligible universe. No
absolute defeat of the spirit — no defeat that does not contain

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

the elements of a greater triumph — can possibly take place
in a world which is itself nothing but the realization of
spirit.'

In Caird's volume of Essays on Literature and Philosophy,
there is one on The Problem of Philosophy at the Present
Time. It was originally an address to the Philosophical
Society at Edinburgh delivered in 1881. In it you can see
very clearly the great pains he took to present his philosophy
to the public, so that it could take hold of their traditional
ways of thought and lift them to a higher level. It is also a
complete expression of the point of view from which he
regarded and organized his work as a philosopher. The point
of view which he kept before his hearers was that philosophy
'must to-day be a critical re-construction of belief.' The
harmony of our spiritual life, he told them, had been broken.
Many of our scientific men had come to think, even if with
reluctance, that the only real knowledge we had 'belongs to
the context of a finite experience' and that all religious and
metaphysical efi'orts to reach beyond the finite were attempts
to think the unknowable. Even the literature of the time,
much of it, gave the impression that such ideas were illusory.
It was impossible in such discord, he declared, that our lives
should be what human lives have sometimes been — impossible
that we should rise to that sense of the infinite resources of
the spirit that moves us, out of which the highest achieve-
ments of men at all times have sprung. The age of the simple
intuitions of faith is past and some kind of philosophic reflec-
tion is needed to recover the harmony of life. And he
illustrates his view with one of those large similitudes which
he could apply very happily and which was in this case very
well chosen for the audience: 'As the builders of the Second
Temple had to work with arms by their side, so, in our day,
those who seek either to maintain, or to replace, the old

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Christian synthesis of life, must provide themselves with the
weapons of philosophy.' We have a right, he tells them, to
begin our task of criticism and reconstruction with a faith in
the great work achieved in and by the spirit of man in the
past; it can have value only as a continuation of that work.
'The hope of mankind for the future must be a vain illusion
unless it can reasonably be based on a deep reverence for the
past.'

His audience at Edinburgh would be a fairly critical one.
The Edinburgh Philosophical Society was a great institution.
There would be many well-known men at an inaugural meet-
ing, some of more than local reputation, men like Flint and
perhaps Cairns from the theological halls, judges of Session,
university professors, lawyers and doctors for whom Edin-
burgh was famous, merchants of the thoughtfully religious
type then common enough in Scotland, untarnished orthodoxy
that sat under Candlish or Begg and moderates from 'little
Macgregor of the Tron' ; and no doubt a good many old pupils
of Hamilton, with decided opinions about a philosophy which
pretended to a knowledge of the Unconditioned; or of
Professor Campbell Eraser, a quiet thoughtful man, whose
position was not well understood, except that in general he
defended the claims of 'the national philosophy of Scotland*
against Kantian and Hegelian ideas ; a fairly critical audience
and sure to be very attentive to hear what the new apostle of
the mysteries of German Transcendentalism had to say on
the great problem. The old leaven was still strong enough in
the Scotch spirit; but in the eighties the new movement in
thought had begun to make itself evident. Within the Free
Church itself the hard core had begun to expand and blossom
in intellectual strength and breadth, and after the fierce
heresy fight over Robertson Smith's higher exegesis, its new
school of theologians showed great vigour and comprehensive-

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

ness of reaction on the new thought and on the whole
continued to keep in the lead.

Of course, Caird could not unfold in an hour's discourse the
details of his system, but he manages to give a good general
indication of his position and to combine it with some fine
criticism of agnostic Science, sheathed however in a broad and
sympathetic recognition of its truth-seeking spirit. The
patient labour of men like Mill and Darwin, he said, was
really 'an idealization of interests and objects which would
eventually be a contribution to the idealism of life.' It was
at this point that he made his criticisms of Carlyle and Ruskin
as indeed prophets but with a denunciatory form of utterance
which in Caird's view was no longer suitable to our hopeful
and scientific age. Ruskin, if I remember rightly, had been
at Edinburgh some time before, telling them that their archi-
tects did not know the first thing about windows.

The fundamental principle of Caird's philosophy was rather
a difficult one to put before a popular audience. He presents
it very judiciously, sometimes in phrases well known to his
students: 'To rise from the finite to the infinite would be
impossible, if the consciousness of the infinite were not already
involved in the consciousness of the finite and developed along
with it'; sometimes translating it into the language of reli-
gious experience : 'If we cannot, in the sense I have indicated,
know God, we cannot know anything." He even ventures on
a brief technical explanation of the Kantian epistemology or
theory of knowledge, bringing out of it the result that 'the
objective synthesis of religion' was 'no illusion of a finite mind
trying to stretch itself beyond its limits.' Hegel is not men-
tioned, but there is a clear expression of his point of view in
a reference to 'the idea of truth as the ultimate unity of being
and knowing.' Also there is the definite statement that philo-

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

sophy in dealing alike with the secular and religious conscious-
ness, *is discharged from the absurd and impossible feat of
finding its way into a transcendent region beyond all
consciousness and experience', a sentence which would clear
away any ambiguity in his use of the term 'infinite.' He sums
up at the end in a passage which expresses perfectly the spirit
and range of his work as a philosopher:

'Philosophy may therefore begin its work by a vindication
of the religious consciousness — the consciousness of the
infinite — as presupposed in that very consciousness of the
finite, which at present often claims to exclude it altogether
. . . And having thus taught us to regard the consciousness
of the infinite as no mere illusion, but as the consciousness
of a real object, an Absolute, a God, who has been revealing
Himself in and to man in all ages, philosophy must go on
to consider the history of religion, and indeed the whole
history of man as founded on religion, as the progressive
development of this consciousness.'

A glance at the resemblance of the speculative and religious
situation in the time of Plato and the Sophists, and a fine
illustration from Goethe's Faust, gave a very characteristic
colouring to his address. There are many traces in it of the
diflEiculties to be encountered in introducing a philosophy of
the Absolute to the Scotland of that time. Some might even
think that Caird had here abandoned the position of the
philosophic truth-seeker for that of the Christian Apologist.
But for him religion did not mean any dogmatic creed but the
moral harmonizing of man's life by a view of it which brought
all its elements into an intelligible unity. It is true he did
not conceive philosophy as an abstract science of being,
observing strict 'ethical neutrality' in its researches. The
ethical interests of life also are part of the cosmic experience.

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

In man the ethical interest is not a special product of this or
that group of humanity co-operating against other groups.
At the very least it is as fundamental as the instinct in a
species to maintain its being, bi suo esse perseverare, and in
man this appears as a deep-seated consciousness of the claims
of the whole of which he is a part, a sense that he must act
with it and for it. From this point of view Mr. Russell's
dictum that 'the presence of these ethical and religious motives
have been a hindrance to philosophy' ^ seems very disputable.

No doubt Caird's point of view tended to make him concen-
trate his efforts on the great ends of philosophy. To what
extent modern psychology could really affect his logical sub-
structure is no question for me. If he did not give much
attention to some of its modern developments, it must have
been that he considered his general position to lie beyond
them. Either they were irrelevant to the question of mind,
or they belonged to a doubtful half-imaginative construction
of its growth in the individual. Caird owed much to Hegel
as regards the manner of realizing some great truths and
stating them in a philosophical form, but one must not forget
that the truths themselves were in a sense his own, felt from
the beginning in early studies from Plato to Carlyle, in his
own life and in the history of man. As he wrote to his friend,
'the real evolution of history points to and guarantees a certain
result.' {Life, p. 182). I imagine it was possible for him to
regard the technical apparatus of proof, if need be, as a
scaffolding which might be destroyed and leave the structure
intact. But his critical examination of Kant shows the pains
with which his technical system with its background of Kant
and Hegel was articulated, and it certainly had the kind of
completeness and breadth which could form a school. No
doubt his personality did much to bring it into being.

'In his book Scientific Method in Philosophy.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

(f>popifjia)TaTO'i Kill SiKaioTUTiy; — soundest in judgement and
justest in will — were the words which his disciples,
a numerous and eminent company, placed on the memorial
for him in the old class-room at Glasgow. Platform testi-
monies are not too often worth listening to, but the speeches
on that memorial day are really good evidence, not only of
some Socratic features in Caird's character, but also that there
was something in the system he taught which had stood the
strain of time and experience. On the whole I think it lay
in the ease with which his doctrine could be related in general
to the ideals of humanity and to what is great in the past, and
in the way in which he showed it could be so related both for
sympathetic interpretation and for criticism. The personal
quality entered his system in this way, especially in his expo-
sition of Christian ideals. Both he and Dr. Watson use the
language of religious experience very freely as an aid to
metaphysical thought. The system is not necessarily rigid in
this respect, but it has a natural capacity of sustaining all
reasonable values. Yet it is well to remember that broadly
as Caird cast his net, it did not include men like Denney or
Patrick. There was a good deal of the old leaven which
responded faintly, if at all, to his teaching. Somewhere in
the nineties I spent an afternoon with Denney, who was then
pastor of the second Free Church in the small Scotch burgh
I have mentioned. He was reading Plato's Laws, he told me.
He had a class every week in which he lectured to some older
women — one of them the strictest Calvinist I ever knew — with
great acceptance, on the Lord's Prayer, sentence by sentence.
It was a combination of voluntary work very characteristic
of him.

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

That the world is an intelligible system and not merely an
aggregate of things which can be so treated by thought, and
that its reality realizes itself actively in thought both in
immediate experience and as completing itself in the process
of civilization, was a general position in which Caird no doubt
felt himself secure. Yet it was natural that there should
be some commotion in the camp when Bradley's great book
Appearance and Reality came out in 1891. It was a kind of
attack from within very different from the coarse dualism of
the old Empirical schools. There had perhaps been notes of a
change, in Green's way of emphasizing the timeless conscious-
ness as beyond the form of Thought, but in Bradley it took
definite form as a system of a cosmic Absolute which is beyond
Thought as it is beyond everything else, yet embraces all that is
done or thought or felt in experience as an underlying and
unknown reality. This Absolute Reality, since it is the thing,
the one thing, that really is, is logically assumed to be perfect
at least in the sense of self-consistency. Therefore, although
strictly we have no knowledge of it, it may be conceived as
supplying criteria of self-consistency, self-subsistency and
complete individuality by which the appearances in the finite
world may be estimated. In the finite world these criteria
have as their correlatives comprehensiveness and coherence;
and while from the point of view of the Absolute, the whole
finite world as we know it, falls short alike of truth and
reality, no possible truth being 'quite true,' yet appearance
yields a relative truth, degrees indeed of truth and reality.
The way in which Mr. Bradley applies the above criteria to
measure or value the fundamental aspects of our knowledge
is a new and in many ways suggestive analysis of experience,
and does much to deepen our sense of the way in which it is

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

organized. Many truths even which are not precisely new
have the light of a new system upon them. But the general
result may fairly be considered sceptical and as taking the
nerve out of knowledge. The finite worM shows itself as a
mass of self-contradictions, because Thought itself is viewed
as a system of relating things which cannot stand analysis, a
relational form which never exhausts its basis and never
reaches reality. His Absolute is an inert unknowable, which
as such can never appear 'in the scale of existence' and there-
fore negates all its truth. Therefore Mr. Bradley has often to
express himself in a rather pragmatist manner, from the
point of view of the practical needs of life, and can tell us:
'Whatever ideas really are required in practice by the highest
religion are true',^ a sentence which makes Mr. Schiller dance
a sort of barbaric war-dance over Idealism in extremis.
Rather irrelevantly, for the qualifying terms in that sentence
mean something and behind all that is Mr. Bradley's ultimate
intellectual standard which is not absolutely negative. It
permits him to assert relatively at least the higher values:
'Higher, truer, more beautiful, better and more real — these,
on the whole, count in the universe as they count for us. And
existence on the whole must correspond with our ideas.'
(Appearance and Reality, p. 550). One feels the weight of
the system behind the words.

Caird found Bradley's book rather puzzling at first, as you
may read in his Letters, and I remember some one telling me,
with due reverence for the fact, that Mackenzie — a great
scholar — was struggling with its mysteries. The new point
of view was strange and disconcerting at first, but it is curious
how such things unfold themselves with time into com-
parative plainness. Caird was inclined to regard the theory
'as a new Spinozism.' But it does not somehow give us the

'''Essays on Truth and Logic, p. 433.
22

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

large tranquillizing effect of Spinoza. It is Spinoza's Absolute
with the sense of all the antinomies and discords of life in the
foreground, decidedly increased instead of reduced, as in the
Spinozistic simplification. And yet it leaves out of considera-
tion just what is of most value to us in those finite discords,
the historical process, the long struggle of man to realize his
ideals, the evolution of humanity, or at any rate it deprives
it of meaning. The idea of progress and the significance of
human effort and achievement are greatly embarrassed in this
system of the Absolute. Its timeless front transforms them
and the conception of Humanity as a whole into mere appear-
ance, with a low degree even of coherence. That the idea of
good or excellency in the whole must be different from what
is good or excellent for the part is an idea which brings
disaster with it, when that Whole is conceived as a blank
unknown. Progress as an end becomes *a paradox,' and the
poet's dream of a 'divine far-off event' a poet's nonsense.
Man becomes 'the squirrel in the cage' revolving round the
circle of his imperfections, and really, if I must choose, I would
rather have the Absolute there. And I must admit I could
never on this system extract much satisfaction from that
vision of the Heaven of 'all reality' which Bradley describes
for us in Chapter XV:

'It would be experience entire, containing all elements in
harmony. Thought would be present in a higher intuition;
will would be there where the ideal had become reality; and
beauty and pleasure and feeling would live on in this total
fulfilment. Every flame of passion, chaste or carnal, would
still burn in the Absolute unquenched and unabridged, a
note absorbed in the harmony of higher bliss.'
This reads almost like the exaltation of St. Bernard in De
Contemptu Muyidi.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

As Neale translates it :

And there from care released,

The song of them that triumph,

The joy of them that feast.
We are all mystics evidently, steering our craft over that
ocean of fog and glancing lights which Kant pictures in his
chapter on noumena. Caird also with his 'adamantine circle.'
But on the whole that Hegelian light is the clearest break in
the clouds. I understand that Mr. Bradley means that Heaven
is an ideal fact now and always for us, only that we do not
realize it and never can as finite beings realize it. I see too that
some intuitionists, like Sophocles and Emerson and Barrie,
must on the whole, by the criteria of comprehensiveness and
individuality, come nearer to it in their being than most meta-
physicians. But after that — ^the transmutation and re-blend-
ing in the Absolute ; the will, the pleasure, the flame of passion
in the Timeless! I cannot put all these together on this
system, even if a kind of cosmic verity shines through it.

The logic of the new Idealism differs from Caird's episte-
mological system in recognizing a contact with an
independent reality and a consequent severance between
Thought and Reality, which involves a new treatment of the
former in order to prove a correspondence between the two.
'Truth and thought,' says Mr. Bradley bluntly, 'are not the
thing itself but of it and about it.' The question is thoroughly
treated in the works of Mr. Bosanquet also, with a rich devel-
opment of metaphysical logic. After conceding much to the
new realistic psychology, he knits the severed elements
together again in an 'objective world' in which the nature of
knowledge is to be regarded as a physical and mental double,
'the distinction between reality as it is and as we apprehend
it being after all ineradicable.^ So he can maintain an ideal-

''Mind and its Objects, p. 48.
24

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

istic aspect of Thought as an organic system of knowledge,
even if it is, as he says somewhere, an 'artificial' construction.
He insists on the self-contradictions and 'want of stability' in
all that we apprehend as immediate facts, and exalts
Thought's constitutive power and metaphysical penetration of
reality in language that would suit Caird. It is not only that
which constructs and maintains the fabric of experience, but
it has an 'intuitive aspect in which it remains within itself
secure in the great structures of its creation.' Its ultimate
tendency is not to generalize but to constitute a world. . . .
There are concrete forms of thought which are equivalent to
'a creative nisus' "^ But, for all that, from the metaphysical
point of view, thought is severed from Reality ; 'the contents
of sense-perception are not transparent to finite thought, and
so far it is a linking between contents which are not a unity
for it.' Once made, that break, Caird used to insist, can never
be made good. His technical criticism of the position may be
given in Hegelian short hand, as it actually was given in a
letter, I think, to Jones: 'The Other which Thought posits,
is its own Other' but generally he continues calmly to encircle
it in the wider epistemological treatment.

Mr. Bosanquet's Absolute then is formally the same as
Mr. Bradley's. But it gets a more flexible and genial aspect
in his hands. He emphasizes its connexion with the finite
more. It is 'the pervading spirit of our world.' 'The Absolute
should present itself to us as the finite at its best, not as its
extinction.' The two aspects, the Absolute and the finite, are
regarded 'as continuous and interwoven, not exclusive alter-
natives.' Hence the 'defects of the given not merely necessi-
tate transcendence but positively indicate its nature.' " He
fmds therefore that 'the general direction of our higher
experience is a clue to the direction in which perfection has

^Ivdividuality and Value, p. 7.
Hbid., p. 255".

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

to be sought.' ^'' This gives him a wide field of argument
in which he moves with every kind of mastery, meta-
physical subtlety, logical theorem, philosophic erudition and
a fine flow of illustration as in those pages on Hegelian
negativity, for these two, Bradley and Bosanquet, are Hegelians
by birth, not merely by adoption, though they have left the
house of their father and travelled into a far country.

A metaphysical system may be a great contribution to
thought, and yet be too far from satisfying our sense of the
actual values of life to be sound. Mr. Bosanquet's softening
treatment does not altogether conjure away the petrifying
effect of the Timeless One on human values. Progress and
evolution remain dubious possibilities within the individual
and the historical process disappears as a 'genuine' form of
experience. The wonderful fact, which alone can give depth
and solidity to spiritual experience, that man lives not only in
his own day and generation but can take record of his past
and gather its spiritual values into his life, means little or
nothing in this system of the Absolute. It does not come up
to the standard of Individuality and self-contained existence.
That is where the failure to find a real bond between Thought
and Reality works with disastrous effect. Of course they
recognize the fact as a factor in the Present; we see what
Bradley makes of it in his What is the real Julius Caesar, but
they do not admit its claims to any ultimate value, claims
which even Kant, that cautious and critical sounder of the
ways of the spirit, did not refuse to admit. It is Mr. Bosanquet
who polemizes with the greatest vigour against the idea of
the historical process as capable of revealing to us any ulti-
mate truth or furnishing any evidence of an Absolute that
moves in the evolution of humanity. He gives a careful list of
what the characteristics of this real Individuality should be ; it

'^Hbid., p. 19.
26

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

must be spiritual and inward, not spatial ; in its higher form it
will have 'more not less of logic', less laxity of connexion, less
indetermination, less spontaneousness, less unaccountable new
development, less urgency of exclusive feeling, less of the
mere passion of mystic religion, more expansion of systematic
necessity, more of the Amor intellectualis Dei.^^ Very good
characteristics indeed; a sort of John Stuart Mill deified, or
Benedictus Spinoza. But I think we had better have a little
more of Shakespeare in it, or even Emerson, before giving it
out on the authority of the Absolute. It is not quite clear
perhaps how much of the authority of the Absolute is in it
and how much of Mr. Bosanquet's. But you can see certain
things are doomed as inadequate to reality, Bergson's evolu-
tion, Hegel's or Ward's view of history, etc. Nature, that
'independent non-psychical existence' which the system
recognizes, barely escapes by means of hypostatization as a
low type of individuality. 'Mechanistic science' of course
fails to give us 'a satisfactory type of experience,' from the
point of view of ultimate reality. Then Mr. Bosanquet asks
if we can find such a type in history. His answer is an attack
on history which was certainly a surprise to me, not only in
its tone, which has a good deal more of the 'urgency of
exclusive feeling' than the higher Individuality permits, but
also as showing that Mr. Bosanquet's eyes are shut to the fact
that history as an interpretation of human life has been
undergoing a process of evolution very similar to that of
philosophical thought — of course it is conditioned by the same
forces — and with even clearer gains, I think, as a revelation
of spirit. History, says Mr. Bosanquet, is 'a hybrid form of
experience, incapable of any considerable degree of being or
trueness' ... a fragmentary diorama of finite life-processes
unrolling themselves in time, seen from the outside ... a tissue

^^Individuality and Value, p. 77.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

of mere conjunctions . . . contingent through and through . . .
a doubtful story of successive events ... a spatio-temporal
externality, with some more very fine metaphysical Billings-
gate of that kind.^'- You would think history was no more
than it was for Guicciardini or Bentivoglio, though even Guic-
ciardini, not to speak of Machiavelli, could make a fair
scientific use of it for statecraft. There is also a sort of side
suggestion in his argument that the 'philosophy of history' is
something essentially different as a type of reality or 'indi-
viduality' from what history is for us in the best modern
historians, with an indirect reference to Hegel's Philosophy
of History. As if Hegel's use of material in his characteriza-
tion of the Roman world, the work of the Scipios, the writings
of Cicero, or the character of Caesar, involved an essentially
different form of experience or reality from the characteriza-
tions of Roman or Greek events in Mommsen, or Grote, or
Thirlwall. There may be some difference of individual insight
in the universals each makes use of, but the thought-construc-
tion has the same infinite element in it. Even Hegel's
universal is not quite that of the Absolute, nor can Mr.
Bosanquet have the right of treating Thought both as a
complete exponent of the Absolute and as an 'artificial'
construction. With Mr. Bosanquet Thought has begun to
write somewhat too legibly on the timeless front of Mr.
Bradley's Absolute.

But yet not legibly enough for a Hegelian. 'History,' says
Hegel, 'is the rational necessary course of the world-spirit.'
This point of view of Hegel has an essential connexion with
the fact that historical production, looked as at a whole, is a
continuous and an ever more complete revelation of human
life. We even know better now what the import and values
of the Roman Empire, or of Greek and Hebrew history, are

^^Individuality and Value, pp. 78-79.

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

for human life than Romans or Greeks or Hebrews themselves.
We can judge the work of Cromwell, Bismarck, or Peel better
now than their contemporaries could. And the process con-
tinues. Every new page of history adds something to the
fullness of our conception. It matters not how much the
historians vary in their views. Grote differs from Thirlwall
and Ferrero from Mommsen, but they only supplement each
other. There is a steady evolution of the essential truth and
meaning of the past.

There is much that seems to us irrelevant in the actions of
men. There is a low contingent form of experience here as
in nature, but this tends to disappear in any depth of historical
view. Mind has learned to penetrate and clarify here, so that
what once seemed 'measureless contingency' is taken up into
the movement of reason. How does Macaulay bring the facts
of English history before us? Largely by means of the
universal of a Whig historian's point of view, which, sup-
ported by his knowledge and power of presentation, can do
much to give relevancy to details. It may not be the deepest,
but it is deeper than Gibbon on Attila and the stork at
Aquileia, because Gibbon's universal is little better than
contingency itself. And how does Carlyle make a letter of
Cromwell's live, every sentence of it, as part of the movement
of life and thought in that time ; or make any rag of fact he
gets hold of, Merlin of Douai's proclamation, an exclamation
of Citoyen Amiral, anything, light up the streets of Paris
under Revolution and the wild whirl of things there. By art?
Yes, there is art enough there, to the full as much art, Mr.
Bosanquet, as in the way Turner makes the morning light
touch the spires of Lucerne, which could well be an inspired
transformation of an accidental blotch from the palette knife.
But that is not it. Carlyle's work here is not mere picture
work. Thought has more than mere logical expression for its

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

vehicle, elements of context and rhythm which make the
vesture luminous and give the sense of the whole beyond the
part. It is the power of revealing an infinite depth of
intention in actions, of bringing all events within a movement
of reason in which they take their inevitable place amongst
things. Contingency is taken up into it and passes into a
higher form. Carlyle's universal is far deeper than any
optimistic or pessimistic, any Conservative or Radical theory
of life. It is perhaps deeper even than Caird's view of it as
an ultimate explanation of events by the moral necessity which
lies in the history of the world, though that does express what
was most conscious in it. The possibility here of taking
contingency up into a rational view implies that, as Hegel
said, 'the universal principle is implicit in the phenomena of
history and is realizing itself through the doings of actors
who are still unconscious of the purpose they are fulfilling.'
But I think there is always something of the swell of its
greatness or import in them. Caesarem portas. At any rate
this tendency or purpose reveals itself ever more clearly in
the process. There is an element of the Absolute working in
it ; it is the clearest form of its revelation to us ; however you
may explain it. Thought here gives everything in connexion
from the totality of its world, but the necessity is not that of
nature regarded mechanically, but that of Thought or Spirit
itself in its self-evolution, the principle of evolution selecting
its route. We see the connexion that it has made between 'the
leader of a Greek colony in the eighth or ninth century and
the establishment of Christianity.' But Christianity, we must
hold, would have been bom of Thought or the Spirit, though
its 'spatio-temporal' form of manifestation had given us the
New Testament in Latin or Etruscan instead of Greek. In
this region the spontaneity of the individual is not incom-
patible with the law of the Spirit. In history more surely

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

than anywhere else we can see how the Infinite is immanent
in the Finite. A philosophical system which cannot take
account of these things as a concrete form of experience, as
'genuine experience,' is at odds with the highest instincts of
mankind.

As to the individual historian and his work, 'the doubtful
story of successive events,' as Mr. Bosanquet characterizes it,
there is no more significance in this view of it than in the
view Mr. Lewes took of the history of philosophy as a mere
series of doubtful and opposed doctrines. In the one as in
the other the essence of the whole steadily unfolds itself. One
would think in reading the chapter on the 'Concrete Universal'
that history had unfolded no more of its ultimate values than
it had in the day of Plato and Aristotle. Plato is great
amongst the greatest. But still there is a progress in the
fullness of experience which evolves new universals. That
dialogue of Ion, which Goethe thought so little of, is deep
enough, but it is only the first word on the subject, not the
last; nor is the imaginatio of old Benedict either, who had
mainly before his eyes the miraculous Hebrew story. It is
difficult to realize that there can be any ultimate difference in
the nature of 'experience' in philosopher, poet and historian,
but only different degrees of exposure of dialectic, especially
in the grand ontological and ethical assumptions. But even
in the philosopher there is a hidden dialectic, which does not
fully show itself. There is great value in the strict consistency
which this exposure enforces, and the way in which it leads
the mind to see new relations in things; but there is also a
price to pay for that. As to the content, that is often more
different in appearance than in reality. I think one cpuld
extract all Mr. Bradley says on the real and the imaginary
from Browning; nor is it more assured, or Spinoza's treatment
of pity would be of more value than Wordsworth's. There is

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

something defective in Mr. Bosanquet's use of the principle
of degrees of reality.

Caird's formal theory, I know, was that the function of
poetry is 'pure expression for its own sake.' It was one of
the relics in him of eighteenth century rationalism and
Kantian separative analysis, and it had besides the support
of Saintsbury and London circles. But he has no sooner
stated it as his theory, and in very firm language too, than
he proceeds to withdraw from it, to modify and define till he
has reached precisely the opposite position, that the name of
poet can be given only 'to him who can express the widest and
deepest interests of human life; nay, only to him who is in
sympathy with the progressive movement of mankind, and
who can reveal to us new sources of feeling that have not
before been touched.' You can read it all in his essay on
Wordsworth. ^"^ It is a case, like so many in his Examination
of Kant, of 'pointing the way to a higher view'. Only Caird
does a good deal more, he arrives at the higher view with full
consciousness and on the same page. It was only, I think, in
this aesthetic region that there was some limitation of insight
or feeling which could show itself in such antinomies. His
best formal logic said here, 'Form is the first thing in poetry'
and his whole nature in its fullness said, 'Interpretation of
life is the chief thing in poetry', and although he had treated
that abstraction of the 'first thing' often enough in his
philosophy, he gives both aspects here in their abstract oppos-
ition. He was quite aware of it, but his aesthetic theory could
not solve form and matter in this case. It rested upon an
opposition between immediate facts in poetry and deeper
reality in philosophy, and, for once, he saw the 'difference'
better than the unity. There is the same antinomy in his
essay on Goethe. He begins by describing the material of

^^Essays on Literature and Philosophy, vol. i, p. 153.
32

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

poetry as that of immediate reality or appearances, denies it
the right to become a criticism of life, and then goes on to
show that Goethe's poetry was the most perfect criticism of
life we possess. In the essay on Wordsworth he puts aside
the well-known sentence of Matthew Arnold, (a master in this
region), 'Poetry is essentially a criticism of life' as having
no more meaning than 'there is a moral in the rose,' and yet
he goes on to describe the value of poetry from exactly the
same point of view as Arnold's. That is, he chose to take the
term 'criticism' in the very specific sense of a philosophic
effort to set the deeper reality of things against their super-
ficial appearance. There is an idol of the den here that has
frequently bothered me in reading the criticism philosophers
make on the work of literary men. Some slight logical imper-
fection in the mode of statement, some artistic expansion or
condensation of meaning in a word (as here in Arnold's
sentence), some imaginative form of expression which does
not immediately indicate its precise place in a system of
thought; these things seem able to conceal from philosophers
the real wealth of thought and truth in what I may call
literary expression. Thought rests on logical expression for
its meaning, no doubt, but it is easy to see that even the
imperfect statement of a writer like Rousseau or Ruskin gen-
erally contains a deeper and more valuable truth than the
criticism the logician passes on it. On the other
hand it is true that few literary men give much attention
to the metaphysic of their time or have any distinct idea of
the fundamental clarifying of ideas of which philosophy is
the centre. There is a rather stupid quarrel here which is
an actual modern form of that older one between the philo-
.sopher and the poet.

It is instructive enough to see how Caird inevitably moves
away from a formal theory of poetry which yet he does not

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

reject. Literature, the select literature which he read, was a
very vital thing in his life. His appreciation of its aesthetic
side which he declares to be 'the first thing' was genuine, but,
I think, limited, of conventional classical range and without
full savour, but it was profound on the side of thought and
essentially connected with his view of the historical process
as giving the best guarantee of spiritual values. His essays
on literature, expositions of Dante, Goethe, Wordsworth,
Rousseau, Carlyle, etc., no less than his later works on the
evolution of Religion and Theology, represent the way in
which he sought to make this point of view effective.

Caird's last volume (Evolution of Theology, vol. ii) is a
fitting close to his work. The question which had always most
engaged his thought, the question how God could be conceived
as manifesting Himself to man and in nature, is the theme.
He treats it characteristically by a historical criticism of the
conception of God as it developed itself in the course of Greek,
Jewish and modern thought for the modern consciousness.
For though the book is formally restricted to the period of
Greek philosophy, modern solutions such as those of Spinoza
and the German idealists are treated in their relevant con-
nexion, and, under the rubrics of old historical controversies,
contemporary theories are often noticed and criticized without
any direct reference. There is a characteristic avoidance of
polemics and of sensational challenges to current opinion;
there is no attempt to win interest for the subject in that way.
On the contrary an indiflFerent reader might think it was only
the ordinary scholarly disquisition, of languid historical rather
than actual interest, on obsolete early controversies, over the
Logos Doctrine of Philo or the Demiurgus of the Gnostics. But
under such ancient rubrics Caird is debating what is for him
the question of questions. All his learning in ancient Greek
philosophy is brought into play to show how the various solu-

A SCHOOL OF IDEALISM

tions of the problem given from Anaxagoras downward lead
up to or involve dialectically the one adequate conception of
the Absolute as the self-revealing spirit that realizes itself in
all the differences of the world. It is an exposition of the
dialectical necessity in the historical development of the idea
of God, and, as it is made quite from his own point of view
of the supreme unity in the universe, it is done with a freedom
of surv-ey and a warmth of conviction rather different from
ordinary historical exposition. Hence the space he devotes to
the mystic Plotinus and the interest he finds in his philosophy,
not only as furnishing an opportunity for criticism of the idea
of a transcendent and unknowable Absolute, but as helping
along with Jewish conceptions of an unapproachable God to
determine the dogmas of the Church regarding Christ and
other forms of external mediation by which the Supreme
Being manifests Himself to men. Imperfect dualistic explana-
tions of the self-revealing Absolute. Thus the 'way
downward' which Plotinus finds from his transcendent Unity
with its degrees of reality is criticized as factitious and
obscuring the real truth of an immanent connexion between
God and man and nature. The 'mystic presence' in the spiritual
ecstasy of the Neo-Platonist is recognized as a truth for the
religious consciousness, but not a truth outside of knowledge,
not one negating intelligence, but only the realization of the
deeper unity 'too great for any form of words' (p. 307).
Here, too, the religious consciousness, properly understood,
is but a form of the ordinary consciousness of things, the
consciousness in which self, the world and God are bound up
together. That is, the Divine element is everywhere the form
of worth in the universe, and takes a cognizable form in
Thought or Spirit, though the mind of man is dulled to its
presence by familiarity and by the needs of an animal life
which has also its rights.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

So Caird's teaching ended as it began with the endeavour
to show that the consciousness of the Infinite is organically
involved in that of the finite and that the evolution of philo-
sophic thought can be viewed as leading dialectically to this
conclusion. Regarded as a whole, it is a doctrine of the
perfectibility of natural revelation, revelation being taken,
as Lessing defined it,^' as that which takes place in the
individual. Caird's method in this last work is also that
which he adopted from the first. He avoids direct construction
and presents his views as the supplementation or criticism
of a historical system. It was a method by which he could
express them without being forced to enter formally into
contemporary polemics or, perhaps, to explain more than he
could honestly explain.

James Cappon.

^*Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts.

BEATI POSSIDENTES.

Omitting two or three obvious names of our older contem-
poraries, I suppose that we must still account Jonathan
Edwards (1705-1758) the foremost figure in American
philosophy. Nevertheless, we search vainly for him in the
index to the most compendious American manual of the
history of philosophy/ Thereby hangs not merely a tale, but
the tale demanding our attention now. For, as the author of
an earlier history said, catching the essential point, 'The
theological school of Edwards has been succeeded by "schools"
which, if less purely American, have been more truly
philosophical.' -

Professor Watson himself has affirmed that 'the history of
man is creative, in the sense that the present gathers up the
meaning of the past and prepares for an advance beyond it.' ''■
Hence, while pauses must occur, they may well be pregnant,
for the lines of communication between the generations of
men are kept open by folkways which possess a stability all
their own. The social, political, theological and, in a measure,
even the literary history of the American continent furnishes
an apposite case. Socially, we hear of New England, of the
Old South. The presuppositions of political liberty harked
back to the Roundheads, and Rousseau, while later the idea
itself was affected profoundly by the French Revolution. In

'frank Thilly, A IJintoi-j/ of I^hiloi^nphy, 1914.

-B. F. Buit, A //i«/077/ of Modern Philosophy from the Renaissance
to the I'rescnt, vol. n, p. 320, 1892.

■*The Interpretation of Religious Experience, vol. ll, p. 24, 1912.

421676

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

theolog>% the New England movement formed part of a 'world-
phenomenon', characteristically Protestant.* Similarly, the
literary experiments supplied many reasons for Emerson's
trumpet-call to independence,- possibly, too, for 'a certain
condescension in foreigners.' In short, till Professor Watson's
advent at Kingston, America re-echoed Europe more or less
in the higher things of the spirit : perhaps the one representa-
tive artist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, furnishes the single piece of
cogent evidence to the contrary. I say 'perhaps', because 1
wish to record my plea for that brother artist, Herman
Melville, whose wonderful masterpiece appeared a year after
The Scarlet Letter (1850) . But, in philosophy at least, certain
symptomatic differences arose, and maintained themselves
intact throughout, till the Era of Reconstruction after the
Civil War. They challenge estimate, their subtlety not-
withstanding.

Although the American colonies made instant provision for
the things of the mind, founding Harvard (1636), William
and Mary (1693), Yale (1700), and Princeton (1746), it may
be said that, despite many men of power, like Thomas Hooker
(1586-1647), John Cotton (1585-1652), Thomas Shepard
(1605-1649), and Charles Chauncy (1705-1787), no notable
intellectual achievements were accomplished before Jonathan
Edwards and Benjamin Franklin. Ability there was and to
spare, but clamant practical problems in life and politics
absorbed it. Accordingly, when, one hundred and forty-seven
years after the settlement of Virginia, Edwards's Careful and
Strict Enquiry into the modern prevailing Notions of Freedom
of Will appeared, and when, five years later, Franklin loomed
large enough to receive the degree of LL.D. from the Univer-
sity of St. Andrews, isolation from the Mother Country had

*Cf. my Life and Work of George Sylvester Morris, p. 189, 1917.
■"•Cf. The American Scholar.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

at length induced a conscious sense of difference destined to
evolve deeper and very natural emphasis, thanks to the events
which forced the Declaration of Independence. And if the
colleges ordered their houses deliberately pro more Acade-
mmrum m Anglia, native circumstances could not but reach
even 'the politics of a higher region.' New preoccupations
inbred their own results.

The 'practical' tendency of English thought has become
proverbial. Take the great succession — Bacon, Hobbes,
Locke, Berkeley, Hume ; they are men of affairs, immersed in
the activities of national life, and the same holds of their
'empirical' successors from James Mill to Mr. Arthur Balfour.
They suspect high-flown deduction; they treat epistemology
as a 'previous question' exacting due settlement ere ontology
can prosper; they think of 'normative' science as concerned
with the means whereby ends must needs be reached rather
than with the fundamental implications of ideals themselves ;
persons interest them somewhat to the exclusion of genetic
ties between men; they hold that human experience is
'composed' from particular events which, in turn, issue from
a few sources only too elusive for the puny efforts of 'finite'
intelligence. With all subconsciously as with Locke con-
sciously, it was 'ambition enough to be employed as an
under-labourer in clearing the ground a little' for the masters
who know how to do, who, with patience and prose, build sure
'natural' knowledge." Hence, in their dealings with human
experience, they were apt to enlist all results for the imme-
diate service of conduct. Of Geiat they had little, so the
Germans said ; of logical keeping they had less, so the French
insisted.

«Cf. the passage, with its references to Boyle, Sydenham, Huygens,
and Newton, in "The Epistle to the Reader" prefixed to Locke's Essay
concerning Human Understanding, vol. I, pp. 13-15 (Fra.ser's edition).

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Small wonder, then, that the application of philosophy to
politics, to morals, and to theology attracted perhaps
inordinately, while traffic with first principles from purely
speculative interest languished. The disruption of the
ecclesiastico-feudal order raised the whole question of
sovereignty and the State, giving Hobbes and the Puritan
theocratic democrats equally their opportunity. The national
genius for action, a product of 'the spacious days of great
Elizabeth,' so stepped from achievement to achievement that
capacity to 'blunder through' despite knowledge took rank
almost as an article of faith. Clues were attractive, not
systems, because nothing succeeds like success, and here an
ounce of personal initiative is worth a ton of general or
'abstract' theory. In the same way, to quote the Scots Presi-
dent of an American university, who had every reason to
know in propria persona :

'Philosophy never attempted ... to absorb theology into
itself ; but keeping to its own field, that of inductive psychology,
it allowed the students to follow their own convictions, evan-
gelical or rationalistic, but training all to a habit of skilful
arrangement and exposition. It enabled and it led the
theological professors to dwell on the relation between the
truths of God's Word and the fundamental principles of human
nature; to lay a deep and solid foundation for moral principle,
to impart a moral tone to their teaching in divinity, and to
expound, clearly and wisely, the arguments for the existence
of God and the immortality of the soul.' ^

Not without obvious effect upon the preliminary philosophy.
Chalmers's account of Dugald Stewart confirms neatly what
one might infer from that worthy's remarks on Kant.

"James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository,
Critical, from Hutcheson to Ha/miltoa,pp. 268-269, 1875.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

'I attended his lectures regularly. I must confess I have
been rather disappointed. I never heard a single discussion
of Stewart's which made up one masterly and comprehensive
whole. His lectures seem to me to be made up of detached
hints and incomplete outlines, and he almost uniformly avoids
every subject which involves any difficult discussion: ^

Now, generalizations are uniformly dangerous and, even if
'English thinkers display a greater similarity of intellectual
vision than can be matched, for such a succession of first-rate
minds, from the history of any other modem people,' '•• it by
no means follows that the judgement can be transferred
en bloc to America. For, in the first place, a succession com-
parable either in power or in continuity did not, indeed could
not, materialize. At the same time, we must emphasize a
certain compensation. The cultural situation in the colonies.
New England particularly, assimilated itself to Scotland
rather than England. Two nations, one highly educated and
in touch with ancient and contemporary thought, the other
composed of ignorant 'outsiders' (note the symptomatic term)
did not exist. Rudeness there may have been, as we now
estimate. But the framework of the daily round was itself
the issue of a lofty experience. Common life sustained an
uncommon quality; for religious idealism, to say nothing of
theological dialectic, controlled secular affairs and, this culture
being diffused universally through farm, store, and workshop,
most men served themselves representative of an entire order
of ideas which gave colour not merely to thought and conduct,
but also to the worth of all aims deemed fit for human
devotion. Theological belief determined the political aspira-
tions of the average citizen, who was thus made a freeman of
the culture communal for the whole group. In the second

'^Ibid., p. 281. The italics are mine.

^Philosophical Reinaiva of George Croom Robertson, edited by Alex-
ander Bain and T. Whittaker, p. 40, 1894.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

place, 'dissent' from an established church, with every incid-
ental quality and defect, could not reproduce itself. No
matter how little they deflected intellectual currents there, the
second careers of Paine and Priestley in the United States
happen to be straws showing how the wind blew. Once more,
their place of refuge and their associates, no accidental
selections, intimate that the refugees found welcome in one
'section.' New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, and Virginia formed enclaves; what held for one did
not necessarily find favour with another. In short, section-
alism had its own mysterious ways. Finally, after 1800, the
colleges came to dominate intellectual affairs more and more.
Seeing that their chief office was to breed a race of preachers,
seeing too that they never became national institutions, so
called because frequented by a directing class intent upon the
Public Services, a definite temperament arose inevitably. The
cross-currents consequent upon these contrasts present several
puzzling features.

Referring to Edwards's Great Christian Doctrine of
Original Sin Defended (1758) , Lecky objurgates : 'One of the
most revolting books that have ever proceeded from the pen
of man.' ^" I fear that Lecky neither knew his man nor
appreciated the circumstances of the time. Had he been
acquainted with Locke's prescient and, in its day, somewhat
subversive discussion of personal identity,^ ^ or had he
suspected its influence over Edwards, he might have paused a
moment. For, when all is said and done, Edwards was a
complex being — part mystic, part dogmatist, part moralist,
part saint, the least part metaphysician. Willy-nilly, Calvin or
no, his philosophy drifted towards eclecticism. Overborne by

^^History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in
Europe, vol. I, p. 368, note, 4th edition, London, 1870.
^^Easay, Book ii, chap. 27.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

his aims, he recked too little of the means. A long two
hundred years after the Institutio, Genevan doctrine and, no
less, Genevan practice had seen many vicissitudes. The
ineffable transcendence of God in His sovereignty, the fathom-
less depths of human 'inability', and the consequent necessity
for the gift of a Grace such as an omnipotent Being alone
could bestow, indeed remained as normative positions. But,
with a less ecstatic generation, the part played by men in
rendering themselves receptive to Grace by 'faithful waiting
upon ordinances', grew more conspicuous. Nay, if a man
were 'diligent in attending on the appointed means of Grace',
why should he suffer condemnation for lack of 'special and
saving Grace'? And if so, why should not the divine Grace
be universal, and 'election' conditioned by sound morality, nay,
even by broad mental culture? Grant these contentions, and
you have capitulated to Arminianism : therefore, as Whitefield,
Edwards's friend, remarked, 'the Reason why Congregations
have been so dead is because dead Men preach to them.' ^^
This of New England! Edwards's self-imposed mission was
to recall his countrymen to the more excellent way walked by
the founders. Thus minded, he would withdraw two basal
conceptions from the dangerous approach of 'private
judgement' — the idea of God, and the doctrine of human
nature. In other words, he came under bonds to proffer a 'first
philosophy.'

While Edwards evinced a Platonism of the heart almost
Berkleian, the truth is that, as a thinker, he excelled and
suffered from being the representative man of his epoch in
New England. Isolation left a deep mark. The circle of ideas
characteristic of Hobbes, Locke, Hutcheson, Hume, and Home
(Lord Karnes) ; the controversies loosed by Daniel Whitby,
Anthony Collins, Samuel Clarke, Isaac Watts, and Philip

^^Seventh Journal, p. 40.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Doddridge, set his limits, furnished his point of departure.
Nor can we forget that scholastic methods lingered. On the
whole, Edwards was not an accurate scholar. He made no
study of Hobbes, and missed completely the thrust of Hume.
The deists, in so far as he knew them, the vacillations of
Whitby, the flaccid goodwill of Watts, and the concessions of
Doddridge — 'a trimmer and double-dealer' — to the Arminians,
aroused emotioris of intellectual antagonism. As a result, he
gave himself to rehabilitation of the Five Points^^ in his three
most significant works — Freedom of Will; Concerning the End
for which God created the World; and the Nature of Virtue.
The last exerted immediate and pervasive influence over the
New England Theology, the second appealed to professional
theologians and left no trace otherwise, while the first became
perhaps the dominant issue in American philosophy till nigh
the time of Professor Watson's immigration. The enthusiastic
estimates of Sir James Mackintosh, Dugald Stewart, Robert
Moreland, Thomas Chalmers, and Isaac Taylor, testify to its
reputation overseas. Calvinism received fresh impetus,
because, as the younger Edwards said, his father would not
'bow in the house of Rimmon, and admit the Self-Determining
Poiver of the Will' On the other hand, the rise of Unitarian-
ism was rendered inevitable.

For these reasons, theological interest eclipsed philosophical.
The new presbyter was worse than the old priest, and specu-
lative thinking remained ancillary. Despite knowledge of
Locke, Edwards evaded primary metaphysical difficulties.
For instance, God is the author of all things ; men are born in
utter depravity; but depravity is excepted from God's
authorship ! So, too, in his treatment of cause, Edwards never
faces the issue raised by Hume, and falls a prey to hopeless

i^Election. The extent of the Atonement. Divine Grace. Freedom
of the Will. Perseverance of the saints.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

contradiction. Similarly, it does not occur to him that he
must needs confront his account of the will with his insistence
upon moral responsibility. Successful against contemporary
opponents of theism, his victory is won at the price of implicit
agnosticism ; indeed, he presages most curiously some of John
Stuart Mill's later positions. The fact was of course that,
heterodox or orthodox, all accepted the same metaphysical
axioms. Thus, with splendid merits of heart and head,
Edwards remained a dogmatist, setting out from notions
mediated so surely by feeling that he would not, or could not,
examine them. Accordingly, he shut his eyes to the drift of
Deism, failing to detect his own particeps criminis. In sum,
then, he confirmed American philosophy in its theological
mood which, other influences assisting, was enthroned for a
century and a quarter.

Melioristic doctrines, suggested by the divine attribute of
Benevolence, and by the happiness of mankind as a mundane
final cause, always lay in wait to correct Calvin's overstress
upon Original Sin. They formed an essential factor in the
climate of opinion peculiar to deistic optimism. But Deism
never attained full naturalization in America. For, although
the early English phase, seen in Herbert of Cherbury, Sir
Thomas Browne, and Charles Blount, was paralleled by
Charles Chauncy and many others ; although Franklin differed
little from the full expression of the movement in Collins,
Shaftesbury-, and Tindal ; and although Paine vulgarized the
subtleties of Hume, the drift towards mediation was so strong
that no transformation of philosophy resulted.' • Whatever
may have been the indirect influence upon political prepos-
sessions in the United States, fundamental thought went on
its serene way because, after all, even the deists reverted to

'♦I take this to be the real inwardness of Mr. John M. Robertson's
surly pronouncement. Cf. A Short History of Freethoughf, chap, xv,
London, 1899.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

theological considerations. The convenient division of labour
between 'natural' and 'revealed' theology, and the 'beauty' of
the evidence of 'design', proved of overwhelming attraction.
Franklin may well have had his tongue in his cheek when
he inscribed his First Principles, or his Information to Those
Who ivould Remove to America — only to forgo this impediment
to free speech when he did in Paris as the Parisians did;
'another Voltaire', as John Adams wittily remarked! But
even Voltaire, while insisting that 'we abhor all Superstition,'
was no less insistent on the need for a God when it came to
the government of five or six hundred peasants ! Negative in
the extreme, ironical to a degree, his ideas were beset by
theological preoccupation. And Jefferson himself, that 'White
House infidel,' when he quit ploughing with Priestley and the
Gallic philosophes, felt bound to refer to the trusteeship of the
professor of Ethics :

'The proofs of the being of a God, the creator, preserver
and supreme ruler of the universe, the author of all the relat-
ions of morality, and the laws and obligations these infer . . .
to which adding the development of these moral obligations in
w^hich all the sects agree ... a basis will be found common to
all sects.'

Here we have the 'practical' application of philosophy to
morals and theology with a vengeance. And, as for the
theoretical, 'the secret American deism of Paine's day was
decorously transformed into the later Unitarianism.' ^' True,
so far; but Unitarianism was to have an important sequel, as
we shall see.

Meanwhile, however, yet another movement from overseas
was to intervene, stressing for the third time dogmatic presup-
positions in philosophy, and gaining popularity by appeal to

I'-Robertson, loc. cit., p. 382.
46

BEATI POSSIDENTES

the self-esteem of the average man, so congenial to a nation
of 'sovereign citizens.' The Scotch and Scotch-Irish descended
upon the Middle States, blocking off southern deism and
French sensualism, bringing a philosophical gospel well
calculated to enlist even self-sufficient New England.

Speaking with the superior intimacy of the native-born,
McCosh'** remarks pointedly that the French disciples of Reid
misjudged the perspective. Victor Cousin, Theodore Jouffroy,
and the Comte de Remusat had eulogized the philosophical
systems, detecting in them 'the peculiar strength of the
Scottish nation.' With some justice, McCosh retorts that 'this
is to be found in its religion, of which the high moral tone of
its philosophy is but a reflection.' It is true that Reid lay
under no illusions about Hume's historical significance — his
was theoretical scepticism following from dogmatic presup-
positions; it is true that he glimpsed the universality of
Reason as something beyond 'the consent of ages and nations,
of the learned and unlearned,' ^' because it is true that he held
a personal cosmology in which the derivative characters of the
universe and man were recognized. Even so, one must infer
these views or, as the manner of some is, read them into the
text; Reid indicated rather than elaborated them.

They aff'ord no sufficient justification for the sancta
simplicitas of Buckle who, with the typical simplifications of
rationalistic prejudgement, dismisses all Scottish thought as
deductive." His great pamphlet, tragically athwart the facts,
hits nearer the mark when Reid's assumptions come under
review,'" and when it asserts that 'Reid, notwithstanding the

'"^r. cit., p. 303.

'^Cf. Essay VI. Works, vol. i, pp. 413-441, seventh edition, edited by
Hamilton, 1862.

^'^History of Civilization in England, vol. I, pp. 245 f. (New edition),
T.ondon, 1867.

^"Ibid., vol. Ill, pp. 3.57 f.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

clearness of his mind and his great power of argument, had
so little of the real philosophic spirit, that he loved truth, not
for its own sake, but for the sake of its immediate and prac-
tical results.' -" Nay, perfected by many shots in the air,
Buckle hit the bull's-eye at last with: 'It is one of
the most curious things in the history of metaphysics that
Reid, after impeaching the method of Hume, follows the very
same method himself.' -' Not at all! Like the French, Buckle
abstracted Scottish philosophy from the cultural influences
whence it arose, because oblivious of the profound changes
which overtook the outlook with the appearance and eventual
rule of the Moderate party, under the leadership of the
sagacious Robertson, in the second half of the eighteenth
century.

It is a pity that Buckle did not mark John Hill Burton's Life
of Hume (1846), there to learn that the genial sceptic was on
terms of intimate friendship with the Moderate clergy, and to
digest Reid's gay letter. 'Your friendly adversaries return
their compliments to you respectfully. Your company would,
although we are all good Christians, be more acceptable than
St. Athanasius.' " It is a thousand pities that he could make
no study of the Autobiography of the Rev. Alexander
('Jupiter') Carlyle, the life-long friend of that refined
moralist Tobias Smollett, there to learn the character of the
contemporary clergy," or to stumble on the eulogy of Hume.
'He had the greatest simplicity of mind and manners, with the
utmost facility and benevolence of temper I ever knew . . .
the intimacy of the young clergy with David Hume enraged
the zealots on the opposite side ... he gave both elegant
dinners and suppers . . . and, which was the best of all . . .

■-"Ibid., pp. 350-351.

2i/6i(£., p. 355.

22Vol. II, p. 155.

2-^Chap. VI. (American edition, Boston, 1861).

BEATI POSSIDENTES

assembled whosoever were most knowing and agreeable among
either the laity or clergy':-^ indeed, Hume was the most
popular citizen of Edinburgh. Better still had Buckle pon-
dered Carlyle's judgement of Witherspoon,-' a hint of material
import to our present purpose. Witherspoon belonged to 'the
zealots on the opposite side,' with so much zeal, too, that his
successor in the Princeton Presidency records, he 'must have
made Scotland somewhat too hot for him, the more so that the
law was against him, and the church party opposed to him
increasing in power and in imperiousness.' ^^ As we now
know, Witherspoon gave short shrift to the Berkleian 'heretics'
who awaited him in New Jersey. His way with Hume was
even more summary.

'About this [cause] and some other ideas, great stir has
been made by some infidel writers, particularly by David
Hume; who seems to have industriously endeavoured to shake
the certainty of our belief, upon cause and effect, upon 'personal
identity and the idea of power. It is easy to raise metaphysical
subtleties, and confound the understanding on such subjects.
In opposition to this, some writers have advanced, with great
apparent reason, that there are certain first principles or
dictates of common sense, which are either simple percep-
tions, or seen with intuitive evidence. These are the
foundation of all reasoning, and without them, to reason is a
word without meaning. They can no more be proved than
you can prove an axiom in mathematical science. These
authors of Scotland have lately produced and supported this
opinion, to resolve at once all the refinements and metaphysical
objections of some infidel writers.' "

-'pp. 222, 224.

-•■p. 55; cf. pp. 79 f.

'•■'"McCo.sh, loc. cit., p. 18G.

-'Lectures on Moral Philosophy, etc., pp. 50-51, Philadelphia, 1822.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Only this and nothing more! Verily, great is the potency
of italics!

Kvon at its best, in Reid, the Scottish philosophy suffered
manifest limitations. Although Hume had stripped every
disguise from the problem, the consequent implications were
not taken seriously enough. Haste to 'pluck the unripe fruit
of wisdom' resulted in unprofitable counter-assertion. Indeed,
appeal was taken, not from thought to thought, but from
reflection to practice. This may have been inevitable,
considering the nature of the audience. In any case, preachers
and 'ingenious gentlemen', accepting the philosophy at its face
value, proceeded to use it, if not as a guide of life, then as a
very present help against 'inconvenient doubts.' They asked :
Does it square with customary beliefs? The question of its
fundamental, defensible truth scarcely occurred to them.
Scotland relapsed into this phase — for Reid saw farther —
during the Evangelical reaction, when Thomas Carlyle,
Hutchison Stirling, and T. H. Green, to name no others, were
refused philosophical chairs, because their 'orthodoxy' lay
under suspicion.-^ Now, in the United States, the Moderate
party never gained foothold. From Witherspoon down, the
Evangelicals had things their own way, thanks partly to a
curious paradox — the absence of those opportunities for
difference of opinion guaranteed by a State church! Hence
it came to this: 'Not only was the Scottish philosophy of
Reid, Stewart, Brown, and Hamilton in harmony with the
practical note of the country, but it was also an aid to faith,
a safeguard to morality as against the skepticism of Hume
and the Voltairians.' " Recollect, the idea that a 'sceptic' is

-'An illuminating account of the pitiful intrigues, possible eighty-
seven years after the Critique of Pure Reason, may be found in Donald
Macmillan, The lAfe of Robert Flint, pp. 171 f.

^''Woodbridtre Riley, American Thought from Puritanism to Prag-
matism, p. 119. 191.5. Cf. the whole of chap. v.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

necessarily a 'profligate' still met universal acceptance. So,
the atmosphere and Intent proper, possibly, in 'theological
seminaries', pen-aded the colleges. And, outside the college,
philosophy was sadly to seek.

A foreign observer, calm yet friendly, sensed the sequel in
the late thirties.

*I think that in no country in the civilized world is less
attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The
Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and
they care but little for all the schools into which Europe is
divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to
them.' ^0

Put thus bluntly, the judgement might seem sweeping and,
as his manner was, De Tocqueville safeguarded himself imme-
diately. 'The Americans then have not required to extract
their philosophical method from books ; they have found it in
themselves.' '^ On the one hand for political reasons, on the
other, because 'religion gave birth to Anglo-American
society,' '- an implicit philosophy reigns. Even at this, he
deals in generalities, leaving particulars to take care of
themselves. What particulars ? To begin with, Edwards had
rendered Unitarianism inevitable, as we have seen. Within
twenty-five years of his death. King's Chapel, Boston, under
James Freeman, had 'gone over.' In 1801, Old Plymouth
Church, the original home of the Puritans, followed suit.
With the appointment of Henry Ware to the Hollis Profes-
sorship of Divinity, Harvard was lost in 1805. While, in
1819, Channing set forth, at Baltimore, the full-throated

2'^Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. li, p. 1, trans, by
Henry Reeve, new edition, London, 1862. The preface is dated March,
1840.

•■•J/ftw/., p. 3. ^^Ibid., p. 5.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

•UniUrian Declaration of Independence.' '^ Nigh fifty years
of mild foniienUition ensued, with meagre results for
philosophy, the brain and character of the land becoming
inoro and more absorbed meanwhile in the politico-economic
controversy which was to threaten the very existence of the
nation. ' Here it must suffice to mention a few of the
intellectual phenomena almost at random.

I'nitarianism brought numerous repercussions. Nathaniel
Taylor fulminated from Yale, seeking such support as he could
derive from Butler and Leibniz. T. C. Upham, long a light at
Bowdoin, wrought in the spirit of a liberalized Scottish school.
C. S. Henry, in the University of New York, had the temerity
to introduce Cousin's eclecticism, only to be trounced
vigorously by the Princeton stalwarts. Francis Wayland, at
Brown College, and Mark Hopkins, at Williams, made a
profound personal impression upon their pupils. But the
former at least — so the late President James B. Angell
informed me — taught little more than the casuistry which, in
protestant attenuation, appears to have had considerable
vogue. Probably both contributed to the decline in popularity
of Paley's texts. The controversy about the Will went its
voluminous way, for no one had ever heard tell of Vatke
(1841). There was widespread 'reconciling' of natural with
revealed religion, of geology with Genesis, although the
curious Analysis of the Human Intellect (1865) in which that
'original', James Rush, elaborated the suggestions of his more
distinguished and sensible father, left no mark, despite (or on
account of) its challenge to 'spiritualization.' More hopeful,

•■'^Cf. Smith College Studies in History, vol. vi, no. 3, p. 196, note 6,
et passim (Letters of Ann Gillam Storrow to Jared Sparks, ed. by Frances
Bradchaw Blanchard).

"♦There is some analog^' between this and the contemporary eccle-
siatical controversy in Scotland, and in the consequences for philosophy,
too.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

thanks to some reckoning with Kantian thought, L. P. Hickok's
gigantic performance'^ fell short of its promise. Scenting
'heresy' — mysticism as a matter of fact — in the continentals, it
found their standpoint 'wholly within nature. It transcends the
phenomenal in sensation, truly and philosophically, and such is
its deservedly great praise ; but to it the supernatural is dark-
ness. . . And here it becomes highly important to note, that
some of the strongest entrenchments of skepticism both in
philosophy and religion — some of the most elaborate defences
of all Infidelity — are now in process of erection upon this high
ground. Whether named Liberalism, Neologism, Rationalism,
or Transcendentalism; its foundation is here, and the super-
structure is going up on this basis.' ^^

The traditional arnere pensee persisted ; and so, on a broad
view, the ferment left much 'insipid fluid.' To wit, the
common texts were Locke, Reid, Stewart — ^sometimes 'made
over'; Butler, Paley, anB various native manuals of 'moral
science'. They furnished good mental exercise. But, even
the best of them, seeing they originated from a spirit that
had grown conventional, could effect nothing to induce
rethinking. Rhetoric, or elegant expression, took precedence
over philosophy. There was a silent conspiracy 'to stand aloof
from all extremes in doctrinal speculation' and — the issues
destined to culminate in civil war were absorbing many minds.

Nevertheless, so early as 1829, James Marsh's study of
Coleridge had drawn attention to the Romantic movement"
and, ere long, Emerson was to speak out. In a word, Uni-
tarianism performed an invaluable office by exorcising fear of
'isms', a fear, as it then was, of the unknown. But its

'^■•Rational Psychology: or the Subjective Idea and the Objective Law
of All Intellif/cnce, larpre 8vo, pp. xi+717, Auburn [N.Y.], 1849.

3npp. 75, 83.

"Cf. James Murdock, Sketches of Modern Philosophy, especially
among the Germans, chap, xiv, 1842.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

influence iipDn philosophy was sporadic.'*' For, despite
Emerson himself, Channing, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley,
Theodore Parker, and Andrews Norton, nay, despite the more
distinctly technical work of the Frothinghams,"' and C. C.
Everett,'*' the strange limitations of Bowen," so late as 1877,
told tales about the real condition of philosophical
Wiitsenschaft.

When we pause, to look north of the International Boundary,
many contrasts with, however, a certain family likeness in
general result, proclaim themselves.

Almost twenty-five years ago, I told a colleague — a great
traveller — that I thought of prospecting 'old' New England.
He replied: 'why, old New England is now to be found only
in the valleys of Nova Scotia.' The suggestion struck me,
and its essential accuracy is interesting. At the time of the
American Revolution, the United Empire Loyalists, who
betook themselves to Halifax, represented and retained the
best traditions of New England culture. Hence, the means
of higher education were soon arranged. King's College,
Windsor, on its foundation in 1787, had for president William
Cochrane, professor of Classics in King's College, New York
City; men like Samuel Blowers, the Chief Justice, and Sir
John Wentworth,^- both Harvard graduates, sat on the Board
of Trustees. Its liberal policy at first bade fair to entrench
it as the centre of intellectual life. Unfortunately, this gave
place to ecclesiastical reaction after 1802, with the result that

38Cf. Ibid., chap. ■ XV.

^'Pliiloifophy as an Absolute Science, 1864.

*'The Science of Thought, 1869.

*KModem Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
As to limitations, cf. e.g., p. 156 (on Kant), p. 359 (on Hegel), or the
complete failure to detect the significance of the 'pessimists' in the evolu-
tion of romanticism

*-Cf. Lawrence Shaw Mayo, John Wentworth, Governor of Nev>.
Hampshire, 1767-1775, 1921.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

Scottish forces organized Dalhousie in 1818. The sectarian
differences thus perpetuated led to enf eeblement of the colleges
of the Maritime Provinces, and proved barriers to transitive
leadership. Thus, the riper culture imported by the Loyalists
lost impetus, and opportunity was not to knock twice. Its
monuments remain in the literary work of Thomas Chandler
Haliburton,^^ in the journalistic and political career of Joseph
Howe, 'the Canadian Burke'." At Montreal, the English-
speaking element found itself a small and therefore 'colonial'
minority, dependent upon the Mother Country in the things
of the spirit; reproducing in McGill College (1821) the ideals
of the Scottish universities.''^ In Ontario, where no high bred
immigration came to aid,*" the tragic unwisdom of King's
College was paralleled by the policies of Bishop Strachan.
Accordingly, here again, the chief monument so far is the
romantic fiction of John Richardson.*' Once more. Queen's
College, Kingston, founded in 1841, had just opened its doors
when, characteristically, the ecclesiastical explosion (1843)
in Scotland almost closed them. In addition, as Sir John
Bourinot pointed out (1893), the influence of the universities
and colleges upon the national mind is very recent.*'

On the whole, then, we find Puritan persuasions in the Nova
Scotia of the eighteenth century, where the evangelism of
Henry Alline was reinforced later by immigrant Scottish
Highlanders. For the rest, the engrossing, exhausting tasks of
a new land postponed reflection, the more that the 'spiritually
indispensable' could be, and was, imported readily. The

*^Sam Slick, 1837-1843. Cf. V. L. O. Chittick, Thomas Chandler
Haliburton: a Study in Provincial Toryism, Columbia Univ., Pubs.

*-«Cf. W. L. Grant, The Tribune of Nova Scotia: a Chronicle of Joseph
Howe, 1915.

*''Cf. Cyrus Macmillan, McGill and its Story, 1921.

■•"Toronto had nothing that could be called a library till 1837.

*'\VacouJita, 1832; The Canadian Brothers. 1840.

*'*Proc. and Trans, of the Royal Society of Canada, 1893.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

division of labour between 'natural' and 'revealed' theology,
with stress upon the argument from design, were familiar, of
course. So, likely enough, the first stir, presaging 'the terrible
seventies' in England, came by way of local accident. Canada
offered a virgin field to the geologist, and Logan's classical
work'" placed the capstone upon a whole series of investi-
gations.'" 'Reconciliation' with Genesis was an inevitable
outcome and, of this, Dawson's Archia (1860) is an excellent
example. Otherwise, thought had remained quite 'colonial',
taking its queues from Britain; conventionality abounded,
originality lagged. Immediate practical affairs of every kind,
coupled with sectarian prejudgements, set the perspective.
And as south of the Boundary, so here, we find a tendency to
'make over* European thinkers for academic consumption. So
late as 1870, for instance, such a book as Clark Murray's
Outline of Hamilton's Philosophy offers pertinent illustration.

It would betray gross misunderstanding of many sincere,
able, and cultivated men, were one to allege that their 'policy
. . . was to turn out safe minds content to mark time in the
old way.' --^ Yet we deal no injustice when we call them Beati
Possidentes, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world, where
political experiment lent a sense of superiority, commercial
success a feeling of finality. Seventeenth century Dualism,
reasserted in face of Hume; one of the ideas of the French
Revolution conventionalized as 'representative government*;
and the persistent theological background, typified in Hugh
Miller — 'a theologian studying geology', as Spencer has it —
furnished a solid dwelling wherein all could take their ease.
The very 'rationalists', however they might scoff at the
atmosphere of the house, took care not to stray beyond the

*^'Geology of Canada, 1863.

''"e.g., J. Bouchette, 1815, 1831; A. Gesner, 1836.

•'Woodbridge Riley, loc. cit., p. 135.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

garden walls." Rumours of new things remained rumours
for the most part. Hume was an 'infidel' ; Buffon, if known,
was known to have recanted ; the reception of Kant was
summarized by Spencer;" Hegel fell under ban, because
responsible for Strauss and other miasmas ; Erasmus Darwin,
being a poet, might have indulgence; Lamarck and Karl
von Baer had not penetrated, although Lyall, whose Principles
of Geology sold like the proverbial hot cakes, ^* gave fresh
impetus to the 'reconciliations' of revealed, fresh evidence for
the 'design' of natural, theology.

At last, the 'controversy over Darwinian evolution' burst
like lightning from a clear sky. Under the circumstances
which we have tried to review, lamentable dogmatism — to say
nothing of evil temper — was inevitable on both sides. We are
prone to forget that theological protests of the kind 'which
should be bound in good stout asses' skin'," had parallels not
a whit less absurd in 'the naive philosophizings of Haeckel,
Huxley, and Spencer.' -'^^ As a result, the parti pris of the
Popular Science Monthly, *a propagandist organ' (the phrase
is Spencer's own)," was of widespread influence by compari-
son with that of Fiske's serious study.^' Moreover, the vogue
of both captured laymen rather than philosophers von Fach.

'•-Note, e.g., the symptomatic titles of some books: Rowland G.
Hazard, The Adaptation of the Universe to the Cultivation of the Mind,
1840; F. Bowen, Metaphysical and Ethical Science applied to the Evi-
dences of Religion, 1855; F. H. Hedge. Reason and Religion, 1865.

•'■'■'• 'When twenty-four I met with a translation of Kant and read the
first few pages. Forthwith, rejecting his doctrine of Time and Space,
I read no further' (David Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer,
vol. II, p. 14G, New York, 1908).

■'•^Between 1830 and 1872, eleven editions were called for in England
alone, the putative theological implications being largely responsible.

"■'•Huxley's characterization of some remarks by Samuel Wilberforce,
Bishop of Oxford.

•'•'•Roy Wood Sellars, Evolutionary Naturalism, p. viii, 1922.

5'Cf. my Life and Work of G. S. Morris, p. 129.

•'•".John Fiske, OutlincH of Cosmic Philosophy, based on the Doctrine
of Evolution, with Criticisms of the Positive Philosophy, 2 vols., London,
1874. Although this is one of the few first-rate works which decorate
American philosophy, note its publication in England!

KSSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Meanwhile, when the regnant philosophy was 'nibbling at
the little end of things,' as W. T. Harris said, referring to his
Yale course, a new movement, one sequel to the abortive
Gennan revolution (1848), began to formulate itself at St.
Louis. Missouri, then a sprawling country town. The
association of H. C. Brockmeyer with W. T. Harris, A. E.
Kroeger. D. J. Snider, Thomas Davidson and, a little later,
G. Stanley Hall, may not detain us now. But, in December,
1867, it produced The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. The
Preface, written by the editor, Harris, 'gives one iuriously
to think.'

'We, as a people, buy immense editions of John Stuart Mill,
Herbert Spencer, Comte, Hamilton, Cousin, and others; one
can trace the appropriation and digestion of their thoughts in
all the leading articles of our Reviews, Magazines and books
of a thoughtful character. If this is American philosophy,
the editor thinks that it may be very much elevated by
absorbing and digesting more refined aliment . . . For after
all it is not "American thought" so much as American thinkers
that we want . . . Our province as Americans is to rise to
purer forms than have hitherto been attained, and thus speak
a "solvent word" of more potency than those already uttered.'

We find that within four years of his arrival 'on the old
Ontario strand',"'" Professor Watson had associated himself
with this group.'''' What did these things signify?

First, and with an emphasis brooking no evasion, they
intimate that history of philosophy must be taken in dead
earnest. Childlike amazement, wide-eyed in a pantechnicon
where assorted wares lie around loose for casual inspection
or care-free choice, goes by the board. Nor can commonplace

'"*€!. Dedication to Professor Watson by Dr. T. R. Glover, Public
Orator of the University of Cambridpre, of his Stitdies in Virgil, 1904.
*'Cf. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. X, p. 17, 1876.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

antiquarianism avail aught, seeing that the spiritual and the
abstract belong in quite different galleries. There is a whole
within which the parts develop ; there are methods that invite
failure — foreordained failure ; great epochs have thrown their
books open to examination like firms trading on imaginary
capital or genial, lazy goodwill. It were needless to dredge
the dark depths of an opaque past for examples. They are
nigh unto us. Hume was no brawling infidel, fertile in super-
fluous ideas, but an accountant who, having revealed a dire
state of affairs, uttered final judgement. The Kantian system
may be spoken of as 'a monumental ruin'. One does not
thereby relegate it to the vasty lumber-room of overpassed
standpoints. Rather, careful study shows that it persists
significant for ever, because its nature came

Between the pass and fell-incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

At such portentous assizes the severest labour of thought,
illumined by the driest light of insight, alone avails.

Very true, 'philosophy can begin anywhere.' Yet it reverts
invariably to a few ultimate problems. Gloss them at your
peril. Their history indicates where we are, above all, whither
we cannot go. Hence, ability to handle the original sources
becomes a prerequisite essential to competence and, no less,
to advance. What has been said matters little, nor how, nor
by whom. Denunciation and fear are to be fled like the
plague. The question is: With what validity? And, to assess
this, all the evidence must be in. But, even with such equip-
ment, so difficult of acquisition, more difficult in use, the
factor of personal synthesis still demands footing. For, we
are men of our age, face to face with pregnant life, feeling the
stress of the particular differentiations exhibited by contem-
porary problems. Here, despite our full commerce with
history, we encounter a second significance, significance of the
subtlest moreover.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Xono of I'rolt'ssor Watson's students or other debtors but
know liis masterly command of history. Let me add a word
concerning personal synthesis, as I have termed it.

Habituated to a universe of endless vistas in space, of
illimitable processes in time, inheriting a mechanistic
naturalism prone to disguise ultimate difficulties, or a vitalistic
animism flattering caprice; being thus delivered mysteriously
out of the maw of universals by the illusion of 'progress', the
younger generation preserves little, if any, memory of the ruin
into which Professor Watson and his coevals were ushered.
Sure of themselves on a tiny earth ringed with millennial
horizons, the Beati Possidentes outstayed their welcome. The
philosophers had done their work right well — they had made
'practical' men conspicuous participants in the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. One need not cite the
feminizing Utilitarians. Take Cobden. 'God is over all, and
Providence will right wrongs and check wickedness without
our help.' Dear soul, he did not suspect that he might just as
well have mumbled decently and beneath his breath: 'Every
man for himself and God for us all, as the elephant said when
he danced among the chickens.' This, when the idea of
development had been abroad for nigh two generations, and
a decade after the Beagle had sailed fatefully forth from
Devonport, Darwin aboard ! Carlyle and Emerson had indeed
prophesied before stiff-necked peoples, to find all too seldom
that response of 'passionate admiration and reverence, such
as is felt by the young only for a great teacher who meets
and answers the questions which they are led by the spirit of
the time to ask.' "

The full stress, passing 'the flaming bounds of place and
time', overtook the youth in the late sixties, when Professor

'''Edward Caird, Essays in Literature and Philosophy, vol. i, p. 235,
lo92.

BEATI POSSIDENTES

Watson matriculated at one of the two universities where it
seethed most powerfully. Menacing questions crowded from
every side, current answers gave no guidance. Can any aspect
of experience be withdrawn from normal conditions, to receive
exceptional treatment? Can an appeal to a transcendent
'something' be other than irrational? Is not 'revelation' to
the human spirit and, therefore, from it in kind ? How about
the relation between the so-called a priori and a posteriori
elements in knowledge? What are we to say concerning
'design' or purpose in face of the evidences for evolution?
Are the transcendence of the theologians and the immanence
of the naturalists mutually exclusive? If, as seems highly
probable, unity presses upon us, making the most unexpected
bed-fellows, how dare we interpret it? In short, all oppugnant
claims recognized in every protean shape, is it possible,
proceeding without futile controversy, to uncover a reasonable
principle of internal cohesion?

If the younger generation, to whom I have just referred,
enjoy a freedom rare or impossible fifty years ago, if it find
plentiful tools ready to hand, if it be thrilled by the conviction
that every sort of circumspect work must contribute to the
great end, let it pause, to return thanks for the patience and
courage of men like Professor Watson. For these elder
brethren have taught us that the light of our little day shines
with the brightness of permeable and penetrating rationality.
Better still, looking to the 'triumphs of physical and biological
science', they have indicated that the age-old microcosmic
antithesis between 'subject' and 'object', reborn in these latter
days under the macrocosmic guise of 'thought' and 'reality*,
is no bare grammatical play

Where entity and quiddity.

The ghosts of defunct bodies fly,""

«'Cf. John Watson, Kant and his English Critics, a Comparison of
Critical and Empirical Philosophy, p. 396, 1881.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

but portends tlie involution of a unity which, its proliferating
kinds despite, offers the sole clue to possible import. 'Intel-
ligence exists only in and through its specific modes, and it is
useless to attempt sublimating it by isolating it from those
modes: inst<:ad of elevating we merely degrade it. The
categories and the particulars of knowledge are therefore
simply the various real relations in which intelligence
manifests its activity, and builds up for each of us the fair
fabric of nature.' ''^

At the close, permit me, in retrospect, to cut thirty-five

years from Professor Watson's remarkable fifty at Queen's

University. Then or thereabouts, in his customary casual way,

Edward Caird asked me whether I would care to go to

Kingston as Professor Watson's colleague. Domestic plans

at the time rendered impossible even second thoughts about

the proposal. Untoward circumstance I For, what better

fortune could have befallen a young cub than the daily

example, stimulus, and advice of a passed master so learned,

so incisive and, withal, so kindly. Nay, fortune was to smite

me further, condemning me to mediate alone my life between

two cultures and two continents — ignotum per ignotius. Small

wonder I revert wistfully to that interview in the Glasgow

study which Professor Watson and I knew so well, to ponder

what might have been ! As if in small compensation, I rejoice,

after these many eventful days, to salute the indefatigable

torch-bearer of Kingston, rising

In open victory o'er the weight
Of seventy years, to loftier heights.

R. M. Wenley.

«V6id., p. 402.

MORAL VALIDITY:
A STUDY IN PLATONISM

That human judgement upon moral issues is liable to error,
has only to be stated in the Platonic dialogues to meet with
universal acceptance. The fact of conflict and dispute,
whether we consider the direct recognition of this fact by
Euthyphro or Glaucon, or whether we note its exemplification
in the sharply divergent opinions of Socrates on the one hand,
and, on the other, of such thinkers as Callicles or Thrasy-
machus, is so obvious, that human fallibility in questions
of moral valuation forces itself upon our attention and
constitutes a genuine problem.

Moral judgements, then, in some cases are certainly and
beyond doubt invalid. In other cases, they may possibly be
accepted as valid. Upon what conditions does their validity
or invalidity depend? Are there any tests which a careful
thinker might apply in order to determine their degree of
validity?

For Plato, the answer to this question is largely a matter
of discovering a moral criterion or standard in the form of
the moral law, the law accepted by the perfect moral judge-
ment. This ideal law furnishes a standard, comparison with
which sufliciently indicates the extent to which a particular
moral judgement approximates to, or falls short of the law,
and thus serves to measure, with a fair degree of accuracy,
the validity or invalidity of the moral judgement in question
(Rep., 472c). If we ask what the ideal principle accepted by
the perfect moral judgement is, we have, in various passages,
various answers, e.g., universal assent, written law, quantity
of experienced pleasure, expediency, self-sufficiency, consist-
ency, objectivity. If we then proceed to examine these

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

ansNvors. wo liiul that in the end they all resolve themselves
into a single answer. The tinal standard of value, in every
case, turns out to be objectivity, or the degree to which a
proposed course of action, or other subject proposed for moral
approval or disapproval, is patterned upon the ideal principles
which, for Plato, constitute reality. These principles are
expressions of a single ultimate principle, the Idea of Good,
that is, the principle of ideality or value as such, value and
ideal reality being identified. A character or an action thus
comes to have value, precisely to the degree in which it is
based upon, and tends to realize the principle of value itself.
Understood in the light of this final principle, that is to say,
as expressions of ultimate value or of the essence of reality,
universal assent, written law, expediency, consistency, etc.,
can safely be used as proximate standards, by which to
measure the value of actions and characters in particular
situations and from particular standpoints. It is in this sense
that they are used by the Platonic dialectician. But apart
from such transvaluation in the light of this principle, they
belong to the region of 'opinion,' the region of twilight and
moral blindness, and cannot safely be used as moral standards
at all. It is insight into reality, or the ideal and its principle,
alone, which enables the philosophic judge to make value-
judgements which are reliable and valid.^

From a more psychological point of view, the moral
judgement can be considered as representative of a certain
quantity and quality of experience, and if we consider its
evolution in the case of the perfect moral judge, we construct
the ideal of a judgement so comprehensive and so profound
as to transcend the sensory experiences of a single individual,
and eventually to represent the concentration, upon the ques-

^For a detailed study of the evidence upon which these conclusions
depend, see Lodp:e, Plato and the Moral Standard, International Journal
of Ethics, vol. XXXIII, Nos. 1 and 2, 1921-22.

MORAL VALIDITY

tion at issue, of the whole of human experience, refined and
idealized as far as is humanly possible. The elements which
enter into the moral judgement are thus the elements which
have trulj' entered into the self of the perfect moral judge.
These are the physical, moral, and mental elements discussed
in the Platonic theory of education, the instincts, habits, and
intelligence, so trained and ripened by social and educational
influences as to have taken on the form and pattern of the
ideal world, and to have become, so far as this is possible in
an organism which retains to the end something of its animal
origin, the human habitation and embodiment of the ideas
of manliness, self-control, justice, and wisdom, in the full
harmony and unity which comes with attainment of the Idea
of Good also. What actually does the judging is thus the
whole nature of the individual man, together with all the
influences which have made his nature what it has come to
be, the influence of literature, art, science, and religion, the
history, traditions, and aspirations of the community, the
whole welded together and transmuted into an adequate reflex
of the Experience which we designate as Absolute. The
judgement of such a man represents, then, not the chance
reaction to a chance stimulation, but the rich experience of
the whole race, sublimated and idealized until it represents,
in human form, the complete experience which is the life and
thought of God. This ideal furnishes a standard, comparison
with which shows with reasonable clearness how far a parti-
cular moral judgement approximates to, or falls short of its
completeness and organized concentration. -

In both cases, the ideal judgement of the perfect moral
judge is understood, epistemologically, as a sufficiently valid
apprehension of the nature and structure of ultimate reality,

2For detailed study of the evidence upon which these conclusions rest,
see Lodpre, Gevesis of the Moral Judgement in Plato (Int. Jour. Ethics,
vol. XXXIV, No. 1, 1922).

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

whether that reality is conceived rather as a system of laws
and values, or chiefly as an ideal experience. It is thus ultimate
reality which furnishes the final touchstone for human value-
judj?ements. So far as the human judgement corresponds
to the nature of ivluit is, the human judgement expresses the
nature of reality, expresses the Divine judgement to which
it has, by grace and training, gradually become responsive,
and so far the human judgement is metaphysically valid. So
far, on the other hand, as it falls short or diverges from the
path, it deviates necessarily into insignificance and futility,
and so far as it goes further and contradicts the nature of
what is, it not only stultifies itself, but invokes against itself
the higher forces of the universe. The ultimate standard,
then, of the validity of the moral judgement is furnished by
comparison with the structure of ultimate reality.

The evidence upon which these conclusions rest has been
investigated elsewhere,^ and it has been admitted that Plato's
position is at least formally satisfactory. The structure of
ultimate reality would undoubtedly furnish an ultimate
standard for testing the validity of our human attempts at
moral judgement, at seeing as God sees. From the standpoint
of God, one could judge finally and without appeal. But while
this is formally correct, a further question at once arises, as
to the substantial and material correctness of the view of
ultimate reality which is furnished by Plato. The structure
of reality provides the touchstone for moral judgement. Well
and good. But what precisely, in principle and, if possible,
also in detail, is the structure of reality? How, if at all, can
we be assured of the soundness of the Platonic theory of
reality? It is of vital importance to know this, and to realize
clearly how far Plato's teaching on this point can be accepted,

3See Lodg^e, Reality and the Moral Judgement in Plato (Phdl. Rev.,
vol. XXIX, Nos. 4 and 5, 1920).

MORAL VALIDITY

and how far it has its limitations. The investigation of the
validity of the Platonic metaphysic of morals is thus the
object of the present study.

Reality, according to Plato, consists of entities of a peculiar
kind, the Ideas or conceptual essences, and the structural
pattern of reality is thus, it would seem, constituted by the
relations of these entities to one another, a relatedness
controlled by a single ultimate principle, the Idea of Good, i.e.,
the principle of ideality or essentiality as such. We shall
therefore begin our investigation by making out a roughly
classified list of the entities which constitute these conceptual
essences, and shall then proceed to study the interrelations of
these essences, including in our examination, not only their
relations to one another, but also their relation to the highest
principle, the principle of essentiality. Having in this way
discovered, so far as possible, the nature and structure of
ultimate reality, as Plato conceives it, we shall then proceed
to determine the validity of his conception in relation to
possible human experience.

The entities definitely recognized in the Platonic writings
as Ideas, that is to say, as conceptual essences which in some
sense constitute the ultimately real, fall naturally into groups,
representing the essences of:

(1) natural phenomena, e.sr.,hair, clay, dirt, water, fire, etc.;

(2) organisms, e.(/., man, ox, etc. ;

(3) artefacts, e.g., bed, table, shuttle, etc.;

(4) goods of the body, e.g., strength, weakness, good looks,
etc.;

(5) social and political goods, e.g., high or low birth, wealth
or poverty, private or public station, the ideal state,
tyranny, etc. ;

(6) goods of the mind, e.g., cleverness, dullness, knowledge,
ignorance, etc.;

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

(7) aesthetical ideals, e.g., beauty, ugliness, etc.;

(8) moral ideals, e.g., good, evil, justice, injustice, tem-
perance, wisdom, all virtues and their opposites;

(9) categories and ideas of relation, e.g., one, other num-
bers, many, identity, difference, likeness, unlikeness,
greatness, smallness, equality, motion, rest, being,

(10) the Idea of Good.

The above ten groups are intended to cover the whole field
of Being, from the realities inadequately exemplified in the
world of sense-perceivables to the realities more adequately
expressed in the realm of moral, aesthetical, and religious
valuings, and more adequately apprehended by non-sensuous,
intellectual processes, culminating in the apprehension of the
Idea of Good, the key-stone of the arch. Nothing which is, is
intentionally omitted from the list,' and it may consequently
be regarded as, at least in intention and in principle, complete.

Before proceeding to discuss the relations of group to
group, it is advisable to consider briefly each group by itself,
in order to discover clearly and unambiguously upon what
grounds it is reckoned by Plato among the conceptual essences
in which reality consists.

(1) The first group, of natural phenomena, is considered
in relation to a distinction between absolute Ideas and the
phenomena which 'partake of them,' the Idea being consist-
ently regarded as transcendent or 'apart from' the phenomena.
The question is raised, whether there is an absolute essence of
such natural phenomena as fire or mud, etc., distinct from
and 'apart from' the actual phenomena with which we come
into sensory contact, or not. The Platonic Socrates expresses
a certain doubt and hesitation. On the one hand, he is inclined
to attribute to sensuous phenomena none but a phenomenal
existence, a reality purely sensuous, fluctuating and relative

*Ct.Phaedr., 247e, 277b, Rep., 484c f., 532a, 534b, Farm., 135a-c.

MORAL VALIDITY

to our sense-organs, and entirely devoid of ideal essence
{Farm., 130d, cf. Rep. 529c). On the other hand, when he
reflects further, he is inclined to believe that nothing which
has any kind of existence can be without an Idea, in which
case even sensuous phenomena would partake of some kind of
ideal essence, would be the appearance of some underlying
reality. The sequel to this discussion seems to indicate that,
in spite of the Socratic hesitation, the second view is, on the
whole, accepted by Plato.' Our general conclusion, then,
regarding this group is that there are absolute, transcendent
Ideas of natural phenomena, such notions as water-as-such,
clay-as-such, fire-in-itself, as distinct from actually experi-
enced concrete examples of water, clay, fire, etc., which only
partially and imperfectly represent the ideal nature of sucji
objects — much as a physical experiment, intended to
'demonstrate' the law of the conservation of energy, falls short
of its complete ideal."

(2) The second group, which includes at least all organic
bodies, is considered partly in the same context. Socrates
expresses a certain indecision as to whether, over and above
all actual human creatures, and 'apart from' them, there is
such an entity as man-as-such. Here also the sequel appears
to imply with reasonable certainty that, in spite of the
Socratic indecision, Plato himself would decide the question
in the affirmative. This is supported by the discussion, in
another context, as to the existence of such entities as man-as-
such, ox-as-such, etc. It is there implied, with sufficient

'-Tim., .51b f. Cf. Lod^e, Int. Jour. EtMcs, vol. xxxii, No. 2, pp. 200 f.
Against this, cf. Lewis Campbell, Intro, to Sop/ri-sfc?, p. Ixix, note.

•■Cf. Phaedo 79a, Rep., 510 f., Phileh., 17b f. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
developing further a hypothesis sufr^^ested by Lewis Campbell and ac-
cepted by Natorp, suprpests that the ParmcnklcR merely contains material
for practice in dialectic within Plato's school, and that the views towards
which Plato himself had been (gradually working his way are more
definitely expressed in the relevant passages of the Timaeus, which seem
to justify the position taken in the text.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

clearness, that such entities retain a permanent core of
individuality, 'apart from' changes in the realm of generation
and destruction.' Here also, then, our general conclusion
must be that of organisms such as man, ox, etc., there exists,
as expressed in the class name, a principle which holds the
class together as a unity, a conceptual unity distinguished
from and contrasted with the multiplicity of sensuous parti-
culars in the phenomenal world (Rep., 507b).

(3) Concerning the third group, which consists of at least
the Ideas of artefacts, e.g., objects such as beds and tables
made by the carpenter, Plato is very definite. The Ideas of
such objects are given as examples of unity-in-multiplicity, a
group which includes all artefacts, and indeed extends far
beyond them (Rep., 596a-b, cf. 480a). Wherever there is a
collection of phenomena, a 'many' which can be grouped
together as examples of a common principle, there is also the
principle of organization, the 'one' or the Idea which is at
least partially expressed in every member of the group. This
is more than a mere class-name. It expresses rather the ideal
partially realized in the concrete embodiments which can be
touched and seen. It is the ideal table and the ideal bed, whose
patterns arc laid up in heaven, the principle of tableness or
bedness, which the carpenter endeavours to realize in wood
or iron, and which the true artist should also endeavour to
portray in his own medium, instead of contenting himself
with copying the product of the carpenter's art. It is sharply
distinguished from the particular concrete objects which, in
the phenomenal world, only partially and imperfectly express
the ideal nature.

(4) The fourth group, representing what Plato frequently
classes together as 'goods of the body,' e.g., health, strength,

''Parjn., 130c, Phileb., 15a. Farm., 133e has the Idea of Mastery and
Slavery, which would seem to presuppose the ideality of 'man'.

MORAL VALIDITY

good looks, and their corresponding opposites, are nowhere
in so many words stated to be transcendent, absolute Ideas,
constituents of ultimate reality. However, in view of the
undoubted facts that (1) they come under the one-in-many
principle just explained, i.e., represent the common principle
in terms of which many individuals can be grouped together
as 'healthy,' 'strong,' 'good-looking,' etc., and (2) they consti-
tute ideals for human choice, and are thus 'patterns'
strikingly similar to the two great patterns of choice in the
Theaetetus — which are certainly absolute Ideas — it seems
reasonable, at least tentatively and unless we discover reasons
which might incline us to take the contrary view, to regard
them as Ideas (Rep., 618b f.. Laws, 733 f., Theaet. 176b). The
case of pleasure presents, however, at least at first sight, a
certain difficulty, inasmuch as it is at times apparently
regarded as a genesis rather than an ousia (Phileb., 54a f..
Rep., 584a f.). But further investigation shows that this is
a temporary, not a permanent point of view, and in view of
the facts that (1) pleasure is frequently referred to as a
typical life-ideal {Protag., 353b ff.. Rep., 506b, Phileb.,
passim), (2) the question is seriously discussed whether or not
pleasure is to be identified with 'the good' — which is quite
certainly an absolute Idea, (3) the 'Ideas of pleasure'— i.e.,
subordinate type-forms of pleasure — are discussed and to
some extent subjected to the analysis of the dialectician, whose
function is largely to analyse and synthesize Ideas (Phileb.,
20a), and (4) the unity-in-multiplicity principle seems to
apply to it, inasmuch as pleasureableness is the element
common to all the various examples of the pleasure-experience
— in view of all these facts, it seems necessary to recognize a
certain ideality about pleasure also, especially, perhaps, in its
purer forms. Taking, then, the class 'goods of the body' as a
whole, we shall in what follows, at least provisionally, regard
the members of this class as constituting ideal patterns which

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

havo a yi'iuiine existence, which may be distinguished from
and contrasted witli the particular concrete experiences of
healthiness, pleasure, etc.

(5) The fifth group, which is constituted by social and poli-
tical goods, is also nowhere as a whole stated to belong
definitely to the world of absolute Ideas, as opposed to
phenomenal realities. But, so far as wealth, power, etc., are
concerned, the same arguments apply which we found
convincing in the case of the fourth group. (1) Each of these
entities is a one-in-many, as wealthiness is a characteristic
common to all members of the class 'wealthy,' (2) wealth,
power, etc., constitute typical life-ideals or patterns of choice,
and (3) the interrelations and consequences of the members
of this group, in their effect upon human character, constitute
the subject-matter of moral science {Phaedr., 277b f., Rep.,
476a, 618c-d), i.e., form part of the study of the dialectician,
and are thus certainly to be regarded as Ideas. E.g., the life
of the tyrant, as contrasted with the life of the philosopher-
king in respect of happiness, is even represented mathemat-
ically, i.e., as an Idea, for all numbers possess ideal quality
{Theaet., 185c-d, Rep., 526a-b, 587c-e) ; and the political
ideals, which are somewhat similarly contrasted with one
another, are also presumably to be taken as possessing ideal
quality, for it is definitely stated of one of them, the Platonic
ideal city, that there exists a pattern of it set up in heaven,
i.e., that it is a transcendent Idea (Rep., 520c, cf. 592a) . We
shall therefore, at least provisionally, regard this group also
as consisting of conceptual essences apprehended as ideal
type-forms underlying the various phenomena of social life,
and as contrasted with the particular lives actually lived.

(6) The sixth group is in a somewhat similar situation.
The various qualities of mind exemplified above constitute a
portion of the subject-matter studied by the moral scientist,
who, whether as a departmental scientist, or as a dialectician

MORAL VALIDITY

who has realized the final vision of the Idea of Good, presum-
ably only studies Ideas.- Knowledge, again, is subjected to a
thorough-going dialectical analysis, and the results of the
analysis, i.e., subordinate types of knowledge, are definitely
referred to as Ideas, and frequent attempts are made to define
its nature or essence, so that we appear to be justified in
regarding it as possessing ideal quality." These qualities of
mind also come under the one-in-many principle, and furnish
one of the typical life-ideals, the life of knowledge, the contem-
plative, philosophic life, so that, in spite of the unquestioned
fact that Plato nowhere refers directly and unambiguously to
this group as a whole as a group of transcendent Ideas, it
seems reasonable, at least at the present stage, to regard this
group as furnishing conceptual essences or ideal type-forms,
which are apprehended as underlying the various phenomena
of the intellectual life, exemplified perhaps to an especial
degree in the life of the ideal philosopher, and more or less
adequately realized in the actual lives of educated individuals.

(7) Concerning the seventh group, there can be no possible
doubt. Good and evil, justice and injustice, temperance,
wisdom, and all the virtues and vices are referred to, again
and again, individually and collectively, as absolute Ideas.'"
They are contrasted sharply with the realm of phenomena
perceptible by the senses, as being unitary, permanent, intel-
ligible, as opposed to the manifoldness, transitoriness, and the
fluctuating quality of sense.'' In a word, they are one and all
transcendent essences, ideals of reason, infinitely superior to
the actual, concrete experiences of sensation, instinct, and
habit.

^Cf. Aristotle, Metaph, A, 990b 11-13.

^Phaedr., 247d, TIteaet., passim, Soph., 247a, Phileb., 20a-c, etc.

^^Phaedr., 2116, Rep., 507b, 520c, 540a, Theaet., 176a, e-177a, Soph.,
247a Phileb 15a etc

^^Phaedr'.', 247c f.,' Phaedo, 65d f., 75c-d, 76d f., 100b, Rep., 529b,
Theaet., 185, Polit., 285e.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

(8) St) too of the eighth group, which consists of aesthetical
iileals. from the beauty or ugliness of personal appearance,
through the beauties of science and conduct, to the ultimate
science of beauty everywhere, with its ennobling influence
upon human life (Symp., 210, etc.). Here also there is no
shadow of doubt. Beauty is referred to, again and again, as
an ideal essence far transcending the particular examples
which may be observed in the phenomenal realm. It is the
essence of beauty as such, the principle, participation in which
makes all particular beautiful things beautiful, but is not
exhausted, or even adequately expressed, in any particular
object, or in any group of particular objects. It has the
higher kind of reality, the 'greater share of pure being' which
belongs to the ideal as such, and is sharply contrasted with
the meaner realities, such as they are, which can be touched
and seen (Rep., 472d f ., 529b-c, 585b f .) .

(9) So far as the ninth group is concerned, the very nature
of the objects referred to is such that no one could possibly
confuse them with sense-perceivables. Unity, duality, oddness,
evenness, likeness, identity, etc. — such entities are obviously
apprehensible only by intellect. They are of the mind, mental,
and are used by the intellect in organizing sensory phenomena
into systematic groups, groups characterized, e.g., by some
underlying 'identity' of sense-quality, which is 'different' from
'identity' of sense-quality underlying some 'other' group. Each
of these identities, again, is 'one,' and taken together they are
'two', and, while different, they may be either 'alike' or
'unlike,' and whether alike or unlike, they are one and all
'equally' 'beings.' Plato expresses their nature by saying that
these entities are universal elements common to all sense-
perceivables, and apprehended, not by sense, but by 'the mind
herself,' i.e., by reason or intellectual intuition." They

^^Phaedo, 74a f., 78d, 100b, 102b f., Theaet., 185d-e.

MORAL VALIDITY

represent what we should call categories and ideas of relation,
and are plainly ideal in character, i.e., are non-sensory
elements apprehensible only by the intellect. They have also
the characteristic of being one-in-many, or universals.

(10) Concerning the Idea of Good, it is perhaps not neces-
sary to state much here. It is the highest of all Ideas, and is
apprehended last of all, after a very special training, and
even then only with a great effort. When apprehended, it is
recognized as the ultimate principle which makes clear every
object of spiritual aspiration, and leads to a certain transvalu-
ation of what was previously, in every department of
experience, accepted as valuable. From the standpoint of
science, it is the clear vision of truth, the adequate realization
of the true form of knowledge, transcending the limitations of
the special sciences and pointing the way towards their final
unification in a single, purely intelligible system of Ideas. It
is the principle which makes knowledge possible for the
individual knower, the supreme law of thought. It is also the
principle which makes objects knowable, the supreme formal
principle of things, the ideal of perfect logical consistency,
expressing the cognitive interrelationship of all knowable
entities in the light of a single ultimate principle {Rep.,
508d f.). From the standpoint of conduct, it is the ideal of
perfect social living, the formal principle which expresses the
co-operation of every element in the social group in such a
way that each element contributes its all to the complete
well-being of the group as a whole, and in so doing finds its
own completest and most harmonious development, its own
perfect well-being and final satisfaction (Rep., 462 ff.) . From
the standpoint of art, it is the realization, in the medium of
rhythmic movements expressed, it may be, in tone and colour-
patterns, of the ideal elements everywhere underlying our
experiences, the 'science of beauty everywhere' which does so

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

much to transfonn our living and make it more nearly what
it might be, a thing of beauty, a universalized aesthetic
joyousness (Symp., 210, etc.). So too from the standpoint
of religion, the Idea of Good is the supreme object of worship,
the supreme principle of reality conceived, not as an imper-
sonal principle, but as a living God, the Father of all, to whom
men endeavour reverently to assimilate themselves, the living
ideal of the God-like life, inadequately depicted in the various
religious creeds of the world, but the true and ultimate source
of whatever meaning those creeds possess (Theaet, 176, Rep.,
613b, Laws, 716b, f.). That is to say, the Idea of Good, in
general, is the principle of ideality, the principle which gives
value and significance to our experiences, the principle which
lifts them above the level of passing phenomena, changes
devoid of meaning, and endows them with something of
permanent abiding import, something of its own reality. As
such, it is a transcendent, absolute Idea, contrasted with the
impermanence, the fluctuation, and the insignificance of par-
ticular, sensory experiences.

By 'Idea' then, in general, Plato understands the one as
opposed to the many, the universal as opposed to the parti-
cular, the intelligible as opposed to the sensory, the absolute
as opposed to the relative, the meaningful as opposed to the
insignificant, the ideal as opposed to the actual, the ultimately
real as opposed to the phenomenal. The true life of the spirit
is the life which rises above the barren trivialities of instinct,
habit, and convention, to the full realization of the potentiali-
ties of humanity, the realization which comes with the
development of reason, of the apprehension of the ideal, the
permanent and abiding elements of value within experience.
This is the realization of man's co-partnership with God in
transforming the actual into the semblance of the ideal, in
making real upon earth the ideal city whose pattern is laid

MORAL VALIDITY

up in heaven, the city in which science, art, and religion
combine to enlighten conduct and thus to bring about the
salvation of humanity from within, so that men at last come
to live lives which are truly real, elevated above the particular,
the mechanical, sensory, and trivial, to the true home of the
free spirit, the dwelling-place of the Ideas, the City of God.

So much, then, for what Plato understands by the Idea.
That there are everywhere within experience ideal elements
pointing beyond the limitations of our immediate experience,
and that there arises inevitably before the eye of the soul the
vision of a transmuted, ideally complete experience, in which
every element of value finds its place, all tending towards the
living development of the whole, and each realizing its full
potentialities in complete harmony and fellowship with all the
rest — ^this vision of the ideal life has furnished forth the
substance of the faith of philosophers, of the interpreters of
the thoughts of humanity throughout the ages, and has been
the comfort and inspiration of leaders in art, science, and
religion, and concerning its general value for humanity there
can be little serious question. Our immediate inquiry, how-
ever, for the present is as to how Plato fills in the outlines,
how he views the interconnexion of the ideal elements in
experience, what kind of pattern he weaves as his final
expression of the structure of absolute reality.

That the various Ideas recognized by Plato must have some
relation to one another, will be apparent from a glance at the
list we have given above. Some of the Ideas, for example, fall
into one and the same group. The Ideas of hair, dirt, and
clay, etc., fall into the same group of natural phenomena ; the
Ideas of temperance, justice, wisdom, etc., fall into one and
the same group of moral ideals; the Ideas of identity and
difference, likeness and unlikeness, etc., fall into one and the
same group of Ideas of relation. So too each of the depart-

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

mental sciences studies all that falls within the scope of some
one general Idea; but what it studies, even in relation to
sense-perceivable phenomena, is always Ideas. E.g., it is the
ideal diameter, the ideal square, etc., which the mathematician
studies by means of his sense-perceivable figures,' '' so that it
is a group of Ideas which, as studied from the standpoint of
a particular science, fall within the scope of the general Idea
of that science. It is, then, at once evident that certain of the
Ideas have something in common, in virtue of which they
come under a wider, more inclusive Idea.

A further glance at the list will reveal the widespread
presence of another relationship, the relationship of opposi-
tion. Though falling within one and the same group, certain
members of the group are sharply distinguished from and
opposed to other members of the group. Thus goodness,
temperance, and justice are sharply distinguished from and
contrasted with evil, intemperance, and injustice, although
these 'opposites' are also recognized as Ideas and as falling
within the same general group of moral ideals (Rep., 476a,
Theaet., 176a, e f., Soph., 257c f.). So also identity, likeness,
greatness, and being are opposed as logical contraries to
difference, unlikeness, smallness, and not-being, respectively;
and yet, though 'opposites,' they are explicitly recognized as
Ideas and as belonging, just as much as identity, likeness, etc.,
to the same group of ideas of relation {Theaet., 186b, Farm.,
129a, d-e, 131a-d, Polit., 284b f.). So also in the Platonic
view of scientific investigation, it is usually and normally
maintained that 'opposites' fall within the scope of a single
science, i.e., fall under a single general Idea. And a further

^^Rep., 510d, with Adam's notes, and Appendix I to Bk. VII, esp.
pp. 159 ff. I take it that the 'mathematical square' is a generalization
which still contains empirical elements, the lower level of the Idea as
contrasted with the same generalization when, after its formal element
has been emphasized in relation to the ideal of complete consistency, the
empirical content is transcended and only the strictly logical or ideal
content remains. Cf. Int. Jour. Ethics, vol.xxxiii, No. 2, 1922, p. 202.

MORAL VALIDITY

glance at our list of Ideas will show that this kind of difference
and opposition is sufficiently evident in the other groups also.

The relations just noted, relations of identity and difference,
or as Plato is sometimes translated, sameness and otherness,
fall within the field of some one of the ten groups which
compose our list, considered apart from the other nine groups,
in reference only to its internal organization. But it will also
be sufficiently obvious that the groups themselves, when
considered in relation to one another, either as wholes or as
aggregates, are also related by way of identity and difference.
By way of identity — for as Ideas, i.e., as examples of the prin-
ciple of ideality, whether in direct relation to the Idea of Good
or in relation to the diverse phenomena which they sum up
and whose meaning they express, the groups as wholes, and
also all examples of each group, have certain formal elements
in common. They are, e.g., one as opposed to many, universal
as opposed to particular, conceptual as opposed to sensory,
etc. By way of difference — for the group expressing Ideas of
relation is clearly different from the group of social goods, or
of goods of the body, or from natural phenomena or artefacts.
Formally, then, all Ideas whatever, whether considered as
individual Ideas or as groups naturally falling together under
a single 'higher' Idea, are to some extent interrelated. Is it
possible to go further and to urge that, just as the individual
ideas which fall under one and the same higher Idea — as
justice, temperance, wisdom, etc., fall under the higher Idea
of virtue — are related in respect of content as well as of
general form, so also some of the groups are related to one
another in content as well as in general form?

All the above points of relationship are noted incidentally
by Plato, and the question of the general interrelationship of
Ideas and groups of Ideas is definitely discussed in the
Sophistes. There it is declared that the dialectician who has

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

learned to analyse correctly, that is, following lines of cleavage
established in the nature of things {Phaedr., 265e, Sovh.^
25 Id 11'.), will discover:

a. One form pervading a scattered multitude;

/). Many forms, existing only in separation and
isolation ;

c. Many forms, knit together into a single whole and

contained under a single form;

d. Some classes having communion with only a few

other forms;

e. Some classes having communion with many other

forms;
/. No reason why there should not be some classes

which have communion with all forms.
A brief study of these distinctions is necessary, in order to
ascertain what Plato has in mind. The first division {a) is
apparently a description of the general function of the Idea
as such. Each and every Idea is a one-in-many, a single form
pervading and uniting an otherwise scattered multitude of
particular examples, as e.g., 'furniture' might be regarded as
a general term pervading and uniting miscellaneous particular
specimens of furniture in an auction sale, or as the medical
term 'bile' or 'biliousness' serves to unite under a single head
many s>Tnptoms which, in appearance, at any rate, seem
diverse and disconnected {Tim., 83c).

The second division {h) seems to give rise to a serious
difficulty, for if the separation and isolation of the Ideas in
this division is taken absolutely, we have a clear contradiction
to the division of the universally pervasive forms (/) , and there
is also a lack of harmony with the well-known Platonic posi-
tion, maintained in this dialogue also, that the isolation and
separation of conceptual elements is the negation of all
discourse and all reasoning {Theaet., 161e, Farm., 135b-c,

MORAL VALIDITY

Soph., 259e f.). But in actual fact, if we may judge by the
sequel, the separation and isolation are understood as relative,
as motion and rest, for example, logically exclude one another,
or as identity and difference logically exclude one another.
The distinction is, then, a relative distinction, and is not
intended to imply that Ideas can be absolutely isolated,
separated into metaphysically water-tight compartments.

The third division recognized by the dialectician (c) would
be exemplified by any of the departmental sciences, e.g., by
geometry, which studies such ideal elements as the point, line,
surface, diameter, square, etc., in their interrelations, as
coming under a single comprehensive principle and thus as
being knit together into a single whole (Rep., 510c f.).
Another example would be the grouping together of such
Ideas as greatness, smallness, equality, identity, difference,
similarity, etc., so as to constitute a single class, included
within the higher, more comprehensive notion of 'universals
apprehended as common to all sense-perceivables,' or as the
discussion in the Sophistes and Parmenides indicates, common
also to many Ideas. Yet a third example would be furnished
by moral science, which investigates the interrelations of such
Ideas as noble birth, wealth, high station, etc., and studies
their effects upon character, according as they are variously
combined in varying circumstances, thus knitting together
into a complex totality all these Ideas {Rep., 476, 618c f.).
An even more common example in the Platonic writings would
be the case of the various 'parts of virtue', viz., justice, piety,
temperance, courage, etc., each of which is certainly regarded
by Plato as an Idea, but all of them are certainly regarded,
in spite of difficulties, as linked together under the higher and
more comprehensive single Idea of virtue (Laivs, 963c If.).

The fourth and fifth divisions (d, e) become much clearer
if we consider concretely, in relation to definite examples, what

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

appears to be meant. Artefacts, e.g., bed and table in the ideal
sense, have 'communion with' other Ideas, i.e., have certain
points of contact which link them up with other groups of
Ideas, but only to a limited extent. The Idea of bed has
certain points of contact with the Idea of wood or metal, and
even with such Ideas as hair, dirt, water, fire, etc. But such
connexions are obviously superficial, unessential. So again,
the Idea of bed has some points of contact with the group
constituted by Ideas of organisms, e.g., with the Idea of man.
It has superficial and unimportant points of contact with the
Ideas grouped together as goods of the body or with the
social goods class, points of contact at least equally superficial
with the goods-of-the-mind class, or with the moral-ideals
class. To the aesthetical-ideals class it bears a slightly more
recognizable relation, and has a number of relations to such
Ideas as greatness, smallness, motion, rest, etc., and is of
course connected with the Idea of Good. Such an Idea as bed
or table may accordingly be regarded as an example of the
fourth division {d) . On the other hand, as examples of the
fifth division (e), such Ideas as the mathematical Ideas, and
such Ideas as likeness and unlikeness, seem to have a more
universal connexion or, as Plato expresses it, have communion
with many other forms. These examples indicate, briefly but
perhaps adequately, what appears to be meant by the
intercommunion of forms, which furnishes so much of the
subject-matter to be investigated by the dialectician.

The sixth division (/) is exemplified, in the discussion
which takes place in the Sophistes, primarily by such 'higher
Ideas' as motion, rest, identity and difference (here treated as
'relative being' and 'otherness,' respectively), and also,
perhaps, by such Ideas as absolute being and the Idea of Good.
The upshot of the discussion appears to be that motion and
rest are not strictly universal, for they are mutually exclusive,

MORAL VALIDITY

but identity and difference — or relative being and relative
not-being — belong to each and every example of ideality, the
notion of absolute being, v^^hich is perhaps to be identified
with the Idea of Good, apparently falling outside the discus-
sion. It will be noted, however, that the universals which
remain within the discussion have all only a 'relative' being,
i.e., have meaning and reality mainly in relation to one
another. As good and evil are correlated in the Theaetetus,
so likeness and unlikeness are correlated in the Parmenides,
and sameness and otherness in the Sophistes. The notion of
absolute being, however, i.e., of ideal being, the form or
principle of Being itself, which is presumably to be equated
with the Idea of Good, is apparently to be understood as a single
form which has communion with all forms, precisely so far
as they are forms, i.e., on their formal side, as the principle
of formality or ideality which necessarily underlies each and
every form or Idea.

So far, then, we have discovered that, from the ideal
standpoint, the whole of reality is akin. The ideal qualities
apprehended by the dialectician as everywhere underlying our
experiences, constitute an interconnected totality, a single
ideal system. But as soon as we attempt to look more closely
into the system and probe into the interconnexion itself, we
come upon a certain difficulty. This difficulty is disguised,
perhaps, rather than elucidated by the statement that there
is an 'intercommunion of forms,' and that it is a large part
of the dialectician's task to investigate this intercommunion,
with little more to guide him than the formal certainty that
some forms are universally present, others less universally —
in a word, that he may expect to discover any and every degree
of intercommunion, from totality to zero.

In this difficulty let us, for the moment, leave the text of
the Sophistes and Politicus and construct, out of what we have

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

learnt Irom the other dialogues, the general ideal theoi-y, in
order to see if it will throw any light upon the precise signi-
ficance of this diHiculty of the interrelatedness of the ideal
tiualities discovered by the dialectician.

Each and every Idea, as such, is, as we have repeatedly
observed, in the first place an empirical generalization, i.e., is
a group of sensuous experiences so analysed and synthesized
as to have become telescoped, concentrated, idealized, raised
to a higher, supra-sensuous power in the form of a concept.
For example, the conception of ideal bed-quality arises out of
a number of empirical bed-experiences, by processes of
abstraction, comparison, etc., resulting in a certain symboliza-
tion and standardization of the experiences in question, and
giving us, in the 'bedness' concept, something which the mind
can grasp as an intelligible unity, something elevated above
the sensuous flow of consciousness, a conceptual essence or
meaning, colourless, shapeless, intangible, as Plato puts it.

In this process, nothing of genuine importance has been
omitted. The fluctuation, impermanence, uncertainty, and
chaotic plurality of the sensuous experiences are gone, but
every element of ideal quality anywhere contained in those
experiences has been extracted by the dialectician and taken
up into the final concept. The meaning of the sensuous
experience, and the meaning expressed in the concept, are not
two meanings. They are identical, with however this differ-
ence, that in the concept the meaning finds expression in a
clear-cut form which can not merely be felt vaguely, as a part
of the living stream of conscious experience, but, while still
felt, can also be known, distinctly apprehended by the intellect,
the 'pilot' of the soul.

Suppose, now, we take a second ideal quality, the Idea of
comfort,^' and assume that this concept has been obtained

'<This Idea is not mentioned in Plato, but is used here for illustrative
purposes. The conclusions thus reached are verified by comparison with
the 'virtues' which overlap in a somewhat similar way.

MORAL VALIDITY

from a number of empirical experiences, partly of beds, partly
of chairs, partly of clothing, etc., in such a way that the bed-
experiences, at any rate, are identical with the bed-experiences
in the first case considered. This concept also is obtained
by abstraction, comparison, etc., resulting in an intellectual-
ized, colourless, shapeless, intangible essence, which is not
merely felt as part of the living process (erlebt), but is also
grasped distinctly by the intellect.

If we proceed to compare these two Ideas, in order to
investigate, in the dialectical manner, how far they have
'intercommunion,' we discover that in a certain regard they
are not different from one another, but are identical. Both
arise from sensuous experiences which are analysed,
synthesized, condensed and run together in such a way as to
omit the fluctuation, impermanence, and uncertainty inevit-
ably bound up with the sensuous mode of experiencing. Both
retain in consistent and harmonious interrelationship within
the limits of a single ideal unity, all the elements of
meaning-value which could be extracted from the original,
relatively more sensuous experiences. And further: this,
which both have in common, is common to all Ideas without
exception. One and all, they represent attempts at extracting
from sensuous experience all relevant elements of meaning-
value, and at interrelating these elements in such a manner
as to secure harmony, consistency, unity, and the maximal
development of ideal quality within the limits of the conceptual
totality, the Idea, which results from these operations.

That is to say, all Ideas without exception are examples of
one and the same law, the principle of Ideality, the demand
that every conceptual unity, as such, shall exhibit the
maximum of ideal quality which is capable of being extracted
from sensuous experience and expressed in consistently
organized, systematic unity. But this principle of Ideality is,

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

as has been pointed out elsewhere,''' what Plato calls the Idea
of Good, so that every particular Idea is a particular deter-
mination of the Idea of Good, is, on its ideal side, identical
with the Idea of Good, taken, however, not universally, in its
full and final sense, but as being limited by being applied to
a particular, limited group of sensuous experiences.

Let us consider briefly, but more precisely, what this means.
The Idea of Good is, from a logical point of view, the principle
of completeness and consistency, the scientific ideal of
including within one and the same consistent system every
element of positive knowledge-value within experience. From
the ethical and social point of view, it is the ideal of a social
organism which calls out the complete development of every
member, in harmony with the complete development of every
other member, each contributing its all to the common good.
From the metaphysical point of view, the Idea of Good is the
conception of an ideal reality in which the positive significance
of each element which exists is fully brought out in harmoni-
ous relationship with everything of positive significance
throughout the rest of existence. It is the conception of an
ideal existence consisting of the fullest and richest development
of the potentialities of the universe in a single, self-supporting
system, with a complete absence of conflict, waste, privation,
and negation.

Let us now take a particular Idea, e.g., the Idea of bedness,
and compare it with the Idea of Good. The Idea of bedness
represents an attempt to extract from certain sensuous experi-
ences everything which has bed-quality, and to organize the
elements so extracted into a single harmonious system, repre-
senting the complete systematic development of all relevant
elements of meaning-value. That is to say, it is the principle
of the Idea of Good, applied, however, not to the whole

i''Cf. Int. Jour. Ethics, vol. xxxii, No. 2, 1922, pp. 193-5, 202-3.
86

MORAL VALIDITY

universe, but to a particular section of sensuous experience.
The difference, then, between a particular Idea and the Idea
of Good, is the difference between the more particular and
the more universal, i.e., more comprehensive and more
thorough-going, application of one and the same principle,
the principle of ideality. Every Idea is, then, in principle
identical with the Idea of Good, the principle of ideal or
ultimate reality. But, as being narrow and without compre-
hensiveness in its application, or as being superficial rather
than profound, i.e., with the process of idealization only
partially carried through, as at the level of 'opinion' it falls
short of being a complete expression of the ideally transmuted
experience which is ultimate reality.

In the final analysis, then, there is only one Idea, the Idea
of Good, the absolute or Divine Experience. But between
this and the lower limit which is almost wholly sensuous,
there are to be found various stages of human attempts at
idealization, such as are noted in the theory of the 'four stages
of intelligence' in the Republic. Some of these empirical
generalizations at the level of opinion, are hardly to be called
Ideas at all, as they are more closely related to sensuous than
to intellectual experience. But they pass, by imperceptible
gradations, into Ideas at the higher level of opinion or lower
stage of knowledge, which is represented by the generaliza-
tions studied in the departmental sciences (Rep., 533b-d,
534c) . These need to be still further idealized, by abstracting
from their sensuous basis and gradually making them over in
accordance with the formal demand for the complete and
systematic development of all that is positive in their content
until they are truly permeable to intelligence and have become
transformed from proximate into ultimate reality. They are
then Ideas in the strict or final sense. It is with the ideal
vision attained in this way, i.e., with the vision of the complete

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

idealization of liuman experience, the transmuting of all its
baser elements into elements of beauty and glory, each realiz-
ing itself in its true place as related to the other elements
which together make up the absolute totality, that the
philosopher-guardian proceeds to make over the whole of our
experience. With this vision in mind, he works into our
social institutions the principle of the Idea, and elevates our
experience gradually, and so far as is possible in working with
an experience which retains to the last, elements of human
imperfection, to the level of insight at which we become
co-partners with God in the real work of the world, the full
development of potentiality, and the onward march of
humanity towards the progressive realization of the Idea.

We are now in a position to ask how, upon these premises,
one Idea is related to another, i.e., how certain sensuous pro-
cesses partially idealized are related to certain other pro-
cesses partially idealized, or to the same processes idealized
from a different point of view, e.g., how the Idea of comfort
is related to the Idea of bed, or how temperance is related to
courage. The answer depends primarily upon the standpoint
of the questioner. From the standpoint of opinion or ordinary
education, Ideas, though all admittedly ideal and thus
resembling one another, are, on the whole, rather sharply
distinguished from one another, and even a thinker like the
Socrates of the Pa7'menides has not adequately realized the
gap which separates an empirical generalization such as
'likeness,' 'unlikeness,' 'greatness,' 'smallness,' etc., from an
Idea in the full sense. From this standpoint, it is assumed
that each Idea is itself, and is sharply distinct from every
other Idea, and it is not understood that an element of
'difference' or 'multiplicity' is retained in every such gen-
eralization. This position is not quite consistent with the
belief expressed in the Sophistes that the Ideas 'intercommu-

MORAL VALIDITY

nicate', i.e., that, in spite of each Idea being distinct from each
other Idea, they possess certain elements in common, so as
partly to overlap and coincide; for if they possess certain
elements in common, they cannot possibly be quite
as distinct as is assumed in the Parmenides. In
fact, a great part of the purpose of the Parmenides
as a dialogue appears to be, to convince 'Socrates'
that in the Ideas as he understands them there is contained
a fringe or margin of difference or multiplicity, analogous to
the diversity and manifoldness which he recognizes as present
in sensuous experience, and that accordingly, in the empirical
generalizations which he accepts as complete idealizations,
there is much of the contradictoriness and fluctuation which
is, to his mind, as much a paradox in the ideal realm as it is
a commonplace in the realm of sensation (Parm., 129 ff.).
That is, the truth emphasized by 'Parmenides' in this con-
nexion is, that the Socratic 'Ideas' are not Ideas in the highest
sense, not complete idealizations, but retain, in that portion
of their content which has been only imperfectly abstracted
from its empirical beginnings, a mass of experience which
remains sensuous, unidealized, and admitting of all the logical
difficulties which are freely accepted as the inevitable attri-
butes of untransmuted sensuous experience.

At this level then, which appears to correspond to the 'third
stage of intelligence,' Ideas seem to be sharply distinct from
one another, and a question may well be raised as to their
interrelationship, as in more modern times a conflict has been
recognized between groups of experience organized under
such headings as 'science' and 'religion,' or 'art' and 'morality,'
or between such organizing principles as 'mechanism' and
'teleology,' and the interrelations of such pairs of Ideas have
been subjected to prolonged and systematic investigation. It
is, in fact, largely to this method, viz. of investigating the

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

interrelations of such comprehensive generalizations, that the
Platonic dialectician looks for success in rising out of and
beyond the third stage of intelligence into the fourth, i.e., to
the realization that these generalizations are not complete or
final idealizations, and to the discovery of the unhypothetical
first principle which underlies experience in general, and
especially experience as partly reorganized in these wide
generalizations {Soph., 253b f.).

When this final stage of philosophic insight has been
reached, it becomes sufficiently clear that each Idea — e.g.,
science, religion, art, morality, etc. — now represents the whole
of philosophic insight turned in a particular direction, and it
becomes plain that, whatever the direction, it is one and the
same insight which is represented in each case, so that the
difference and conflict which was noted at the lower stage of
reflection ceases, at the higher standpoint, to have any
meaning. The complete harmony in which the various
aspects of experience now interpenetrate and throw light upon
one another has so transformed them all, that there is now
only one continuous experience. In this single experience, the
different Ideas such as art, morality, etc., represent different
directions of thought, different reference-points for the concen-
tration of the whole of experience, and are related to one
another as different lines of interest, with the freest
possibilities of overlapping, interlacing, etc. From this higher
standpoint the dialectician is made free of the whole
intellectual realm of Ideas, and can pass at pleasure from any
one direction of thought to any other, secure in the insight into
the Idea of Good, which illumines each pathway and enables
him to surmount what, at the lower stage of reflection, consti-
tuted serious obstacles for his thought, obstacles opaque and
impermeable to his intelligence (Rep., 511b-c, 532 ff.).

If we now proceed to inquire what, from the standpoint thus
attained, is the structure of ultimate reality, we discover that

MORAL VALIDITY

the question has little meaning. The difficulties concerning
the interrelation of Ideas which appeared distinct and opposed
to one another, vanish of themselves when it is realized that
such difficulties subsist only between incomplete idealizations,
i.e., at a stage of philosophic reflection lower than the one
now reached. From the new and final standpoint, reality is
envisaged as completely intellectualized, completely ideal, and
consequently as possessing only the structure which belongs
to the nature of the intellectualized and ideal, as such. That is
to say, ultimate reality is identical with the Idea of Good, and
its structural form is consequently nothing more or less than
the form of organization. It is the ideal of unity-in-multipli-
city applied upon the widest possible scale, viz., to the whole
of experience. It is the ideal of comprehensiveness and
consistency, the ideal of a totality of harmoniously interpene-
trating contents, the ideal of a single richness which is
experience itself, raised above the sensuous to the intellectual
level and completely idealized, expressed in the form of a
single, all-comprehensive and all-expressive, judgement, in
which every content of possible experience finds its true and
final place in relation to all other possible contents, and all
differences, conflicts, and oppositions which at the lower, more
empirical level are so painfully apparent, are transcended.
They are overcome in the transmutation effected by the new
unification, the bringing of all experiences into a togetherness,
an interpenetration in the name of the single supreme
principle of totality {Laws, 903b f.).

This, then, is the Platonic view of ultimate, ideal reality. In
order to make sufficiently clear its concrete application as a
criterion in questions of moral evaluation, we shall follow
Plato's example, and shall begin with the individual writ large,
i.e., with the community organized into a city-state, before
passing on to consider the moral judgements of the individual

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

citizen as such. The first characteristic of the ethical state
which is to be noted, is its unity. Made up, as it is, of
different individuals and classes, a strong natural tendency of
the social group is towards disruption, towards the develop-
ment of group-interests, of class-consciousness and class-
legislation, expressing itself in the life of political faction
which was so marked a feature of civic living in fourth-century
Greece (Laics, 712e f., 714b ff.). Such groups, as Plato never
wearies of pointing out, constitute, not one community, but a
plurality of cities, related to one another by way of hostile
neutrality if not of open warfare, and their notions of justice
and virtue are simply unmeaning (Rep., 422e f.) . But disrup-
tion, in every shape and form, is 'the enemy,' and, in
opposition to this state of things, the ethical community aims
at true spiritual unity, in spite of the diversity of civic
activities. Nay, in and through that diversity itself, it unites
the members of the state in the common bonds of social
service and co-operation in citizenship.

Each citizen is to realize his full potentialities. The cobbler
is to make shoes and to turn himself into a better cobbler.
The farmer is to cultivate the soil and make two blades of
wheat grow where one grew before. The potter is to turn
himself into a better potter, the weaver into a better weaver,
each realizing his Idea (Rep., 420d f.). But this is not to be
understood in a too narrow and technical sense. The ethical
community does not consist of a loose federation of diversely-
interested, competing groups, of farmers concerned only in
the production and sale of wheat, of carpenters concerned only
with the ideals of a carpenter's trade union, etc., of manu-
facturers of agricultural implements concerned only with the
production and sale of their specific wares, each competing
against all the rest for higher wages, better working
conditions, etc. On the contrary, it is only as genuinely

MORAL VALIDITY

interrelated, as belonging to a wider totality which unifies all
its members, that the farmer, carpenter, and the rest realize
their full potentialities. It is as citizens of one and the same
community, as workmen who perform all that they do, in the
spirit of service to the common-weal, that they participate in
true co-operation, the spirit without which their highest
development as farmers, carpenters, etc., is impossible. The
highest civic good is a certain community of feeling, a sense
of belonging together for good or ill, not a matter of cold,
logical or economical calculation, but a warm, living sense of
unity, such as is found in the best kind of family life {Rep.,
462 ff.). This is realized with peculiar clearness in the case
of the guardian caste. For this is welded together by a certain
morale developed by the common work, common play, common
social living, and common aspirations of a select group of
community leaders. But right through the commonwealth
runs a bond of unity which binds together leaders and fol-
lowers, the agreement, namely, as to which shall lead and
which shall follow, the civic virtue of temperance or
self-determination (Rep., ASld f,) . And throughout the whole
group runs the living sense of community, of belonging
together, the herd-instinct idealized into the social virtue of
justice, so developed that each citizen contributes his best to
the common stock, secure in the realization that each of his
fellow-citizens is doing the same. This applies, not only to
guardians and auxiliaries, but also to farmers, weavers, and
potters (Rep., 421c, 434c). All alike are linked together in
spiritual brotherhood, in virtue of their habitual sense of the
whole to which they belong, the ideal state in which they have
their being, and to whose service they owe their full develop-
ment as individual citizens.

So far as a social group exhibits the characteristics of
unity and full, harmonious development of the most diverse
abilities in the service of the community as a whole, we have

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

a phenomenon which corresponds to the Idea of Good, i.e., the
ideal conception of ultimate reality. So far, on the other
hand, as we have groups which exhibit diversity, as when the
central ideal pursued is not the well-being of the community
as a whole, but the amassing of wealth, the enjoying of
sensuous pleasure, or the expressing of an anarchic sense of
'freedom' — we have a manifest falling away from the ideal.
When considerable masses of citizens organize against their
fellow-citizens in order to secure a disproportionate share of
the wealth of the community, or when large numbers of the
well-to-do refuse to regard themselves as belonging to the
group as a whole and thus as bound to serve its interests, but
insist that they should be 'free' to get from the service of
others whatever appears to their narrow, anti-social egoism
to be desirable, the community ceases, in fact, to exist. We
have no longer one city, but rather a plurality of cities, not at
peace among themselves, but competing for goods which they
cannot enjoy in common, and riddled with conflicts, opposi-
tions, and contradictions. Faction-torn, divided against
themselves, an easy prey to assaults from without and the
forces of disruption within, they lead, by clearly marked and
inevitable gradations, to the last and most miserable state of
any social group, complete and tyrannical despotism.

It is in some such way as this, that the Platonic view of
ultimate reality can be used as a criterion or standard, by
comparison with which we can decide whether a given consti-
tution is making for unity of civic spirit, foT an idealism which
will develop each citizen to the full, and will bring to the
community as a whole the free, ungrudging, joyous service of
every citizen, or whether, on the other hand, self-seeking, the
egoistic grasping after power and opportunity, the futility of
party strife, and a cynical disregard of public good, is slowly
but inevitably tearing the group to pieces and unfitting it to

MORAL VALIDITY

contribute anything free, noble, and worthy towards the
onward march of humanity.

As with the state, so with the individual. Each one of us
consists of a number of tendencies which are at war with one
another and threaten to disrupt the personality. Along with
the sense for law and order which distinguishes human beings
from the other animals {Phileb., 26a-b, Laws, 672c-d, 673d)
and furnishes the basis for so much that is characteristically
human in our lives — e.g., art, law, morality, science — goes
what Plato designates as a lawless, wild-beast element which,
even in the better-regulated personalities, peers out in the
dream-life, disregarding our most sacred conventions and
rejoicing in trampling upon our most cherished social convic-
tions (Rep., 571b f.). This 'concupiscent element' is usually
at daggers drawn with the more rational elements of our
nature, seeking satisfaction for its instinctive needs with an
absolute disregard for anything but the immediate satisfaction
of those needs. It is especially and peculiarly opposed to the
virtue of temperance or self-control, whether at the instinctive
level or at the more rational levels of opinion and philosophical
insight, and endeavours to convert reason itself into its
minister, so as to make money which will procure satisfaction
for its lawless desires, and by force and fraud to seek power
in the community, in order, not only to discover means to its
ends, but also to indulge its appetites with impunity (Rep.,
553c-d, 574 f.). Its last and final aim is to induce a self-
sophistication of the reason, which poisons our religious
intuitions at the source, by spreading the belief that out of
the gains of systematic wrong-doing in the service of 'desire'
the Gods themselves can be bribed into acquiescence (Rep.,
364b ff.). This spirit of materialistic self-seeking is thus a
strong, lawless tendency, directly opposed to our ethical,
religious, and rational impulses, and the source of a funda-
mental conflict in our nature.

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Into this conflict a third element of major importance may
enter, the 'spirited element/ with its tendencies towards
pug-nacity, vigour, and 'character.' This is capable of taking
sides with either party, and of acting energetically either
against the concupiscent impulses or against our more rational
tendencies (Rep., 439d ff.). It is more naturally on the side
of reason, but is liable to perversion. And even as some sort
of moral organization begins to develop, all kinds of conflict
tend to make their appearance. Thus the dispositions (1)
towards pugnacity and (2) towards tender-mindedness,
quietness, and sobriety are opposed, not only at the level of
instinctive or unreflective disposition, but also at the level of
opinion, i.e., even after they have taken on something of the
nature of the two virtues of courage and temperance (Polit.,
306 ff.). And finally, our intellectual nature itself, rational
though it is, may be perverted so as to serve ends mutually
contradictory, as with the burglar or the rascally lawyer,
whose intelligence is an instrument of evil, as opposed to the
philosopher-guardian, in whom it is an instrument of good
(Rep., 409c f ., Theaet, 173a-b) .

Thus we see that our human nature contains a multiplicity
of impulses which are at variance with one another, so that
the individual is naturally and almost inevitably at war with
himself, not one man but two men or more, with diverse
interests and diverse characters, oscUlating between different
and opposed lines of conduct, unstable equilibrium personified,
swaying now towards reason and philosophy, now towards
poetry and the fine arts, now towards wealth and grasp of
power, and now towards sensuous enjoyment, a many-
sidedness scintillating and dangerous, fascinating, dazzling,
peculiarly Hellenic (Gorg., 491e f ., Rep., 557c, 561b f.).

Amid these conflicting impulses, however, there tends to
arise in the individual some dominating group, some complex

MORAL VALIDITY

of impulses which acts together as a unit and functions as a
kind of nucleus, introducing its own type of organization
among the other impulses and eventually converting them all
into more or less reluctant ministers to its own type of satis-
faction. In certain cases, the ruling complex consists of those
impulses which are concerned with the acquisition of wealth.
When this complex becomes dominant in an individual, it
converts every other impulse in his nature into a means for
making money, or at least into something which is not a
hindrance to that pursuit. Thus, in respect of the various
bodily appetites, he will, of deliberate choice, satisfy only such
as are indispensable for the support of life, and these too
only in such ways as assist in strengthening him in his pursuit
of riches. For example, so far as hunger and thirst are
concerned, he will satisfy these 'necessary appetites' with
plain fare such as bread, meat, and water, rather than with
the costly viands sometimes seen at the rich man's table. This
is partly because he shrinks from paying out money, and
partly because simple food is better for his health, and leaves
him free to work hard (Rep., 558d f.). It must not be
supposed, however, that he has no craving for tasty and
expensive dishes. On the contrary, he lusts after any and
every kind of satisfaction, and does not hesitate for a moment
to gratify his desires, provided that someone else will pay the
cost. His self-restraint is exercised only when gratification
would cost him money, and his motives are entirely sordid and
ignoble. Appetites which are not essential to the maintenance
of life and, so far from being of assistance in money-making,
are actually a source of considerable expense — these he wiil
keep down by violent constraint, because and in so far as
they contradict his dominant motive of spending nothing
himself. The constraint is unreasoning, a battle between
opposed lusts, between which there can be only a patched-up
truce, temporary at best, as questions of virtue and reason do

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

not enter into the conflict at all (Phaedo, 68e f., Rep., 554).
Ay:ain, from a civic point of view, he is entirely devoid of
public spirit, and not only steadily refuses to compete for
distinction and office, for fear of encouraging his own
expensive appetites under the stimulus of rivalry and the
struggle for civic victory (Rep., 555a-b, Laws, 831c-d), but
evades the payment of taxes, impoverishes his fellow-citizens
by the practice of usury, and in general devotes his great
powers of work always to profit and hoarding, making mean
and petty savings, from any and every source {Rep., 343d f .,
555ef., Lmvs, 743b f.).

His mode of living carries with it fatal consequences.
The appetites which he refuses to gratify at his own expense
are, indeed, expelled for the time being, driven, as we should
put it nowadays, below the threshold of consciousness. But
as there is no attempt to alter or educate them, they remain
beyond the threshold, craving satisfaction. Eventually they
tend to become unified in virtue of their common expulsion,
and thus gradually and inevitably build up a rival complex,
which in the end tends to get control of the organism, and thus
finally destroys the well-organized but narrow complex of
parsimonious impulses. The effort at dominance on the part
of the wealth-seeking impulses thus results, after a temporary
ascendancy, in the creation of a powerful rival which ulti-
mately succeeds in overthrowing it, and the individual tends
to lapse into an unrestrained and chaotic satisfaction of
diverse appetites, one after another, a condition which differs
from the original state of the individual mainly in that the
lack of restraint now tends to be deliberate {Rep., 560 f.).

Let us consider, as a second example of one-sided develop-
ment of character, the case in which love of 'freedom,' of lack
of restraint, becomes dominant. In this case, the function of
the dominant complex is the somewhat neutral one of allowing

MORAL VALIDITY

free play to any and every impulse without distinction. In
fact, the organizing complex equates all impulses in respect
of satisfaction-value {Rep., 561c) , and restricts its regulatory
function to seeing that no one impulse, whatever its strength,
succeeds in dominating the others for longer than a brief
period. Like Dryden's Zimri, such an individual is an epitome
of all sorts of men and is deliberately devoid of unity, every-
thing by starts, and nothing long. First, all for music, then
for gymnastic training; now he idles, now he throws himself
into philosophical investigation. Now he devotes himself to
public life, adopting a political or militaiy career; now he
turns trader, and worships commercial success which can be
measured in cash, and displays a marked tendency to make
light of the laws and of all constituted authority {Rep,,
561df.).

To the individual who lives this highly sophisticated kind of
life, it appears to be, not one-sided, but many-sided, as he
allows free play to every side of life in turn, as chance
stimulates now this interest, now^ that. But as it is a matter
of chance rather than of rational control, and as, in the
kaleidoscopic changes and alternations of interest, all tendency
towards permanent organization of character is deliberately
eschewed, the controlling complex gradually deteriorates in
power, and the individual, thus self-weakened, falls inevitably
under the dominion of some one of the 'terrible appetites'
which, whatever its relative satisfaction-value, is more than
equal to the other appetites in strength, and, once firmly in
the saddle, is not easily unseated. Among appetites which,
when once released and entirely loosed from moral and
rational control, develop to such a terrible extent, Plato names
sex-desire, the craving of intoxicants, and other tendencies
which he classes together as definitely pathological {Rep.,
573a-c). The deliberate purpose of maintaining neutrality
and setting free any and every impulse without distinction,

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

results in its own negation. For it inevitably delivers the
individual, with diminished powers of resistance, into the
hands of some one of the great demons which it has succeeded
in unchaining, so that the path to freedom via many-sidedness
leads to slavery and one-sidedness after all (Rep., 577d f.).

By disorganization, then, and sophistication it is not possible
to realize true freedom and the development of every natural
impulse. Let us proceed to consider, not complexes motivated
by ambition or lust of power, which, after a brief and hectic
ascendancy, similarly fall victims to the rival complexes which
their one-sidedness has called into being, but the attempt at
organizing character in terms of reason and virtue. The
training here consists, not in violent constraint, as in the case
of avarice or anarchism or ambition, but in reasoning, in
appealing to the rational element inherent even in our appe-
tites (Rep., 554d). We seek to convince appetites A, B, C, . . .
that it is to their own advantage, as appetites which seek
their own satisfaction, to give up the irrational method of
internecine rivalry and to substitute for this senseless and
suicidal struggle a consistent attempt at rational co-operation,
at the development of a harmonious life-ideal, and so to find
room for every impulse which tends to create and enrich a
comprehensive personality. Where an appetite needs to be
restrained in the interest of the totality of which it thus forms
a part, it is possible to appeal to our sense of the part-whole
relationship {Laws, 903b), and thus to persuade an appetite
that it is to its own interest to accept and impose upon itself
a certain degree of restraint. This kind of training not only
welds together our various impulses in harmonious co-opera-
tion, but welds them together in terms of the rational element
which is common to all of them and considerg what is, upon
the whole, for the advantage of each. In a life-ideal so
formed, not only is there no permanent conflict of interests,

100

MORAL VALIDITY

but the rational element rules, and rules over willing subjects,
which are themselves rationalized and fully taken up into the
strongly organized rational personality which represents their
ideal result.

Their union thus constitutes, not a loosely organized
federation of interests essentially competitive, a union external
and liable on any occasion to disrupt and lapse into open
conflict, but an inner spiritual unity, in which each element,
originally separate to some extent, has grown together with
the others into a single closely organized nature, which acts
as one, feels and thinks as one, and is a genuine, living,
spiritual unity (Rep., 462c-d). Each of the elements originally
separate, with a separateness capable of accentuation in the
competitive struggle and one-sided development described
above, comes to lose its one-sidedness and exclusiveness, and
takes on something of the nature of the other elements which
are all growing together in the interest of the personality as
a whole. An instinctive impulse, originally capable of
developing into a 'terrible appetite,' if it co-operates with the
other impulses in rational living, becomes transmuted into an
organic portion of the forces which are gradually building up
a strong personality fit to take its part in the onward march
of humanity and thus to reflect the nature of the ideal which
is by these means being realized.

In this transmuted form, it is precisely in the higher type
of personality, so organized upon ethical and spiritual
principles as to take on the nature of ideal reality, that every
human impulse and appetite comes to realize its own highest
potentialities, and thus attains to true inward freedom. The
organization which develops by taking up into itself what is
of positive value in every element in our nature, is not
something which acquires an external and temporary ascend-
ancy at the expense of creating some rival complex which will

101

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

eventually conquer and enslave it. On the contrary, it grows
stronger, more liberal and free, more permanent and assured,
with each forward step it takes towards realizing the ideal,
until at last each element has freely contributed its best and
highest towards building up the personality of the philosopher-
king, the strongest and most valuable personality possible for
a human being, which reflects the whole value-experience of
the race in its long upward struggle, and worthily assumes the
position of leadership in the community.

The development of a personality of this type is definitely
to be regarded as a gradual approximation to the nature of
ultimate, ideal reality. This may be clearly seen in two ways.
In the first place, as representing the utmost possible develop-
ment of the potentialities of the individual thus harmoniously
attuned to social service, it approximates to the nature of the
Idea as such, to the Idea of Good which constitutes ideal
reality. In the second place, a study of the genesis of the
highest type of character from birth to the age of fifty
sufficiently shows how the natural organism gradually becomes
responsive to the Ideas of courage, temperance, justice, beauty,
holiness, and wisdom. By taking these up into its nature, it
furnishes a human habitation for the highest Ideas, and then
fills in the outlines under the influence of the best literature,
art, science, philosophy, and religion. Literature depicts in
worthy form the noblest traditions of the race, while art in
general fosters the growth of insight into the ideal which
everywhere underlies the actual, and thus transforms our
sensuous experience into the symbolic apprehension of the
highest realities {Phaedr., 249e f.). It possesses the further
function of training our habits of feeling and thinking along
the noblest lines until the ideal has sunk into the inmost
recesses of our being (Rev., 376e, 396c f., 399, Laws, 814e ff.).
Science disengages the intelligence from its sensuous envelope

102

MORAL VALIDITY

and prepares it to traverse the intellectual realm of Ideas from
one end to the other (Rep., 533b f.). Philosophy enables the
trained scientist and dialectician to raise his intellectual
vision to the contemplation of the Idea of Good itself; and
finally religion enables the living spirit of man to realize its
kinship with the living Spirit which is the universal ideal,
the God and Father of all, and, in the illumination which
comes of this fusion of living faith and knowledge, to live the
new life of assured blessedness, the peace and joy {eudaimonia)
which come to those who have found their true and assured
place in the bosom of reality, as co-workers with their divine
Archetype.

The development of a personality of this type represents,
then, an approximation to ideal reality. Other types of
personality, which exhibit the dominance of some particular
impulse-complex, such as the thirst for wealth or honour or
power, appear, in the light of this comparison, as one-sided
perversions, tragically beside the point. So also the entirely
mistaken endeavour to be just to every natural impulse by
equating the claims upon our good-will of each and every
desire, and permitting each impulse to dominate in turn, as
chance stimulates it into activity, giving up all positive
attempt at central guidance and control,"' represents a distinct
falling away from the ideal. For in these cases, in place of
completeness, we have one-sidedness, overdevelopment here,
underdevelopment there. In place of harmony, we have discord
open or concealed, culminating in the futility of self-contradic-
tion. In place of steady, forward growth, we have a period
of ascendancy followed by conflict, disruption, and the
ascendancy of some rival complex. In place of peace and joy
we have uneasiness, scheming, unrestrained savagery in

i^The negative kind of control remains, consisting: in not permitting
any one impulse to encroach too lon^ upon the 'equal' rip:hts of other
equally egoistic impulses (Rep., 561b f.).

103

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

victory and abject fear in defeat. Of these one-sided
tendencies, some are more orderly, more organized than
others, and thus come nearer to the ideal. Others are more
definitely weak, more obviously a prey to the blind forces of
chaos, and are thus further removed from the ideal.

The consideration of such comparisons indicates with suffi-
cient clearness how the conception of ideal or ultimate reality
in Platonism is used as a criterion or standard, by which to
test the value of the individual personality {Rep., 472c-d,
498e f.) . It remains to make clear how the conception is used
in moral judgement generally, and thus to discover upon what
the metaphysical validity of moral judgements, in general,
depends.

Moral judgement consists in asking, in the case of a
character or an action presented for evaluation, how far does
it approximate to this ideal standard ? That is, does the action
in question do full justice to the situation, does it bring out
the maximal positive harmonious development of the organism
in the service of the wider social and physical whole of which
the organism constitutes a portion {Laws, 903b f.) ? That is to
say, does the action or character in question, as a microcosm,
reproduce the structure of the ideal macrocosm which is
reality? So far as it does, the action under consideration
approximates to the ideal and is judged to be morally valuable.
So far, on the other hand, as it exhibits looseness of organi-
zation, onesidedness, contradiction, tendencies towards
disruption and anarchy, it fails to exhibit the essential
characteristics of the Idea, and is judged to be morally
inferior, out of touch with the ideal reality of things.

So much for the technical nature of moral judgement.
But if we are to penetrate to Plato's full meaning, we must
look deeper, and realize that a moral judgement is always the
decision of the moral judge. Not any and every person is

104

MORAL VALIDITY

capable, immediately and without a long process of develop-
ment, of applying the moral standard in a way which will be
valid. The moral judge,^' ideally speaking, is always
understood by Plato to be a person born and trained under
ideal moral, social, physical, and intellectual conditions. His
training gives him the mental and moral outlook of the finished
administrator and dialectician, with a personality which
adequately reflects the ideal nature of ultimate reality, so far
as this is possible for a human being with the mechanism
provided by the normal animal organism. The judgement of
such a personality sums up all that has gone into his training,
and thus represents the concentration, upon the point at issue,
of the whole of human experience, organized and refined,
idealized and transmuted, until it approximates to the
judgement of God. Such an individual realizes fully his own
kinship with reality, and appreciates the spiritual significance
of reality with every fibre of his being. His judgement is
thus no external, coldly intellectual comparison between (a) a
formal statement of the nature of the moral ideal and (b) an
action or character submitted for judicial investigation, for
an investigation which would take the form of cold intellectual
analysis, methodical and complete, unsparingly impersonal.
On the contrary, his judgement represents, so far as humanly
possible, the warm personal appraisal of the action or
character in the light of a complete experience, an experience
which is not technically narrow or amateurishly superficial,
not merely sensuous or emotional, not merely intellectual, but
broad and deep as humanity itself. And it is not merely
comprehensive. It is an organized spiritual experience, as
completely unified as may be, and reflects in its judgements
the judgement of humanity as a whole, at its highest and best,
in an idealized form which approximates to the living

'"For detailed study of the evidence upon which these conclusions
rest, see Lod^e, Int. Jour Ethics, vol. xxxi, No. 1, 1920.

105

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Standard of value, the Supreme Ideal of Experience which
we designate as Absolute, as God.

We should now be in a position to sum up the result of our
investigations and give a sufliciently clear and definite answer
to the question which furnished our problem. Our question
was, given the diversity of moral opinions, and given the
demand that comparison with the nature of reality shall decide
as to the validity of these opinions, upon what does the
validity of the specifically Platonic theory of reality and of its
application to questions of moral value depend? To answer
this question we shall re-state the results of our inquiries in
two foiTTis, (1) starting from the empirical, human side, and
(2) starting from the transcendent, absolute side, so as to
make our answer as clear, concrete, and adequate as possible.

On the empirical side, every human judgement represents
the concentration, upon some subject of interest, of the
relevant experiences of the individual. Experience concen-
trated in intellectual form is generalization, i.e., a certain
stage in the development of what Plato calls an Idea.
Judgement is thus the study of some subject of discourse in
the light of an Idea, i.e., of the experience of the individual
concentrated and raised to the intellectual level which omits
the fluctuation, vagueness, etc., of sensation and emotion, but
retains the full conceptual essence of the experience in
question. A moral judgement thus always represents the
acceptance or rejection of some proposed action, or other
object of moral approval or disapproval, in the light of the
idealized experience of the individual judging. The Idea used
in moral judgement is thus never a cold, bloodless category,
but always the full, living experience of a personality.

Moral judgements on one and the same issue differ,
according as the idealized experiences of different individuals

106

MORAL VALIDITY

differ, or possibly as a single individual makes a hasty, super-
ficial judgement, instead of bringing to bear, in condensed
form, all that is of significance in his relevant experiences.
Empirical, reflective comparison of such differing judgements
in respect of their strong, as well as of their weak points,
gives rise to the ideal of an experience which shall be
comprehensive and adequately concentrated rather than
superficial. For example, an experience which could sum up
the history of humanity and be representative of the sum of
human wisdom would be wider, more comprehensive than the
hasty judgement of the moment, and also more profound,
more highly concentrated, more nearly expressive of the
nature of the Idea.

When we further remember that, for Plato, all experience
is experience-of-reality,'" we appreciate the Platonic position
that reality enters into our experience in more certain and
unmistakable form, according as we leave the hasty, super-
ficial, fluctuating and vague level of sensuous and emotional
experience, and enter into the more concentrated, higher
reaches of experience which are expressed as Ideas
apprehended by reason. Reality enters into all our experi-
ences, even the most superficial. But it enters more
comprehensively and more profoundly, when that experience
has been purified of irrelevant and misleading elements, and
raised more nearly to the ideal level which expresses
adequately the nature of reality. In its most ideal forai, we
think of experience as being fully responsive to reality,
pulsating with the pulse of reality, in the closest and most
intimate interactivity.

So far, then, as reality is in this way taken up into our
experience, it follows that it is reality itself which passes
judgement, accepts or rejects proposed courses of action, etc.

'"For discussion of the evidence, see Int. Joxir. Ethics, vol.xxxii, No. 2,
pp. 200 ff.

107

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

So far as our experience, in the light of which we judge, has
become widened and deepened, ideahzed until it takes on
something of the character of Absolute, Ideal Experience, the
moral judgements which we pass express the final nature of
reality, the knowledge and wisdom of God, and are meta-
physically satisfactory. Elevated as such an ideal is,
concerning its concrete and empirical, human status there can
be no doubt, as no item in its content is other than strictly a
matter of human experience.

Let us now approach the question from the more trans-
cendental side. Absolute or ultimate reality is regarded by
Plato as God or the Idea of Good, the living essence of ideality
and value, the supreme pattern of the ideal world, an ideal
expressed in determinate and limited form in every concrete
Idea and ideal, but not, of course, exhausted in any one such
determination. From the transcendental standpoint, each
Idea is itself absolute, i.e., represents the concentration, in a
single determinate direction, of the whole, completely
organized, absolute Experience, experience organized to
infinity. We can obtain a symbolic conception of what is
meant, if we compare various human Ideas with the absolute
Idea representing the 'judgement of Zeus.' Consider, e.g., the
concept of a city. Human concepts, derived from our limited
and imperfectly organized experiences of cities, represent the
civic idea as a balance of diverse interests, held together by
common needs, common fears, and a strong government. Such
government we regard as representing powerful interests,
and as furnishing, in its great opportunities for self-
aggrandizement, an object of envy to all would-be supermen
(Gorg., 466b, 468e, Rep., 344, etc.). In such a community
political faction, organized continuous group struggles, in
addition to sporadic individual efforts to obtain the chief
powfr, may well appear inevitable. A certain amount of

108

MORAL VALIDITY

crime, a great deal of futile, energy-consuming ani time-
wasting conflict, endless misunderstanding, hatred, and
malice, seem inextricably bound up with such an existence.
With concrete knowledge of actual constitutions, such as the
Spartan, Theban, Athenian, and Cretan, it is possible, after
comparison, to work out the main lines of an 'ideal
constitution.' If we imagined the whole experience of the
human race concentrated and brought to bear upon the
problem in idealized form, the result would presumably be
more satisfactory. But even in that case, there would still
arise before the eye of the soul a formal demand for something
yet more satisfactory, for something which should do more
than approximate to the ideal, a demand for the ideal itself.
Such a final ideal, representing the judgement of ideal
Omniscience, is what is understood by the absolute or trans-
cendental Idea, the Idea of the City which is 'laid up in
heaven."'-' The absolute Idea, then, in every case, is the Idea
of Good, the living principle of absolute value, in some
especial and particular reference, and thus furnishes inevitably
a final and absolute standard, a highest and last court of appeal
for judgements which involve reference to ideals.

It is misleading to regard the individual absolute Idea as
'a thought in the mind of God.' Such a formula is at once
too narrow and too subjective. To adopt the language of the
formula, God's Mind does not, for Platonism, consist of a
plurality of thoughts. It is one thought, supremely complex
but also supremely organized, supremely one. Each Idea, the
Idea of bed or of city, for instance, taken in the absolute sense
is the whole of God's Mind. That is why it is theoretically
possible for the finished dialectician to pass from one Idea to
another, once he has, by adequate contemplation of the Idea

"In Rep., 592 this distinction is not applied to the ideal city, but the
distinction is indicated frequently in the Dialo^es, e.g., Farm., 133b fF.,
Tim., 28e f., etc.

109

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

of Good, become free of the whole intellectual realm. But the
formula is not only too narrow. It is also too subjective. A
Platonic Idea is never a mere thought. It is objective reality,
entering into and giving significance to the mental processes
of sifting, comparing, concentrating, etc., which have resulted
in the human generalization (Phaedr., 249b, Polit., 217 e f.)
which corresponds to the Idea. But the Idea itself, absolutely
regarded, is reality in its own living essence, supreme reality,
the ois realissimum, an entity which has, indeed, full cognitive
quality, but is far more than merely cognitive. It is fully
spiritual and also fully objective, real in the realest sense
conceivable. It is the ideal element in existence, and indeed
may be said to transcend existence, being, as it is, th?
supreme essence, of which existence is a more or less empirical
copy {Rep., 509c, Tim., 27eff.). As such, it constitutes,
always and inevitably, the final pattern to which a judgement
wishing to be of objective significance, in spiritual
contact with reality, will seek to conform and assimilate itself.
When, therefore, the philosopher-guardian, with a personality
which has been developed until it presents a human analogon
to the Divine Personality, passes moral judgement in the form
of laws establishing civic, judicial, and educational institu-
tions, it is ultimately the Divine Personality, that final
reality to which he has gradually made every fibre of his being,
flesh, sinews, heart, and brain, organically responsive, which
is passing judgement, and, through the instrumentality of his
legislative activities, passes over into the world of concrete
human institutions, the empirical realities of our social living.

Upon what does the validity of this view rest? Its first
appeal is to experience, ordinary, human experience, and it
cannot be denied that the appeal is upheld, not only by our
hopes, but also by the evidence of our senses in actual,
every-day experiencing. We try, each one of us, to make

110

MORAL VALIDITY

sense of life by generalizing, by comparing and abstracting
the more universal elements in our experience and regarding
these as more fundamental, more essential, more trustworthy
guides to action than the fluctuating sensations and emotions
of the moment. We see in experience the working of genera!,
universal laws and principles, and the only hope we have of
making life better, setting it upon a more secure basis, is in
the scientific manipulation of our experiences, the methodical
sifting which results in verifying and substantiating our
tentative hypotheses about the nature of these fundamental,
universal, permanent aspects of experience. The hope that
by such investigation we are gradually coming into closer
contact with reality, and learning to take up reality into our
lives to a greater degree than without such inquiries, is amply
substantiated by the appeal to experience. This becomes plain,
not only if we reflect upon our own individual sensuous
experiences, but even more clearly if we glance at the history
of scientific discovery within the last three generations. The
improved means of transportation, of lighting, of mechanical
power, of intercommunication, and also of destruction, which
have resulted from scientific investigation of the more uni-
versal elements in human experience, have transformed, and
are in process of transforming the daily lives of each one of
us, affecting us, as they do, at so many points, economic,
social, religious, moral, that human living has become
infinitely more complex. It has become vastly more able to
develop its resources and hidden potentialities, so as to be
able to devote the results to the enrichment of humanity and
the forward march of the civilized nations of the world. It
is true that the moral, political, and religious development still
lags behind the more technical advances; for these depend
upon the use of discoveries which have been made, for the
most part, not by ourselves, but by a very few outstanding
individuals. It is, however, to be supposed that improvements

111

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

in general education will follow which, in their turn, will also
develop these potentialities for civilization, for better social
living, to the utmost. The appeal to every-day, sensuous and
emotional experience, then, largely supports the Platonic
contention.

The second appeal is to logic, i.e., to experience, no longer
accepted at the sensuous level, but refined, standardized,
formalized and raised to a level which admits of intellectual
proof and disproof, a level at which inconsistencies can hardly
remain hidden from the scrutiny of the trained investigator.
Here also the appeal is evidently upheld. The identity in
principle between all actual stages of human generalization on
the one hand, and the ideal of generalization on the other, is
sufficiently evident. The ideal is to extract from the experi-
ences generalized every element of positive content, and so to
synthesize these elements in relation to each other that they
come to constitute a true, harmonious unity, in which each
element supports and is supported by each other element, all
working in one and the same direction, the direction of that
totality which they help to form. The Idea of Good, the
aspirations of humanity, and the generalizations from
sensuous experience, from the highest to the lowest, are
logically akin, and are clearly recognized as such by the
Platonic dialectician.^^ From the logical standpoint, then, as
well as from the standpoint of sensuous experience, the
Platonic metaphysic of morals appears to be justified.

One difl^culty remains, a difficulty clearly and sharply
emphasized by Plato himself. Human logic, after all, is itself
only generalized experience, and between (a) the ideals
constructed by our intelligence in conformity with logical
standards, out of the materials with which we first become
acquainted in sensuous perception, ideals which inevitably

2'^For references, and a discussion of their si^ificance, see Int. Jour.
Ethics, vol. xxxn, No. 2, 1922, pp. 193-199.

112

MORAL VALIDITY

retain a certain empirical tincture, and (b) the absolute Ideas
which Platonism conceives as constituting the essence of
ultimate reality, a reality which lies partly within, and partly
beyond our narrow human experience, there is a certain
hiatus. So far as reality enters into our experience, both
sensuous and logical, we can deal with it in a way which, from
the human standpoint, is satisfactory enough. But the
absolute Idea w^hich furnishes, as we have seen, the last and
highest court of appeal, the ideal Experience which we
conceive under the form of God, the Father of all, transcends
our experience, even at its best and deepest. Our experience
enters into the ideal Experience and draws from it whatever
significance our human thought and life come to possess; but
it does not, and cannot exhaust the significance of the ideal
Experience. The absolute ideal, on the one hand, and its
highest reflection in idealized human experience, on the other,
remain, in the last resort, disparate (Rep., 472b f., 508e f.,
517b-c, Farm., 133b f.).

It is the recognition of this which makes the philosopher,
at times, tend to despair of his task, the task of embodying
the Idea in human institutions. He has himself a correct
grasp of the Idea, correct, i.e., so far as it goes. But while
formally correct, it is, and can be, correct in content only as
far as the content of human experience reaches, and this has
not, he seems to think, reached far enough. Our modern
sense of the value of evolution, and our expectation of
indefinite progress, of indefinite development in approximating
to the Idea, of building up a science and a civilization which
shall know no final limitations, makes us still, in the main,
hopeful. But Plato himself has not our historical perspective
and our faith in the continuity of historical progress. He
seems rather to think that the highest points are reached by
a few highly trained individuals in each generation, and
cannot be passed in subsequent generations. Of that continuity,

113

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

whereby later generations can so build upon the heritage of
the past as to advance still further, he appears to have no
real sense. He therefore tends, at times, to despair and to
magnify the importance of the gap which, no doubt, exists
and has never yet been completely bridged.

Containing, however, as it does, an at least sufficient admis-
sion of the existence of this gap between the humanly
realizable and the nature of the absolute Idea, an adequate
recognition of the substantial identity of human generalization
and the fundamental nature of reality, and an insistence that
only by founding our thinking and acting upon this reality
in methodic, scientific fashion can the highest moral develop-
ment of the potentialities of humanity be attained — this view,
the Platonic metaphysic of morals, must be regarded as
satisfying, not only our aspirations, nor merely our logic, but
also our every-day experience, sensuous, emotional, and
practical. That is to say, from every standpoint which seems
legitimate and relevant, his theory appears to be, funda-
mentally and in principle, valid.

Rupert Clendon Lodge.

114

PLATO AND THE POET'S EIAHAA.

Xo'iyo? epyov a-Kirj.

*Ap' ovv ou')( vrrdp')(^eLv Set rot? ev 76 Koi Ka\Si<i
prjOrjaofievoi^ Trjv tov Xe'yovTO^ Sidvoiav elhvlav to
aX.rjde'i q)v av epelv irepL fxeWrj ;

Phaedrus, 259e.
I.

In the tenth Book of the Republic the poet who imitates is
said to produce images or et8(o\a, and Plato excludes him from
the commonwealth. What are these images, and what was the
precise ground for this 'outing' of the poets? Plato's argu-
ments have, I believe, suffered in the interpretation from two
sets of barely relevant considerations. On the one hand his
criticism is softened down by the suggestion that the bad
poets of his day and the unstable emotions of Athenian
contemporaries were his real quarry.^ Though it is true that
the dearpoKparia was in his eyes a burden and a danger-, he
legislates here for the Kallipolis, not in faece Thesei; and he
strikes full on the shield of the greatest poets, with regret and
compunction indeed, but driven by the necessity^ of the law-
giver to safeguard his flock. His severity here cannot be
offset by the fact that he permits the guardian children to
hear poetry; still less is it relevant to suggest that the two
discussions of poetry are so inconsistent with one another as
to belong to different editions. Why should a thinker and
artist be less stringent with himself in his second draft than
in his first? In the earlier books existing poetry, duly purged,
was an instrument for humanizing the young, in whom reason

iThis is contradicted by Rep., 605d and 599a.
2La?/;.s, 701a.
^Laws, GGOa.

115

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

wjvs not yet the master, under the direction of an eVio-TaT?;?.
But was poetry, was the stage, free from the control of the
lawgiver, an equally valuable instrument for moulding and
directing the opinions of men? Or was it not, after the
democratic man and the tyrant had given place to the
philosopher-king, his chief and most insidious rival? Reason
ruled the ideal state; but here within its very bosom remained
an incalculable force that might share or dispute with the
guardians the leadership of opinion. The seeds of instability
and decline would still be active in the perfect community, a
threat to the authority of the law. After the psycho-
logical discussion in Book IV, where ofioSo^ia of the various
elements in man is stated to be the ideal, Plato sets out to
discuss the four vices that divide and ruin man and the state,
but postpones the argument till he has described the nature
and training of the guardians. These four perversions dis-
missed in Books VIII and IX, he again casts off from Book IV
to deal with the remaining menace that threatens even the
aristocratic state from within. If we are to understand the
trend of Plato's argument, we must bear in mind the competi-
tion of poetry with law.

Here emerges the second line of interpretation, which is
not, I think, relevant to Plato's thesis. Does he sketch a
Poetics in Book X, hinting at the true nature of the
art? It is tempting for a modern, who would fain have so
great an artist think more nobly of art, to see in Plato's argu-
ment less the precautions of a lawgiver than an account of
the reasons why poetry is autonomous. Typically, such a
vindication would take the form of showing that poetry has
a sphere of its own, its own rightness fo/j^oVr;?), and its own
special objects. The poet's state would be identified with the
elusive eUacria of the Line — do not both deal with images? —
and the state of the carpenter who is compared with him

116

THE POETS EIAHAA

would be 7ri'(7Tt9. It is then but a step, though a long step, to
infer, as some have done, that the very elementary description
of the form in Book X covers both the higher sections of the
Line. So in the account of the poet's 'making' one may,
though with difficulty, discern the outlines of the cognitive
processes that are believed to be described in the analogy of
the Line.

By far the most interesting theory of eUaaia and of the
poet's mind has recently been advanced by Mr. H. J. Baton."
He argues (1) that the states in the Line are defined by their
objects and their functions; (2) that eUacria is a faculty of
images, covering not only the natural images named in the
Line, but dreams, day-dreams, hallucinations, the high dreams
of the artist, and finally 'appearances'; (3) that et/cao-ta is 'the
first ingenuous and intuitive vision of the real', which makes
no distinction between the different levels of reality. 'It is
cognitive and has an object, but it does not affirm or deny:
that is, it does not claim to be true. Truth and Falsehood,
Reality and Unreality, Fact and Fiction, these are distinctions
which have not yet arisen.' It may be called 'Imagination or
the cognition of images, or again Intuition or the mere looking
at objects.' ■' Once the character of eUaaCa is established, it
can be said that 'there are no limits to the objects of art
except that Art is satisfied with making clear a mere appear-
ance or shadow and does not ask about its truth or reality.' "

This view differs from others with the same presuppositions
by its bold account of the differentia of eUaaia , an account at
once attractive and suspect because of its affinities with
modem aesthetic theory. It is clear that a special interpre-
tation of Book X is fundamental for ftVao-m so conceived, and

^Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1921-2, pp. 69-104.
^op. cit., p. 76.
'^op. cit., p. 101.

117

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

that it stands or falls by the justifiability of making images
into a single homogeneous class, and then extending the class
to include all 'appearances.' One difficulty in interpreting
Plato is that, in the absence of the fixed sign-posts of a tech-
nical vocabulary, we must trust to the trend of the argument
itself to save us from specious parallels. The difficulty is
less that he uses different words for the same thing out of his
abundance than that the same word may apply to different
things, just as the context demands. Now the attempt to
assimilate the account of the poet and the carpenter to the
Line rests, I shall argue, on such superficial verbal similarities.
Both places deal with images ; both with vrio-Ti?. But to iden-
tify them is to confuse different logical categories and to give
the argument in Book X a turn that obscures its individuality.
The case for a faculty of eUao-ia depends upon a fusion into
one category of the very varied senses of image and dream,
senses literal and metaphorical, that occur in Plato. If, for
example, it is said, 'the (^ikodedixwv is a dreamer', this may
be taken as a metaphysical statement or an implied com-
parison. If it is a comparison, then the only point at stake is
why Plato, in this specific context, says that the lover of sights
is like a dreamer. If it is taken as metaphysical statement,
then both are supposed to be at one level of apprehension; a
formula for the level must be devised; apparently similar
objects will accumulate within the class and the 8vi;afii<; over
them will insensibly change as the probability that other
objects fall under it increases. Is it more feasible to make
a metaphysical category of Plato's images and dreams than
to form flowers of rhetoric into a botanical order?

But there is one sense of image, or rather image-making,
that has a definite meaning in Plato. It is a fixed metaphor
for certain human activities at the level of opinion, and this

118

THE POET'S EIAnAA

fact, if used with precaution, will help us to interpret the
state of the poet. My thesis will be that Plato does not here,
even by implication, admit the autonomy of the poet's insight.
He is concerned, as a lawgiver, with its instability, and places
it, like the rhetorician's and sophist's art, low in the scale of
truth and practice. The argument in Book X really turns
on one point, the right of the poet to guide opinion. This is a
matter of the truth or falsehood of his opinions. It is a subtle
fallacy to suggest that the poet's vision being far from truth
is equally far from falsehood. Plato does not allow the claim
that the poet is removed from the jurisdiction of truth; he
but places him with other enchanters far from her throne.

As it is argued that one power [8vvafxi<i] differs from
another according to its different objects and different func-
tion — e^' w T€ eo-Ti Kal 6 a'7repyd^eTat,7 , it will be convenient
to begin by asking whether Plato indeed recognizes a class
of images and dreams so uniform in character that one power
can exercise its single function — the important test — over
them. Have iCKoue'i, €i8a>\a, (pavrda-fMaTa, (paivofjieva much more
in common than spectres, spectra, and spectacles! Until
it has been established that the objects are used in the same
sense and with the same purpose (their relation to a special
function of cognition), it may be fallacious to reason from
them to a hvvain^, and then through its supposed function to
still other objects. As we may even question whether Plato
took the metaphysical status of images, as such, seriously,* it

^Paton, p. 70.

8When Mr. Paton (p. 69) rightly criticizes Dr. Shorey for asserting
that in the Line eiKaaia and tUovei are playfully thrown in for the
sake of symmetry, and then (p. 77) proceeds to show that Ci/coW have
metaphysical importance by adding largely to the original natural
images, does he not really share Dr. Shorey's assumption: that they
possess cognitive significance or are insignificant? The real question is
why Plato mentioned only images cast by the sun.

119

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

is better to begin with the mark of every image — its relation
to an original.

Things either have their own essence to themselves or are
relative to something else. An image is such a relative,
because it is of another, its like, not of itself or having its
own essence to itself." Plato's use of this relation, both literal
and figurative, is as wide as the relation of any ultimate or
superior thing or system to its derivative and inferior. But
the relation may differ according to the nature of the image,
or according to the use made of it.

Since an image is of its original, it is a sign of that original,
other but like. The good image is thus a clue to the thing
itself, which it copies. This is a convenient metaphor to
express the relation of any dependent to that on which it is
modelled (e.g., space or a sensible thing) ^° or the attitude of
a man who stops short of more complete experience, like the
mathematician or the (pLXoOed/jLcov. " (Plato also frequently
uses the metaphor of dreaming to express such an incomplete
grasp of reality) . But even when image appears to
be used literally, as of natural reflections, it may still be an
explicit symbol, its relation to its original representing a
parallel relation between the things to which both are said to
be an analogy. This I believe to be true of etVao-ia, which is
simply analogous to Sidvoia, so that when the mathematician
is later said to grasp at an image Plato repeats in metaphor
what he has already stated formally in symbol. If this is true,
there is no starting point for a theory of eUacria. However
that may be, image, because of the suggestiveness of its rela-

°Tim., 52c and Rep., 438d. See Cook Wilson, On the Interpretation of'
the Timaeus, pp. 107-10.

^'>Tim., 52b; Farm., 133d {6^iOlQ)fla).
^^Rep., 534c and 476c.

120

THE POET'S EIAHAA

tion to the original, constantly enters into another relation,
figurative or analogical, so that it then achieves only what
we may call an adjectival status, illustrative, not real.

We have seen that through the limitation or fault of the
user, the image may be made a substitute for its original, so
that it appears, contrary to its nature, to have an essence all
to itself. But an image may be designed by men to have that
effect. It may be a deceptive fahrication, formed to supplant
its real original. Here we touch the multifarious arts of
image-making (elScoXoTrouKr]), which are fundamental to the
understanding of Book X. The arts, or rather efiireipiai,
of rhetoric, sophistry, politics, and — must we not add? —
poetry, profess universal competence without knowledge of the
things they deal with. When Plato investigates their claim to
guide opinion, he treats them as arts of production, and asks
what kind of product they make. These look as if they were
true, semblances of truth rather than resemblances, and Plato
calls them etSwXa because they are unsound and deceptive, and
their makers enchanters and magicians. This metaphor is
used of all for the same reason. Such arts produce misleading
opinions, which are the counterfeits of knowledge, driving out
the genuine coinage. It is sufficient to note at present that
imitation too produces eiScoXa, which may be true copies (as
when a word is made with knowledge of the thing) or illusive
semblances like the poet's images.

After this general account of image, let us examine some
particular passages that, taken together, appear to bear upon
the poet's images and dreams. They are said to be the similes
of the Line and Cave, and certain places in the Sophist. As I
have already argued at length that the similes have been
misinterpreted and that eUnaia and -rrtari'; are purely an

121

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

analog^' illustrating the respective clearness of the propaed-
eutic education and the dialectic, the same ground need not
be traversed again.^* But it is instructive to observe the
difficulties that Mr. Paton faces upon his assumption that the
state of the prisoners in the cave is eUaaia, and that tUaaia
is intuition or imagination.

^-Plato's Simile of Light: Part I, The Similes of the Sun and the Line,
Classical Quarterly, vol. xv, pp. 131-152, 1921; Part II, The Allegory of
the Cave, ibid., vol. xvi, pp. 15-28, 1922.

It may be convenient to outline the reasons why eiKacrla cannot be
the poet's state. In the Line and Cave the crucial test is that Plato
mentions no images but those created by light, because they alone serve
the specific purpose of the analogies. The core of the allegory of the
Cave is the striking opposition between the shadow-play made by the
fire, a human device, and the divine decopia in the sunlight. The shadow-
play is the whole world of the prisoners, all that they believe and admire
and seek (515c). It is but an unnatural substitute for reality, produced
by the eiScoXa of the showmen and warping those who believe in it. These
prisoners are 'turned the wrong way and look where they ought not to
look' (518d). The whole mechanism of the cave is designed by men to
produce shadows or images, and it may be described as the place where
wisdom and arts are directed tt/so? 86^a<; av6p(07ro)v (533b, cf. 493b).
A conflict is needed to rescue the prisoners from the whole atmosphere
of the cave, and then in a changed light, the sunlight that represents
truth (532b), they enter on the path to the Good in place of the apparent
goods of the cave (e.g., 520c-d, 521a). They have passed from a fac-
tory of €i8co\a to a divine dewpia , the knowledge of the forms, and the
stages of their intellectual progress, represented by natural shadows and
their originals, are the propaedeutic and the dialectic. Few will deny
that the lights and objects are just as much symbols as the warped bodies
are symbols of diseased souls. Now the shadows and originals of the
Line are identical with those otdside the cave, and the ratio of the Line
tells us precisely what we wanted to be sure of, that the intellectual
means of rescue from the cave (after what we may call the protreptic
of the rescuer) is mathematics and then dialectic. This gives the unmis-
takable reason why none but natural images are mentioned in the Line.
They are purely illustrative of BidvoLa, and they depend on sunlight
because the simile of the Sun, itself a simile of light, made the sunlight
the symbol of truth and more obscure light the symbol of opinion. The
Line simply says: as gazing at natural images of things is less clear
than seeing their originals directly, so the method of mathematics is
less clear than that of dialectic; that appears to be Glaucon's interpre-
tation (511c), and there is no mention of any other purpose. If this is
so, Plato never contemplates four 'grades of intelligence' or 'faculties
of objects' with objects corresponding to them. EtVao-ia is not a 'faculty',

122

THE POET'S EIAHAA

The allegory of the cave is said to appear to 'suggest that
most men are always in et«ao-ia'," and Mr. Paton allows that
this can hardly be so, since 'all men do go behind appearances
to actual animals, plants and manufactured things and are,
therefore, in TriWi?'. Setting aside the assumption that a
separate faculty is attached to animals, etc. (since TriVrt? here
is simply the certainty of direct vision), surely it is true that
the prisoners are in a state of mere ^o^a. The reason why they
must be rescued, if at all, by arduous effort is that they believe
their shadow-play to be true, truer than anything else.'* Again
it is suggested that when the prisoners 'not merely look at
present appearances, byt remember past appearances and
guess at future ones', this is consistent with the theory that
they are in eUaa-ia 'if Plato means a mere pleasant exercise of
the imagination about what may happen in the future', but
that 'if it involves any claim to truth, it is really 7ricrTt<? and we
must put it down to the difficulty of making an allegory exact.'
But the rewards and honours of the cave are sought and won

but a nonce-word with no metaphysical significance — 'specular' or indi-
rect vision — and tt/ctti? is 'immediate or direct vision.' The one is
'speculation', the other certainty. It is then as little possible to fuse the
shadows of the fire with the shadows and reflections in the Line as it
would be to fuse them with the same suncast shadows and reflections
outside the cave. Neither is a real class of objects, and each symbolizes
difTerent thinj^s. Consequently etKaaia has no metaphysical status; it
cannot be identified with the state of the prisoners or the state of the
poet. If we must define it as a 8i/j/a^ii9, we must see in it, not a real
faculty of objects, but the 8wa/at«? of sight which, contemplating
natural images, 'imitates' the hvvafXL<; of BLciuoui contemplating
mathematical objects (532a).
'^Paton, pp. 100-1.

^*Rep., ni.'xl; in SltJa to, vvv Xeydfieva oK-qOr) is contrastinl by impli-
cation with Ta ToVe Xey. aXrjd!) (cf. 51 fie) ; Vetm xe Bo^d^eiv kol
iK€iP(i)<; ^r)v r.OlGd)— a life of ho^a. I'>iit tho decisive argument is the
wliole spirit of tho allegory.

123

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

by him who 'observes most acutely"^ this is the language
of a political allegory, where the honours and the spoils are
seized by the practical successful statesman — the Cleon who
prophesies what will happen if he goes to Sphacteria— to the
exclusion of him who knows the Good.^*"" This allusion to the
standards of the ecclesia— no place for pleasant imaginings-
is consistent with Plato's reference to contendings in the law-
courts. It is, however, suggested that the latter are perhaps
'the purely imaginative pictures drawn by rhetoricians and
politicians not so much from a desire to mislead — that would
be mere lying — but from a desire to please and to work on
the emotions of the Great Beast.' Is this consistent with
Plato's well-defined doctrine? His count against the men of
the courts as against the men of the ecclesia and the theatre"
is that they do speak tt/jo? S6^a<{ avOpcoiroov. The most funda-
mental antithesis in the Republic, seen at its sharpest in the
allegory, is between the knowledge of the true statesman
and the false and misleading opinions that corrupt mankind.
The service of the Great Beast is a ao(j)La, which implies a rexvrj
where there are goods but no Good. While truth and falsehood
may be treated imaginatively, is there evidence that Plato
regarded imagination as the character of this (TO(f)ia ? A pleader
goes to court to win his case'^ ; he constructs a probable story,
like truth but not the truth, in view of this practical end.'*

i»516c, TO) o^vrdru) vaOopcovTi, and d, hvvarwraTa cnrofxavrevofxeva),
which is not eUaaia, but political divination without knowledge of the
Good. Compare 519a, <«? ^P^/^^ f^^^ ^Xerrei to yjrvxdpiov kuI o^eco^ hopa
ravTa e<^' a rer pairraL .... 6a w av o^vrepov ^XeTrrj, ToaovTO)
TrXeift) KaKO, ipya^ofievov with 519b 5; this is the difference between
Bo^a and knowledge in state affairs.

i«492b, 519a.

i"492b, cf. 604e.

"The claim of rhetoric is quite definitely to be a didascalic art, that
is, to lay down standards of opdorr]^ {Gorg., 455a, and see Part II below).

i^Phaedr., 273a-d. Cf. 262c, 86^a<; Se Tedr)pevKwfi.

124

THE POET'S EIAfiAA

This story must consider the opinions and desires^° of the
jurors; but it must seem like the truth to them, an etScoXov,
to use Plato's language. The suggestion that such an unnat-
ural fabrication is mere imagining, out of the jurisdiction of
truth and equally remote from error, is opposed to the whole
mass of Plato's doctrine.

These are not secondary points, to be set aside because 'no
allegory can be perfect in all its details.' The state from
which the prisoners are rescued is the allegory, and wherever
Plato enables us to test that state, it is airaihevcrCa,''^ had educa-
tion with its perverted standards, ho^a, a belief in the truth
of their standards so passionate that men will kill him who
tries to change them." Y^Uaaia, the simple gazing at natural
images, cannot be taken literally, cannot be fused with the
perverted ho^a of the prisoners, so that the faculty of images
appears to be arrested at its growing-point, the fusion of the
lower line with the cave. On the other hand, the counterfeit
ethdiXa of the cave may help us to understand the eXhwXa of the
rhetoricians, sophists and poets, because they compete with
truth in the same field, the political and social life of the
city-state.

We may now turn to the Sophist,'^'^ where at one stage in the
hunt for the sophist a double division is made into products
divine and human, into real things and images. There dreams
and day-dreams, shadows of the fire and reflections, are

2'M93a, TO, T(t)v TToWCiv SoyfMara, a Bo^d^ovaiv orav dOpoicrdojcriv,
Kat, ao(f)iav ravr-qv Kokelv ; 49:{b» ^oyfjuaTcov re kul eindviXLOiv ; i'^^o,
eirl Tat9 toO fxeydXov ^wov 86^ai<;.

2i514a2. 'ATraiSevaLu Koi kukt) Tpo<pT] (552e) are the corrupters of
standards.

22517a; cf. 492d.

"Soph., 265-6, Paton, p. 77.

125

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

grouped together as divine images, opposed to the multifarious
images made by men. Is there ground for adding these to the

TZOCTjZCXrj

a'JTO'jnycxT]

Otla

auToupyix^
(oixtac, X. T. A.)

dvOpiomurj

eedcoXonoiixTJ

(za iv role ukuoh;, (pavrda/mTa

ajTuifUYj, axial. ...ii' rw Ttupt, x.r.L)

ecdo)?.onoiixij
(ficfirjuxij)

diverse images of the similes and using the whole group to
interpret Book X? The part played by the lights in the similes
warn us to beware of confounding categories. Why are fire-
light shadows divine in the Sophist, human in the cave,'^* and
why are natural shadows divine in both?"^ And does divine
mean the same in both? Why are animals, plants and things
fashioned by men (which is simply Plato's phrase for 'every-
thing under the sun') grouped together in the Line and
separated by the fundamental division of the Sophists Is it so
certain that in the Sophist these are indeed the objects of ttio-ti^;
when the classification cuts across them? Can one tell a
8vvafii<; simply by its object — or by what it does (o ctTrepyd^eTat)
And is not the Swa/ii? involved in divine elSwXoTrouKri,, if I may
so speak, God's and not man's — God's making, not man's
apprehension? Plato does not speak of dreaming, and the
thought of its mental status is far from his mind. Note the

"517d.

-^Rep., 532c. In the Republic Plato uses Qelo'i of man's divine acti-
vity of knowing the forms, as opposed to the human arts of the cave;
here God's making and man's are concerned. Cf. C. Q., vol.xvi, p. 17.

126

THE POET'S EIAHAA

precision of his language : ra eV rot? vTrvoi<i "'^ and, even more
significantly, (liavrdaixara avroc^vrj ,-' visions that come of them-
selves. We do not will or make them ; according to old belief
they are divinely sent, whether to help or deceive.

One cannot without more ado reason from objects to a
Bvpaixt<: over them, particularly when objects that ought to be
united under it are inexorably divided into opposed groups:
animals and plants on one side, manufactures on the other;
divinely sent dreams and shadows-^ over against all manner
of human images. The classification in the Sophist is not of
things, but of making-things, and that determines the nature
of the SvvafjLL';. As the analysis always goes to the right
(264e), we may say that three divisions of the four are but
formal stages in the narrowing circle that encloses the elusive
sophist. A fairly close parallel to the general principle of the
classification may be found in that more sophisticated place in
the Laws, where nature and chance usurp the place of God,-®
and the class of man-made images, having no great part in
truth, include those produced by painting, music and the allied
arts.

If we cannot in this context draw inferences from the
products of God to the status, whatever it may be, that they
have for man's apprehension, the account of man's image-
making does give a clue to the mind of the maker. Where
semblances of truth that claim to be true are concerned,

2«We may quote Tr]v tou evvirviov Trop-iri-jv vtto ^ibf rw 'Aja/J.€/J,uout

(Rep., 383a) for Plato's meaninf;. Probably the^ phrase used of the
painter's art — olov ovap avdpai-mvov iypr]'yop6aiu cnreipyaa-p.evrjv
(Soph., 266c) — is used to suggest a parallel deception: they seem to be
genuine but are not.

^'Ep., VIII, 357c.

2*" Plato's principle of selection is obvious: shadows by night and
shadows by day, visions of the night and visions of the day.

20889b-e; cf. the allusion in Soph., 265c.

127

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

idol-making is Plato's term for this ixifir)ai<i fier^ So^jj'j .'° The
activity is within the sphere of false opinion, ^^ and the maker
is a 0avfxaTO7roi6<: ,^'- who thinks that he knows what he only
opines,'' or, if a little more sophisticated, is extremely uneasy
about it, and hides the flaw by verbal dexterity. This bears
not only upon the cave, where the sophist (of whatever kind)
manufactures Boy/iaTa for the many, but also upon Book X,
where another variety of imitation produces semblances of
truth.

We have found that images will not coalesce into a class. As
a rule they represent or misrepresent something else, and
their relation to that determines their status. The very basis
of the category of images contains only images of sunlight,
which are purely illustrative, and these will not mix with the
opposed images of the cave. Though the divine images of the
Sophist are related only to a divine Swa/xi^, there are sug-
gestive similarities between the human images and the images
of the cave. These, however, point to the conclusion that a
group of arts, formed with regard to the opinions of men,
produce opinions that seem to be true judgements (see n. 94
below) . As yet there is no evidence that dreams — another
will-o'-the-wisp word — have a special status assigned to them,
and we shall find none. Leaving the theory of a special state
of eUaaia as unproved, we turn to Book X with the presump-
tion that the Line has nothing, the Cave and the Sophist
something, to teach us about the poet's idols.

■'"Soph., 267e.
"^Soph., 264d.

"-This is the metaphor that inspires the drama of the Cave (514b).
Cf. Soph., 268d.
3^267e-8a.

128

THE POET'S EIAHAA

II.

O'j jap OTj TOUTo ye yeyucoaxofieu^ rods. 8k I'afiei, on
zavTa rd Tzddi/^ iv irjfuv olov i^&bpa tj afirjinvdoi r^vec
ivouaac oTicoaiv re )y/zaT yo-i d-AXr^Xac^ di^tfilxovaiv
ivavriac ouaac iTZ ivavziaz rzpd^ee^, Jj drj 8uopcaaevrj
dptTTj xai xaxia xiJzat.

Laws, 644d-e.

A notable passage in Book VI describes the reciprocal effect
of the many and of those whom they deem to be wise educators
upon one another.'^ For these teachers fine and base, good
and bad, just and unjust have but the meaning that the
opinions and desires of the many give to them, and they do not
know and cannot explain the true nature of good. A fell
necessity broods over all these parasitic 'wisdoms', painting
and music and politics and poetry, to pander to the anger and
pleasures of the many, and this they call good and fine. Now
the many recognize many fine or beautiful things indis-
criminately, but never admit or acknowledge 'beauty itself.'
The mob cannot be philosophic or admire the philosophers.

This distinction of standards is based upon the account of
opinion in Book V, where it is laid down that men fitted by
nature must study philosophy and guide the city, while others
must not touch it and must follow the guide who has reason.''-^'
They are unworthy of education, though they pose as edu-
cators, and their brood of Siavorj/xaTa and 86^at would ruin a
city.'^''

This is a more hopeful clue to the account of the poet than
the analogy of the Line, into whose framework the classifica-
tion of Book X cannot be pressed. Plato expressly bases his
argument against mimetic poetry upon the analysis of the

•■'»492d— 494a. See also n. 19 above.

■••-474c.

■•8496a.

129

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

'kinds' of soul in Book IV, and we must combine that with its
sequel in the account of opinion (Book V) to arrive at a
principle of interpretation. The general principle of the
psychological discussion in Book IV is that the same 'part' of
the soul cannot think (So^d^eiv) contrary things about the
same thing at the same time, and the argument about poetry
is a deduction from this, an analysis first of the instrument
that causes contrary opinions and then a description of the
schism in the soul produced by it.

Considering the origin and nature of the argument, it is not
easy to see why Plato should view poetry as intuition rather
than as simple opinion. The psychological discussion in
Book IV starts from the opposition between assent and dissent,
affirming and denying, because reason and desire have opposite
judgements" about the goodness of this and that. Now in
Book V we may see the meaning of this. The lover and the
ambitious man (types of desire and spirit) grasp indis-
criminately at any object in the line of their desire. They are
not dainty about beauty, for example, because the beloved is
beautiful to them. But the philosopher has a principle of
discrimination in truth. A mere insatiable avidity for all
kinds of experience is not philosophic, and the undiscerning
enthusiast for the drama and other spectacles is but a
curiosity-monger. Now what classes the (f)iXo6€dixa)v^^ with the
other men who follow their bent is that their standards
depend on inclination. They cannot see beyond their admir-
ations to fineness or beauty itself. The new beloved or the last
play are 'fine'; they have many standards but no standard —
and this is ^d^a- Now it is the mind of the (^tkoOedixwv that is

37437b, 602e; cf. Soph., 230b.

3'The sense of <^tXo(TO<^ett' was once much the same: to go out
into the world 'for to admire an' for to see.' The <f)i,\od€dfx(ov ig not a
listless type, acquiescent in conventions, but the Athenian eager to see
or to hear some new thing.

130

THE POET'S EIAQAA

analysed in Book X ; for there we see an art uncontrolled by
TO \07io-Ti«oV stirring up schism in his soul, so that the onoSo^ia
of a well-tempered mind desired in Book V is sapped and
destroyed. I confess that I should have take this view of the
^LXodtdncav for granted had not Mr. Paton^' suggested that the
(fnXodedfjLcov, being a dreamer, was in a state of eUaaia, and
accordingly faces the difficulty that 'dreaming — which we
know to be eUaaia — ' is thinking ' "that a thing which is like
something is not really like it but is the same thing as that
which it is like." ' I agree that the confusion is evident to
those on a higher plane: the <f>i\o6€diJLQ}v does not know and
then confuse. My own difficulty is that this place is the locus
cUbssicus for ho^a. The character of the ^tXo'Sofo? (or of the
<f>i\o6€d/x(ov who is the selected type for 86^a) is that he
is so satisfied with his own standards that he will believe
nothing else to be true.^° He is not pressed on to beauty itself
by the mixed beauty and ugliness of his object — it is all fine

30Paton, p. 99. The reference is Rep., 476c. When it is suggested
that 'most men are satisfied with the seeming good and don't go behind
it' (p. 100), is not eiKaa-ia merged in Sd^a? — the seeming good is just
the many standards of the many about beauty, which is 86^a (see ibid.,

p. 85).

Does Plato assert that the early education of the guardians 'was just
a dream below the earth' (i6., p. 78; cf. Rep., 414d) ? If this means that
the education in poetry is eUaaia, the text gives no ground for the
inference. Plato wishes all men in the state, especially guardians, to
believe a Phoenician tale, that men were formed and nurtured under the
earth, and that their supposed training by men was a dream. They are
to believe that they are naturally brothers. That is: they are to believe
that the myth of their common origin is a fact, and that the fact of their
common training is a myth. This pious fraud is not relevant to the
nature of the education or to tlie status of dreaming. It is a manipula-
tion of belief, like asking the English people to hold that the acts of
ministers, parliament and judicature is a dream, and that the power of
the Crown (our myth) really does all. 'Why did not Bent', asked Cecil
Rhodes, 'say that the ruins found in Rhodesia were Phoenician in
origin?' 'Perhaps he was not sure of the fact.' 'That is not the way
that empires arc made.' That is ^^oivikikov ri !

♦MTGb; ."jlGc: the cave is the paradise of tho (j)iXod€dfiQ)v.

131

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

for liim just as the defects of the beloved become new charms
for the lover — nor does he allow others to criticize his
standards — i^bv irap' aWwv uKOveiv (f)avd re Koi KoXa (506d).
He confuses because in his blindness he will not discriminate
further, not because he has discriminated and then failed to
do so. Hence the epwTi/co'?, (f)t\oivo<i, <^iXo6edixu>v, ^iXorexvo'i
7rpaKTiK6<; ^^ are all simply ^tXo'So^oi .^-

The argument about imitation falls into two parts, each
with two sub-divisions. In the second, where the purpose of
the whole argument is achieved, the effect of the product of
imitation is shown upon men's souls (602b-607a), since the
test of any product is the work that it does; in the first the
reason for this flaw in the instrument is traced back to the
mind of its maker (595c-602b). Plato proceeds from the
poet's mind to the mind of the 0iXo^ea>a)i/ who is the poet's
votary. This division of the argument is preferable to the
usual triple division into metaphysical, empirical, and psycho-
logical proofs, with their attendant difficulties — are not these
high names tt? o^kov ?

1. The general form of the first argument is as follows:
Plato analyses imitation as an art of production. For the
Greeks an artist is a 8T)ui.ovpy6<; like the carpenter or the
sophist or any man who produces an epyov. The poet is indeed
by linguistic usage the 'maker' pa7^ excellence, and Plato uses
the fact of language to the full.*'' Further, all men would

^' These three are classed together in 476a.

*=480a.

^■'■Symp., 205c. Cf. Pollux, IV 17, airb Be rov ttoltjtov to iroLelv Kal

TOVTo Blo. rrjv eTrl ttoWojv XP^^^^ dfi(f)il3oXov. The poet was probably
ciilled the 'maker' in contradistinction to the rhapsode who recited his
works (Weil, EUides sur I'Antiquite Grecque). So a man who wrote
discourses for others to speak was TroirjTTj'i Xoycov , and we talk of a
composer as opposed to a musician. What the poet 'makes' is a 'myth';
but for reasons indicated below that is not relevant to this political
discussion.

132

THE POET'S EIAIIAA

admit that poetry and the allied arts are imitation.** Any
productive activity ends in a concrete ^p^ov , and Plato's
problem is to estimate the epyov of poetry in comparison with
other — and genuine — epya. He first analyses imitation in
general through the case of the artist. This is convenient both
because the example is simpler and because we see the meta-
phor of image-making, which he is to apply to the poet, take
its rise from a concrete case. But he is not content simply to
infer from one example of imitation to another by probabil-
ity.*^ : he carries out an analysis for his real quarry, the poet.
The whole argument must seem sophistical to a degree if we
do not bear in mind that the real question is not what is
poetry, much less what is art, but whether the poet is so sure
a guide to life that he can compete with the men who know.
The subject is Poetry and Life, and this is an account of the
'\^vxa'^(ti'yia*'^ practised by the rhetoric of the stage*^ to the
disintegration of men's souls.

(a) 595-601b. It will place the argument in perspective
if we begin by noting the tests that Plato applies to the
poet. If he is 'second from truth', like any genuine producer,
where are his permanent memorials — in the field of states-
manship? He has not revolutionized strategy, or made a
constitution, or founded a private society to make men better
(like Pythagoras or Loyola), or even left a useful invention
behind him like Anacharsis. The evanescent character of his
influence is shown by the lack of an organized association to
carry on his teaching — a very Greek touch! Any man would

**Lawft, 668b-c.
^■■603b.

*''Phacdr., 261a. The equivalent words for any parasitic art are
yo-qreta, KrfKricri^, dav/xaT07roiia.

^Tiorg , 502c-d.

133

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

prefer doing things to celebrating them, yet the poet has done
none of these things.'* The genuine epyov, in other words,
must be concrete institutions or legislation maintaining
a continuous life through the Xo'70? that is their principle.
To us, who acknowledge the separate domain of the poet, this
appears to be an odd test. But it has some relevance against
the claim that the poet, as •n-dacxo^o'i , " should usurp the place
of the philosopher-king. In an age of intense activity, prac-
tical and poetical, a poet could write :

What good is like to this.
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading, and the world's delight?

But Plato feared for his new instrument of government, feared
that men who should live according to a right rule or law
would follow competing rules that appealed to their passions.

This accounts for the conclusion of his analysis of poetry
(601a). If Plato were indeed analysing the nature of poetry,
he would naturally say that what a poet 'makes' are 'myths':
so he says elsewhere'^'^ and so Aristotle says after him. But
here his problem is how this 'maker' produces an epryov
that deceives his votaries into the belief that he is a competent
guide. -^^ Not because he really knows; but just as the painter
gives an effect of illusion by line and colour, so the poet

■•^'I am glad to find that Professor G. S. Brett believes this to be the
core of Plato's argument. He notes from Aristotle an interesting
parallel to the danger contemplated by Plato: the popular tendency to
put the actor before the dramatist.

■•^We may compare the extravagant claims sometimes advanced for
classical education, or the impatience of some scientists with literature
and metaphysics. These conflicts occur when one discipline or art
intrudes on the sphere of another, without recognizing its own limita-
tions.

^"Phaedo, 61b, e2. Here, however, poetry is treated like rhetoric : it is
-rrepX Xoyov^ {Gorg., 449d).

"601a.

134

THE POET'S EIAHAA

deceives by the glamour of metre and rhythm and pitch." The
whole argument, then, tests the claim of the poet to intrude
into the sphere of politics and explains the source of a mis-
taken belief about his powers. This appears, at all events, to
be an examination of nothing but the validity and usefulness
of the poet's Bo^ai. Let us now turn back to the simpler case
where the illusion is more fully analysed.

This argument turns on the single claim that the imitator, in
virtue of his facility, knows everything.^^ An artist's claim
to universal competence, rivalling all craftsmen, is of no great
political importance. It becomes significant because the
general argument about imitation, elaborated for his case, is
applied to the relation of poetry and politics. But the discus-
sion of the artist is so striking and paradoxical to us that it
has received most attention and has been placed out of focus.
It is clear from the reference to the poet at a turning-point in
the argument (597e), from the conclusion (598c-e), and from
the immediate application of that conclusion to the poet
(598d-e) that the competence of the poet, particularly as a
guide of conduct (e) /'* is in question. If Plato's answer to that
claim is that the imitator exercises a kind of cognition that
does not involve judgements of truth and error, it is not
explicitly stated. Indeed the hypothesis that Plato believes
this depends upon the assumption that the imitator's objects,
which are said to be 'appearances', belong to the supposed
metaphysical class of images. But the imitator is tested by

''•-601a; cf. Gorg., 474d fF. This is the technique of the flattering and
deceivinj? arts (Gorg., 4G5b).

•'■'The parallels with rhetoric and sophistry are convincing: e.g.,
Euthyd., 271c, 287c; Proiag., 315e; Gorg., 456a, 457a; Soph., 233b, e.
Cf. 596c, d-e, 598c, d, e.

'^^The argument about making turns at each stage into a discussion of
7rpa^t9, because that is the real subject. See, e.g., 599a, 603d.

135

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

the same standard of truth as the carpenter: he is third from
truth as the carpenter is second.'*^

While the application is carried out at the level of states-
manship, this preliminary argument simply compares two
craftsmen, the carpenter and the artist, in respect to
competence. The wonted method of the forms is used as a
test of the genuineness of their products; but it is a mistake
either to compare this passage with the exposition of the
highly organized sciences treated in Books VI and VII or to
argue that they are inconsistent with one another. That is
to fall into the pit mentioned in the Topics,^'^ namely, to discuss
knowledge without defining whether you mean theoretical,
practical, or productive knowledge. This passage is concerned
with productive knowledge alone (to use Aristotle's language),
the XoyiariKov of the carpenter, and the point of view shifts
according to the standard of comparison. There is no contra-
diction in saying now that the carpenter knows in comparison
with the artist, and later that the user knows in comparison
with the carpenter. There appears to be contradiction only
if it is supposed that the first argument is conducted at the
theoretical level of Books VI and VII, and the second by some
lower empirical standard.

Plato's method of showing that the wisdom of the artist is

'•'I am not able to offer an explanation of the phrase rpcTO^ ti<; cnro
ySacTiXeW /cat T^)? aA.?;^eta9 Tre^f/coi? (597e). But it suggests distance,
not nearness to truth. Hence the Dantean line,

Si che vostr' arte a Dio quasi e nipote,
is no parallel. Dante means, after Aristotle, that art follows nature
as a disciple his master, the reverse of Plato's sense. Leonardo's
aphorism is nearer: 'Those who study only the ancients are stepsons and
not sons of Nature, the mother of all good authors.' Perhaps we may
guess Plato's meaning by recalling the ape that would be a king (Archi-
lochus, fr. 82, 84). The artist claims to 'make' everything, like God.

'''Top., 6, 6.

136

THE POET'S EIAllAA

a vain thing is to compare the truth and reality of three
different products : ^'

Maker Product

Qod — Form of the bed.

Carpenter — A bed.

Artist — Image of the bed.

This classification of making has obvious points of likeness to
that of the Sophist,^^ though here the nature of the argument
about models dictates a lineal division. But the object of both
is to 'place' el'ScoXa that deceive. As God's making is intro-
duced to give a standard of truth and reality for the carpenter
and artist, it is hardly necessary to discuss what metaphysical
lessons can be drawn, or to strive to identify God with the
Form of the Good in Book VI. This not only confuses a soul
with a form and productive knowledge with theoretical, but
assumes that God makes a form in the same sense as the Form
of the Good causes its dependent forms.^'' Plato intends to
convey the immense distance that there is between the grasp
involved in making a genuine thing, whether a table or a
constitution, and the shallow prodigality of impressions
lavished by the artist. So he begins from what is absolutely
real and complete, the form of the bed ; God makes it one and
self-complete, the bed in nature. To this standard the car-
penter 'looks', and fashions the beds that are real, yet not
fully real like the form of the bed. This is the simplest
manner of stating the doctrine of the form, and it is
instructive to recall that Plato uses the same expression to
convict the rhetorician in the Gorgias''" of ignorance in com-
parison with any craftsman. A craftsman does not proceed
anyhow (eUri), but rightly (opOw) with competent knowledge
of the structure and function of the bed he fashions. If the

5^597a ff. ''"See, e.g., Adam on 597b and c.

5«See p. 125 above. ""SOSe; cf. Crat., 389a.

137

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

carpenter looks to the model of the form, to what does the
imitator look? A good imitation should be a 8»JX«/Ma, an indi-
cation or expression, of the thing copied, like a word of its
object, and he who imitates must first know the essence of the
thing.''' But this is impossible for the shallow versatility of
him who 'makes' everything. He is dependent on the genuine
artisan, whose product he copies as it looks from one aspect.
So the artist produces the image of a (jidvraa^ia or look of a
thing, and the reason why the imitator 'makes' everything is
that he grasps very little of anything, and that an elhayXov
or image. Such an art can only deceive the young and foolish
from afar. The conclusion then, applicable to the poet, is that
he who meets a man who knows everything has met a magi-
cian®- and imitator. It would appear that this argument, like
its application to poetry, examines the claim of imitation to
make a genuine social product, and explains its versatility by
its ignorance. Is not a prestigiator one who makes you believe
that he knows and does what he does not do?

Plato's argument has, however, been obscured by superficial
verbal resemblances, and his liveliest sallies toned down till
their point disappears. The versatile artist has even been
taken for God ! And for some English writers the mere assoc-
iation of holding 'a mirror up to nature' has been too strong.
The debate whether Plato would think Photography more
accurate than Painting is as much beside the point as the
apparent parallel with the Line. What he actually says in the
description of the artist is that if versatility is the test, a
mirror turned about in your hand can 'make' as many things
just as smartly.*'"' So one might give an ironic flick at some
tourist snapshotting his ignorant way through Rome between

'^^Crat., 423b, e, 433d,

"^This is the constant gibe against the deceptive arts: Soph., 235a,
241b; Polit, 291c, 303c.
«^596c-e.

138

THE POET'S EIAflAA

dawn and dusk. Here the influence of the Line has obscured
the irony : for does not Plato speak of images in a mirror and
animals, plants and things fashioned by hand, and where they
are mentioned must not eUaaia and TrLaiL'i be present to his
mind ? But note his tone. Here is a clever fellow who not only
'makes' furniture like the carpenter, all furniture and utensils,
but all that springs from the earth and all living creatures, him-
self as well, yes, and earth and heaven and the gods, and all
things in heaven and all things under the earth." Well, but he is
only a maker in a sense, not a very arduous making; it is done
everywhere, and so quickly. Take a mirror, and presto, by a
turn of the hand you quickly 'make' the heavenly bodies, as
quickly the earth, as quickly yourself and all other living
beings and things fashioned and plants and the whole cata-
logue of things named above, will you not? A looking-glass
gives the look of things, not the things. That is the manner
of maker your artist is!

This paraphrase will show that the passage turns merely
on 'making everything quickly.' That is the manner of maker
the poet is. Is it not impossible to extract any other sense
from this piece of light irony than a figure for the superficial
and effortless ease of the artist, an Aladdin who makes
anything with a rub of the lamp, or to establish a connexion
with that other figure of eUaala which stands for the mathe-
matician's intellect? I reserve comment on the meaning of
the objects of the artist, <^aii/o>em, till all the evidence is
before us.

"^This is Plato's way of saying 'everything in the universe', just as
i^wa ^vT€UTa aKevafTTcis'imply means 'everything on earth'. Adam's sug-
gestion (on 50Ga) that aKevaaTci are less real than (f)VT€VTd may be true
on general principles; but it cannot be supported by reference to the
(TKevaaTci of the cave, which are not genuine manufactured things, but
fabrications, the visible symbols of the eiSwXa produced by sophists and
other bad teachers.

139

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

(/)) G01a-602b. So far, the product of imitation has been
shown to be inferior in truth to a genuine product. But the
art of production itself does not lay down the value (o/j^oVt??)*'^
of the thing it makes. The user has a better grasp of its
function than the maker, and prescribes the plan for him to
f ollow\ He knows ; and knowing directs. The maker follows
his instructions, exercising ircari'; opdi) or ho^a 6pd^. As
the imitator can neither direct nor produce a genuine thing,
since he can be no judge of goodness or badness, he is a figure
of fun where wisdom about standards of right and wrong are
concerned. His standards are taken from the many, and
tragedy must be confessed to be play, remote from the serious
business of life.^"

The trend of this argument is clear. The value of any epyov
is in its use, and th€ use of poetry, so it is claimed, is to guide
life. But no maker can do that, much less a maker without
knowledge. We must turn to some architectonic activity,
which can lay down the end. Plato does not here, as in the
Euthydemus, press the distinction through to its issue, that
the man who finally lays down the end is the statesman. It is
not necessary, because the discussion of the actual effect of
poetry shows that the question really at stake is whether
poetry makes men better or worse. This is a short and
abstract discussion of the principle that gives an art the right
to lay down standards of right and wrong.

e^It is the user who does this: see Euthyd., 282a, Crat.^, 390a. What
is needed is an art Tjyovfie'vr] Kal Karopdovaa rrjv irpa^iv {Euthyd.,
281a), and this is what poetry professes to do.

««It is germane to quote the Platonic ^vdo^a of Ethics, 1152b 18:
izt Tk'fyr^ dodeaia )J5ov^c" xaizoc nuv dyadbv Z£'j[^i/r^:: iffyov. en nacdla
Xfji dr^pia dc(i)Xte rac /J^ovrfc- Again note for Plato's insistence on
the judge of ^pOorOs such a phrase as : obzo:; jap rod zHoot;
dif/tzex.zoji', 7:pd(; o fiAinovzt^ i/caazov rb /iku xaxou z6 d' dyadbv &nXa)(^
/.iyofiev (I152b2), For ~a:8cd cf. Soph., 234b.

140

THE POETS EIAHAA

The architectonic art is not only critical, but gives com-
mands— it is epitactic. Thus a lawgiver or TexviK6<i lays
down the law about rightness ; the subordinate arts that follow
the S6y/xa rightly take it on trust from that source. (Note
that the conclusion of the argument is that the poet takes his
Boyfiara f^om the many) . The doctrine of the right to com-
mand and the ground for obeying is the core of the passage,
and we shall see it developed in the psychological analysis.
Hence the text opposes dyyeXov yiyveadat, tw ttoitjttj (the maker),
i^ayjeWeiv, iirnoLTTitv to vTrrjperelv, ciKovecv, TriaTeveiv — and
TTta-Ti?/'" The maker is the right hand, not the
directing brain that provides the Xo'70?, and thus his
activity has its rightness, derivative and dependent, just as
the irrational part of the soul may have its Xo'709 because it
acts in harmony with the rational part, like a son obeying
his father. Hence the tragic poet who but responds
to the multitude is outside the closely interconnected
hierarchy of arts that build up the life of a
community according to a standard of rightness. As we may
see from the Gorgias (455b) the claim of the rhetorician to
advise is likewise set aside by the special arts set over each
activity, like architecture and strategy. Rhetoric is 'rreiOov';

"^For the connexion oi' -ayyeXXeiP with 6p6r] So^a compare Rep., 429c,
ola 0 vop.o6eTr}<; irapr^yyeiK^v^ with 430b. For virTjpeTelv see Aristotle
passim.

The /o^-oc or the vouo^ is the riprht rule laid down by competent
authority, and the natural phrase for obeying the precept is TTicTTeueiv
zw /.oyifj or rtJ uoutfj. Compare Laws, 890d, xaza /.oyov df>Hnu. nv
<ii> T£ Xiytiv fioe (faivTj xac lye!) auc ztars'Jco to. vD^, and Reii., 424c, w^
(fr^oi z£ Jdnoju xac iyo) nslOo/iac (quoted by Stallbaum on Laws, 890d).

Now the last stage of the argument carries on the conception of due
subordination ; the poet stimulates the passions against the XoytK o'^

vo/w:;, and thus Plato uses such a phrase as to hqeniKJJ tkoze'jov

(603a). ¥oT Xnyo- or o/idh: /o;-o7('a general rule formulable in words,
and communicable by teaching') in Aristotle, see Prof. J. A. Smith,
C. Q., vol. XIV, p. 19.

141

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

hrjutovpyo^ .... 7ri<TT€VTiKi]<{ dX\' ov 3i5acr«aXf«r;«? irepl to hUaiov

Tf KciX dhKov. Like poetry, it proffers an untrustworthy
standard of 6p06tt]<:.

But this inquiry about the right to direct (who shall direct
and who shall obey), illustrated as it is by numerous parallels
both in Plato and Aristotle, is set out of focus by the attempt
to identify Trt'o-n? opdi] and 86^a opOrj with the ttiVti? of the
Line. Here -n-t'o-Ti? 6p6ri is the virtue, part intellectual and
part moral, of him who follows a right prescribed end under
competent direction. This limits and defines his competence
in relation to his superior: the one eVtraTTei, the other
TTio-Teuet/'* But in the Line it is 7rt'o-Tt9 that sets a standard
of clearness and certainty compared with eUaaia. This is my
certainty because I see with my own eyes, not indirectly ; it is
not trust that the true end is given by the XoytartKov of
another. Let us waive for a moment our conclusion that vrt'o-Tt?
in the Line is specially defined by its context, and consider how
the assumption that there is a general Swa/xt? called Trto-rt?
works. One begins by assuming that the different objects
imply different powers, and that the objects of Trto-rt? are
animals, plants and things made by man. So far the theory
works because the account of the lower line simply turns upon
direct or indirect sight of the objects. We have seen how
impossible it was to extend the images of the Line as a meta-
physical class or to detect eiKaa-ia wherever an image is
mentioned. Similarly with TriVri?, the power ceases to
be defined by the group of objects at first placed under it;
and finally under the infiuence of the Theaetetus, where 86^a
has the specific meaning of judgement, ttiVti? is made to
include 'all empirical sciences and all history as well as the
ordinary judgements of the ordinary man — rd ra>v iroWatu

««601e-2a.
142

THE POET'S EIAIiAA

vofiifMa KaXov tc Trepi Kal roiv aWtov . ^® To sweep all into

the net of Trt'o-n? obliterates the one distinction relevant
to the argument here. The harness-maker and the
rider deal with one object, the bridle: since the former
executes what the latter specifies, he alone is said to exercise
'right belief.' It stultifies Plato's subtle and flexible doctrine
of ends to give Trto-rt? a sense that it can bear neither here nor
in the Line. One can no more identify this 7ri(TTt<; with the
TTicTTt? of the Line than the jna-TevTiKJ] of rhetoric.

Further, this extension of the sense of TriVri? by reminding
us of the nature of ^d^a, nullifies, I think rightly, the special
meaning given to eUaaia as a faculty exercised by the artist
which is intuition, not B6^a. Mr. Paton indeed makes one
unnecessary difficulty for his theory by supposing that the
poet can have ^o^a opdri about his object if he follows the right
guidance:^" it is the maker (vroiT/TT;?, e.g., auXoyroLot) who is
said to exercise that. Nevertheless the conception of intuiting
is foreign to the nature of the argument. 'Plato', it is said,
'is merely leading us up to the conclusion that the artist
imitates only appearances. He imitates a thing as it appears,
generally, Plato suggests, as it appears beautiful to the many
and the ignorant, but that even if it were true does not alter
the fact that he is just imitating or creating an appearance
and not judging it. In fact the reason why Plato is con-
demning him is just because he does not judge; he is blaming
the artist for not being a scientist or an historian.' '^

But does Plato not blame the artist because he does
judge, takes his judgements from the many, and in turn
disseminates them? The argument so far has turned on
two points: the claim to be 7rdaao(j)o<; and the claim to direct

"oPaton, p. 85.
''"ibid., p. 99.
"Hbid., pp. 99-100.

143

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

opinion about good and bad. In this the poet competes with
tlie men who know and have a right to lay down the end. It
would be highly satisfactory if Plato disproved this claim by
showing that the poet does not judge: what he does show is
that the poet is incompetent to judge or direct about truth
or error. The hypothesis that Plato assigns to the poet a
state that is not S6^a depends (so far as it does not rest upon
the general assumption of a faculty of images) on two points:

(1) that being far from truth he is equally far from error,

(2) that 'appearances' involve no judgement. We are not here
concerned with the truth of these statements as aesthetic
theory, but with Plato's meaning.

As to (1) the imitator is third from truth just as the
carpenter is second. It is suggested that the phrase ^aijocti/ to
aX-rjOk idaavTet; ^2 politely bows the artist out of the realm of
truth and error. But this is simply equivalent to iroppM
Trpo^e^TjKora a/xapri'a? '■' far gone on the road to error, used
of the arts that go their own way recking nothing of the
lawgiver who has a right to direct, or to that significant

meiosis in the Laws: 7rac8id<; Tiva^;, aX7]6eia<; ou acfioSpa /xere-
■)^ovaa<;, aWa et^wV cittu avyyevi) kavTwv, oV rj ypa(f)LK7] yevva Kat
uovcriKr) Kal ocrat Tavrai? elaXv avvepiOoi rixvf^i' •^'* The phrase itself
is used in the Phaedrus (in close connexion with ovhev ak'q6da<i
fiCTex^Lv . . . hiKaioiv t) a^aOoiv Trepi Trpay/xaTtov) ''^ of the rhetori-
cian in the courts, because he makes a likely story that
will persuade the many by its resemblance to truth. The el'ScoXa
of the poet or rhetorician, in fact, are so called because they
are false judgements (273c).

'-ibid., p. 93. The reference is Soph., 236a. The true interpretation
is supplied by 234b-c (quoted in n. 94). What 'seems good' (236a) is no
more an object of ecKaaia than what 'seems true' (234c).

'"Laws, 660c.

'^Laws, 889d.

"273d-e.

144

THE POET'S EIAftAA

The second point concerns the meaning of ^avraafia or
4)aLv6fi€vov, appearance. There is an ambiguity in the passage
quoted above, where the 'thing as it appears' is the standard
that seems to be right to the many, that is, the standards of
Bo^a. "" But no other appearance than these standards and the
judgements involved in them are now in question. The
words <f>aiv6fj,€vov and (fidvTaa-^a here have a double aspect.
They spring from the suggestion of the surface look of a thing
in a mirror: the artist sees but the outside, not structure and
function, and that outside he imitates. The look of the thing
and the imitation of it are both (pavrda-fiaTa without truth.
Does this mean that we can assume the 'appearance' to be the
object of intuition? The answer to this depends upon the
sense of etScaXov, which is equivalent to <f)dvTaaij.a. When
Plato accuses the poets (like the artists) of producing eiSeoXa
ap€TT)<;, he does not mean that they represent virtues without
judging, but that they take the many standards of the many
about goodness and disseminate these counterfeits as if they
v/ere genuine. They give back to the audiences their own
BoyfMaTa. This is clear, not only from the references to image-
making which we have analysed, but from Plato's own account
of (^avTaafiara SO made and so used.

The (f>dvTaafjia, indeed, is what all arts that claim universal
knowledge and the right to guide opinion really produce. The
cardinal passage for its interpretation is in the Sophht.'''^

"''This is, of course, in direct contrast to the standard set by the man
who has a right to direct and followed by the maker.
6 '^pcofj.evo'; oi ttoXXol

6 7roLr}rri<i 6 fxifnjjiKck

The point is that a genuine epitactic art prescribes standards to its
dependent arts, whereas mimetic arts, being parasitic, borrow their
standard?; from those whom they seem to teach.

'''Soph., 240d; see also n. 94.

145

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

"Otiij' TTepl TO (pavTacTfia avrov airardv ^oifxev Koi Trjv Te^VTjv
eh'iii Tiva cnraTijTiKijU avTOu, roTe iroTcpov y^tvhr) So^d^eiv T7)P
yffvxi]i> Tj/jLOii' (f)}]ao^ep vtto Trj<; cKeiPOV 'Te-)(v-q^, r) ri ttot ipovfiev;
The character of all these 'doxomimetic' arts is the same, and
it will be convenient to gather here their marks in brief. To
supply the full list of parallels would be wearisome, and, at
this stage of the argument, unnecessary.

They are all — rhetoric, sophistry, politics, and poetry —
attacked by the same arguments. 'Discourse is a great lord,'
a yjrvxaycoyia'^ that can outface the specialist and do anything
without knowledge."" Its end (as in rhetoric or poetry) is to
please ;^° and it acts upon the many, "^^ taking its standards
from them" and playing upon their angers and desires*^ by
giving their opinions back, heightened by the form in which
they are expressed.^* Indeed this form itself is an evidence
of the uneasiness felt by some of these teachers about their
deficiency in knowledge.^'' The sophist is a rhetorician,^* and
poetry itself is the rhetoric of the stage^" — and what is the
purpose of rhetoric but to persuade*'^ what it has not the right,
lacking knowledge, to teach ?'*^ But these Trao-o-oc^ot do not
exercise a genuine art. As they do not know, and can give
no account of their ends, they flatter and deceive.*"^ For a

''^Phaedr., 261a, 271c 10. See n. 46 above.

^^See n. 53 above.

»°Gorg., 462d, 502b; Polit, 288c; Rep., 606b, c, 607a.

'^'Gorg., 454e, 457a-b; Rep., 599a.

«2/?ep., 493a, 602b, 605a.

^^Rep., 493a-d, 604e, 606d. The phrase Trepl a^pohiaiwv Brj /cat dvfiov
Kal Trepl ttcivtcov toov i7ri6vp.r}TiKa}v k. t. X. seems to be echoed in Ethics,
1147a 15. There is another echo (of 604a) in 1102b 17.

8<601a-b. Cf. n. 52.

^'"Soph., 268a.

^'-Gorg., 520a.

^'Gorg., 502c-d.

^^Gorg., 455a.

"■'.See n. 53.^

o<'KoXaKiic-q—Gorg., 466a; cf. Rep., 605a. 'ATraTTjTiKrj—Soph., 240d;
cf. Rep., 598c. Cf. yoi^Teia and KTqXrjaL^.

146

THE POET'S EIAHAA

superficial art, claiming to be universal, has no end to which
all the opinions it claims to teach can look.'*^ It is but an
drexvo': TpLl3ri or ifiTrecpia.'''' What it produces are eiSwXa,*^
framed to be like truth and to be mistaken for it. This coun-
terfeit money must, of course, be judged, like the value of
the rouble, by what it claims to be, by truth, and not by the
beauty of its form.-'^ Hence the professors of these arts are
all alike called impostors, enchanters, mimics, and jugglers,
not because they exercise arts that are to be judged by
standards intrinsic to them, but because their power lies in
passing off an idol as genuine. Plato judges the poets by the
standards of truth and rightness because they compete in the
sphere of truth and rightness and are part of the great system
of mutual deception in which the many and the men of
discourse flatter and deceive one another. This system is a
cave of idols, and in the allegory of the Cave we may see
dramatized the process by which idols are produced and men
believe them to be true. Let us next turn to see the produc-
tion of such false opinions by the poets. The flaw in the
instrument has been laid bare : Plato then shows it in action,
shaping opinion.

2. (602c-607a). This second argument completes the
placing of poetry by asking to what 'part' of man's soul the
mimetic arts make their appeal. If 'third from truth' implies
that the poem is beyond truth and falsehood, then it should

^^Soph., 232a.

^^Phaedr., 260e; Gorg., 463b.

»3The lociis classicus is the last part of the Sophist, where the whole
group of mimetic arts are discussed. See part I above.

"*The sufflcient evidence for this is a comparison of, say, Rcp.^ 598c-d,
with Soph., 234c, especially: rex^v^, J) av ^vvarov <i6v^[av]
Tvyx^vei TOv<; veov^ Kal en iroppu) roiv irpay/jLarcov tP/? aXrjOe'.a'i
uffjeaTMTd'i Bia twj/ o)T(oi' toU X6yot<; yoijreveiu, heiKvvvrn'^ elhwXa
Xeyofieva irepl ttuvtcov, ware nroLeiv aXijdri SokcIv XeyecrdaL khl tov
XeyovTu 8t] <jo(f)(OTa70v iravToov uTrauT eivai.

147

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

make its appeal to a part of the soul with its own rights,
however limited, and its own innocent soundness and wisdom.
We might expect an analysis of the (f)tXo9ed/xcov, the dreamer,
and some evidence that eUaala is bound up, say, with to
iTTidvfxrjTiKov. "■' At any rate, we should not expect to find the
discussion devoted, as it is, to a proof that the drama engen-
ders opinions contrary to the accepted rule of life, a
proof supported primarily by exhibiting the degeneration
under its influence of the spirited part of the soul, which
should in the noraial man support the code. Just as the
poet and the poem are far from truth, so the part of the soul
that is stimulated by them is far from wisdom and health,
because it is unnaturally released from due subordination to
the rational part, and regard for the custom of normal men.
<PavXT) (f)av\M avyyiyvofMevi] — the false mingling with the
unwise engenders an ignoble brood.

As 'contrary- opinions' and their validity are in question, the
whole argument is a deduction from the psychology of
Book IV. The special character of the problem here is
sufficient answer to those who complain that Plato has
shifted his ground by substituting the distinction of
the rational and irrational parts of the soul for the triple
division into t6 XoyiariKov, to 6viJi,o€i8e<;, and to eTriOvfiTjjLKov.
In the earlier books, after showing by example the distinction
between the three 'kinds' of soul, Plato was content to trace
their organization into virtues harmonious with one another
because they are naturally controlled by reason, and
finding each its proper function. The end was to 6fio8o^elv.
But here the reverse process is examined, where justice and
harmony are destroyed because the subordinate parts assert
their claims and opinions in defiance of the rule — Trapa rov

"■'Paton, p. 100.
148

THE POET'S EIAHAA

Xoyov. As they are both divisive, a distinction essential to the
analysis of the normal man need not be explicitly maintained.
This leads to a point of importance in estimating whether
Plato had an aesthetic theory, in our sense. If poetry has a
sphere of its own, the part of the soul of which it is the
expression and to which it appeals has its own claims and
rights. But the irrational part — and the whole argument
leads up to this — has no rights, because it is avorjTov, a rebel
and schismatic."" It cannot simply be identified with t6 dv/xoeiBe;
or TO iTrcdvfiTjTLKov, because it is the breaking away of these
parts to form an unnatural and independent system of acts
and opinions, flouting the prescriptions of the code and of
healthy custom. These parts have their rights and express
their true nature in a state of 6/j,6uoia. What rights can they
have in o-racrt^and division? The spirited degenerates into the
fretful and rebellious, the 'epithumetic' into mere pleasure-
seeking. These irrationals have no sphere of their own,
because they have become the unhealthy breeding ground of
unstable opinions, untrue and unsound. Thus the cycle is
complete: the drama does not penetrate beneath the surface;
hence it adopts the current fluctuating standards of good and
evil, though it presumes to direct opinion; in turn these
standards, reinforced by powerful passions, engender injustice
in the souls of the multitude from whom they were taken.
This is the ethics of a social system contrary to the normal
code, not an aesthetic. The poet is condemned, not because he
does not judge, but because he does not discriminate."" The

""In the Magva Moralia, 1208a9, it is asked what is the ^f'Ooc Xoyoz.
The answer uses a Platonic point of view: one actsX«r« rov di>6bv Aoyov
ozav TO dXoyox^ fJ-ipo^ r^C v'"^Z^^ 1^^ xcoXjJj to aojcotcxov ivtpytiv ttjv
abxdb ix/£fiytiav^ or again otup r« Tzddrj firj xioXuwat tov vouv to a'nou
ifiynv innehiiv. See n. 67.

"^The claim of the poet is to be 8t5«cr/caXt«o'?, and the 8i8aaKaXiK6<;
is also BiaKpiTiiccj<;. Cf. e.g., Soph., 231b, Crat., 388b.

149

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

4>t\oOeai^an' is condemned because his want of discrimination
is the sign of faction in his soul.

((7) 602c-605c. The first part of the argument determines
the part of the soul to which the mimetic arts unnaturally
appeal, and it turns upon the principle of contradiction : that
contrary opinions imply different parts of the soul. Plato
begins by observing that optical illusions may be corrected by
the carpenter's rule and the balancie. It is interesting to note,
in view of the application, that some of these are human
devices. Now the purpose of this argument is extremely
simple. Your eye tells you that this is larger ; the rule that it
is smaller than something else. Which are you to believe?
Clearly the rule, because it is the instrument of to XoyiortKoVf
and equally clearly, by the principle of contradiction, that in
you which desires to believe in the illusion is another part of
the soul. The issue is not in the least whether the illusion
can be set aside as mere 'appearance', exempt from judgement.
The sole relevant consideration is that you mmj in your folly
affirm the illusion to be true just as you may affirm that the
rabbit did come out of the empty hat or that ectoplasm has a
cantilever structure. Then you have a 86^a contrary to
measurement and calculation. Without this interpretation the
principle of evavriai So^at and the application to poetry are
pointless. At the end of the argument on poetry Plato reverts
to the same language: by appealing to the irrational in man
through counterfeit images the mimetic poet makes him think
the same things now great, now small."^ Both states involve
judgements; they are the fluctuating indiscriminate standards
of opinion. It is instructive to recall that this language — that
of the a-Kia'ypa(f)ia ^" or OavfjiaTOTroua — is used to characterize
the rescue of the young from the toils of the sophist: what

'>''605c.

^''Cf. a fragrnent of Aristotle in lamblichus, Protreptikos, c. viii.

150

THE POET'S EIAOAA

they once thought great are now seen to be small, and the easy
difficult."*' This is a rescue from -v/rcuS^? 86^a to truth.

Plato then applies the principle of contrary opinions to
mimetic poetry itself, not content to rest upon a probable
argument from sight. This art imitates men whose actions,
involuntary^ as well as voluntary, are thought by them to be
good or bad, and are accompanied by pain or pleasure. The
words t) €v oto/ieVou? r) kukw Trewpayevai are vital to this
definition."^ For they mean that what the characters in the
play think to be good or bad will be accepted by the audience,
(the more because these opinions conform to the common
standards), are rendered seductive by the form in which they
are expressed and the passions accompanying them, and are
delivered before the most unstable of human groups, the
crowd. The only question that the argument attempts to settle
is whether mimetic poetry does create a schism in the soul,
and if so, to what part of the soul it makes an appeal. On the
first count the earlier books leave no doubt."- On the second
there is as little doubt that drama fosters the more unworthy
opinions.

The most striking aspect of this argument is Plato's treat-
ment of the drama as a social force. We saw in the last
argument how an architectonic art had the right to prescribe.
Here we are less concerned with the op66^ voixo6€Tt)<; than with
the principle in man's soul, which expresses itself in the w>09
that good and decent men accept as prescribing what should
be done. This is the meaning of Plato's appeal to a man's
fellows. The salutary support to one's better self given by

lo^Sop/i., 234d.

lo^The reference is to the concrete examples from the mimetic poets
in Book III, not to Book IV. Lopfical consistency, as well as the supple-
ment to Book III immediately added (603e), shows this to be so.

151

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

social usage is counteracted by another influence working
fitfully, amid crowds and excitement, and using those rebel-
lious and unstable characters that are most easy to imitate.
Self-control is a good; but will men who are moved by the
sufferings of a Priam or Philoktetes believe it to be a good?
The dvo7]Tov will be drawn into denial {ivavria 86^a) ; and
fretfulness, rebellion and repining will be reinforced by the
lesson of the stage. So the "ASi/co? A070? finds his justifi-
cation in Homer and Euripides. Here is one of those ^dopal
ri]<; ^vo-eo)? touched on in Book VI, where false teachers and
turbulent crowds ruin the soul."^ The epitactic rights of
Xo'709 and w'/Li,o<? are usurped by a o-o^ia which calls upon
another part of the soul than the XoycaTiKov to prescribe ends.
In the last resort, the question is : who shall rule, the rjSuafievr)
Moiiaa or N 0/109?

(6) 605c-607a. The second part of the argument need not
detain us. Mimetic poetry appeals not only to the worst part
of man, but to the best men. The tenor of this argument is
clear from its parallel in Book VI, where the best are said to
be the most susceptible to false teachers. It is this claim that
the poets can give a standard for the conduct of life that leads
Plato to exclude them from the Kallipolis, where there cannot
be two kings. At this, the climax of the whole argument,
there is room for but one conclusion: that Plato banished
mimetic poetry because it was a product which made men
worse just as the perverted constitutions made them worse.

Me'7a9 jdp, e^^i/, 6 dyoou, w (fiiXe TXavKcov, fxeya^, ou'x^ ocro<i Sokci
TO '^prjGTOv fj KUKOv yepecdai, ware ovre ti/jlt) eirapOevTa ovt€
■)(^prjp.aaLv ovre CLp')(r) ovScfiia ouSe ye woL-qTiKT] d^iov ctfieXijaac
hLKaLO(Jvvrj<i T€ Kol Tr}<; dXXri<; aperr)^. "^v/jlcJ rjfit aoi, e(f)rj, i^ 5)v

hLeXrjXvdanev.^"^ It is usually suggested that the argument

"■M90e ff.
io-'608b.

152

THE POET'S EIAHAA

about poets is a digression, hardly connected with the main
body of the Republic. This conclusion shows that the banish-
ment of the poets is of a piece with the verdict already
pronounced against timocrats and oligarchs and other rulers
of men. All of them represent vices in the soul which raise
their heads against the body politic and against that inner
polity in the soul of man. It is no wonder, then, that Plato
uses the same kind of argument against all of them. In his
eyes poetry has no special sphere : it acts rrapa rbv \6yoi>.

III.

Conclusion.

Book X is not a fragment irepl 7roLJ)TLKr]<: , but the conclusion
of a treatise irepl TroXtreta'? fj hiKalov. The clue to Plato's mind
may be found in the brief discussion about the nature of a
'master' art: what entitles a man or an art to prescribe an
end? This is bound up with the question, so remote from
aesthetic theory, whether Homer and the others did produce
a genuine political instrument with lasting effect. The
activity usually called Trot'Tjo-t? par excellence — so the argu-
ment runs — is no genuine productive art because its versat-
ility is achieved at the cost of insight; much less is it epitactic,
since the productive arts themselves have ends prescribed for
them by architectonic arts — and this, so far from prescribing,
follows the inclination of the ignorant. With this character-
ization of the mind and product of the poet all is in train for
the main argument: that the instrument called mimetic poetry
is no guide for men nor its makers leaders of men, since it
stimulates into independent life those elements of the soul, even
in good men, which should be subject to law and principle.

153

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

It is no accident that such an argument ends with an appeal
from the many standards of the many to the best Rule that
all good men accept.

The affinities of this discussion are not far to seek. We
saw that Plato stripped poetry of its enhancements of metre
and rhythm less because he was attempting to define it in
itself than because he tried to put his finger on the means by
which the poet makes men believe that he knows. The pro-
blem is really that of the Phaedrus : whether ability to turn a
sentence well dispenses a man from knowing what he is
talking about. ^"^ This is the reason why we have been able
to invoke at every turn parallel arguments against other
teachers, rhetoricians and sophists, who practise arts that do
not draw to being but are turned to the opinions and desires
of men. Aesthetically no doubt this savours of Kronos, and it
is true that Plato did not dissever the aesthetic from the
moral and political problem. But why make him give an
answer to a question he never asked? No writer has a more
unfailing and subtle sense of relevance in argument or defines
with more scrupulous precision the shade of meaning that he
desires to express. Interpretation must follow where the
whole argument leads, and define single phrases as that argu-
ment demands. Plato really does mean that the artists who
disguise their ignorance by fine language are third from truth
and do menace the spiritual unity of a people. He was
concerned with one thing, the spring of authority in reason
and law, and its relation to the fashions of thought, bred by
interaction between the cultivated and the vulgar, that men
easily adopt and as easily discard. This problem falls within
the sphere of ethics and social psychology, and has not yet

^'^^Phaedr., 259e, quoted at the head of this paper.

154

THE POET'S EIAOAA

lost its edge for writers on human nature in politics.^"® His-
torically the argument is a phase of the conflict between a
culture based upon knowledge and experience and that general
culture, sometimes shallow and sometimes with a genuine
content, that does not observe its own limitations."'

If the argument is so conceived, it falls into place within
the scheme of the Republic. That dialogue images a state
where the better rules the worse, and the multitudinous
desires and pleasures and pains of the many are subjected to
desires controlled by right reason."^ Where this end is
attained, in the state and in the soul, there is aco(f)po(Tvv7] ; where
conflicting desires and opinions assert themselves, there is
faction. This is bound up with the willingness of the many
to accept the right teachers. After the psychological argu-
ment where the nature of this harmony and of this faction is
made clear, the decisive point is the firm line drawn in
Book V between the men who know truth and the (hiXoSo^ot,
who err knowing nothing of what they opine. From this
arises the question of Book VI, itself closely connected with
the will of the many to follow a leader: who then are to guide
the city? From the philippic against corrupting teachers in
pp. 491-4 there emerges that vital distinction between the
arts that lead the philosopher to Being and the deceptive arts
that are turned to the opinions of men. The similes of the
Sun and the Line illustrate the former; the allegory of the
Cave shows the votaries of the latter at grips with the philo-

i""!! is interesting to compare the short shrift given to the rornantic
incendiaries of the study who ache to turn the pen into a sword, in the
last chapter of Mr. C. E. Montage's Disenchantment. This is much in
Plato's mood.

lo^Compare a recent letter in the Times newspaper from Sir William
Pope, who rejects the aid of literary men in publishing abroad the
triumphs of science because they are not humble enough to know their
ignorance.

i^MSlb.

155

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

sopliers. After it is triumphantly argued that the
philosopher-king is the guide for men, it still remains to
show how other rulers and guides set up conflict in the
community and in the soul. The last stage of the argument,
resting upon the same psychological premises, exhibits the
relaxing of self-control and of courage under the influence of
those teachers who call themselves 'makers'. Poetry, like
wealth and honours, is a subtle solvent of unity and coherence
because, in Plato's view, it had not made terms with law and
law-givers.

A. S. Ferguson.

Note.

I have intentionally refrained from discussing whether the
aiadr^oa: of the Theaetetus is identical with dxaaia and the
poet's state, as Mr. Paton holds. For the hypothesis that
permits the identification of aiadrjaK;, ecxaala, and the state
involved in /JtlfiTjai^ with one another is that all of them repre-
sent a cognitive stage prior to judgement, so that apparent
diiferences may be ignored in face of this common element.
But the whole argument falls to the ground once it is seen that
etxaaca has no metaphysical status and that /uf//;y<T;c is criticized
because it implies error. At the very least there is a prior
question which cannot be passed over. If, for example,
Plato's account of acWdy^frc: covers a wider area than ecxama,
which is merely mentioned twice in a particular context, it is
not possible to argue that aiadr^atz is tr/.u.a'ia described in its
'full extension and meaning' unless one is certain that the
conception of tixaala does not preclude any enlargement of
meaning.

156

THE POET'S EIAIIAA

In general, is it not a question whether the assumption of
elegant variation in the Platonic terminology can override the
specific differences and qualifications in the arguments where
the words supposed to be identical occur, and whether one is
entitled to reason boldly from the mention of an object to a
definite power or state over it? If the objects of aiadrjac:: are
called (pavrdafiaTain one place, and if the objects of dx(w[a are
£fx6v£T, can one proceed to identify aladr^ai^ with zhaala because
(pavzaaiiazaSiYe associated with dxdvt;; in the Republic and with
iidco/.a in the Sophist? When it is said that acadr^ac- consid-
ered apart from thinking 'becomes simply what we should
call a stream of separate unrelated images — i.e., what may
naturally be described as e^xovsc which are objects of eixaaia
(p. 81), is this too more than a play upon the ambiguous and
unanalysed term image ? And finally, if a wagon is said to be
the object of ^n^a in the Theaetetiis and manufactured things
are the objects of ;rrW^7 in the Republic, can one say that
wagons are manufactured things and that Ttcazic must there-
fore be identical with dd^a 1 Or should one not first consider
that in the Republic the class of things seen is expressly
separated off from the whole realm of do^a for illustrative
purposes and that a manufactured thing is simply more
clearly seen than its shadow, whereas in the Theaetetiis a
wagon is introduced in a tentative distinction between the
general idea we all have of wagon and the knowledge (if such
it be) of all the separate elements out of which a wagon
is made?

A. S. F.

157

REFLECTIONS

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY.

In all literature, ancient and modern, there are a few
conspicuous passages which afford the perennial charm of
mystery. Each generation of students looks on them, as
Desire looks on the Sphinx; and one or another is drawn by
magic into the maze of explanations which are the ghosts of
former efforts. Such is the passage in which Aristotle once
defined Tragedy, and if this essay achieves no final solution
of the riddle, it may at least deserve the grace due to any
honest venture which sustains the unfinished quest.

As this is not, in the words of the academic regulations, a
contribution to knowledge, I have called it a budget of
reflections. It represents in fact a voyage of the mind, a
voyage of exploration directed more by desire than purpose
and terminated by arrival at a stopping place rather than a
final goal. The beginning of the quest was in the passage
which defines the nature of tragedy {Poetics, 1449b 24) and
more particularly in the word Kd6apai<;. The way led naturally
through a forest of explanations, all of them familiar to
students of Aristotle, and left one uncertain whether this
grove was not the one originally designated by the philo-
logists as 'lucus a non lucendo.*

Thus far the journey had been uneventful and my experi-
ence seemed to coincide with the slightly pessimistic mood of

158

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

Zeller. The right course seemed to be to acknowledge
frankly that there was no real solution of the puzzle, or that
life was too short for such quixotic campaigns. But in an
age that substitutes 'becoming' for 'being' and admires process
more than finality, there is no small excuse for the unambi-
tious pilgrim who only desires to tell his story. Accordingly
I will continue to explain why satisfaction was not felt, and
how the quest proceeded. This will lead to a final statement
that the most useful part of this study was the comparison
of the different works from which material could be drawn,
namely the Politics, the Ethics, the Rhetoric, the Poetics. The
results can hardly claim to be novel or revolutionary, but
some value may be discerned in a method which elucidates a
topic by widening the scope of its significance.

The original topic is the idea expressed by the term Kddapcri<;.
This word has many shades of meaning, but we may follow
the expositions of the editors and reduce them to three. Sum-
marily stated these are (a) the religious, with the meaning
'lustration'; (b) the pathological, or medical sense of 'purga-
tion'; (c) the moral, with the idea of 'purification.'

These three interpretations are clearly not exclusive; they
do not form a true logical classification, because there is no
single principle of classification and no way of determining
the limits of each division. If, for example, religious purifi-
cation is taken to include the relief of a burdened conscience,
it includes one part of the medical significance : for 'purgation'
is defined as producing relief and restoring a normal state in
an organism whose equilibrium depends equally on physical
and psychic factors: while the third meaning is a compound
of the other two, since moral purification implies the objective

159

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

ritual of 'lustration' and the subjective 'purgation' of the
humours which corrupt body and soul. These three interpre-
tations, therefore, differ only in emphasis.

This rather tame conclusion is, in fact, a significant point.
If the student will read through Bywater's list of translations,
beginning from Paccius in 1527,' he will see that they are
different (when there is any difference) because their authors
knew that the emphasis might be put on one or other of these
three phases, but had no established principle on which to
base their preference. Bywater^ claims to have shown that
'the pathological interpretation of Kddapai<; was not unknown
in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries': as that
was the time when the 'humours' were again made the basis
for explaining character, temperament and the passions, this
fact is not surprising. Bywater himself thinks this 'physio-
logical metaphor' is the real explanation of Kadapai';. His
reasons are mainly philological, that is to say he relies on
the uses of the word in Aristotle. He is prepared therefore
to reject Lessing's view that 'the tragic purification of the
passions consists merely in the conversion of pity and fear
into virtuous habits of mind.' In addition to all other reasons
for doubting this interpretation there is one of supreme im-
portance ; for Lessing obviously deduces his views of Kddap<Ti<:
from his view of Tragedy. To estimate the value of Lessing's
view we should be compelled to discuss the whole question as
to whether Lessing's idea of tragedy coincided with
Aristotle's; and whether in any case the definition given in
the Poetics states what Tragedy actually does, or gives an
ideal definition of what it ought to do. But this discussion
will be postponed indefinitely, because it is enough for the
present purposes to recognize the profound difference which

iBywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, p. 361.
^op. cit., p. 152.

160

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

exists between a statement of actual psychological effects due
to a specific art (t€xvv) and a theory of aesthetic values.
Whatever means we adopt for establishing the exact sense of
Kadapat^, the argument must not take the form 'since tragedy
ought to have a moral effect, therefore its elements must have
a purifying effect.' On the contrary (as Bywater recognizes)
we must first decide scientifically how passions are aroused
and what phenomena are normal, leaving it to the 'politician'
to make use of these facts if our science of poetry affords him
the means to his own ends.

III.

The question of means and ends introduces a new phase of
the subject. Aristotle is distinguished from his master Plato
by his love of system ; and this is not merely a love of divis-
ions, subdivisions and titles; it is rather a love of order and
relevancy by which he is perpetually driven to make fine
distinctions and limit his topics. Knowing that this is Aris-
totle's very nature, we must not forget its influence even
where it is not expressly shown. On the contrary we may
assume that context, in the wide sense, is all-important: we
may assume, for exam.ple, that the field of one treatise will
differ from that of another in such a way as to alter the focus
of all its constituent parts. On this assumption there will
be good ground for making separate investigations into the
different treatises involved.

Margoliouth^ tells us 'every one agrees that the first clue
is the passage near the end of the Politics, where there is a
reference to the Poetics for further light.' This statement
encourages us to expect a real solution of the problem, but in
fact Aristotle says: 'the word purgation we use at present

3Margoliouth, Aristotle, Poetics, p. 5G.

161

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

without explanation, but when hereafter we speak of poetry,
we will treat the subject with more precision'! And Jowett
adds, faintly in a foot-note, 'cp. Poet. c. 6, though the promise
is really unfulfilled'!* Apart then from what we read into
this passage, we have little warrant for expecting any help
from it. Yet the whole passage in the Politics is important,
for reasons now to be considered.

The general topic in the Politics, Book viii ( Jowett's trans.) ,
is education. The work as a whole being a handbook for
statesmen, the subject of education is treated in a manner
which is strictly 'practical'. We can imagine ourselves
attempting to justify our ways to an inspector who asks. What
are you educating them for'^ We prepare ourselves with a
list of suitable answers — the useful, virtue, knowledge — but
in fact we remain a little uncertain which answer is likely to
turn away wrath: perhaps the best course is to survey what
tradition makes us accept, and analyse the curriculum !

Some subjects are easily placed: reading and writing, of
course, for all manner of obvious advantages: gymnastic for
the body : 'music, to which is sometimes added drawing.' ^
Alas ! these 'extras' never seem quite well placed : the parents
want them, but object to the fees: the Inspector worries about
their utility: and some one in the smart set says that anyhow
the flute will never do, it makes you look so funny ! " A musical
genius, lacking in good taste, suggests that music is really
quite valuable, something like sleep or intoxication ;^ and when
this shocking remark dies away, a solemn voice is heard
pointing out that God plays no instrument!

What help are we to get from this abortive attempt to con-
ciliate the Education Department. Frankly I should expect

*Ari8totle'8 Politics, translated by Benjamin Jowett p. 314, 1905.

^Politics, 1337b.

'-'PoL. 1341b. ^Pol, 1339a.

162

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

none save for the fact that Aristotle is trying to solve a really
profound problem, the last great problem of the statesman —
how to educate a nation to make right use of its leisure. This
is the real 'problem' of education : the busy man is a slave ; he
runs after things which spring up automatically before him ;
but leisure is the activity which creates and creative activity
has its place in civilization because a 'leisured class' appre-
ciates it, encourages it, and may even practise it. This is the
answer so far as music is concerned : we did not invent it, for
it is natural : we did not make it pleasant, for it always had
a curious affinity with our moods which makes us enjoy even
a melancholy strain : we cannot neglect it, for people whistle
and sing of their own accord, and classical music is really
only the most refined way of 'playing with the rattle.' !' The
elaboration of these phases would be a 'metaphysic' of music :
our present scope is politics, and all we need to prove is that
the good of the community requires its citizens to be good
judges of musical performances: every one must be so far
acquainted with music as to know what kind of music is being
played and what its value is for the audience. A normal
audience is simply a 'gathering', and music is a good 'enter-
tainment' because it provides an occupation (hearing) in
which all can share. There are also parts of audiences to be
considered separately — the young, the extreme temperaments,
the 'vulgar crowd composed of mechanics, labourers and the
like.' Here too our statesman is justified. The experts tell us
that there are 'ethical melodies, melodies of action, and
passionate or inspiring melodies'": and all the statesman
requires to know is the results which the experts give him.
So Aristotle passes on to his next point, that music should be
studied for the sake of many benefits — namely education,
purgation, intellectual enjoyment.

"Politics, 1340b.
^PoL, 1341b.

163

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

This is our climax, and its character should be carefully
estimated. The state must keep music in its curriculum
because it will in the future need at least three types of
persons: (1) those who understand its use for education and
become music teachers, either as being great performers or
composers or theorists (exponents of the theory of music) ;
(2) those who understand its use as a part of the medical
treatment of the pathological emotions; ((3) those who form
the cultured audiences and are the genuine critics, who do
not perform on instruments or practise on patients, but live
the life of the just citizen made perfect.

In all this, finally, Aristotle says nothing specifically about
purgation and nothing at all about tragedy : he only explains
why music is to be a part of education as regulated by a state.
Unlike Plato he seems to regard the question as primarily
concerned with occupations. The highest occupation of man
is the use of intellect, and this is shown in sound judgement.
Drawing is to be studied because it produces sound judgement
of the human form: and we may add that as such it will be
useful in the criticism of gymnastics, for the citizen will dis-
approve of physical training if it tends to brutalize. Similarly
music is to be studied because it produces sound judgement of
melodies and rhythms, which are important because they
increase and decrease passions, and so affect deeply the life
of man, as being a mixed creature. It is significant that
Aristotle provides 'popular' music for the masses: there are
many degrees in a commonwealth and the 'animal' element in
music is a sort of common denominator: it will not offend the
cultured, for 'feelings such as pity and fear . . . have more
or less influence over all', but they will regard it critically and
judge its merits by the Xo'709 in themselves and the 'rule of
art' which it embodies along with its 'sweetness.' Perhaps
Aristotle understood obscurely why folk-songs and popular

164

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

airs have been so often the essence of the greatest music : for
nature creates them in the undiscovered depths of feeling and
art recreates them for the mind that demands explicit rules
of method {rexvv) and intellectual enjoyment {hayayyri).

IV.

The problem of means and ends, from which we reached the
required parts of the Politics, will also lead into tTie Rhetoric.
Here we shall find another phase of the questions concerning
'pity and fear and the affections of this class' : we shall find
also that Aristotle is thinking about politics again from a
different angle, and rises to a view of the whole situation
which, as a whole, seems to comprehend the real essence or
genus of which politics, rhetoric, and poetics are distinct.

The art of Rhetoric arises as a 'variation' from Logic.
Logic, dialectics and rhetoric are all arts occupied in providing
proofs. In a perfect world, controlled by reason, nothing
would be needed except logical proof: all sequences or con-
nexions could be logically demonstrated and all persons would
accept the conclusions as rational. But the actual world is
very different. If we admit a sphere of true science, necessary
and demonstrative, there is also the important sphere of
'probabilities.' In fact, human affairs and human interests
are generally uncertain and probable; so much so that a
moral scepticism springs up and even honest people believe
nothing is really quite certain. In this atmosphere the orator
grows into a shallow 'pleader', trained in all the tricks by
which emotions can be utilized to secure verdicts. This occu-
pation is so profitable and so debased that 'rhetoric' scarcely
means anything else. But Aristotle would distinguish the
different types: beside the pleading of the law court

165

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

(SiKaviKop) there is the 'consultative' {a-vfjL^ovXevTiKov) argument:
and this is the true type of 'rhetoric'.

This point must be scrutinized minutely; for the word
'orator' and the idea are alike too commonplace for the
purpose; and it is easy to fail in estimating what seems to
us utterly familiar. Yet we know that from Aristotle to
Quintilian the great orator tended more and more to be the
type of ideal citizen. This is not strange if we remember that
the orator, as here defined, has practical judgement combined
with the power of securing and controlling popular support.
He is therefore a phase of the politician, fit to rule wherever
government by persuasion is constitutional: and Pericles
actually embodied the virtues which Aristotle assigns to the
ideal orator. If we are to understand the teaching of Aristotle
all ideas of oratory as merely an art of language must be
relegated to the furthest background.

Yet of course nothing is more important than language in
the equipment of the orator. Words are the means which he
will employ and this class of 'sounds' will be his instrument,
though we must not forget that he may write speeches not
intended for delivery. For this reason Aristotle does not
neglect the technical questions of oratory, questions of topic,
style, rhythm and the like. But as these subjects are not
important for the present discussion, no more attention will
be given to them. The significant feature of Aristotle's
treatise is that he considers the whole situation in which
oratory has its function and realizes that speech is relative
to hearing. If an argument falls on inattentive or disaffected
ears, it is wasted. The orator must remember three things:
(a) the logical method of proof, (b) the influence of his own
presence according as his moral prestige (^^o<?) adds to or sub-
tracts from the weight of his words, (c) the attitude of the
audience who may be willing or unwilling to reinforce his

166

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

arguments by a benevolent and unprejudiced attitude (evvoia).
A convincing argument is therefore very different from a
correct argument. The difference lies in the simple fact that
an argument is only convincing if some one is convinced.
Rhetoric as an art must combine with its formal or logical
elements a psychological part, and this is the reason why the
second book of the Rhetoric is so largely concerned with the
emotions which an orator must control.

This second book of the Rhetoric is so important that it
deserves to be analysed in detail, but as space will not permit
so elaborate a treatment, the most important features must
be selected as proofs of the argument here evolved. My thesis,
briefly, is that Aristotle's view of the meaning of Kd9apai<i
is to be derived from this source; that the required link
between the Politics and the Poetics is here supplied: and,
finally, that if we understand how far the politician is an
orator, the orator an actor, and the actor both orator and
politician, we shall attain a right interpretation of the whole
subject. This in no way excludes any technical medical
statements about 'purgation', all of which may be true; but it
implies that neither politician nor orator nor poet is required
to know the medical facts, any more than a person who
regards a blush as a confession of guilt need also know what
inner mechanism produces the visible effect.

In the Rhetoric the emotions discussed are all those which
produce changes in persons and so affect their judgements
{Kpi<T€L<;). They are all states which induce pleasure or pain,
and the examples are anger, pity, fear koI Saa dWa Toiavra. ^^
Anger is due mainly to the feeling that one is despised, and
is expressed as resentment. The orator must remove this

^''Others are actually discussed but the details cannot be (riven and
this epitome, as priven by Aristotle, is valuable as showing how pity and
fear are uniformly selected to represent the whole group.

167

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

resentment by first adopting the attitude of the resentful
person and then showing that the objects of his anger are
'either formidable, or worthy of high respect, or benefactors,
or involuntary agents, or as excessively afflicted at what they
have done.' ^^ These 'topics' will induce 'gentleness'
(f(aTa7rpdvv€iv)and what is then said in defence of the offender
will be accepted without prejudice.

Let us suppose that the orator wishes his audience to feel
fear (as might be the case if he were persuading them to be
prepared for disaster or to refrain from some form of v^pi<;.)
The practical orator will then make his audience 'think or feel
that they are themselves liable to suffering: for (as you
suggest) others greater than they have suffered: and you
show that their equals are suffering or have suffered : and this
came from such as they never expected it from : and when nol
expected.'

Pity is only possible to those who think they may suffer:
men will not pity if they have already lost all, or deem them-
selves beyond the reach of all evil (i.e., v^pi^ovcnv). Here
follows a long list of the reverses of fortune which excite pity,
and may therefore be regarded as proper 'topics.' Moreover,
Aristotle here admits an element of 'acting' (inroKpiaei) to
'visualize' the facts {^rpo ofifiaTcov Troiovine<i).^- This is sup-
plemented in Book HI by the treatment of style (Xe^t?) or
delivery. This subject has been neglected, says Aristotle; and
the reason is that it came late into tragedy and rhapsody:
yet declamation is an important part of rhetoric and poetic,
and it is gaining more importance owing to the corrupt state
of public life.

The relation between appeals to emotion by 'acting' and the
'corruption' of the commonwealth must be emphasized here.

i^Cope, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, vol. ii, p. 41.
^^Rhetoric, ii, c. 8 § 14 (Cope, vol. li, p. 105).

168

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

As the basis of Rhetoric is conviction (Trt'o-Tei?) and this is pre-
sumably right opinion, the purest form is rational, closely
akin to logic : but the practical orator always has to consider
the weakness of the audience, which is also fundamentally a
decline in public standards (fJLoxOijp tav tmv TroX.LTeLoyv).^'^ Similarly
in the Poetics, the use of appeals to emotion by extraneous arts
is only justified by the weakness of the audience {rrjv rSiv dearwv
aadeveiav). Thus Rhetoric and Poetic have a common basis in
the presentation of a plain unvarnished tale, which by its own
virtue carries conviction : but the weakness of human nature
requires the use of further appeals to the senses (of hearing
in the case of sounds that reproduce expressions of joy or
grief, of sight in the case of actions, gestures, or even mourn-
ing attire) . Though these aids are practically necessary, they
are not essentials, and it is therefore a matter for regret
(Rhet, iii. 1.) that the prizes are won by the actors rather
than the poets, thus making the production more important
than the play. All this, we can well understand, must have
been very repugnant to Aristotle.

The preceding sections are intended to clear the ground.
They show that each treatise has a specific topic and deals
with a group of ideas from distinct points of view. This is
to be noted carefully, for any light we may hope to get on the
subject of tragedy must be derived from this fact. Our thesis
is, in brief, that some, if not all, of the difficulties vanish when
we remember that Aristotle limits himself in the Poetics to
the analysis of a form of art If this is the case, we can deduce
at once that no question of effects produced on the spectators
enters into the definition of tragedy. On general principles it

^^Rhet., iii. 1. 5.

169

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

seems to me almost impossible that Aristotle should include in
a definition of an 'essence' anything that is extraneous or
accidental: he would be far more inclined to assert that a
tragedy remains a tragedy, though no one hears or sees it, just
as virtue remains virtue though unrewarded, and a triangle
is a triangle though embodied in no material form. But as
this a priori argument will lead into many conflicts with
existing views, I will present it purely as a working
hypothesis.

Let us assume then that the actual definition of Tragedy
involves no reference to any 'purgation' experienced by the
audience, and that the purgation remains an essential part
of tragedy. This view will be supported (a) by those who
reject Lessing's 'moral' interpretation, (b) by Margoliouth in
so far as he realizes that the passions would be excited and
therefore increased rather than expelled, (c) by the shrewd
comment of Bywater" that this treatment would be so rare
ana intermittent as to be worthless. Special attention may
be given to Bywater's point because it is almost the oniy sign
I have found among editors that they appreciate the false
subjectivity of modem commentators. Nothing can be
achieved until the reader's mind is cleared of the notion that
Aristotle is speaking of a modern theatre to which people can
turn for relief six days a week, if they like; or that 'psycho-
logical appeal' is to be regarded as having any place in the
ancient conception of an art.

But the most potent argument for our hypothesis is the fact
that it is very difficult to find in Aristotle any reference to
this 'purgation' of the audience. The original definition says
nothing about it; at 1450b 16 Aristotle says 'the tragic effect
is quite possible without a public performance and actors':
and when the audience is mentioned it seems to be regarded

i^p. 156.

170

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

as having a 'weakness' which induces the writer of plays to
aim at pleasure and corrupt his art (1453a 35). The
'spectacle' is excluded from the essence of tragedy, though it
is a part of theatrical production (1450b 20), and Aristotle
remains throughout more clear on this distinction between the
play and its x^p-q'^Ca than most of his commentators. In
matter and in tone there is a striking parallel between these
passages and the corresponding sections of the Rhetoric: the
good speech is also a work of art, corrupted by any appeal to
emotions and made perfect by the right union of logical proof,
character (^^09) and diction. The actual outcome of suc-
cessful oratory is a conviction. Perhaps the real work of
Tragedy is to produce a type of conviction suited to the
transcendent nature of its topics.

I would digress a moment to ask whether even Bywater's
excellent translation is not really affected by his view of the
function of tragedy, and actually distorted to maintain it. To
show that this is the case I will consider what Aristotle says
about the 'Fable or Plot' (Bywater, p. 23 seqq.). The Plot is
the most important thing in Tragedy: it is by nature an
organism, almost: its unity is logical, an inner bond of neces-
sity: its incidents arouse pity and fear. What then should
the Poet aim at? (ibid., p. 35). What are the conditions of
the tragic effect? Aristotle says: '(1) A good man must not
be seen passing from happiness to misery, or (2) a bad man
from misery to happiness. The first situation is not fear-
inspiring or piteous, but simply odious to us.' (p. 35). So
runs the translation, but there is nothing in the Greek about 'to
us' ! So again 'The second is the most untragic that can be ; . . .
it does not appeal either to the human feeling in us, or to our
pity or to oiir fears.' But the text has no equivalent for any of
these words underlined. Is it significant that Bywater puts
them in and Aristotle leaves them out? I think it is, and

171

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

without citing further evidence I will explain why the
translator should avoid such additions.

I think Aristotle meant eXeeivov and (f>o^ep6v to stand by
themselves as marks of real causes, things truly pitiable and
truly fearful, whether any one actually felt pity and fear or
not. There might always be a Jason to say, 'What's Hecuba
to me?' but Hecuba is a tragic figure dTrXw?, not irpk rjad^.
So in the Ethics we are told that the man who excused himself
for killing his mother talked nonsense : there is no such excuse !
But if no one feels pity and fear, what is the meaning of the
remark ? The answer is that Aristotle is making an analysis :
the sequence of events in the drama is the point at issue. The
plot is bad if the cause of fear is inadequate, because the
dramatis persona who responds with the tragic horror is
then merely ridiculous. The quality of the play depends on
the just balance of action and reaction: to express fear when
nothing is truly fearful is comedy: to be indifferent toward
the ordinary causes of fear is merely to fail in sustaining the
part.

The persons who ought to 'feel' what the situations involve
are the poets (1455a 31): they must have the special gift,
almost a touch of madness, to see that invisible world of
thoughts and motives which will be reincarnated in the actors.
The audience can be expected to feel pleasure, for there is a
pleasure of tragedy (1453a 36), and it is wholly distinct from
the 'pleasant ending' which is in character more comic than
tragic. Tragedy requires to be serious, and therefore the
pleasure it affords can hardly be a feeling of joviality: it must
rather be a sense of satisfaction. If this is satisfaction with
the divine order of the world, if tragedy thus 'justifies the
ways of God to men,' we come back to the 'moral' view of its
function. And this I think Aristotle would admit to be the
actual result of the best tragic dramas, but I feel equally sure

172

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

that he would not include this extraneous result in the defini-
tion of the essence of tragedy. In any case, the resulting
satisfaction would not be a subjective mood of purified
passion, but a function of judgement.

This argument can now be concluded. The definition of
Tragedy is taken to be a definition of its essence : this essence
consists practically in the nature of the plot, for the rest is
really a matter of production in the technical sense, the
'staging': the plot of a tragedy (as distinct from comedy) is
always concerned with situations which involve pity and fear :
these are the two factors with which it works, and it ends in
a resolution of the tension indicated by these emotions, a
clearing up of the emotions which belong to its sphere. It is
difficult to invent such situations, for the persons involved
must be 'better than ourselves' : the plane of tragedy is elev-
ated, and a 'hero' must by necessity occupy a conspicuous
position; so that the poet is easily tempted to over-reach
himself and achieve that success which we call melodrama.
Since the situation must be 'possible', and yet a marvel to all,
Aristotle thinks the poets do well to use only the accepted
subjects, such as 'The Oedipus.' Clearly the audience was very
critical; it might easily discount all the merits of a play by
refusing to accept its plot: as Aristotle says, if a thing has
happened, no one can dispute its possibility. The history of
Greek drama certainly suggests that the audiences had no
craving for novelty of subject: surprise was an element in the
treatment rather than the choice of a subject. All this goes
to show that the audiences must have been as a rule pretty
well acquainted with the pitiable and fearful things they were
to behold: and this familiarity would hardly increase the
'purgative' effect, or might even produce immunity.

As the actual 'histories' of Priam, Hecuba, Oedipus and
others were well known, so the moral theme of v^pi<i is recog-

173

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

nized as having become the focus of tragic drama. The sin
has been committed somewhere at some time: God is not
mocked : there is a cosmic tribunal where the Eternal Reason
by the logic of cause and effect delivers its judgements: the
prisoner at the bar is not a common criminal but something
greater in scope, an inheritor of crime: he has no guilty
conscience, but dark forebodings rise in the soul where
memory {avdfMV7](n<i) slumbers fitfully: as the coming doom
draws near the indefinite suspicion becomes oppressive fear:
in the climax the suffering is excessive, because the individual
suffers for the sins of others and pays in his person for the
guilt of his race: he is 'excessively afflicted' and therefore
becomes truly pitiable.

If this is a correct outline of a typical tragedy as conceived
by Aristotle it will show automatically why fear and pity are
the chief emotional elements. Suffering is expressly included
as an essential (1452b 10.). It is also significant that Aristotle
says the chorus should be regarded as actors. This opinion
must be due to the fact that the chorus tends to guide and
control the development of the play on its emotional side: it
emphasizes in words the emotional significance which the
actors can only present symbolically. To put the matter a
little crudely, the actor can only die physically: the chorus
must add that he dies undeservedly or justly. Out of the
welter of facts and emotions there should emerge a concrete
idea of life, exhibited in an ideal type, showing why things
must have happened as they did and why the verdict of time
is reasonable. The merit of a work of art is to be convincing
and this is its Kd9ap(n<i.

VI.

By way of epilogue and conclusion I may refer to some
points which otherwise might seem unduly neglected.

174

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

Considerable attention has been paid in recent times to the
medical terms used by Aristotle. One of the virtues of Greek
thought is the grasp which it always retains on the idea of the
whole organism. Whether the corporeal elements, the 'body'
as flesh, are praised, tolerated, or condemned they are at least
not forgotten. The emotions, the expression of the emotions,
and the whole complex of typical characters were subjects of
increasing attention. The 'characters' of Theophrastus may
be regarded as word-pictures of types, which actors might
profitably study. But we cannot on this account quote Aris-
totle's medical phrases to prove that tragedy is a kind of
medical treatment. For this reason the reliance placed on the
technical passages in the Problems seems to me an error: they
furnish no proof of the point at issue — namely, that Aristotle
regarded the production of these physiological changes as a
function of tragedy.

The relation of Aristotle to Plato is an important topic
which cannot be adequately treated here. Bywater's reference
to Republic, Book x, seems to me important for reasons other
than his. Bywater^^ thinks that Plato regarded drama as
harmful because it nourishes the weaker elements of our
nature, the tendency to tears and laughter. This is truth but
not the whole truth. The view I would suggest is that Plato
and Aristotle agreed in thinking that the 'weakness' of the
audience and the 'corruption of the constitutions' (quoted
above) rendered the drama a source of danger. We might
quote modern instances to show that a play involving a murder
can inspire one of the weaker sort to commit murder. The
fact is that susceptible people are affected emotionally and
may therefore abstract from their context the emotional incid-
ents of the play. The real justification of a play is in the
appeal which it makes to judgement, not in the incidents

"Bywater, p. 153.

175

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

which present the constituent events. While Plato sees an
actual danger which can only be overcome by the production
of the right type of spectator, Aristotle confines his attention
to the nature of tragedy itself. So far as concerns the proper
end of tragedy there is no reason to suppose that Plato and
Aristotle did not completely agree in regarding it as an imita-
tion of life with significance for those who understand. All
art is removed from reality and has an element of illusion:
but harm only results for those who forget this and are cor-
rupted in their judgements.

There remains the haunting fascination of Aristotle's
words — 'through pity and fear achieving its catharsis of such
emotions.' Are these words 'pity and fear' merely symbols of
emotions, chosen at random, or is there a deeper significance
in their appearance here? They suggest an antithesis and
challenge attention by force of the reasons which must have
made them prominent in Aristotle's mind. If nothing can be
set down as certain, perhaps a benevolent hearing may be
granted to one more speculative reconstruction.

Plato, as it seems, looked for a profound moral reform
before the drama could be an aid to the good life. Aristotle
here, as always, leans to a more gradual development, achieved
through existing means. The beginning of life as action is
the conative impulse (o/3e|t9): the end is contemplation. The
young live by their feelings : years may bring the philosophic
mind. The drama shows us life in a way which enables us
to contemplate it: it presents a specimen of a class of lives
so that it can be seen as a logical whole. In the slow move-
ment of daily life we lose our sense of proportion: if we
prosper, we think no harm can ever come to us: if we meet
disaster, we think there can be no relief and justice is dead.
Sometimes we forget God and are insolent: sometimes we

176

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW OF TRAGEDY

despair and blame God. Margoliouth says that in their
conduct 'every dramatis persona is hitting or missing an
imaginary mark.' I am not sure that I understand this phrase
in its context, but I will give it the meaning I should like it
to have. The mark is the mean, as Aristotle describes it in
the Ethics. Every actor shows us how the true mean may
be hit or missed. Those who run to excess and over-reach
themselves are to be reduced by fear : those who suffer are to
find pity and relief in the working of 'poetic justice.' If this
interpretation is narrowed and taken to refer to a single
person, then the mean will consist simply in fearing what is
greater and pitying what is inferior. In either case the terms
'pity and fear' may be taken to indicate the limits of passion
in the two directions which are typically defect and excess :
for pity corrects the tendency toward intolerance and inhuman
conduct, while fear sets a limit to the ambition that o'erleaps
itself. If this interpretation is accepted it indicates that
Aristotle's definition was after all little more than a compact
statement of the aims common to all the Greek tragedians.
For the mean in human life is part of the order of the universe
and the man who transgresses it will sooner or later bring
into play all the forces that make for righteousness in the
universe. The conflict between man's variable nature and
the laws which rule him inexorably is the essence of tragedy.
To present this concretely in action is to define it in terms of
act and feeling, freed from all that is confusing and irrelevant.
This will be the particular catharsis which tragedy achieves,
and which the spectator will judge to be truth because his
reason accepts what is clear and by intuition grasps the finality
of the conclusion.

The reasons for the affinity between the Politics, the
RhetoHc and the Poetics can be stated thus. In the Politics
the question of education involves the development of char-

177

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

acter, and music has a distinct place in the 'diet' which
nurtures the soul : in the Rhetoric the emotions are to be
considered as the irrational factors which affect judgement,
and the result desired is a definite verdict for or against a
particular act or person. Here the conclusion is on a relatively
lower plane, because it is 'practical' and ends in the deliberate
choice of action, a direction of desire in the sphere of things
mutable. In the Poetics there is no question of future action,
no pleading for a verdict: the scene is laid in the past, the
events are therefore eternal and immutable: the spectator
judges 'theoretically', that is contemplatively. As an aesthetic
judgement this involves only aesthetic values, and perhaps
Aristotle would not have rejected the idea that after the
analysis of science and the analysis of the 'practical reason'
he had in fact laid the foundations for a critique of 'judge-
ment' in the Kantian sense. I would argue that failure to
recognize these fundamental changes of viewpoint has been the
chief error in interpretation and has obscured the fact that a
term like KddapaL<; takes its meaning from its context.

G. S. Brett.

178

THE FUNCTION OF THE PHANTASM

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

The task that I put myself to work at was to try to find
out what connexion there is between the intellect and the
phantasm in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. What
started me on this line of thought was that I could not see how
we could have sensible phantasms for such ideas as unity,
being, causality and the like. I used to be under the impres-
sion that according to scholasticism we derived our ideas
from sense representations and once in possession of these
ideas, which were purely intellectual, there was no further
use intellectually for the phantasm. My problem then was,
how can I have a sensible impression of the idea of being, or
any of the other ideas like it. As I went into this subject, I
found that my interpretation of the expression in Aristotle
and St. Thomas, 'No idea without a phantasm', was wrong.
I found it was not only true that there is no idea without a
corresponding phantasm, but that furthermore the corre-
sponding phantasm must always accompany the idea in
consciousness. Whenever we are conscious of an idea, a
sensible representation of that idea must be present also in
consciousness. Why is this so? This is the question that
naturally arises and it seemed to me worth while to try to
find out what Aristotle's greatest interpreter held on this
point.

Within the narrow limits of this paper is compressed a
short survey of a large field. The paper attempts to show

179

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

what is meant by saying that the intellect understands only
universals. Then the text of St. Thomas is examined and it
is seen that he finds from experience that the intellect cannot
think without at the same time turning to the phantasms of
the things thought, although that by which we think is the
likeness of the object thought, which is in the intellect. Why
the intellect needs to turn to phantasms, he tries to explain
but in a most unsatisfying way. The main views opposed to
his are then taken up and shown to be unsatisfactory. It is
then shown that St. Thomas fits in better with the text of
Aristotle and what is lacking in the former is found also
lacking in the latter.

It should hardly be necessary to do so, but it may not be
out of place to run over a brief summary of the theory of
abstraction. The sensible object in the external world sets
up a motion in the medium between the object and the eye.
The medium conveys the motion to the eye. By the combined
action of the motion and the sense organ, the sensation of
sight results. After the removal of the object, experience
tells us that a sense representation of the sensation remains
in the imagination. According to the theory of St. Thomas,
the intellect has the power of bringing this phantasm into
contact with itself. It renders it intelligible. As the colour
in the object is not visible without light and without the organ
of seeing, so the phantasm is not intelligible except it be made
intelligible by the intellect. The intellect, then, both makes
the phantasm capable of being understood, of being known;
and at the same time understands it and knows it. These two
powers of the intellect are called the Intellectus Agens and the
Intellectus Possibilis, the active and the possible intellects.
The active intellect renders the phantasm capable of being
understood. The possible intellect understands. The active
intellect makes the phantasm intelligible by abstracting from

180

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

it that by which it understands. Something, then, is
abstracted from the phantasm and taken up by the possible
intellect. This something is called the Species Intelligibilis
and it is not the thing understood, not the thing known, but
that by which the thing is known. There seems to be no doubt
that this Species Intelligibilis is an intellectual likeness or
representation of the thing understood. It is universal ; it is
equally representative of the universal form wherever it is
found in the external world. When we know a bell, what
we have in our intellect is applicable to all bells in the world
and to all the bells that ever can be in the world. The Species
Intelligibilis is the likeness in the intellect of the object
outside by which we know the object outside. What is in the
intellect is stripped of all individualizing qualities. The Spe-
cies Intelligibilis in me is different from that in you for the
same idea, different in number but exactly alike and an instru-
ment by which I know the one universal existing in external
objects.

The intellect directly knows universals and only by very
obscure and complicated reasoning can Aquinas bring the
intellect to know particulars. On meeting this at first, it strikes
us as rather ridiculous to say that it is difficult to explain how
man as an intellectual creature can know individuals. We
think that we do know individuals. As a matter of fact, a
little reflection will show that the real difficulty is to explain
how even in sense knowledge an animal can ever know the
individual. Aristotle says that the intellect grasps only the
universal. No man since his time more perfectly assimilated
this than Thomas Aquinas. One could wish that Aristotle too
had considered a point of view and a very important one, on
which he is silent.

It can be seen as follows what it means to say that the
intellect grasps only the universal. Every word in a language

181

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

is the expression of a thought in the mind. This gives us the
mental word, verbum mentale. Every spoken word and conse-
quently every thought in general is applicable to an indefinite
number of spoken sentences or organized groups of thought
besides the one in which at any time it happens to be used.
If we say or think, Tom Vahey is six foot three in height',
any one of the words can be used in an indefinite number of
other sentences. This is what is meant by a universal. People
of different tongues think the same thought when they think
the same object, while the spoken and written words differ.
French and German have the same thought in mind when they
think the law of gravitation. They express it differently.
The number of words in expression is not necessarily the
same. We must be careful, then ; there must be something in
the mind to correspond to each spoken or written word. It
may, however, not be simple but a compound. Even in the
same language the same thought may be adequately expressed
by one, two or more words. 'Immediately' and 'at once' may
be good enough for examples. All words and all thoughts are
universals. We can only designate the particular by a group
of universals which occurs but once in nature. Even proper
names are universals. There are many Toms, and even quite
a number of Vaheys. There may be only one Tom Vahey and
in that case the designation is sufficient. If there are more,
we must add some other universal such as, 'the billiard expert.^
If there are several Tom Vaheys who are expert billiard
players, we may add 'of Toronto'. We can narrow down
ultimately to a given position in space and time before we
have the individual sufficiently separated from all others.
Even the space and time positions taken separately are
universals. There are many men living now and many men
have lived even in the very space occupied by Tom Vahey now.
All that can be said of an individual object, or thought of it,

182

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

is a group of universal words or thoughts. Is this group
individual? Aside from the combination of space and time
marks, taken together, the group, however numerous the
predicates or universals, could be found elsewhere at a dif-
ferent time or in a different point in space. Although this
particular Tom Vahey occupies this particular point in space
at this particular point in time, it was possible for another
to be the one; and all that we can now say of this one, we
would have been able say of the other.

If you define Tom Vahey as the six foot three man, etc.,
and go on to say 'who was in a certain part of a certain room
at ten o'clock on May the 16th, 1922', you have a particular.
This group of universal characters could never be predicated
of more than one extended object at the same time. It is the
only case where we can get the particular. Even in this case,
we do not know the particular. We know that what we see
now we see now and no other, but which one we see now we
cannot know. Assuming a number of men exactly like the
one described, and assuming that I see one of them at a given
spot at ten o'clock, May 16, 1922, how can I know which one is
present? There is something peculiar and individual to each
concrete object in the sense that no other object possesses it
or could possess it. But how can we know it? This is what
Aristotle meant when he said that the intellect knows only
the universal.

What Aristotle failed to notice, and St. Thomas after him,
was the difficulty experienced in explaining how sense
knowledge knows only particulars. At first sight this looks
easier. A little consideration reveals a lot of trouble. When
I go to my mother's home at intervals of weeks or months, I
resume acquaintance with the family Irish terrier. Ginger.
Ginger does not hide his light under a bushel when he is
engaged in his great function of guarding the house against

183

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

strangers. His savage bark, except for the favoured few, is
well known around the neighbourhood. No stranger day or
night can step inside the precincts without a hostile demon-
stration from Ginger. I can, after an absence of months,
walk boldly, even on the darkest night, right to the door. If
he feels like it, he will stretch himself and come quietly out
for a silent greeting, or he may decide to remain in his kennel
and wait till morning. He knows my walk. If a perfect
stranger should walk just like me, would he not mistake him
for me? Of course he would, and is it not conceivable that a
number of men should walk like me? My walk is universal.
He knows my face, my clothes, the look in my eyes, my voice.
Another man comes who wears clothes like mine, the same
shape, size, his face is just like mine and his voice, the look
in his eyes, every movement of the body, every expression of
the face, every word that he speaks is just as it would have
been with me then. Would Ginger know the difference?
Ginger could not possibly know. There could be a thousand
men like me and how could either reason or sense know me,
know the particular? If this is not what is meant by knowing
the particular, then what does it mean? For me, at any rate,
there is a real problem here. It surely seems that even sense
can only say that this individual A is a member of a class. It
is true that there may be no other member of the class, but
it would be possible to have many members and then the sense
knowledge of the animal could not tell the difference between
them, and so how does it ever know the particular?

However, St. Thomas faithfully reproduces the doctrine
of Aristotle when he claims that sense knows particulars, the
intellect knows universals. He holds that the intellect knows
universals by means of the species intelligibiles which it pos-
sesses. It is important to establish (1) that these species
intelligibiles are likenesses in the intellect of the objects

184

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

outside the soul which are known by them, (2) that these
species are in the intellect quite apart from the phantasm
and are preserved in the intellect even after the soul is
separated from the body and consequently from the phantasms
which are in the sensible imagination and perish with the
body. Assuming that some may read this who would be
frightened off from Scholastic Latin through unfamiliarity
with it, I am going to take the liberty of giving St. Thomas
in English and I am going to use the Dominican translation
of the Summa Theologica and Rickaby's Translation of the
Summa Contra Gentiles. The English of the other passages
is my own.

(1) In the Opusculum De Unitate hitellectus , St. Thomas
says: 'But when this (Species) is abstracted from its indi-
viduating principles, it does not represent the thing according
to its individual condition but according to its universal nature
only. For there is nothing to hinder, if two qualities are
united in a thing, that one of them can be represented even
in sense without the other.' No comment is necessary to show
that the species in this passage represents the concrete
external object. Again in the Opusculum De Natura Verbi
Intellectus, there are a couple of passages worth quoting : 'Just
as in the beginning of the intellectual activity, the intellect
and the species are not two but the intellect itself and the
species intellectually illuminated are one, so also in the end
one thing remains, namely the perfect likeness [of the thing] '.
'Intellection terminates in that very thing in which the
essence of the thing is received, nay from the very fact that
it is itself, the likeness of the essence.' 'For the mental word
(that is the thought in the mind which is expressed by the
spoken word) is not begotten by the act of the intellect, nor
is its likeness nor even the likeness of that species by which
the intellect is informed . . . but the likeness of the thing'.

185

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Dc Differentia Vcrbi Divini et Humani: 'From this we can
gather two things concerning the mental word, namely that
the word is always something proceeding from the intellect
and existing in the intellect and that the word is the nature
and likeness of the thing understood . . . the concept which
anyone has of a stone is only the likeness of a stone but when
the intellect understands itself, then such a mental word is
the nature and likeness of the intellect.' The concept is not
the species ; but if the concept is the likeness only of the thing,
then the species too is the likeness of the thing. De Sensu
Respectu SingulaHum et Intellectu Respectu Universalium:
'All knowledge takes place through the fact that the thing
known is in some way in the one knowing, namely, according
to its likeness . . . the intellect receives in an immaterial and
incorporeal way the likeness of that which it understands . . .
it is clear therefore that the likeness of the thing which is
received in the sense represents the thing according as it is
individual, but when received in the intellect it represents the
thing according to its universal nature.' De Ente et Essentia,
c. 4: 'And although this nature understood has a universal
side when compared with things which are outside the mind
because there is one likeness of all, nevertheless according as
it has existence in this intellect or in that, it is a definite
particular species understood.' Summa Theologica, Part I,
q. 85: 'The thing understood is in the intellect by its own
likeness and it is in this sense that we say that the thing
actually understood is the intellect in act, because the likeness
of the thing understood is the form of the intellect as the
likeness of a sensible thing is the form of the sense in act.'
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II, c. 59: 'The understanding
as apt to understand and its object as open to representation
and understanding are not one. . . The effects of the active
intellect are actual representations in understanding.' De

186

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Potentlis Animae : Therefore the substance of a thing is that
which the intellect understands, but the likeness of that thing,
which is in the soul, is that by which the intellect formally
understands the thing outside.' 'So understanding takes place
through the possible intellect as receiving the likeness of the
phantasm, through the operation of the active intellect
abstracting the immaterial species from the phantasm and
through the phantasm itself impressing its likeness on the
possible intellect.' Summa Theologica, Part I, q. 87, a, 1 : 'As
the sense in act is the sensible in act, so likewise the intellect
in act is the thing understood in act, by reason of the likeness
of the thing understood which is the form of the intellect in
act.' Ibidem, q. 87, a, 2 : 'Material things outside the soul are
known by their likeness being present in the soul and are
said, therefore, to be known by their likenesses.' Ibidem, q. 78,
a, 2 : 'Knowledge requires that the likeness of the thing known
be in the knower, as a kind of form thereof.' It seems to me
sufficiently clear without further comment that according to
St. Thomas, the intellect knows things outside by likenesses
of them which are in itself.

(2) Let us now show that these likenesses exist whole and
entire apart from phantasms. In the sixth and seventh
articles of the seventy-ninth question in the First Part of the
Summa Theologica, Thomas proves that besides sense memory,
there is an intellectual memory which stores ideas. They are
preserved in the intellect when not present in consciousness;
but to obtain a clear-cut view, no better way can be found
than by considering the case of the soul after death, when the
body with all sensible organs including the imagination and
its phantasms no longer exists. For an understanding of the
psychology of Aquinas, his treatise De Angelis and the dif-
ferent places where he treats of souls separated from their
bodies are invaluable. Separated souls understand not only

187

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

as well as in this life and that without any phantasms to which
to turn; but indefinitely better. The mode of understanding
after death is different from the mode of understanding while
the soul is united to the body. When the soul is united to the
body, it can only acquire new knowledge through the sensible
impressions conveyed in the phantasm and it can have no
thought without a corresponding phantasm. After death the
soul retains the species intelligibiles of all the thoughts which
it had in this life but these in perhaps every case, certainly
in nearly every case, form but a very small portion of the
knowledge which the separated soul possesses. The new
knowledge gained does not come through phantasms but by
the direct infusion of species intelligibiles. A few quotations
will suffice to establish this. De Unitate Intellectus: 'It is
evident that the species are preserved in the intellect; for it
is as the philosopher [Aristotle] had said above, the place of
species, and again, knowledge is a permanent habit.' Contra
Gentiles, Book 2, c. 73: 'Nor can those impressions formally
received into the potential intellect have ceased to be, because
the potential intellect not only receives but keeps what it
receives.' Ibidem: 'He [Avicenna] says that intellectual
impressions do not remain in the potential intellect except
just so long as they are being actually understood. And this
he endeavours to prove from the fact that forms are actually
apprehended so long as they remain in the faculty that appre-
hends them . . . but the faculties which preserve forms, while
not actually apprehended, he says, are not the faculties that
apprehend those forms but storehouses attached to the said
apprehensive faculties . . . hence (because it has no bodily
organ) Avicenna concludes that it is impossible for intel-
lectual impressions to be preserved in the potential intellect,
except so long as it is actually understanding. . . So it seems
(according to Avicenna) that the preservation of intellectual

188

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

impressions does not belong to the intellectual part of the soul,
but, on careful consideration, this theory will be found
ultimately to differ little or nothing from the theory of Plato.
. . . Intellectual knowledge is more perfect than sensory. If,
therefore, in sensory knowledge there is some power pre-
serving apprehension, much more will this be the case in
intellectual knowledge. This opinion [of Avicenna] is
contrary to the mind of Aristotle, who says that the potential
intellect is the place of ideas ; which is tantamount to saying,
it is a storehouse of intellectual impressions, to use Avicenna's
own phrase. . . The potential intellect when it is not consid-
ering them [intellectual impressions] is not perfectly
actuated by them but it is in a condition intermediate between
potentiality and actuality.' De Anima, a, 15 : 'Separated souls
will also have definite knowledge of those things which they
knew before, the intelligible species of which are preserved in
them.' Ibidem: 'We must say that separated souls will also
be able to understand through the species previously acquired
while in the body but nevertheless not through them alone
but also through infused species.' De Natum Verbi Intel-
lectus: 'For that which is understood can be in the intellect
and remain in the intellect without being actually understood.'
In the fifteenth article of his treatise De Anima in the Qiiaes-
tiones Dispiitatae, he deals with the question whether a
separated soul can understand. Twenty-one objections are
given and the matter is treated thoroughly. There is no doubt
in his mind that the soul can think as in this life only much
better and without any phantasms.

There remains the real problem of this paper. If the soul
retains in the intellect the intellectual impressions by which
it knows things and if when separated from the body it can
think and understand without turning to phantasms, why
should it have to turn to phantasms every time that it thinks?

189

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

St. Thomas anticipated us in asking this question. In the
seventh article of the eighty-fourth question in the first part
of the Summa Theologica, he asks: Can the intellect actually
understand through the intelligible species of which it is
possessed without turning to the phantasm? The answer is,
no: 'the philosopher says {De Anima, 3) that the soul under-
stands nothing without a phantasm'. The intellect does not
make use of a corporeal organ. If it did not use the body or
the sensible part of the soul in some way, there would be
nothing to hinder the soul from its activity in the intellect
after the lesion of a corporeal organ. We know, he says, as
a matter of fact that this is not so. In cases of frenzy,
lethargy, loss of memory, a man cannot think even of the
things of which he previously had knowledge. Again any
man for himself can see that when he tries to understand
something, he forms phantasms to serve him by way of
example.

In a nutshell, then, the reason why St. Thomas holds that
we cannot think without turning to phantasms is because we
know from experience that it is a fact. Our own experience
will bear him out in this when it is a question of the great
mass of all thought. Whether it is so obvious with the more
general notions, such as unity, being, good, etc., it is not so
easy to say.

At any rate, we know that St. Thomas holds that to be
conscious of any thought we must at the same time turn to
the phantasm in our imagination in which is imbedded the
particular representation from which that universal thought
was drawn, and secondly the reason why he claims that this
is so is because it is a fact of experience.

One might then naturally inquire, what is the explanation?
Granted that it is true, why does the soul have to turn
to phantasms? St. Thomas answers this too. His answer is

190

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

not all that one could wish. It is proper for an angel, he says,
to understand without phantasms, directly through intelli-
gible species, because it is an intelligible substance itself and
without any body. It is natural for man as united with the
body to learn of individual objects through individual
phantasms rendered intelligible by the intellect. We appre-
hend the individual through the senses and the imagination.
And then, he says, for the intellect to understand, it must of
necessity turn to the phantasms.

To say that it is natural for the soul to understand without
turning to phantasms, would be to run into Platonism and
say that the union of body and soul does not benefit the soul
but the body. This in his opinion is absurd. The union of
body and soul is natural and therefore good for the soul. To
turn to phantasms is natural and good for the soul. Such is
his answer. Granting this, we should like to ask, in just what
way is it done and how is it good for the soul ? The question
presented itself to him. 'But here again a difficulty arises.
For since nature is always ordered to what is best (and it is
better to understand by turning to simply intelligible objects
than by turning to phantasms) it might seem that God would
so order the soul's nature as to make the nobler way of under-
standing natural to it, and not to level it down for that
purpose to the body.' (Sum. Theol., Part I, q. 89, a, 1).

The answer in substance says that the nobler way would
not be suitable to the inferior nature of man. Nature com-
prises a minutely graded series of beings from lowest to
highest and the nobler is not suited to the less noble.

In the seventy-third chapter of the second book of the
Summa Contra Gentiles we are so near the point that we
become excited. '[The potential intellect] understands imma-
terial things, but views them in some material medium; as is
shown by the fact that in teaching universal truths particular

191

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

examples are alleged, in which what is said may be seen.'
Note that this is a fact of consciousness. Therefore the need
which the potential intellect has of the phantasm before
receiving the intellectual impression is different from that
which it has after the impression has been received. Before
reception it needs the phantasm to gather from it the intel-
lectual impression. . . But after receiving the impression, of
which the phantasm is the vehicle, it needs the phantasm as
an instrument or basis of the impression received.' An under-
standing of the last clause would answer the question of this
essay. 'And in this phantasm the intellectual impression
shines forth as an exemplar in the thing exemplified, or as in
an image.' He seems to have exactly the same view as
Aristotle. We must use particular examples when reasoning
on universal truths. It is a fact and that settles it.

Such is the way in which Aquinas expounds Aristotle's
philosophy of the activity of thought in so far as it is con-
nected with the phantasm. There is another exposition of
Aristotle's meaning, diametrically opposed to this, holding
that there is nothing in the intellect. The intellect sees the
universal in the phantasms and takes nothing out of them.
Remove the phantasms and thought ceases.

The two opposing views are closely connected with the
question of the unity of the intellect and immortality. If
thought is looking at phantasms, when the body perishes and
with it all phantasms, there is no possibility of an after life.
The battle over Aristotle's meaning raged in the middle ages
between the two sides far more than is the case in our day.
Theophrastus' few remarks as preserved in Themistius and the
interpretation of Aristotle by Alexander of Aphrodisias had
immense influence in spreading among the Arabians the
doctrine of one intellect for mankind. Avicenna held that the
active intellect is common to mankind, Averroes that both

192

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

intellects are common. In either case the intellect sees the
individual, concrete being in the phantasm. Although immor-
tality should logically be inconsistent with this view, many
Arabians and scholastic Averroists, particularly in Italy,
maintained the immortality of the soul.

The majority of modern scholars favour the anti-Thomistic
view. Windelband accepts it without reserve. Zeller tries to
hold it and at the same time is convinced that there is an
intellectual something. He is most obscure. Trendelenburg
is pretty much scholastic. Brentano, in spite of his scholas-
ticism, seems to be influenced. Adamson, who in my opinion
reaches the heart of Aristotle better than anyone else, says
that the intelligibles are not really separable from matter and
cannot be apprehended except in concrete things. Rodier
maintains that the intellect is the receptacle of forms and that
the concept and consequently the scholastic species intelli-
gibilis is quite apart from the sensible image. All admit the
impossibility of establishing with any degree of certainty the
true meaning of Aristotle.

The reason for the importance attached in this essay to the
anti-Thomistic exposition is, first, because it is the only
alternative: either there are intellectual impressions in the
intellect by which we know the original objects or there are
not ; secondly, because according to it the necessity of turning
to phantasms when thinking is obvious and, on the other
hand, taking the Thomistic side no reason appears for the
need of turning to phantasms in thought.

The anti-Thomistic exposition, continued along lines kindred
to the mediaeval Arabians, does not seem so consonant with
the facts of experience or as much in the spirit of Aristotle's
language. Before trying to prove this statement, a word or
two on Grote might be appropriate. I cannot find myself able

193

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

to follow him with any satisfaction at all. He presses hard
Aristotle's analogy of a figure on paper.

There is not even a triangle in general in the mind in any
way. As we receive the sense impressions of a number of
triangles, we group them together in the imagination, and
when we use the general term triangle, what we mean is 'one
of those.' This is true of all general terms and consequently
of all words in the language. They signify no more than that
what we mean is 'one of those' in that particular group of
impressions joined together by a common likeness. The weak-
ness of Mill and his followers is a failure to analyse thoroughly
the concept of like and unlike. To say that like impressions
group themselves together and then to pass on is to ignore the
most profound question in philosophy. What is the meaning
of like and unlike?

Let us now attempt to see how far the anti-Thomistic
opinion in general fits the facts of experience and is in agree-
ment with Aristotle. By it the intellect sees in the phantasm
(and only one phantasm of a species is sufficient) the universal
nature of the thing or quality; sees it as universally
applicable to other individuals.

We talk about the triangle ABC, about A and B and C,
about AB, BC, CA, about angle ABC. We turn away from
the board and talk about it ; we rub it out and still talk about
it. Besides the triangle on the board, there is the thought in
the mind, the triangle in the mind. When we leave the outside,
enter the mind and consider thought, how does the analogy
work? The phantasm is present and the mind considers it.
When one thinks, is there a thought separate from the
phantasm? When the figure on the blackboard is absent, we
talk about and think about the sensible representation in our
minds. Within the mind itself, is there an intellectual repre-
sentation separate from the sensible phantasm? Or is

194

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

thinking merely the mind looking at different aspects of the
phantasm, looking at the shape and ignoring all else, looking
at the size and ignoring all else, etc., etc.? In that event, it
would be analogous in sensible knowledge to pointing.

To make this clear, let us suppose two men with only one
phantasm between them and that outside of both, as an
external object, or a figure on a blackboard. There is no idea
or representation in the soul of either man. Is not this a close
analogy to the above interpretation of the use of the phantasm
in thought? How would it work? If the external phantasm,
or external object, consisted of two houses, how could one man
communicate to another that one house is larger than the
other? Thinking is talking to oneself. If one thinks, one
can express his thought in language. One phantasm, and that
outside the men, is taken so that we can get at what takes
place in the soul. If there were a phantasm in each, in com-
municating each would mean his particular phantasm. If the
same man both indicates and receives, talks and listens, he
possesses only one phantasm. In our supposed case, the two
are taken in order to see what takes place in one when one
talks to oneself, that is when one thinks. The man comes to the
decision that this house is larger than that. Is it not equiva-
lent to saying to himself, 'this is larger than that'? How can
he say that? With the two phantasms in him, or with one
phantasm in him which includes the two, he says, 'this one is
larger than that'. Consider the two phantasms as outside of
him. He will say to himself or to another, 'this is larger than
that'. He will not use words expressive of ideas whether vocal
or signs, because, according to the theory, there is no repre-
sentation accompanying the phantasm. Perhaps an easier
example could be taken. I cannot think of an easy one. He
could point to each phantasm. It would be rather difficult by
iwinting to indicate quantity and that one quantity is different

195

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

from another. He might draw his foot around the extremity
of each phantasm, thereby covering the shapes. One might
infer that he meant that one object was circular and one
square. It is vital to remember that there is no thinking
apart from the pointing and that there is no inference back of
it. If the man points to red and blue and red, what would
that mean? It certainly would not signify that the first is
like the third and unlike the second. Remember we are trying
to analyse what goes on within the intellect. If for the
present, we allow ourselves the use of some difficult 'words'
like big, small, like, different, is, a, the, motion, space, time,
and their modifications ; if we take it for granted that we have
phantasms for them, we might be able to illustrate knowledge
according to this theory. To think, 'red is different from
blue', the man would point to the phantasm red, put in from
somewhere or other the difficult 'is' and 'different from' and
point to the phantasm blue. Leaving aside for the moment
the difficult words, this should give us some grasp of thought.
It is hardly necessary to call attention to its inadequacy.

Even at that we are confronted by a further tremendous
difficulty according to this theory. If one man is going to
communicate a judgement to another, must he not be conscious
of the judgement beforehand? I know that not only in
animals, but in man too, a great part of our thoughts come
automatically, mechanically. If I am making myself clear,
there is a big difficulty. How can the man, before he selects
the phantasm necessary for his judgement, know which one
to select? According to our illustration, it is impossible to
bring to bear on it any knowledge apart from the phantasms.
Memory cannot give any help. Memory is a storehouse of
phantasms. The phantasms of the distant past stand on the
same footing, as far as this point is concerned, as the recent
phantasm. There must be some power to draw from memory

196

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

and there must be knowledge of what to draw. Thinking is
an arrangement of phantasms, an orderly arrangement of
phantasms. (I am avoiding the question of true and false.)
What makes it orderly? There is no thought, no idea apart
from the phantasms. They are the ideas or thoughts or
whatever you will call them and there is nothing else except
the power of looking at them, selecting them and arranging
them in an orderly way. Is man so fortunate as to arrange
them properly? I might add that this problem is not peculiar
to the explanation of thought which we have now under con-
sideration. Brentano sees the difficulty and says it is the will.
Of course it is the will, but does that explain the difficulty?
How is one to will to call up a phantasm which is not present
and cannot be thought of until it is present?

For those who interpret Aristotle as giving to the phantasm
the function of a figure on a blackboard, in the sense that
there is no intellectual idea apart from the phantasm, all the
difficulties here mentioned present themselves. It is hardly
worth while criticizing on this point Grote's attempt to make
Aristotle an English Empirical Philosopher. With the others
who claim that the intellect can do its work with only one
phantasm of a species before it, we have a view more in the
spirit of Aristotle, but still with the same difficulties to
overcome. As I read them, although they use such terms as
'the intellect grasping the universal', 'abstracting', 'separat-
ing', they use the examples of the visible geometrical figure
and push it to the extreme limit; they emphasize Aristotle's
insistence that the universal is only found individualized in
the concrete objects of the species. This may be logical. It
is another question whether Aristotle so thought. According
to this interpretation, thought is the act of the intellect looking
at the phantasm, or some quality of the phantasm. In sense
knowledge, an animal sees an object and carries away a repre-

197

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

sentation of it. In intellectual knowledge, the intellect sees
a universal in the phantasm but carries nothing away, takes
nothing out of it. In thinking, there is nothing in the intellect
but the power of seeing the universal in the phantasm. Take
away the phantasm and thinking goes with it. At once we
are faced by the difficulties which the above-mentioned
example was intended to illustrate. Thought is the arrange-
ment and contemplation of phantasms or aspects of
phantasms. A sentence or the organized group of thoughts
of which it is the expression, would be like the eye looking at
the different objects in a room in an orderly manner, if we
could eliminate the conscious thought behind the eye. Perhaps
it would be a better comparison, though still halting, to
imagine first a number of words on a blackboard and some-
thing pointing to one after another in such order as to make
sense.

What must be firmly grasped is, that there is no thought
back in the intellect which looks, corresponding to the object
seen. It is true that we know that we know and that this
fact is hard to comer. What stands out above all is that there
is no thought in the mind apart from phantasms.

It is true that Aristotle insists that the individual alone
exists (that is, the concrete object), and so seems to lend
support to this theory. In the next breath he says that in
sense knowledge, the form enters without the matter. In the
sense the soul possesses the identical object outside stripped
of matter. According to his own words clearly stated and to
be seen in a score of places, the form does exist apart from
the concrete external object. The form, whether the indi-
vidual form or the species form, is both inside the mind and
outside the mind at the same time. With an understanding
of immateriality, this presents no difficulty. When Aristotle
is harping on the impossibility of Plato's Ideas being 'separate'

198

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

from things in the world of sense and pressing hard that his
Forms are in things, he was not thinking of the intellectual
thought in the mind; he was fighting against the universal
being set up as a separate metaphysical existence, presumably,
independent of mind and sensible object. If sense knowledge
is like the imprint of a seal on wax and if intellectual
knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge, should not the
impression of the phantasm, (in whatever way the sensible-
intellectual chasm is spanned) leave an impression of some
kind on the intellect, should there not be in the intellect a
representation of the phantasm, as the phantasm is a repre-
sentation of the object? Could it not be that the form, the
essence, since it does exist at the same time in the object and
in the phantasm, exists also, in a still purer form, in the
intellect? True, the definition of Socrates which formed the
basis for Plato's metaphysical Idea and for Aristotle's Form
was expressible in words and it would seem that to be con-
sistent, if we know the essence, we should be able to express
our knowledge in words and the old question could be put, do
we ever know the inner essence of things? Not completely,
but we do define, classify and to that extent know the essences
of things. It need not mean more than that the intellect would
assign an object to a class. It might be asked, 'Why do you
assign it to that class? Why do you say that that is its essence?'
and the reply might be given, 'I cannot explain the reason
why, but I know it is one of that class.' Is it not true that we
do a lot of apparently mechanical work that way? If we
knew more about the internal mechanism of the mind, we
might find out that what we glibly call the laws of association
of ideas are merely expressions of such operations. It is easy
to say that like idea calls up like idea. How is it that like
ideas become connected in the mind? They are not connected
by a conscious, intentional operation. The mind by an uncon-

199

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

scious movement classifies every object which it meets. This is
a fact which needs no proof. To say that A is like B is to
express the essence of A to that extent. The mind may do
this consciously. It certainly does it unconsciously too. To
classify is to define, to define is to give the essence. The mind
unconsciously classifies like with like and thereby, it seems to
me, shows that it grasps the essence. To know the essence in
this manner, to grasp the essence, does not mean that the
mind sees the complete inner nature of a substance with the
eye of omnipotence. With all my books on the floor, I under-
take to place them in the shelves. How do I go about it? I
put the Greek books together, the Latin ones together, etc.
They are all books ; they belong to one genus. To classify the
members of this genus into species, I take the books which
are 'alike' which have a specific difi'erence in common. To
define the essence of this particular member, all that is neces-
sary is to name the genus and that in which the members of
its class are alike, e.g., the Greek language. To define, then,
to express the essence, it is sufficient to know resemblances
and differences. The mind does this as unconsciously as we
assimilate food, every time it receives a new impression,
grouping it with others which possess with it a common
character. Any object or any event may be put in a number
of different classes at the same time. The phenomenon is so
ordinary, so universal that it fails to excite wonder. Accord-
ing to Aristotle's own words, then, the form enters the mind
and is apart from the individual and the intellect can know
this form, the essence.

Space does not permit of a very lengthy investigation
into the text of Aristotle for the purpose of
establishing how far the interpretation of St. Thomas
agrees or conflicts with his master. It is hardly necessary
to do so now. Trendelenburg, Adamson, Piat and Brentano,

200

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

notwithstanding differences among themselves, agree that
there is something intellectual in Aristotle's idea. They give
no clue as to why the intellect should need the phantasm once
it is in possession of the idea. Surely no apology is needed
for saying that the case is not yet settled against the pure
intellectual impression in the Thomistic sense.

It will have to suffice to examine briefly two passages in
Aristotle, which strike me as two of the strongest against
Aquinas' interpretation :

(a) TO, fiev ovv eXh-q to votjtlkov iv roi<i (^avrdcrfiaai voel {De
Antma, 431 b 2).

The sentence looks very much as meaning that the intellect
sees the universal as it is in the phantasm and that there is
never any intellectual impression of the object in the intellect.
The word vod is the cause of the trouble. How would it be to
translate: The intellect intelligizes the forms in the phan-
tasms'? The meaning is not very clear. It is just as clear
as the Greek. All our work is an attempt to establish what
Aristotle meant by voel. If we knew that, we should know
whether the universal is in the phantasm alone and in no
way in the reason and we should know how the intellect uses
the phantasm in thinking. Consequently we cannot use the
word vod to prove that it means surveying universals which
are in ^avrda fiara and not in vow, until we know the meaning
of vod.

lb) orav re Oecoprj, civdyKr] dfia (f)dvTaafji.d ri Oecopdv rd yap
^avrdap-ara wairep alad^fiard iari, 7rXr)v dvev i/A.?;?. De An.,
4J2 a 7.

I must admit that this passage shook my confidence in the
interpretation of St. Thomas. It seems to do away with
imageless thought. My objections still held but they were then
objections to Aristotle. The word Oecopdv certainly does lend

201

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

support to those who deny the intellectual impression apart
from the phantasm. The case hinges largely on the word a^a.
Without aua the meaning would be that whenever a man
contemplates an idea, he contemplates the phantasm and sees
the idea in it. With aixa it means, whenever a man contem-
plates an idea, he must at the same time contemplate the
phantasm. Are these two contemplations, one of the idea,
which is apart from the phantasm, and one of the phantasm?
Why it should be necessary for the mind to look at the idea,
if it is separate, and then at the phantasm, I fail to see. Yet
what is afia doing there ? We find ourselves in Aristotle facing
the identical problem we are investigating in St. Thomas. No
answer is afforded in Aristotle any more than in Aquinas but
they do seem to agree.

And these are I think among the strongest passages
favouring a difference between them. In all probability no
explanation will explain all the difficulties of the subject. The
theory which makes the intellect merely gaze at phantasms
brings in its train insuperable objections; and, in spite of
some passages which, taken in isolation, would lend themselves
to support that theory, does not seem to be the mind of
Aristotle.

Our results may be summed up as follows. The intellect,
according to St. Thomas, cannot think without turning to
phantasms. The intellectual impressions, the species intelli-
gibiles, which the intellect gathers from phantasms, are in
the intellect apart from phantasms, are preserved in the
intellect when not in consciousness, and after death are
sufficient for the exercise of thought, without turning to the
phantasms. We know as a fact that we do turn in this life
to phantasms when we think. We use examples to illustrate
universal truths. We draw geometrical figures, particular
ones, on the blackboard, and reason and talk of universal ones.

202

THE PHANTASM IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

But on the question, why this should be so, the answer is not
satisfactory. A study of Aristotle and his commentators
justifies one in holding that in this there is no opposition
between The Philosopher' and his great admirer and greatest
expositor. Aristotle, too, recognized as a fact that images
accompany our thoughts, and that we use particular sensible
examples to illustrate general truths. This led him to lay
down that there is no thought without a phantasm, and he
left it at that. St. Thomas went further than Aristotle in
probing the difficulty. It may be that it cannot be solved and
that he went as far as any man can go.

H. Carr.

203

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PSYCHOLOGY

MAINE DE BIRAN.

Qu'ai-je ete? Que suis-je? En veHte, je serais bien
emban-asse de le dire. — Stendhal.

In the preface to his recent work, The Group Mind, Dr. W.
McDougall pays a striking tribute to the value of modem
French psychology. If comparisons between national
achievements are always apt to be invidious, it is none the
less true that in psychology, as distinguished from meta-
physics, the products of French thought have been
pre-eminently brilliant and suggestive. Fouillee, observes
McDougall, affords a source of inspiration not found in
Wundt; and if a comparison is to be based on quality rather
than on quantity, the psychological tradition of the future
will be found, where it is not Anglo-American in origin, to
derive from France rather than from Germany. If this
contention be entertained, a study of French psychological
sources is amply justified at the present time. The present
article is written in the light of this consideration. While
the writings of Maine de Biran have been submitted to
intensive study in France, more especially by MM. Bertrand
and Tisserand, the space devoted to them by English-speaking
writers has been scanty.^ This omission is the more surprising
in view of the important character of the problems with
which Biran is concerned. If his discussion of the nature
of personality and will is subject to revision in the light of

iThe only detailed study of Maine de Biran in the English language
with which the present writer is acquainted is N. E. Truman's Maine de
Biran's Ph^'losophy of Will, New York, 1904.

204

MAINE DE BIRAN

later knowledge, there is much in his writings which may be
of interest at the present day.

The 'Personal' Origin of Biran's Psychology.

The issue which forms the pivot of Biran's psychology may
be stated in the question 'What can man do to obtain happi-
ness?' Contained within this question is another, more
crucial and fundamental — 'What can man do ?' It is therefore
with the problem of freedom, of the genuine significance of
the will and the self, that the author is concerned. 'I should
like,' he wrote in his diary in 1794, 'if ever I am able to
undertake a sustained inquiry, to determine the extent to
which the mind is active, the degree in which it can modify
its external impressions' - . . . 'Let us hope that a man accus-
tomed to self-observation will some day analyse the will as
Condillac has analysed the understanding.' ^ If Biran was
himself led to devote a life-time to the study of this question,
the origin of his incentive must be sought primarily in certain
problems presented by his own temperament. Endowed with
that type of mental constitution which seeks happiness in the
realization of an inward ideal, of a mental equipoise achieved
solely by concentration of the will, he became conscious within
himself of a neurotic instability completely beyond his
control. 'I do not know,' he writes, 'if there exists a man
whose existence is so variable as mine.' * 'I am tormented,'
he continues in another passage, 'precisely by this idea that
everything changes, that I am myself in a perpetual flux and
do not know where to find a sure basis for support.' ' To
complete the picture which Biran here presents of his inner
life, reference must be made to a number of similar passages
contained in his diary. His self-confessed timidity upon

^Maine de Biran, sa vie et ses pensees, 3e edition, p. 11 H. Publiees
par Ernest Naville, Paris, 1877.

3/fcid., p. 117. *Ibid., p. 116. »76u?., p. 305.

205

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

public occasions," the feelings of mental obnubilation which he
has himself described," his constant sense of the void of exist-
ence, coupled with his endless quest for an ideal goal in life** —
all of these features supply a picture of the psychasthenic
disabilities from which the author's inquiry sets out.

The relation in which these phenomena stand to Biran's
discussion of personality and will is at once apparent. It is
the automatic character of these impulsions, their obscure
foundation in the organism, which renders them, in relation
to freedom, a problem of the first magnitude. In the abrupt
fluctuations of the coenaesthesia and its affective products,
two features more especially attracted his attention. (1) The
flux of these affective states proceeds from a point below the
threshold of the conscious ego. The laws of their content
and succession constitute a psychophysiological automatism
of which the 'V becomes the spectator, but is not the origi-
nating source. (2) The influence exercised by these states
invades the whole realm of the personality, affecting both the
intellect and the will. The psychology of Maine de Biran is
therefore a study of the relation of the unconscious to the
self-determination of the will. Before taking up his more
mature conclusions upon this matter, a brief indication may
be given of his earlier opinions.

It was in 1793 that Biran, according to his own statement,
first entered upon a serious study of psychology. In the
period which elapsed between this date and the publication of
his Memoire sur V Habitude (1803), his attitude towards the
mind-body problem was essentially that of materialism. After
the fashion of Cabanis, whom he was studying at this time,
consciousness becomes little more than a surface-illumination
in which organic states are reflected. Like Biran's later views,
this conclusion is based less upon a preconceived theory than

"Op. cit, p. 197. Hhid., p. 242. cf. pp. 170, 171. »Ihid., p. 297.

206

MAINE DE BIRAN

upon an interpretation of immediate personal experience. 'I
have sought,' he writes, 'what it is that constitutes my
moments of happiness and I have always found that they
attach to a certain physical state of my being, completely
independent of my will,' ^ . . . 'I conceive that to every state
of the body there corresponds a certain state of mind and
that everything in the organism being in ceaseless fluctuation,
it is impossible to remain for a quarter of an hour in the same
condition of mind.' ^°

If consciousness is thus reduced to an echo of bodily pro-
cesses, what becomes of the self-determination which formed
the author's goal in life? In the later development of Biran's
psychology, although human experience is always represented
as determined by the interaction of will with the blind fatum
of the organism, a very clear distinction is observed between
these two factors. At the stage under discussion this
distinction had not yet arisen. If the affective instability of
the author's temperament had not swept into the sphere of
the will and the understanding, his early views upon the
nullity of self-determination would not have been placed on
record. But it is precisely this delimitation of affective from
intellectual and volitional functions that his experience led
him to deny. 'My power of inner perception and all my
intellectual faculties,' he writes in relation to these obscure
waves of sensibility, 'undergo the same anomalous varia-
tions.' "... 'At certain moments all my ideas are thrown
into confusion; I no longer know the point to which I have
advanced nor how to extricate myself from this entanglement.
At other moments which are more rare, I show no trace of
hesitation ; my ideas develop themselves freely and I see right
to the bottom of my subject.' '- The issue which Biran sets

"Op. cit., p. 118. I'Vfeid, p. 125.

»i/6id., p. 171. i2/6Mf., pp. 211, 212.

207

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

forth here is more universal in its appeal than its reduction
to a pathological occurrence might suggest. The will, as the
author of the diary admits, is dependent upon the intellect
and the emotions. But if the latter are determined by the
fluctuations of the organism, in what sense is the will itself
a free or self-determining agent? Can it, even in the moments
of its apparent supremacy, be any more than an echo of the
concert of physiological reactions? It is to this doubt, never
entirely cast aside, that Biran succumbs at the period in
question. 'Will reason,' he asks, 'always be powerless against
the influence of temperament? Liberty — can it be anything
else than the consciousness of a state of mind which is in
conformity with our desires, but which depends in reality
upon certain organic conditions over which we have no
control; so that when we are as we would be, we imagine
that our mind by its own activity has itself produced the
modification in which it takes pleasure?' "

The answer which Biran gives to this question prior to the
year 1812 is clear. As the will disappears when divorced
from the sum-total of its organic conditions, so also in all its
activities it does nothing but reflect the physiological integra-
tion of the organism. Personality disappears, reduced to the
role of consciousness in Bayle's celebrated metaphor of the
weather-cock. 'I recognize in my own experience,' he writes,
'that I am powerless against the passive forces of my being.
I pass rapidly through a series of states of physical and moral
well-being or unrest without any power of resistance.'" With
this conception goes the corresponding account of happiness
which the writer puts forward at this period. It consists not
in the alleged freedom of personality, but in 'that physical
condition which I have found to be the basis of happiness.' '^

^^Ov- cit., p. 117. i4/6id., pp. 285, 286.

^'-Ibid., p. 127.

208

MAINE DE BIRAN

Biran's Relations to Condillac and Descartes.

At the time of adopting the above conclusions Biran was
an orthodox disciple of Condillac and his school. 'It is to you,'
he writes, referring to de Tracy and Cabanis, 'that I owe all
my ideas, all that I am at the present stage of my intellectual
life.' ^'' From the year 1803 and onwards, however, a marked
divergence from the tenets of sensationalism is observable.
This divergence, which increased during the next ten years to
a point of complete severance, culminates in the Essai sur les
Fondements de la Psychologie (1812), which is Biran's most
important work. As an introduction to the conception of per-
sonality developed in this essay, reference may be made to
the author's criticisms of Condillac and Descartes.

Condillac. In the Rapports des Sciences Naturelles avec
la Psychologie, Biran accuses Condillac of replacing the human
mind with an artificial phantom of his own creation. This
result is attributed to Condillac's erroneous assimilation of
the methods of psychology to those of natural science. Phy-
sical science owes its success to its abandonment of the
mediaeval search for occult causes and hidden essences. It is
no longer concerned with 'the relation of a transitory pheno-
menon to the efficient cause which produces it, but with the
simple association in time of one fact with another which
precedes it.' '" While accepting this conception of natural
science, Biran denies its applicability to psychology. 'Every
system of psychology,' he writes, 'which makes abstraction
from the conscium, from the internal perception of the "I",
is simply physics or logic' '"^ Physical science can limit itself
to observing the sequence of external events in time ; 'but in

^'^Lettres inedites, cited by Alexis Bertrand,La Psychologie de VEffort,
Paris, 1889, p. 76.
^'Novvelles (ruvren inedites de Maine de Biran, publiees par Alexis
Bertrand, Paris, 1887, p. 139.
^"Pensees, p. 322.

209

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

psychology it is so little possible to make abstraction from the
efficient cause of certain phenomena that the cause, so far as
it identifies itself originally with the "I", becomes the whole
subject of the science.' '" It follows therefore that the instru-
ment of psychological discovery consists in a unique internal
sense, the objects of which are wholly different from those
of external sensibility and of the natural sciences. Hence the
attempt to import the methods of the latter into psychology
creates 'a fantastic world which has no analogy with anything
either perceived within the self or presented in the external
world.' -'^

Yet it is precisely in this erroneous attempt that Condillac
persists. Ignoring the inner perception of personality as an
agent, he approaches the mind from without as an object the
nature of which he seeks to determine by a play of external
forces. The statue of which he speaks is passive. If it
becomes 'the smell of a rose' and finally alludes to itself as
T, its consciousness is throughout the product of external
stimuli. It is with the character of the self here generated
that Biran takes issue. If the consciousness of the statue is
a passive product, though distinguished from the environ-
ment, it is still simply an aspect of the mechanism of nature.
In what sense, therefore, can the statue truly be called a
'person'? Waiving this objection, how could personality come
into existence under the conditions described by Condillac?
At the occurrence of the first sensation in the statue, there
is no T, but simply 'the smell of a rose' ; but the personality
which is not found in the first sensation cannot be conjured
into existence by any formula of transformation out of a mere
accumulation of such units.^^ The criticisms which Biran

^'•>Nouvelles ccuvres inedites, p. 151.
2o/6id., p. 140.

^^OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, publiees par Ernest Naville,
Paris, 1859, tome III, p. 424.

210

MAINE DE BIRAN

directs against Condillac may be summed up in the statement
that professing to give a concrete analysis of consciousness,
he replaces this method by a synthesis of artificial abstrac-
tions. The transformation of sensation is merely a fiction by
which the lacunae in Condillac's account are ineffectually
cloaked. The result is *a fantastic being composed and
dressed up after the fashion of imagination which can scarcely
be taken as anything but the skeleton of the human
understanding.' "

Descartes. If Condillac thus replaces personality by a
lifeless effigy, does Descartes, following an opposed method,
give a satisfactory account of the self?

The error of Condillac lay in his starting-point. Instead of
analysing the concrete fact of consciousness, he proceeds to
construct it upon an imaginary basis of abstract sensation.
The method of Descartes is of a different order. While
Descartes abstracts from the material world and from the
body in his account of self-consciousness, his starting-point
lies in the concrete act 'I think'. His conclusions however,
Biran maintains, are no more satisfactory than those of the
sensationalists. While Condillac, preoccupied with a mechan-
ism of sensations, never reaches the real subject of experience,
Descartes setting out from the latter, quickly loses sight of it
in the immobile depths of the 'soul.'

In supporting this contention, Biran advances an acute
criticism of the Cartesian principle je pense, done je siiis.
The intuition by which Descartes claims to unite the two
parts of this proposition, involves a double transition.
Thought implies the existence of a thinking subject; but in
the interpretation which Descartes places upon his principle,
the T which is the subject of the premise is not that which
appears in the conclusion. From the empirical self presented

^^Nouvelles ccuvres inedites, p. 152.

211

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

to consciousness in the 'I think', Descartes passes to the
existence of the T as a metaphysical substance or soul.'-' It
is the validity of this transition, for which its author claims
the character of knowledge, that Biran challenges. If the
real nature of the transition escapes detection, it is none the
less based upon a paralogism; if it is avowed, Biran charges
Descartes, while keeping ostensibly within the boundaries of
experience, with confusing a fact of internal apperception
with an object of speculative belief. The soul,' he writes of
Descartes' views, 'is identified in his mind with the self; he
has taken an abstract notion for the primitive foundation of
knowledge without seeing that this notion has its origin in
an anterior relation which is itself the constitutive germ of
consciousness.' -^ For this identification there is no valid
basis. While the soul can only be conceived of as an object
characterized by universal attributes such as immateriality
or absolute duration, the T is revealed in internal appercep-
tion as a subject which consists in a mode of activity unique
or peculiar to itself. If this activity is later referred to the
soul, it is only by a process of depersonalization in which a
positive datum of self-consciousness is converted into the
object of an abstract or speculative idea.-^

When the nature of the soul is further examined, the error
of the proposed identification becomes still more apparent.
If the soul and the self are identical, then it is by a paralogism
that Descartes declares that the soul thinks always. That
which is given in experience as a capacity for thought which
becomes actual only in the historical determination of self-
consciousness, is converted by Descartes into an eternal
activity of thought. This assumption destroys the proposed
identification of the soul and the self. The thought which

230p. cit., pp. 192, 193. 2*76irf., p. 78.

25/6id., p. 198.

212

MAINE DE BIRAN

constitutes the subject of experience is empirical and inter-
mittent in character. That which constitutes the soul is
eternal or unceasing, and therefore independent of the
concrete determination of self-consciousness. The soul
therefore is other than the T which exists only in the relative
act of cognition by which it is revealed to itself.-'^

Biran's Definition of Personality as 'Effort'

If neither Descartes nor Condillac give a true account of
personality, in what precisely does the self consist? If
Descartes, Biran urges, had remained faithful to the inner
intuition of self-consciousness, the interpretation of his
principle would have been different. The act of inspection
would have revealed the T to itself not as a noumenal
substance or soul, but as the activity or tension of a unique
psychic force. In adopting this conclusion Biran is careful
to distinguish his position from that of Leibniz. The force
of Leibniz, being a category of universal application, is not
equivalent to the fact of self-consciousness; it is derived, not
from the data of internal apperception, but from certain
objections advanced by Leibniz against the Cartesian concep-
tion of matter. 'He has no regard,' Biran writes of the
author of the Monadology, 'for this experience of causal
agency by which the "I" is constituted for itself, not as an
absolute, indefinite, or universal force, but as a unique or
personal cause.' " Conversely, the force with which Biran
identifies personality is a cause which is sui generis and has
no existence apart from the act of self-consciousness.

If this conception is brought into relation with Biran's
attempted solution of the problem of freedom, a further step
may bo taken. Without freedom there is, he urges, no person-
ality. Hence if the T which is revealed in the act of self-

^'■Op. cit., pp. 193-195. 'Ubid., p. 218.

213

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

consciousness is to be a genuinely significant fact, it is not
sufficient merely to define it in terms of force. It is necessary
that this force should be presented to itself in the act of
self-consciousness as free or unconditioned in its operation.
It is the epistemological status which Biran accords to this
conception of self-determination that makes his account of
personality unique. If the free causality of the self is no more
than a speculative idea or object of faith, of what avail is this
belief against the enslavement of personality by the organism?
From the fatality of this domination there is, he assumes,
only one surety of deliverance. If within the limits of the act
of self-consciousness, there is revealed along with the force
which is the 'F, an immediate intuition of its freedom, then
only can the problem of personality receive a satisfactory
solution.

From the peculiar form which this problem assumes for
Biran certain conclusions are at once deducible. The T which
he seeks is neither the object-self of empirical psychology
nor the unknowable being of a metaphysical ego or soul.
Between these two, he asserts, is a third alternative. Less
variable and superficial than the former, possessed of a
concrete immediacy which does not belong to the latter, the
living T of actual experience has escaped consciousness just
because it is itself the primordial fact of consciousness. At
every moment of its activity, the subject of experience is
revealed to itself, as the unconditional source of its own
creative energy. It is this intuition, unique and sui generis,
and the peculiar mode of internal apperception by which it
is achieved that determines the direction of Biran's subsequ-
ent inquiry. In the philosophy of Kant, the subject of
experience is conscious of himself only in relation to the
world. Against this view Biran urges that if there is no pure
perception of the self apart from the world, the freedom and

214

MAINE DE BIRAN

independence of the T are threatened. Instead of being a
veritable agent, the self becomes a mere logical hypostatization
of the unity of experience.'^ The conception by which Biran
is guided is of a different order. 'If it could be shown,' he
writes, 'that there is a real or actual mode of experience,
unique in kind, and wholly comprised within the subject of
experience which is made a subject by this very act; that this
act can subsist and possess in itself the character of a fact of
experience without being actually and indivisibly united with
any passive modification of sensibility or any external repre-
sentation; that in this act is contained, together with the
consciousness of individual personality, the special origin of
all the primitive ideas of cause, force, unity and identity of
which our mind makes such constant and unavoidable use:
Would not this discovery present a solution of the require-
ments set forth above ?' '^

According to Biran, there is such a primitive act or mode
of consciousness. 'There is a feeling or a perception of the
self,' he writes, 'which is one, identical and permanent in all
the succession and the variety of our sensible impressions,
which remains distinct from all these impressions and
confounds itself with none of them.'^" This pure perception
of the activity of the self is identified by the author with the
sense of 'effort' which accompanies voluntary movement. In
the discussion of the principle of personality which follows
Biran emphasizes the following points: (1) While the self
comes into existence with an act of will, it becomes a subject
of experience only by relation to the felt opposition of the
muscles to its activity. (2) The experience of voluntary
movement supplies a pure inner perception both of the body
and of the will which acts through it. (3) In the primitive

^'^CEuvres inedites, tome I, pp. 167, 168.

2o/6irf., tome I, p. 204. '^'^Ibid., tome III, p. 432.

215

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

duality of volitional force and muscular resistance which
constitutes self-consciousness, the 'V is revealed to itself as
the unconditional cause of the act through which it becomes
known.

The reality of voluntary movement, Biran insists, is a fact
of inner sense as evident as that of our existence. The problem
of personality commences therefore, not with a denial of the
sense of 'effort' but with an examination of its nature. In
undertaking this investigation, the author points out that
effort can be known only from within. As a blind man can
never be made to understand the nature of colour by external
description, a total paralytic, though versed in a knowledge
of physiology, could have no real appreciation of voluntary
movement." Any translation therefore of the primitive sense
of effort into the external terms of physiology must neces-
sarily be inadequate. For purposes of illustration, however,
Biran contrasts the physiological conditions of voluntary
action with those which determine reflex and instinctive
reactions. The muscular contractions which characterize the
latter are provoked by stimuli received either from without
or from internal modifications of the body. The kinaesthetic
sensations which accompany the ensuing motor reactions are
therefore felt as foreign to the activity of the self. Conversely,
voluntary movements are felt as activities of the self because
the efferent impulses originate in a mode of cerebral innerva-
tion which has no physiological antecedent. The cause of
voluntary innervation is found, not in any physical stimulus,
but in the action of a hyperorganic force which 'like a central
spring released within the brain may be said to enter into
action of itself.' -- 'The will of man,' Biran adds, 'dwells in

"Op. cit., tome I, p. 208.
--Ibid., tome I, p. 211.

216

MAINE DE BIRAN

independence in the innermost being, beyond all reach of any
excitation from without.' ^^

The physiology of 'effort' presents two aspects. (1) The
hyperorganic force which determines willed, as distinguished
from reflex or instinctive, movements, acts upon the efferent
nerves which terminate in the muscles. (2) The muscle then
contracts and produces the corresponding kinaesthetic sensa-
tions. Biran denies that the consciousness of personal activity
arises prior to the muscular contraction.^* How then is
voluntarj^ action distinguished within consciousness from
impulsive or instinctive movements? The specific irritability
of the muscles is admitted to be the same in both cases. ^'' The
required distinction is found in the unique character of the
kinaesthetic sensations attendant upon willed action. While
those which result from instinctive or involuntary movements
have a passive character which reflects the mode of their
origination, the muscular sensations which accompany volun-
tary action take on a character of reduplication whereby they
afford a consciousness (1) of the organic inertia of the muscles
set in motion; and (2) of the free or unconditioned force
which causes their contraction. -'^

Since this force is known only in relation to the resistance
of the muscles upon which it acts, there is no consciousness of
the self apart from the body such as Descartes supposed."
Viewed internally as voluntary attention, effort is equivalent
to the activity of thought; but thought itself, Biran insists,
even where unaccompanied by overt movements, is known
only in relation to certain diffused sensations of muscular
strain. In seeking to reconcile this view with the exclusion
of every element of passivity from self-consciousness, the

'^^Op. eit., tome I, p. 214.

^*Ihid., tome I, p. 212. ^••Ihid., tome I, pp. 211, 212.

88/6Mi., tome I, p. 213. ^'Ibid., tome I, p. 245.

217

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

author draws attention to the peculiar character of active
kinaesthetic sensation. The muscular resistance experienced
in voluntary action exists as a fact of consciousness solely
by relation to the active force which is personality; it is not
therefore a fact presented externally to the self. Similarly
the knowledge of the body which arises with active kinaes-
thetic sensation is of a purely internal order; it is determined
not by the passive representations derived from the external
senses of sight and touch, but by the effort put forth in the
act of voluntary innervation. The essential character of the
primitive fact consists,' Biran asserts, 'in this, that neither
term of the primitive relation is constituted in necessary
dependence upon impressions received from without. Hence
the knowledge of the self can be separated in principle from
that of the external universe.' ^^

The consciousness of personality as a hyperorganic force is
regarded by Biran, not as a hypothetical assumption, but as
an immediate intuition supplied by the sense of effort. In
voluntary action the T is presented to itself, not as the
product of a chain of physiological antecedents, but as the
real or efficient cause of action. Active kinaesthetic sensation
is therefore for Biran a mode of experience which is wholly
different from the representations derived from the external
senses. This distinction, he argues, has been overlooked by
Hume in his criticism of the feeling of personal agency or
power. Since there is no consciousness of the physiological
processes which intervene between a determination of will
and the ensuing muscular contraction, Hume asserts that the
continuity of the sense of effort is broken and the feeling of
personal agency is merely a perception of succession. This
objection, Biran maintains, rests upon a confusion of the
knowledge derived from external representation with that

^^Op. cit., tome I, p. 216.

218

MAINE DE BIRAN

derived from inner sense, of the language of physiology with
the evidence of self -consciousness. The break in the sense of
effort is not a fact of internal apperception, but it is inferred
as a result of the attempt to subordinate the data of conscious-
ness to a scheme of physiological explanation. It is because
Hume approaches the experience of personal agency from the
latter standpoint that he never seizes it from within, but
reduces it to a mere relation of temporal succession.^"

The 'Unconscioiis' in Biran's Psychology.

Apart from the principle of personality there is no con-
sciousness, properly so called. A fact, if it is to be known,
must be brought into relation with the self. The life of
consciousness or relation, therefore, comes into existence with
the original internal apperception in which the force which is
personality is presented to itself.

The animal, therefore, is not a subject of experience; in
the absence of the principle of personality, the distinction
between self and not-self, subject and object, does not as yet
exist. Animal life is not, however, reducible to the principles
of mechanism, as Descartes maintains. Between bare physio-
logical automatism and the activity of will and thought, there
is an intermediate region which may be called the 'uncon-
scious'. As against Descartes, therefore, Biran asserts that
the sentience which characterizes animal existence is
conditioned by an extra-mechanical or vital principle.'"' This
principle, he adds, has nothing in common with the creative
force in which personality consists. While both principles
coexist in man's dual nature, neither can be reduced to a form
of the other.''^

■^^Op. cit., tome I, pp. 259 et seq.
*'>Ibid., tome III, pp. 364, 365.
*Ubid., tome III, pp. 405, 406.

219

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

In Biran's epistemological theory the force which consti-
tutes personality is the source of the active or synthetic
elements in experience. That which remains when the activity
of this force is removed is 'affection' or the pure matter of
sensation. The sentience in which the latter consists is not,
Biran insists, a logical abstraction but the actual mode of
animal life. Since animal life is qualified in man by the
opposed principle of personality, such a state of pure sentience
is not directly observable. The elements of passivity and
automatism which form its basis are however exemplified in
dreams, reverie, and conditions arising from the pathological
enfeeblement of the intellect and the will.*- When the tension
of personality is relaxed as in states of reverie, the distinction
between subject and object is confused, and consciousness
becomes a series of images which unfold themselves by a law
of succession of which the individual is the spectator, but not
the cause. A further example of the automatic influences of
the unconscious is found in the involuntary emotional
colouring which diffuses itself through the data of sense-
perception. 'Hence the refraction of feeling which displays
nature to us, now under a smiling and gracious aspect, and at
other times as though obscured by a funeral pall ; so that the
same objects alternately inspire hope and love, distrust and
fear.' "

The elements of passivity and automatism which are par-
tially observable in man constitute the whole range of animal
life. Devoid of the active principle of personality, the animal
perceives neither its own states nor external objects. In the
words of an expression which Biran repeatedly quotes: Vivit
et est vitae nescius ipse suae. The impressions to which it is
subject do not however remain merely physiological in

*'^0p. cit, tome II, pp. 11, 12,

<-^Matne de Biran: Memoire sur les Perceptions obscures, publie par
Pierre Tisserand, Paris, 1920, p. 22.

220

MAINE DE BIRAN

character; they are raised to the level of feeling by the prin-
ciple of animal life. This vital principle is, for Biran, at once
the profoundest and most obscure element in the unconscious.
The object of a hypothetical induction, its reality is inferred
from the sentience which is its product and which is unintel-
ligible on purely mechanical grounds. In accounting for the
diffused sensibility which thus arises Biran adopts a position
similar to that of Leibniz. Each cell in the animal body is
alive and strives after the manner of the organism as a whole
to retain its vital equilibrium. The vague sentience which
results, comparable to the coenaesthesia which survives within
human experience, is a condensed expression of the general
equation of cellular maintenance and destruction. Through
the medium of a central vital principle a multitude of consti-
tuent impressions are fused in the common sensibility of the
gross animal structure.**

With the evolution of the special organs of sense an advance
is made. The anatomical differentiation of the different
senses renders necessary a specific mode of stimulation in each
case which prepares the way for the discrimination and
localization of sensations. This discriminative activity,
however, remains in a nascent stage in the animal. The
sensations received through the various channels are confused
with one another, and with the general affective tone of
organic sensibility. In this connexion Biran points out that
the special senses are historically outgrowths of the more
general type of animal sentience. The marks of this origin
are observable in the affective tone which persists, even in
man, as the background upon which the later presentative
aspects of sensation are developed. The presentative functions
of smell and taste, more especially, are apt to disappear

**(Euvre8 philosophiques de Maine de Biran, publiees par V. Cousin,
Paris, 1841, tome II, pp. 78, 79; cf. (Euvres inedites, tome II, pp. 12, 13.

221

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

within the predominantly affective tone of animal life. Intim-
ately associated in the animal with the nutritive system,
these sensations remain confused or absorbed within the
organic sensibility to which they contribute/''

The senses of sight and passive touch present an exception
to this relation of absorption. That which elsewhere remains
a mere dust of affective sensations, becomes integrated here
into two-dimensional presentations of coloured and 'tangible'
space. This work of integration is explained by Biran upon
anatomical principles rather than by any mode of active
mental synthesis. Corresponding to the individual rays of
light reflected by the contiguous points of a coloured surface,
the retina of the eye exhibits a number of juxtaposed nerve-
endings capable of simultaneous but independent stimulation.
This correspondence of light-stimuli with the nerve-endings
of the eye results in a co-ordination of the former into two-
dimensional visual presentations.^" The spatial presentations
derived from passive touch are explained by a similar
disposition of the nerve-endings. The animal therefore obtains
what Biran designates as passive 'intuitions' of the surface-
extension of matter. These intuitions, it is pointed out, are
not perceptions. The judgements of depth and distance, of
substantiality or thinghood, which constitute the complete
perception of an object, have not yet arisen. The animal
intuits only the surface-appearance of things; it lives in a
world similar to that of man's dreams.'*^

The memory of animals does not include the faculties of
voluntary revival and of recognition. Voluntary revival
implies the activity of a self. Similarly recognition, or the
conscious assimilation of the present to the past, implies the
association of the self with both of the modes thus assimilated.

*^(Euvres inedites, tome II, pp. 24, 25.

^'^Ibid., tome II, pp. 26, 27.

*Ubid., tome II, p. 26; cf.ibid., tome II, pp. 132, 133.

222

MAINE DE BIRAN

But the animal has not a self; it is not a person. The memory
of animals is therefore either purely organic or else restricted
to automatic revival without recognition.*'* The affective
states to which the animal is subject deposit traces which
facilitate their recurrence independently of the original
stimuli. The memory of the two-dimensional presentations of
sight and touch is of a more advanced order. The images
deposited by these 'intuitions' are capable of being revived
either in the original order of occurrence or in the fortuitous
combinations exemplified in the dreams of man. This revival
is unaccompanied by any relations of recognition.*" Biran
notes finally that the organic memory which facilitates the
recurrence of affective states applies also to the instinctive
movements in which they issue; these reactions become, by
repetition, spontaneous or independent of their original
causes. ^° This motor spontaneity is not freedom; it has not
the character of voluntary action. But as the passive intui-
tions of touch and sight mark the closest approach to
knowledge of which the animal is capable, so also the
facilitation of instinctive reactions by habit prepares the way
for the voluntary action which is the distinguishing feature
in man.

The Psychology of Human Expenence.

In the foetal state and during the first years of its develop-
ment, the child is not a person. It becomes so only when its
movements cease to be purely instinctive, and assume the
character of spontaneity alluded to above. At this point by
a process which Biran does not further describe, the unique
or hyperorganic force of personality enters the sphere of
animal life. Voluntary action arises; and with it the self-
consciousness by which the individual is revealed to himself

*''0p. cit., tome II, pp. 33, 34.

*^Ibid., tome II, p. 37. '"Ibid., tome II, p. 38.

223

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

as ail agent. From this point onwards the human being has
a dual nature. The passive modes of animal sentience are
brought into relation with the active principle of personality.
The psychology of human experience therefore consists in the
interaction of these two elements or in the progressive organi-
zation of matter by form. Biran traces three ascending phases
in this development which are known as the 'sensitive,' the
'perceptive', and the 'reflective' systems of mental evolution.
The Sensitive System. In the affective system of animal
life the T does not as yet exist. The animal therefore cannot
form the judgement 'I feel pain' or 'I smell'. In order that
these judgements may take place the passive modes of sensi-
bility to which they refer must be appropriated by a self. It
is with this elementary form of synthesis that the 'sensitive'
system is concerned. In the phase of development which
Biran has in view, the personality exhibits the minimal degree
of tension which is compatible with this simple act of appro-
priation. The T does not as yet constitute objects for itself
by active perception. It remains a spectator of antecedent
modes of sentience which it does not create.^^

With this act of appropriation arises also the localization
of impressions within the organism. Under the conditions of
animal life the affective impressions received, although of local
origin, are confused with the general sensibility of the
organism. The localization of affective sensations is derived
from the internal knowledge of the body which originates with
the sense of effort. In active kinaesthetic sensation the indi-
vidual obtains an inner perception of his body as occupying a
private or 'organic' space. ^-. Biran furthermore maintains
that, corresponding to the particular group of muscles set in
action, there is an inner perception of the localization of the

^^Op. cit., tome II, p. 6.
^^Ibid., tome I, pp. 234-236.

224

MAINE DE BIRAN

limbs within this primitive space of the body.^^ The localiza-
tion of affective sensations is effected by a judgement of
coincidence in which these impressions are referred to a place
within the body previously determined by the sense of effort.

The relation which thus exists between the capacity of
voluntary innervation and the localization of affective impres-
sions is illustrated by the nature of the coenaesthesia in man.
While the self distinguishes itself from affective states of
local origin, the coenaesthesia constantly tends to absorb the
subject of experience in a state of impersonal sentience. This
tendency is attributed by Biran to the vagueness of the
conscious localization of organic sensations; the latter being
in turn traceable to the low degree of voluntary control
exercised over the internal functions of the body.^* This
confusion of the self with general affective sensibility does not
extend, Biran points out, to the conscious appropriation of
the two-dimensional intuitions of sight and passive touch.
This is explained upon two grounds. (1) Sight and touch,
being presentative rather than affective, are not subject to
the violent degrees of intensity which reduce the personality
to a pure state of feeling. (2) The extended character of
these intuitions and their superior degree of distinctness leads
the self to distinguish them from its own being. In the
'sensitive' system, the presentations derived from sight and
passive touch are not substantiated into 'things'. The judge-
ments of objectivity and distance, which depend upon an
explicit act of attention, belong to a later stage of mental
evolution. The self merely appropriates the two-dimensional
intuitions derived from the system of animal life and becomes
aware of them as a spectator.'*''

''^Op. cit., tome I, pp. 23G, 237.
^*Ibid., tome II, p. 43.
^'•Ihid., tome II, pp. 46-49.

225

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

The function of memory exhibits a similar advance. Since
the T becomes associated at this stage with the successive
modes of sensibility derived from sentient life, conscious
recognition is added to the automatic revival of the preceding
stage.-'" Where the affective aspects of consciousness are
concerned, this recognition is limited in degree. The life of
feeling tends to identify itself with the present; the memory
of previous affective states is therefore of that abstract or
schematic order which permits only of the recognition of a
present pain or pleasure as roughly similar to one experienced
in the past. In the case of the presentative senses, recognition
is of a more definite order. The images, more especially,
which are associated with visual memory, are not vague or
elusive like the feelings, but relatively detailed reproductions
of the original intuitions. Recognition therefore is of a
correspondingly specific order."

The feeling of personal identity does not depend upon the
revival in memory of past modes of passive affection or
sensibility. The relation is of an inverse order. The ability
to recognize the contingent modes of present experience as
similar to those of the past is itself conditioned by the primi-
tive consciousness of personal identity. The pure memory
which forms the basis of the latter is regarded by Biran as
independent of every passive modification of consciousness;
it is an intrinsic property of the 'effort' which constitutes the
perception of personality. The idea of time therefore is not
attributable to the order of external occurrences or of the
passive modifications of the organism, but rather to the
internal intuition of duration, which characterizes the pure
act of self-consciousness. It is in relation to this inner
experience of duration that the concept of objective time

'^'•Op. cit., tome II, pp. 57, 58.
'''Ibid., tome II, pp. 59, 60.

226

MAINE DE BIRAN

arises. Similarly the subject of experience recognizes the
similarity of his successive contingent modifications because
he has a pure or independent memory of his own identity.'"
The Perceptive Sijstem. The effort or activity in which
personality consists is ahvays qualitatively the same; but it
varies in degree. In the 'sensitive' system the tension of
personality is of that minimal order which is compatible with
the bare fact of being awake.^^ In the scale of mental develop-
ment the individual is at that point where the world is less
than a solid reality yet more than a dream. The condition
which Biran has in view may perhaps be compared to the
twilight state of consciousness, which exists between sleep and
waking. It is the state to which, by an inverse process of
psychic declension, the individual is reduced in moments of
abstraction and reverie.

In the 'perceptive' system which marks the next phase of
development, the activity of the self takes on the character
of a specific act of voluntary attention. The force of person-
ality is at once intensified and defined by its application
through the channels of the special senses.''" In defining
attention Biran takes up a position similar to that adopted by
later psychologists. Attention clarifies rather than intensifies
sensation by isolating it from coexistent elements in conscious-
ness. A more distinctive feature is found in the account
given of the motor conditions of the process. Attention
consists in the voluntary innervation of the muscles connected
with the sense-organs. It is not a purely mental activity to
which the process of neuro-muscular accommodation is
subsidiary; it is that process itself.

In the examples which he gives, the author claims to find a
proof of this contention. The coenaesthesia eludes the grasp

^>^0p. cit., tome II, pp. fA, .55.. ■•■'fbid., tome II, pp. 8.3, 84.

so/ftid., tome II, pp. 84 and 86.

227

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

of voluntary attention by reason of the exemption from
voluntary control of the organs which form its basis. A taste,
or a smell, again, can only be brought within the focus of
voluntary attention by an act of sniffing or sucking."* It is
however in the case of vision that Biran finds the chief
illustration of his theory. By reason of the complex apparatus
of voluntary muscular accommodation with which it is
equipped, the eye is peculiarly fitted to become the instrument
of the selective activity of attention. The discrimination
which thus arises between different parts of the field of vision
is accomplished by an increase in the activity of certain
nervous elements in the retina, the action of the remainder
being partially inhibited. In the act of voluntary attention
this variation in the activity of different parts of the retina
is effected by a free act of motor determination. The self,
Biran adds, has no direct control over the retina as such, but
affects it through the medium of the muscles associated with
the eye. The outstanding fact is that here, as elsewhere,
attention as a personal activity consists in a voluntary act of
motor determination."^

The discriminative activity of attention as applied to visual
sensibility results in the distinction between the focal and
marginal regions of the field of consciousness. This dis-
tinction however is still subject to the two-dimensional
character of the visual 'intuitions' which form its material.
The externality and solidity of bodies is not perceived by the
sense of vision, but enters consciousness from a different
source. This source is found in the experience of active touch
or in the resistance which external bodies offer to the per-
cipient's power of voluntary movement.

In accounting for the evolution of the perception of external

'^^Op. cit., tome II, pp. 91-93.
62/6td, tome II, pp. 96-101.

228

MAINE DE BIRAN

bodies, Biran seeks to determine the contribution made by-
each of the external senses viewed in abstraction from the
others. In pursuance of this method he supposes an individual
reduced to the power of voluntary movement and the sense of
touch, but otherwise anaesthetic. By what steps would such
an individual obtain a knowledge of bodies other than his
own? In the absence of visual sensations, the author
maintains that this knowledge is imparted by the perception
of the resistance offered by external matter to voluntary-
movement. In explaining how this resistance is to be attrib-
uted to an external body rather than to an increased inertia
of the muscular system, such as takes place in paralysis, a
reference is made to the passive sensations of contact which
accompany the obstruction of voluntary movement. It is out
of the union of these two modes of experience that the
perception of external bodies arises. While the perception of
increased resistance to voluntary movement necessarily
disappears when the effort to move is discontinued, the
passive sensations arising from contact with the external body
remain. In so far therefore as the feeling of increased
resistance to voluntary motion and the accompanying sensa-
tions of passive contact are referred to a common cause, the
latter is found, not in the individual's own body, but in an
object which is related externally to it in space."^

Upon the basis of this account Biran proceeds to charac-
terize the essence of matter as force. By an induction which
is spontaneous or intuitive, the self posits behind the resistance
which external bodies offer to its movements, a force analo-
gous to that which it perceives in itself."' The conception of
external resistant force thus attained forms the nucleus
around which the complex perception of objects is built up.
While the attributes of externality and resistant force form

830p. cit, tome II, pp. 107-110.
''*lbid., tome II, pp. 374, 375.

229

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

the basis of the perception of 'thinghood', external bodies also
present themselves in experience as extended in space,
coloured, and qualified by various tactual properties. The
synthesis within consciousness of the tangible qualities and
surface-extension of matter with its essence as external
resistant force is explained by the association of experiences
derived from passive touch with those of active touch. In
accordance with Biran's previous account of tactual 'intuition',
the tangible properties of matter are co-ordinated in passive
touch into a two-dimensional continuum similar to that which
obtains with colour. From active touch is derived the experi-
ence of matter as external resistant force, alluded to above.
The combination of the two modes of touch-experience there-
fore results in the perception of the complex of external
resistant force, extension, and tactual properties, which is
called matter. The synthesis thus effected is assisted by the
fact that the data derived from passive and active touch are
associated with the same organ. The contents of the two-
dimensional intuitions of passive touch are referred to a
location in space identical with that at which the relation of
resistance to the agent's movements is perceived.""

The capacity for voluntary movement combined with the
sense of touch therefore occupies a central position in Biran's
theory of objective perception. Sirsce the sense of vision does
not involve physical contact with its object, it cannot invest
its data with the property of resistance or solidity which is
essential to the perception of bodies. If vision alone seems
to afford such a perception, the latter is in reality an induction
based upon a previous association of the data of active touch
with those of sight.*"* By a similar process of synthesis or
association, the remaining qualities of matter such as heat,
cold, smell and taste are incorporated in the perception of

«50p. cit., tome II, pp. 110-112. ^<-'Ibid., tome II, pp. 112, 113.

230

MAINE DE BIRAN

material bodies. In relation to the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities Biran adopts the following
position. While the essence of matter consists in resistant
force, the attributes of solidity, inertia and impenetrability,
are regarded as primary qualities immediately deducible from
this definition. The attribute of extension is treated after
the fashion of Leibniz. While it is excluded from the essence
of matter, it may be regarded as objective in the sense that
it is a phenomenon bene fundatum.''~ By a confusion which
the author never clears up, the qualities of colour, tangibility,
sound, taste, smell and temperature are alternately regarded
as objective but variable modes of matter or as secondary
qualities in the ordinary acceptation of that term.''"'

The synthetic operation of the mind which results in the
complex perception of external objects receives an extension
in the faculty of comparison. Comparison, Biran points out,
takes its origin from the act of attending successively to two
or more perceptions. In speaking of the general ideas (idees
generales) which result from comparison, the author advances
a criticism of the class-ideas of formal logic. The relations
of similarity upon which such ideas are based have reference
in the main to the secondary or contingent aspects of matter.
Since the essence of matter consists in force, the natural
sciences which rely upon the method of classification are
therefore restricted to a superficial role.'" The class-idea,
furthermore, is descriptive rather than explanatory. In the
definition of species and genera no reasoned or necessary
connexion is exhibited between the part-ideas included in the
definition. The unity of the latter is resolved into a mere
empirical enumeration of qualities. Finally the relations of
similarity upon which class-ideas are based, are contingent or

6"0p. cit., tome II, p. 267.

«»/6id., tome II, p. 129; cf. ibid., tome II, pp. 134, 135.

"o/6id., tome II, pp. 162, 163.

231

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

dependent upon the sensibility of the individual. The general
idea of red, for example, will vary according to the ability of
different persons to distinguish different shades of red from
one another. Similarly the class of red objects will not be
the same for the colour-blind as for those of normal vision.'*^

In the controversy between nominalists and realists, Biran
adheres to the position of the former. The unity of the class-
idea is reducible to the unity of a name. It is therefore only
by a logical device that the class-idea is uniformly applied to
the objects included in its extension. If the qualities
S. M. N. P. and Q, constitute the definition of an animal, then
a lion and a man by possession of these qualities fall under
the predicate 'animal.' These qualities however, Biran
objects, are realized in a different manner in the two cases.
The power of movement in a man, for example, is not that
which belongs to a lion. Committed to the principle of abstract
identity, the logic of classification ignores these differences
which break out within the chosen area of comparison. The
uniform applicability of the class-idea is therefore based upon
a supposition which either confuses or suppresses the indi-
vidual differences of things.^^

The Reflective System. In the reflective system which
represents the highest phase of mental evolution recognized
in the Fondements de la Psychologie, an account is given of
the higher intellectual faculties of man. These are identified
with reflection, reasoning, the power of voluntary recall or
memory properly so called, together with language and its
relation to memory and thought. In connexion with his
theory of the nature of reasoning, Biran sketches an outline
of rational psychology and gives an analysis of mathematical

70Op. cit., tome II, pp. 382, 383; cf. ibid., tome II, pp. 159, 160.
7i/6td, tome II, pp. 384-386.

232

MAINE DE BIRAN

necessity. The Fondements ends with a dynamical-mathema-
tical ideal of scientific explanation^^

In the 'sensitive' and 'perceptive' systems of mental evolu-
tion, the activity of the self, though implied in every act of
perception, properly so called, is not brought into clear or
reflective consciousness; it remains obscured by the passive
modes of sensibility and affection which it raises into con-
sciousness." The distinctive feature of the 'reflective' system
consists in the separation, by an act of abstraction, of the pure
perception of the self as activity or force from the contingent
modes of experience with which it is associated. The function
of reflection in relation to the consciousness of the external
world, is of a similar order. While the essence of matter
consists for Biran, as for Leibniz, in force, the conception of
this force is obscured by the presentation of the secondary
qualities derived from the external senses. The work of
reflection therefore is to obtain a pure conception of matter
as disjoined from its secondary or contingent modes.

The pure ideas of the self and of matter thus obtained are
called by Biran 'idees abstraites reflexives', in distinction from
the 'idees generales' of the preceding stage. The author
emphasizes the distinction which exists between the two types
of idea. While the abstraction which conditions the formation
of general or class ideas involves a process of comparison,
that which determines the abstract reflective ideas of the self
and of matter is independent of this condition. It is not by
comparison, but by immediate internal apperception, that the
essence of the self as activity or force is presented ; similarly
the spontaneous induction which posits force as the essence

"^Biran's theories of ethics and aesthetics are omitted here, as being
special developments which fall outside the scope of this article. For
Biran's account, (Euvres inedites, tome II, pp. 177-219, and tome III,
pp. 27-66, may be consulted.

7-^Op. cit., tome II, pp. 221-223.

233

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

of matter is not based upon a comparison of successive
contacts with external bodies, but arises instantaneously out
of the first experience of increased resistance to voluntary
motion. The abstract reflective ideas so formed also differ
.in the following respects from the class-ideas of formal
logic. (1) While the latter are founded upon relations of
similan'tij, the former apprehend the fundamental identities
which constitute the essence of consciousness and of matter.^*
(2) While the unity of the general idea is merely logical or
verbal, the abstract reflective ideas are at once individual
unities and also genuinely universal in their application.''^

The reflective idea of the self as disjoined from all passive
modes of sensibility is not, Biran maintains, a mere logical
abstraction. An individual in whom every avenue of passive
sensation was closed could still obtain a perception of his own
activity through the medium of active kinaesthetic sensation.
The defence offered of the abstract reflective idea of matter
is of a similar order. The concept of matter as pure unex-
tended force disjoined from the sensible qualities which
normally accompany it, is reached only by an effort of
abstraction. But this abstraction is within the limits of
scientific justification. An individual, Biran maintains,
deprived as above of normal modes of sensitive representation,
on coming in contact with matter through the medium of a
claw reduced to a mathematical point, would obtain the
Leibnizian conception of matter as unextended resistant
force. Since the conditions of this experiment are not beyond
the bounds of empirical supposition, the abstract idea of
matter as monadic force is a true scientific notion.^"

In explaining how the abstract or reflective idea of the
activity of the self enters into clear consciousness, Biran

7<0p. cit., tome II, p. 164. ^'-Ibid., tome II, pp. 168-170.

t«/6mZ., tome II, p. 144.

234

MAINE DE BIRAN

alludes to the power of voluntary articulation and its relation
to the sense of hearing. In the perception of the external
world, the perception of the self as the efficient cause of
attention and consciousness is obscured by the contemplation
of the objects with which consciousness is itself concerned.
The peculiar relation which obtains between speech and
hearing in the same individual arrests this tendency. While,
in the act of speech, the individual is conscious of himself as
the cause of vocal innervation, this perception of personal
activity is not obscured but strengthened by the hearing of
his own voice. The auditory sensations involved are
perceived, not as passive data received from without, but as
reflections of his own voluntary activity of articulation. For
this reason speech in its relation to hearing may be said to be
the origin of the faculty of reflection — as may be inferred
from the dual meaning of the word 'entendement.' " '

The function of speech also furnishes Biran with a theory
of memory, understood as the power of voluntary recall. In
the 'sensitive' system of mental development, memory is
restricted to the functions of automatic revival and recogni-
tion. In the 'perceptive' system, the author outlines a theory
of voluntary recollection which is connected with his treatment
of active kinaesthetic sensation. The perception of the shape
or dimensions of a body may be accomplished, as in the case
of the blind, by movements of the hand. The synthesis of the
resulting kinaesthetic sensations gives a perception of shape
independently of the passive data of vision. As the motor
perception of shape is determined by movements voluntarily
initiated by the subject, Biran maintains that the corre-
sponding memories present a case of exclusively active recall.
The hand can retrace at will, and in the absence of the object,
the same series of movements which constituted the original

"Op. cit., tome II, pp. 227-234.

235

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

perception."'' This pure motor memory (which is in reality
a renewed series of kinaesthetic perceptions) extends,
however, only to the spatial aspects of objects. In the
'reflective' system the power of voluntary recall is extended
by means of the symbolic function of speech to the remaining
properties of objects. While the element of automatic revival
is reintroduced in the associations which exist between words
and the ideas which they symbolize, the voluntary command
of speech or articulation gives the individual a practical
control over the course of thought or ideation.""

The abstract reflective ideas of the self and of matter form
the basis of Biran's subsequent logical theory. Knowledge
consists for him as for Descartes in the deduction from a
primary intuition of a series of judgements which are related
synthetically to this starting-point. The process of reasoning
consists in exhibiting the necessary connexion of these new
truths with one another and with the original intuition.''° As
by a process of immediate inspection Descartes derived the
judgement 'I exist' from the premise *I think', so also Biran
claims to extract from the reflective ideas of the self and of
matter intuitive judgements which serve in turn as the
grounds for the synthetic deduction of new truths. Hence
arise the two pure sciences which alone satisfy the formal
requirements of truth and knowledge. The abstract reflective
idea of the activity of the self issues through the medium of
a series of reasoned deductions in a system of rational
psychology. From the corresponding idea of matter as
monadic force is derived the system of pure mathematics and
the mathematical-dynamical science of the external world.-^

In the account which Biran gives of rational psychology, so
conceived, a series of judgements are said to be either

""^Op. cit., tome II, pp. 145-147. "'-'Ibid., tome II, pp. 245 et seq.

«^Jbid., tome II, p. 263. ^^Ibid., tome II, pp. 270-272,

236

MAINE DE BIRAN

intuitively or deductively derived from the original act of
self -consciousness. The pure activity of the subject, when
abstracted from the passive modes of experience which
accompany it, is seen to be the immediate ground of judge-
ments such as 'I am a free agent in all those movements which
are derived from myself; from these, further judgements are
deduced by a process of reasoning.^- Biran also attempts in
this connexion what may be regarded as a psychological
deduction of the categories. The notion of causality takes its
origin from the original intuition of the self as an efficient
cause. The further notions of unity, identity, freedom and
permanence are referred to the same source. In reflecting
upon its own essence, the self is carried forward to a series
of judgements in which these notions are derived from its
own perceived character. They are then generalized and
employed as categories in the apprehension of external
objects."^ The author gives no explanation in the Fondements
of the fact that the categories are used as principles consti-
tutive of external experience prior to their reflective
apprehension as notions. The epistemological validity of
their external application is also passed over in silence.

The abstract reflective idea of the self therefore furnishes
Biran with a system of rational psychology from which the
fundamental categories of experience are deducible. The
abstract reflective idea of matter as monadic force is treated
in a similar manner. Upon the basis of this conception the
author attempts to found a rational science of the material
world in which the qualities presented in sensation are shown
to be deducible from the primary conception of force. The
attributes of solidity, impenetrability, and inertia are stated
to be immediately deducible in this way."-* The extended

8-Op. cit., tome II, pp. 321-324.

«3/6«Z., tome II, p. 324; cf. ibid., tome I, pp. 248 et seq.

^'Ihid., tome II, p. 127.

237

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

appearance of bodies is accounted for in a different manner.
Biran adopts here the position of Leibniz according to which
materia S€cu7ida is not directly deducible from the conception
of force. In terms of Biran's own hypothetical illustration,
an individual coming in contact with matter through the
medium of a pointed claw would obtain a perception of matter
as unextended resistance. Such a perception of substantiality
would be in itself complete. The added attribute of extension
therefore is not directly implied in the perception of matter.
Biran attempts to meet this difficulty by putting forward an
independent theory of the rational deduction of space.

The idea of space is, for Leibniz, the product of confused
perception. In Biran's system of rational deduction it arises
as an ideal construction based upon the power of voluntary
movement and the pure motor memory in which the latter
results. In the system of Leibniz the point which symbolizes
mathematical unity finds its archetype in the monad, which is
thus the meeting-point of the dynamical and mathematical
aspects of matter. Biran appropriates this suggestion and
attempts to bring it into relation with his derivation of the
monad from the experience of an organism in contact with
matter through the medium of a pointed claw. Such an
organism would perceive matter as a 'resistant point.' Upon
the basis of this ideal supposition Biran proceeds to give a
motor deduction of the idea of space and of the system of
mathematical and geometrical relations which it implies. The
Euclidian line is generated as a synthesis of the successive
resistant points experienced in the voluntary movement of a
limb across the surface of a material object. The surface is
generated by a movement of the line. The various figures
of geometrical construction represent the memory of different
modes of co-ordination of successive points of resistance;
these modes of co-ordination being themselves determined by

238

MAINE DE BIRAN

the different directions which voluntary movement may take.^"^
The numerical relations of mathematics are accounted for in
a similar manner. For Biran, as for Locke, number consists
in the repetition of the idea of unity. But this unity, in
accordance with the common origin of mathematical and
dynamical concepts, is founded upon an archetypal experience
of unextended force. ®*^

The universality and necessity of mathematical truth is
attributed by Biran to the homogeneous character of the
elements involved. The line is a co-ordination of points ; the
figure, a combination of lines. Similarly all numbers are
functions of a unity which produces them by the repetition
of itself. This element of identity accounts for the synthetic
and necessary character of mathematical deductions. The
straight line remains identical in character in all the geome-
trical constructions into which it enters. The judgement
therefore which is true of such a line in the abstract, will also
be true of the side of a triangle. The proposition which
states that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third,
while expressing a new truth, is a necessary corollary of the
fact that a straight line is the shortest distance between two
points."

In concluding his account of the 'reflective' system, Biran
outlines the conception of science to which the above views
lead. The secondary qualities of matter are deducible neither
from one another nor from the conception of matter as force.
There is therefore no science of these aspects of matter.'*'' The
true science of nature is therefore restricted to the dynamical
and mathematical concepts of matter. Two possibilities arise
here. The noumenal science of matter which is conceivable
only from the standpoint of God would envisage the world in

'^^Op. cit., tome II, p. 122; cf. ibid., tome II, p. 144.
88/6i<i., tome II. p. 305. '^'Ibid., tome II, p. 311.

»'*Ibid., tome II, pp. 353, 354.

239

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

terms of unextended force. This is the ideal of Leibniz,
which is not however accessible to human intelligence. The
alternative method, which Biran accepts, is exemplified in the
Priucipia of Newton. While the conception of force occupies
a central position in Newton's science, this force is expressed
through the mathematical formulation of the motion to which
it gives rise. In Newton's system two points are especially
observable. (1) No attempt is made to inquire into the inner
essence of force or into the exact nature of the physical
mechanisms which mediate its action. (2) From the expres-
sion of force in terms of motion, the mathematical formulae
arise which render possible a prediction of natural events.
Biran upholds the Newtonian conception of science in both of
these respects. The ideal of science is rational prediction
based upon mathematical deduction. On the other hand, while
force remains an indispensable conception in scientific
explanation, its nature, as it is inferred in the external world,
is unknowable; it remains for human intelligence merely the
cause which produces motion.®** Finally, the inductive suppo-
sition of certain mechanisms, such as the vortices of
Descartes, to explain the facts of motion results only in the
formation of hypotheses of which there is no adequate proof.
By introducing the theory of vortices into celestial mechanics
Descartes obscured a science which later became clarified by
the treatment of Newton.^"

The Soul as an Object of Speculative Belief.

In the Fondements de la Psychologic, Biran attempts to
deduce the fundamental categories of experience from the
primitive fact of self-consciousness. The notions of force,
causality, unity, identity and permanence find their archetype
in the reflective apprehension of the self as revealed in the

880p. cit, tome II, p. 338. ^^Ihid., tome II, p. 351.

240

MAINE DE BIRAN

experience of effort. The ideas thus derived are then
generalized and extended to the apperception of external
objects and events. With this account Biran compares the
procedure of Kant. The defect of Kant's method consists in
his failure to give a concrete derivation of the categories ; the
latter are derived, not from the subject of experience as
presented in self-consciousness, but from a noumenal self
which exists outside knowledge."^ It is against this severance
of the principles of understanding from the concrete apper-
ception of the self that Biran protests in putting forward his
own theory. As the T which is revealed in the sense of effort
is an experienced reality and not a transcendental supposition,
so also the constitutive categories of experience arise out of
the reflective apprehension of this self.

At the time of writing the Fondements, no suspicion seems
to have entered Biran's mind as to the adequacy of this
account. In the work entitled Les Rapports des Sciences
Naturelles avec la Psychologic, a fundamental change of
position is observable. This change is attributable to the
author's recognition of two objections to his previous theory.
(1) The categories are utilized as principles in the constitu-
tion of experience prior to the reflective apprehension of the
corresponding notions. (2) The universality and necessity
which attach to their operation, confers upon them an
involuntary or impersonal character which is opposed to their
empirical derivation from the self. In attempting to explain
these facts, Biran concludes that it is necessary to assume the
existence of certain categories or universal principles which
are inherent in the mind in logical priority to the act of self-
consciousness. The recognition of these principles and the
distinction which is drawn between them and the 'notions' of
the Fondements forms the central aspect of his later theory.

"'Op. cit., tome I, pp. 167-169.

241

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

While the notions as contents of consciousness have no exist-
ence apart from self-consciousness, the categories are
distinguished from the principle of personality by the
unconscious or unwitting character of their operation."-
In Biran's earlier account of the origin of self-consciousness,

the conception of a transcendental foundation of personality
is passed over in silence. 'We do not fear to lose ourselves in
darkness,' he writes, 'by seeking how effort can begin to be
willed, what the origin is of this primary action, of this free
will which is the first condition of self-consciousness, and,
therefore, of all other consciousness.' "'^ In the Rappor^ts des
Sciences Naturelles avec la Psychologic the author's growing
insight into the problem of knowledge compels him to break
down this artificial limitation. 'All that we know or can
know%' he writes, 'has a necessary foundation in that which
we do not know.' "* The categories are laws of psychic
determination which the personality does not make and cannot
alter; they are comparable to a kind of instinct which masters
it.'*^ In seeking the ground of the categories, therefore, Biran
takes up the conception of the soul.

The soul is not the same as the self. While the latter is
known in immediate internal apperception, the former lies
outside the sphere of knowledge. The distant source of the
categories which the self apprehends but does not create, the
soul remains outside the grasp of self-consciousness. In
attempting to characterize the idea of the soul, Biran takes
up a position midway between the Cartesian dogmatism and
the criticism of Kant. With Descartes he regards the soul as
a substance; but while this substance is conceived of as a
perdurable entity which persists in the absence of self-

^^Nouvelles ccuvres inedites, pp. 162, 163.
^^(Euvres inedites, tome I, p. 217.
^*Nouvelles wtivres inedites, p. 166.
^'■Ibid., p. 202.

242

MAINE DE BIRAN

consciousness, it is incapable of further determination within
the system of knowledge. In terms of a distinction which
Biran uses in this connexion the soul is an object of
'croyance' rather than of 'connaissance.' The error of
Descartes lay in his failure to effect such a distinction between
an indeterminate notion of a speculative order and the
concrete intuition of the self in which personality consists."'''

The Last Phase of Biran's Philosophy.

The introduction of the soul, as distinguished from the self,
into Biran's system profoundly affects his later theory. 'In
order that the soul may give rise to the self,' he writes, 'it
must determine freely and independently of man's organic
nature a first relation or effort ; the relative fact of conscious-
ness has therefore its foundation or generative principle in
the absolute.' '•>• This admission renders untenable Biran's
previous dogmatic assertion of the freedom of the self. As
the force which is personality traces its origin to a source
which is below the threshold of personality, every phase of its
subsequent activity must be regarded as conditioned by similar
unknown factors.

These doubts as to the reality of self-determination were
reinforced in Biran's later life by considerations of a more
strictly personal order. The record of the Pensees serves to
show that with advancing age the author was increasingly
subject to the nervous instability associated with his tempera-
ment. In the introspective analysis which he applies to these
facts, attention is directed chiefly to the involuntary organic
origination of the emotions and their allied trains of imagery.
'The images,' he writes, 'which trace their origin to this
source are more powerful than the reason which takes
cognizance of them and judges them without being able to

o«0p. cit.. p. 1G7. '''Ibid., p. 213.

243

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

disperse them.' '"* At the time of writing the Fondements,
Biran believed that he had discovered in the sense of effort a
principle which raised the individual above the bondage of
temperament. The accuracy of his own later observations
led him to doubt this view. He recognizes that, even where
will appears to control the impulsions derived from the
organism, it is impossible to separate it from its bodily
conditions. Thus in speaking of the conflict of will with the
lower automatic tendencies, he writes: The question is to
know if this struggle itself does not necessarily suppose a
certain degree of animal vitality which we cannot confer upon
ourselves and which depends on certain natural organic
dispositions.' ^^

The self, therefore, so far from being an independent agent,
is rooted in the two poles of the unconscious which Biran calls
respectively the soul and the principle of animal life. It is,
therefore, derivative and conditioned in a sense which is
incompatible with freedom. This conception forms the
starting-point of the religious development which marks the
author's later years. Up to the year 1815, Biran accepted the
doctrine of Stoicism as the ethical counterpart of his theory
of effort; but in the light of later reflection Stoicism is
abandoned on the ground that it falsely represents the will as
an independent principle which is superior to involuntary
fluctuations. The author denies that the point of vantage
necessary for the attainment of moral freedom can be found
in the will. 'I feel more and more that it cannot lie within
myself; it is found in the religious sentiment or the idea of
God which I have too much neglected.' "°

In the work entitled De la Morale et de la Religion (1818)
the existence of God is approached from the standpoint of

osPense'es, p. 387. ^^Ihid., p. 360.

ioo/6id., p. 291.

244

MAINE DE BIRAN

speculative belief. The sense of efficient causality with which
personality arises is carried over into the notion of God as the
absolute cause of reality."^ In the Nouveaux Essais
d'Anthropologie, a change of view is observable. The specu-
lative belief in God is replaced by a mystical doctrine of divine
grace and inner illumination. This changed attitude may be
regarded as a product of Biran's experienced ethical needs
coupled with certain mystical phases observable in his
temperament. 'On two occasions especially', he writes in
1823, 'the sombre veil which has shrouded my mind and
enveloped my spirit for some time past, has seemed to rise
and I have had a quickening intuition of some of those truths
which escape the discursive reason and which words cannot
express.' ^°^

The religious direction of Biran's thoughts at this period
led him to regard these momentary visions as being divine in
origin. Upon the basis of this assumption, he traces in his
last years the outline of a 'vie de I'esprit' to which the 'vie
humaine' of the Fondements is regarded as a prelude. The
fragmentary and contradictory character of the notes which
form the author's extant treatment of this subject, precludes
any attempt to give a consistent account of his position. While
the doctrine of effort is made the basis of the psychology of
the Fondements, this view is transcended in the Anthropologie
by a supplementary theory of the absorption of the self in the
divine essence. This final consummation constitutes 'the
mystical life of enthusiasm which is the highest point to
which the human soul can attain in identifying itself as far
as possible with its supreme object and thus returning to the
source whence it came.' ^"^^ With this condition of ecstasy
Biran compares the opposed condition in which the personality

^^^CEuvres inedites, tome III, p. 52.

"zpgnse'es, p. 356.

io^CEuyres inedites, tome III, p. 521.

245

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

is absorbed by the passions of animal life. In both cases
personality is absorbed or eclipsed; 'but in the one, it is to
lose itself in God ; in the other to destroy itself by descending
to the level of the animal.' ""*

Between these two extremes lies the normal state of
personality of which self-consciousness and effort are the
distinguishing features. While the lower forms of the
suspension of the self are conditioned by blind passion or by
pathological states of reverie, the ecstasy of religious feeling
is regarded by Biran as due to an influx of divine grace.
While the moments of ecstatic illumination are explained in
this manner, the author regards the divine absorption of the
self as conditional upon the fulfilment of a preparatory system
of moral endeavour. In the moment of religious rapture, the
personality or the sense of effort is destroyed, and the relative
consciousness of the 'reflective' system is replaced by the
absolute intuition of God.^«'' But the 'vie de I'esprit' which is
achieved in this state is rendered possible only by the self-
discipline or effort which characterizes the preceding stage of
the 'vie humaine.'

The solution of life's problem suggested to Biran by his
religious needs does not escape his criticism as a psychologist.
By prayer and meditation, it is assumed, the individual
prepares the way for the divine illumination which is his goal.
Biran however acknowledges that these preparatory activities
are not always equally in the subject's power. The mental
attitude which determines them is itself subject to the invol-
untary fluctuations of temperament as determined by the
obscure vicissitudes of the organism. The reality of
self-determination is therefore once again attacked at its basis.
The author also appears to have been subject to doubts as to

lo^Op. dt., tome III, p. 516.
^^^Ibid., tome III, p. 30.

246

MAINE DE BIRAN

the real origin of the mystical states attributed to the life of
religion. The intimate communication of the divine mind
with our minds,' he writes, 'is a veritable psychological fact
and not merely a matter of faith.' "« Elsewhere, however, he
suggests the possibility that these moments of illumination
are due to the physiological states of the organism. 'The
tranquillity, the calm, the serenity of mind which one experi-
ences under the control of certain religious ideas, always
leaves a doubt as to whether these spiritual sentiments are not
the immediate results of certain organic conditions rather
than the consequence of a spiritual cause.' ^°' These doubts
were never finally settled by Biran. Whichever explanation
is adopted, he adds, the moments of ecstatic illumination are
beyond human control. Whether they are attributed to a
divine agent or to the inscrutable rhythm of the organism, the
manner of their appearance is 'an impenetrable mystery, an
insoluble riddle, of which the solutions offered are merely
logical.' io»

Conclusion.

It remains to decide what is the significance of Biran's
thought as a whole ; and what aspects of it are likely to retain
their suggestiveness for modem psychology.

Maine de Biran has not solved the problem of personality.
The theory of 'effort', by which he is best known, is founded
upon a method of abstraction similar to that of which he
accuses Descartes. As against Descartes, he denies that the
self can be known apart from the body; but his subsequent
reduction of personality to a pure perception of activity
throws him back upon the typical vice of the Cartesian
theory of knowledge. As Descartes seeks to reject sensation

^^'^Pensees, p. 377.
^"Uhid., p. 257.
lo'^Jhid., p. 324.

247

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

from the structure of reasoned knowledge, so also Biran
attempts to eliminate every mode of passive sensibility from
the content of self-consciousness. The operation of this
tendency accounts for a typical error. Since the coenaesthesia,
no less than the data of external sensibility, is of passive
origin, he is forced to exclude from self-consciousness the
organic sensations which form one of its chief constituents.
The doctrine of 'effort' is also open to the criticisms urged by
Hume, and in recent times by William James. Since the
process of motor innervation has no immediate equivalent in
consciousness, the continuity of the sense of effort is broken
into two phases united only by a relation of temporal
succession. Biran's objection that this criticism is based
upon considerations drawn from an external knowledge of the
nervous system rather than upon the evidence of inner sense,
is rendered untenable by his own explicit references to the
physiological mechanism of effort. But his anxiety to refute
Hume's position is easily understood. If the unbroken
consciousness of the muscular efficacy of will is denied, an
element of physiological automatism is introduced into
voluntary action which falsifies the alleged perception of the
pure activity of the self. It is the presence of this alien
element and Biran's fruitless attempt to get rid of it, which
both destroys the theory of effort and also supplies a clue to
the ideal by which he is guided. He seeks to establish in the
sphere of willed action that which a perceptive understanding
represents in the sphere of thought. A will which in the act
of willing, creates the bodily structures and functions through
which it gains expression, is the unacknowledged ideal which
the author has in view. It is the attraction exercised by this
ideal together with his imperfect understanding of the condi-
tions of its fulfilment that accounts for the contradictory
nature of the doctrine of effort.

248

MAINE DE BIRAN

The vice of abstraction which Biran inherits from Descartes
is further exemplified in his manner of conceiving will. No
thinker has laid a greater emphasis upon the contrasted
elements of freedom and automatism which go to make up
experience. But this distinction, which is valid only when its
relative character is recognized, is converted into a relation
of abstract opposition. In his anxiety to safeguard the
genuine autonomy of the will, he is led to exclude from its
constitution the instinctive and impulsive components which
determine animal life. His psychology of will and personality
suffers accordingly from a characteristic defect. Will becomes
an empty or formal activity of which no further account can
be given, while personality is represented as a simple, unana-
lysable force. Biran's views therefore are opposed in this
respect to those of modern psychology, which regards will and
personality as the terminal products of a complex process of
psychical integration.

When allowance is made for this defect, there is much in
Biran's theory which remains of interest. While modern
research has demonstrated the synthetic and derivative
character of personality, the psychological concept of the
unconscious outlined by Biran has gained increasing recogni-
tion. M. Pierre Janet especially is, by his own admission,
indebted to Biran for many of the characteristic conceptions
contained in his works.^'^'-' The interpretation of many
abnormal phenomena such as the echolalia of catalepsy and
the various types of somnambulism, is admitted to-day to be
dependent upon the existence of subconscious mental states.
This conception is already clearly indicated in Biran's
writings. Between complete consciousness and the Cartesian
mechanism, he maintains, there is a place for beings who have
sensations without personal consciousness, without a self

loopor references to Biran in this connexion, see Janet, L' Automatiame
Peychologique, 6<= edition, pp. 6, 41, and 42.

249

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

capable of perceiving them. The animal furnishes an example
of such a being. It 'has no knowledge of its sensations because
it is not a person capable of knowing or perceiving from within
its individual existence.' ^^" Man is not normally in this
condition, but may become so under pathological influences,
for example when 'our intellectual grasp is enfeebled or
degraded, when thought sleeps and will is annulled and the
"I" is, so to speak, absorbed in sensible impressions, the moral
personality being suspended'."^ In the Nouvelles Considera-
tions sur le Sommeil, les Songes et le Somnambulisme, this
conception of dissociated automatism is further related to the
facts of hypnotism as witnessed by Biran at the seances of
Deleuze.

The synthesis of the personality, as conceived of by modern
psychology, is probably never completely abolished, but admits
of all degrees of comprehensiveness, as exhibited respectively
in normally unified experience, in twilight states, in the
various grades of hypnosis and in profound catalepsy. In this
way continuity is established between personality and the
unconscious. Biran's clean-cut opposition between the two
states precludes this continuity. The intensive fluctuations
with which 'effort' is credited, enable him, however, to
recognize the gradations of self-conscious experience. It is
in this sense that the distinction between the 'sensitive',
'perceptive' and 'reflective' stages of human development must
be understood. While these stages are plainly arbitrary in
their attempted delimitation, they constitute a genuine recog-
nition of the growing character of experience. If Biran's
exposition fails to be entirely convincing, it is chiefly because
he has attempted that most difficult of all tasks — a psychology
at once dynamically and genetically conceived.

"ofEttvres inedites, tome III, p. 397. Cf. ibid., tome II, pp. 3, 4.
^^Ubid., tome II, p. 12.

250

MAINE DE BIRAN

This brief review suggests finally an issue which bids fair
to be the problem of future psychological research. The
unconscious of Biran, like the dissociated states of recent
psychopathological theory, while being psychologically con-
ceived, is represented as a manifestation of the principle of
automatism. Personality, on the other hand, is regarded as
the citadel of freedom. In his anxiety to safeguard this
distinction, Biran traces a fundamental dualism between the
personal principle of 'effort' and the force which expresses
itself in the unconscious. Modern investigators, while recog-
nizing the divergent characters of psychological automatism
and the superior psychism of the ego, regard the distinction
as one of degree rather than of kind. It is all a question of
the comprehensiveness to which the psychic synthesis attains.
Similarly the primordial psychic force which actuates the
synthesis is everywhere self-identical. In terms of Biran's
nomenclature, the 'effort' which constitutes self-conscious
personality is not discontinuous with, but simply a higher
manifestation of, the vital principle which accounts for the
existence of 'sensations sans perception.' While this con-
ception eliminates Biran's dualism, it leaves outstanding his
main problem — the reality of freedom. In the lower ranges
of its subconscious operation, the psyche is ruled by a principle
of automatism. By what process does its superior integration
under the form of personality confer upon it this new attribute
of freedom?

In discussing this question, M. Janet seeks a solution by
effecting a thorough-going distinction between the automatic
revival which characterizes the phenomena of dissociated
states and the opposed creative synthesis of personal con-
sciousness. Automatic revival becomes possible only upon the
basis of a prior synthesis effected by the personality between
the elements concerned. 'The automatic reproduction of ideas

251

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

is one thing, and the synthesis which forms the personal
perception at each moment of life and the very idea of the
Ego, is another.' ''- Of this principle of personal synthesis,
he adds : There is here a veritable creation, for the act by
which the heterogeneous elements are united is not given in
the elements.' ^'^ Similarly the judgement, as product of
personal synthesis, is 'like consciousness itself, something
undetermined and free.' ^'* Finally, 'the nature of conscious-
ness is always the same, and the child who for the first time
constructs within himself the feeblest religious or artistic
emotion accomplishes on his own account a discovery and a
creation.' "^ If personal consciousness is thus everywhere
'a veritable creation ex nihilo',^^° the conclusion surely arises
that scientific psychology extends only to the explanation of
abnormal automatisms. The whole tract of normal or
personal consciousness remains insusceptible to scientific, that
is causal, explanation.

In order to avoid this conclusion, the freedom of personality
has been, in other quarters, denied. The issue which thus
arises derives its interest in the present connexion more
especially from the fact that the current deterministic con-
ception of personality is mainly traceable to two sources:
(1) The assumption of rigid determinism in the explanation
of the phenomena of the unconscious as known to
psychopathologists ; and (2) the allied doctrine, opposed to
that of Biran, that personality is essentially a manifestation
of primarily unconscious forces and is therefore amenable to
the same principle of determination as the latter. A return
to the Biranian solution of the problem of freedom along the
lines of dualism is not to be expected. Determinism is

"zPierre Janet, The Mental State of Hysterical^, (Eng. trans., 1901),
p. 261.

'^^^L'Automatisme Psychologique, 6« edition, pp. 483-484.
i^*Ibid., p. 477. ^^^Ibid., p. 485. ^^'^Ibid., p. 477

252

MAINE DE BIRAN

therefore likely to remain, at least provisionally, a favoured
hypothesis in scientific psychology. On the other hand,
psychology by no means satisfies all life-demands. The most
consistent determinist is constantly committed to the assump-
tion of freedom in ordinary ethical and social situations.
The solution of this antinomy does not, fortunately, fall within
the limits of the present paper. But the psychology of the
future may rightly be expected, as a matter of intellectual
sincerity, to reconcile these opposed demands within a theory
which shall combine scientific merit with the age-long claim
for freedom of the human heart.

N. J. Symons.

253

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM.

The field of philosophy, we are accustomed to think, is the
whole of experience; the final synthesis of the philosopher
must include every department and aspect of reality. To be
sure, this, the philosopher's ideal is in a certain sense quite
unattainable, since complete knowledge of every subject of
scientific investigation has for long been impossible even to
the most encyclopaedic human intelligence. All that the ideal
can in reason be thought to require is a certain comprehens-
iveness of outlook and impartiality of judgement in giving due
consideration to different and apparently conflicting types of
fact. But it is just this breadth and impartiality that seems
particularly lacking in philosophical theories and systems. The
tendency to accept some one aspect of experience as normative
for all the others is, apparently, irresistible. The student of
philosophy begins the study of some one connected system of
facts; as he gains knowledge of it his interest in it increases
and it grows more and more important in his estimation,
dwarfing other bodies of fact and reducing them to compara-
tive insignificance. Thus philosophical theories become not so
much interpretations of experience as a whole, as attempts to
interpret the whole of experience in terms of some part or
aspect that the philosopher believes to be fundamental.

Since philosophy is itself a product of reflective intellig-
ence, depending upon the speculative interest of men and
their capacity for purely conceptual formulation, we are not
surprised to find many philosophers concerning themselves
primarily with the procedure of systematic thinking. When
the procedure of thought is thus investigated, rational infer-

254

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

ence is found to be at once self-determined in its activity
and objective in its significance. The single judgement proves
to be determined by other judgements which disclose
themselves as implicit in it and, ultimately, by the complete
system of judgements of which it and all other single
judgements are, in their isolation, imperfect and confused
expressions. Thus thinking appears as the process of explicat-
ing inter-related differences within an organized system of
meaning. And this process is, throughout, objective in its
reference ; the differences which reason defines through active
analysis and synthesis are differences in reality. Reality thus
reveals itself to human thought as a coherent system whose
constituents are, through their qualitative diversity, joined in
complete organic unity. In fact, reason is itself the principle
of the whole active in every part; it is the impulsion of the
part to manifest its membership in the whole and thus to estab-
lish, by right of this connexion, its own individuality. All
relations prove to be at bottom internal because all determina-
tion turns out in last analysis to be the self-determination of
the whole. When therefore as human individuals we think,
we participate in those significant structures which in their
infinite variety do but express the absolute unity of the real.

If the processes of perception rather than of thought are
singled out as the special subject of philosophical investiga-
tion a prepossession will probably be created in favour of em-
pirical and realistic instead of idealistic theories. For whatever
may be true of the meaning of a perception — as an event in the
conscious life of an individual, it is a response to an external
object or situation. This, the control which the environment
exercises over the nervous responses of the living individual,
receives conscious acknowledgement in the external existence
affirmed of the perceived object. The externality or independ-

255

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

ence in question is not, at least primarily, a quality attributed
to the perceived object, it is a status which it is acknowledged
to possess relative to the power and freedom of the perceiving
subject. On the side of meaning, the perception is an inter-
pretation of the object in terms of the experience of the per-
cipient as a conscious subject maintaining its own identity in a
changing world of sentient impression. The qualities attrib-
uted to existing objects in perception are therefore universals,
i.e., they are distinctive characters by which conscious intelli-
gence identifies external objects. But these qualities, all of
them universals, fall into two classes, the so-called spatial or
physical properties, and the diverse qualities that fall within
the system of subjective interests and satisfactions. The
spatial attributes of perceived objects, their location, size,
distance, etc., project or body forth in terms of general import
and applicability the outcome of incipient movements and bodily
adjustments induced by the object acting as stimulus upon
the human nervous system. They represent sense-objects and
the human individual who perceives them, as belonging to the
same physical system whose constituents are externally related
and mechanically interacting. And if the qualitative differences
that give meaning and value to the object of common percep-
tion find no place in such a system, why, these can also be
reduced to terms of anticipated behaviour, of motor responses
anticipated in their outcome and effect upon the psycho-physic-
al organism as a system of vital activities. Thus a tactual
quality like sharpness means when perceived 'will cut', the
shrinking of the finger-tips from imagined contact, induced
when light-waves of certain rates, etc., impinge upon the
retina. A colour like the red of ripe fruit means 'can eat',
incipient movements of grasping and biting, with preparatory
tensions of the muscular mechanisms of chewing, swallowing,
digesting, etc. Thus behaviourism leads to a new materialism

256

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

in which the physical system is accepted as all-encompassing
and ultimate.

Study of the actions by which the human individual adapts
himself to the changing environment and transforms it to
meet his future needs brings to light new principles and relat-
ions whose supreme importance is proclaimed by pragmatism
and instrumentalism. Such action is primarily a sequence of
movements which takes place in the physical world and thus
falls within the sphere of mechanical determination. It is, in
its way, a response to a physical stimulus, but is not, like the
reflex, a mechanical response of uniform character, to a recur-
ring stimulus. Rather is it a response to the stimulus recon-
stituted, that is to say interpreted in the light of the future
interests of the conscious individual. This interpretation fur-
nishes a plan for the guidance of action which promises to
lead the agent through a series of motor adjustments into the
presence of the conditions which he, in the existing situation,
judges to be desirable. The interpretation, itself the mean-
ing of the situation, brings out the bearing of the existent
facts upon the system of interests with which the intelligence
of the agent has identified his welfare. The action itself takes
the form of intelligently directed experimentation. From
the movements at the command of the agent (in view of the
external conditions and his own established motor tendencies)
at each successive stage, that one is selected which conforms to
the plan, i.e., promises to lead towards the ideal objective.
Thus the results of successive movements are 'checked' by the
ideal plan : when an intended move proves impossible or leads
in a direction contrary to that desired, it is abandoned and
another is tried. These serial acts are to be made means to the
preconceived end, but they also fall within the physical order
and are subject to its laws of determination. An adjustment
must be effected : physical events which can upon repetition be

257

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

depended upon to follow their causes with mechanical uni-
formity must be included in the teleology of developing life.
The action is successful in reaching its goal when it has so
changed the existing situation that it presents the character
which the agent anticipated as conformable to his own interest.
Thus in intelligent action we behold actual existence trans-
forming itself in the interest of an ideal good, we behold
existing nature realizing latent possibilities of conscious life
and satisfaction.

Finally, the experience of immediate realization or present
fulfilment may be given greatest prominence and taken as the
key to the nature of reality. When the end of action is, as
we say, realized, when the agent comes into its actual pres-
ence, the movements at his command are no longer such as to
exclude its qualities as previously imagined, but rather to
maintain and reinforce, to intensify and amplify, them. The
opposition between the aspirations of intelligence and the inex-
orable limitations of physical existence is for the time over-
come and the self is at one with the object. This experience
is most perfectly exemplified by aesthetic intuition. The beau-
tiful object stimulates the perceptual faculties to lively and
harmonious activity; it liberates the imagination and arouses
in the mind of the subject a sense of power and freedom. The
kindled fancy flashes new intimations of meaning which illum-
inate the object, causing added qualities to be perceived and
appreciated. Here if ever, it seems to the intuitionist, we
have the meaning of experience as a whole presented and
realized through an immediate insight which transcends all
differences and reconciles all oppositions.

Four different types of experience have, it appears, been
singled out for special study and each has suggested to investi-
gators impressed by its crucial importance a principle for the

258

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

explanation of reality. The first is that of the self-determin-
ing system whose members are related internally because each
acts only as an expression of the whole. The second is that of
the mechanical order whose elements determine one another
externally. The third is the process of active experiment-
ation in which determinate existence is adapted to the require-
ments of a non-existent and self-constituting future. The
fourth is that of the inner harmony and inexhaustible fertility
which certain sensuous complexes reveal when immediately
experienced. It is patent that the differences between these
four principles all revolve around the fundamental opposition
between the inner, the unitary, the self-determining, and the
outer, the manifold, the externally determined.

Since each of these principles has an undeniable basis in
human experience, the question arises : Would it not be better
to acknowledge the validity of them all and be content with
a confessed eclecticism than to centre upon one to the exclus-
ion of the others and thus be condemned to a one-sided and
partial view? To such a course the familiar objections will
arise. Eclecticism in philosophy, we shall be told, is a recourse
of third-rate minds; its general adoption would indicate the
decline of constructive power in philosophical investigation,
the decay of the philosophical spirit itself. What is eclecticism,
we shall be asked, but an external piecing together of doctrines
inconsistent with one another, resulting in an incoherent
jumble of principles and ideas, a patchwork combination, intol-
erable to anyone capable of clear and consistent thinking.
These objections are doubtless well-founded, vet son'.ething
may be said on the other side. The combination of different
principles attempted by an eclectic philosophy may be more
or less external, may be more or less neglectful of consist-
ency and the requirements of logical synthesis. It is not clear,
however, why the attempt to unite different and apparently

259

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

conflicting principles in a unitary world-view is more intrinsi-
cally objectionable from the standpoint of constructive intelli-
gence than the attempt to bring different and apparently con-
flicting facts under one principle. And as to the eclectic tend-
ency itself, it has not been always absent from constructive
philosophy of the first rank : the eclectic motive was a domin-
ant influence in the philosophy of Leibniz. There is reason to
think, furthermore, that as philosophy advances, the need to
elucidate and confirm the principles required for the explana-
tion of particular aspects of experience will diminish and the
demand for a synthesis of these principles themselves become
more urgent.

Such force as the commonly received objections to eclecti-
cism undoubtedly possess will be fully met if we admit that
eclecticism, to be worthy of serious attention in philosophy,
must not be content with a mere combination of different prin-
ciples and points of view, superficially adjusted, but essentially
antagonistic; it must rather achieve something like a real
synthesis. What is required in the present instance is a syn-
thesis of the four principles stated above as cardinal doctrines
of idealism, realism, pragmatism and intuitionism. In looking
about for the path that leads toward such a synthesis, the idea
occurs that possibly some form of human experience can be
found that includes and unites the four specific types of exper-
ience each of which is singled out as fundamental by one of
these philosophies. I believe that such a comprehensive form of
experience is to be found in purposive action, in rationally
directed conduct. We shall see, I think, that purposive action
not only includes thought, perception, action and immediate
realization, but so correlates them functionally as to bring to
light aspects in each which do not appear in their true import-
ance when considered apart from the others.

260

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

Purposive action is governed by an ideal objective which
belongs to the system of meanings that the agent shares
with other rational beings. It thus presupposes the work of
intelligence in apprehending certain characteristic differences
of quality and permanences of relation which hold universally.
In its capacity of end it is a projection into the future of the
self-identity of individual intelligence which selects from the
medley of passing experience specific qualities or complexes of
qualities as definite possibilities of realization. At the same
time it is an expression of the unity of rational experience in
the general or social sense, formulated in the system of ac-
cepted truth, communicated to the individuals through channels
of 'social heredity.' In formulating his purpose the agent
observes the requirements of logical coherence and consistency ;
in making his purpose intelligible to himself, he is bound
to make it generally intelligible. In fact, every purposive or
voluntary action is, in its way, a function of the organizing
activity of universal intelligence which in the different fields
of practice, intellectual, technical and aesthetic, strives ever to
expand and enrich its own unity by the incorporation of a more
varied and closely integrated content. But purpose has an-
other aspect no less essential but often overlooked by those
who recognize its relation to the system of meanings in the
universal or comprehensive sense. It is also an expression of
individuality in its unique and therefore exclusive character.
The end as conceived or imagined is the product of experiences
peculiar to the human individual who formulates or constructs
it; it reflects the interests, preferences, and abilities which in
their proportionate strength and interconnexion are peculiarly
his own. While all human individuals participate in the same
world of rational meanings each occupies his own point-of-
view which he shares with no other one — and his purpose is
an expression of this unique point-of-view. Do the consequ-

261

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

ent originality and freedom of individual intelligence seem
to contradict the fundamental fact just stated that the effect
of purpose as an expression of rational will is to subject the
varying and discrepant impulses and aptitudes of individuals to
the demands of the common reason that unites them? The
fact is that alike influenced by the demand of intelligence for a
more comprehensive and coherent life, individuals select from
their respective experiences which have been made intelligible
by reflection, materials which they combine in new and
original ways, and thus construct ends which appeal to them
because they promise when realized to enrich the unity of
experience by establishing or revealing a multitude of unsus-
pected connexions, a range of undiscovered harmonies. This is
certainly a true account of all genuinely creative activity — of
the invention of the artist or scientific discoverer, of the
technician or statesman, and holds in a less degree of all
purposive action.

But a purpose, no matter how clearly its meaning is under-
stood, is, as a mere purpose, unrealized. It represents simply
a possibility of realization and therefore has no place in present
existence. The end which it proposes is in its contrast with
present actuality merely ideal. This means that the perceptual
responses which the external environment evokes from the
agent are not such as to maintain and develop its characteristic
qualities but rather to conflict with and to exclude them. As
an ideal objective it is therefore maintained before the mind
of the agent by an effort of his will. But while the objects of
present perception are in their existence external to the con-
sciousness of the agent, inasmuch as they exercise control over
his motor responses, they are not in their content thus exter-
nal. Even spatial attributes of perceived objects, while they
map out possible movements of the percipient with reference

262

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

to the object are themselves implicit universals, components
in the percipient's scheme of spatial relations and as such
capable of application to other objects and situations. And if
this is true of spatial attributes it is even more obvious in the
case of other features, colours, sounds, tastes, odours, etc.,
whose value for the living individual inheres in the distinc-
tive satisfactions they promise or furnish. The colour of the
fruit may signify ripeness and suggest the movements of ap-
proaching, grasping and eating, the taste may signify nourish-
ing properties which provide energy for further movement.
But the colour may be and frequently is a delight in itself. The
fact that perceived objects may be enjoyed as beautiful and
the further fact that other human individuals are objects of
perception are sufficient to prove that perceptions possess
meanings and value that cannot be reduced to terms of
behaviour.

The agent thus confronts a world of externally existing
objects whose character conflicts with and excludes the type of
experience which his purpose contemplates. He has, through
the instrumentality of his psycho-physical organism so to
alter his actual situation as to bring it into harmony with his
ideal objective. As we have seen, this is achieved through a
procedure of effortful experimentation in which the agent
selects from the movements which existing conditions permit
such as promise to lead toward the purposed end, constantly
altering his method of operation in accordance with the
observed result as judged in the light of the preconceived
objective. Now such a process of experimentation owes its
rational and social significance altogether to the fact that the
purpose which prompts it is an expression or extension of the
universal system of meanings in which all conscious selves
participate. Only so far as the purpose is thus generally or

263

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

objectively intelligible can the series of acts be understood or
described, by the agent himself or by others, as the attested
means or method of attaining a definite result. Because and
only because the purpose is a function of the comprehensive
system of meanings, its realization has a significance which
transcends the experience of the agent. Altliough it is itself
the original and unique expression of individuality, its realiza-
tion signifies an enlargement and diversification of the unity of
rational experience in the inclusive social sense.

We now attain a true understanding of the culminating
phase of purposive action in which the ideal end becomes
present actuality. Seen in its wider relations the satisfaction
which the agent experiences has import not as a passing state
of agreeable feeling, but as a subjective reflection of the
elaborate context of personal meaning which the objects of
present perception acquire when they appear as the embodi-
ment of rational purpose. The fault of intuitionism is that it
takes this experience out of its place in the progress of rational
self-realization, severs it from its antecedents in reason and
will, and treats it as an independent and self-sufficient source
of insight. Such a procedure is in a measure inevitable and
justified in aesthetic appreciation, but just to that extent is
aesthetic appreciation inadequate to the reality of our
experience.

Thus purposive action not merely includes the four types of
experience we have been considering, but, when taken as a
principle of synthesis, brings to light certain features in each
which indicate their underlying relationship. All thinking pro-
ceeds within the one comprehensive system of universally valid
meanings, but this system unfolds from individual centres
having each its own unique and exclusive point-of-view. Per-
ceived objects are in their existence external to the conscious

264

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

percipient, but in their qualities reflect the self-identity of
intelligent consciousness. Intelligent action is a control of
motor responses by their anticipated effects upon the future
interest of the individual, but individual interest defines itself
in terms of rationally significant and universally valid ends.
Immediate realization represents the direct identification of
subjective intelligence with objective presentation, but such
identification presupposes the activity of rational will in trans-
forming existent conditions so as to enlarge the scope of its
own self-determined activity.

Clearly the procedure of purposive action hinges upon the
relation of two factors, active intelligence or rational will on
the one hand, and the external or physical world on the other.
Does it not give more than a hint of their essential nature
and real relationship? Each presents two opposing aspects,
but by virtue of this very internal opposition common to both,
the two work in complete functional unity. Intelligence is at
once a form of infinite comprehensiveness containing by implic-
ation the whole social community, and at the same time exclus-
ively individual, occupying a point-of-view subjective and
unique. Matter is at once external to the self-developing
system of rational purposes and common to the experience of
all rational percipients. Their very opposition makes possible
complete reciprocity of function. The purpose of the human
agent is an expression of the self -organizing power of universal
reason which in self-expression works out from individual
centres. But, as long as it remains unrealized, it is signific-
ant only for the individual who appreciates it 'in idea' and in
spite of contrary fact. The physical nexus, on the other hand,
just because it lacks internal organization, acts uniformly and
is equally available for all individuals. When, therefore, the
sequence of motor adjustments is discovered which realizes

265

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

the ideal end, then this end, originally an individual construc-
tion, is opened to the experience of all other individuals, who
fulfil the determinate conditions. And since these conditions
fall within the system of physical forces to which each
individual through his bodily organism has access, they can
be fulfilled by every other individual agent, allowing, of course,
for limitations of position and circumstance. Thus the object
becomes the property of social intelligence; its significance and
value for the individual who originally projected or devised it
is enhanced by other men's appreciation of its qualities com-
municated through the usual channels ; it is generally accepted
as the objective embodiment of rational will in the universal
sense, and furnishes material for new constructions on the
part of individuals. Thus the self -expansion of rational experi-
ence proceeds through a regular cycle. From the organized
world of socially significant objects communicated to the
individual by teaching and example, he imagines new possi-
bilities of realization which promise to augment and enrich
the unity of the whole. These ideal ends he realizes through
physical instrumentalities and thus incorporates them within
the objective order through which the rational will of man
gains expression.

What we have in reality is therefore a society of individuals
engaged in developing through the intermediation of physical
agencies a common system of significant ends. The function of
physical agencies and uniformities as media of conservation
and communication between different individuals and success-
ive generations is best illustrated by the progress of social
culture and civilization. Man finds the objects of his natural
environment interesting in the first place because of their
appeal to his instinctive motor tendencies. Their perceived
qualities suggest movements of approach and seizure, or with-

266

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

drawal and escape, along with resulting satisfactions of char-
acteristic quality. Thus the ripe fruit is perceived as an object
that will have an agreeable taste if plucked and eaten, the
fellow-clansman as the source of friendly help and useful infor-
mation if accompanied and talked with, the strange animal
as threatening pain and death unless escaped from, the child
as responding with love and delight to the parental caress.
But when these objects of instinctive interest become the ends
of intelligent desire and are realized by means of deliberate
and effortful action, they acquire a new significance, a personal
meaning. The tree is then remembered as the one which when
revisited provided the expected bounty of food; the lion is
individualized as the animal hunted down and slain, the fellow-
tribesman becomes the friend who was relied upon in time of
trouble and proved a saving helper. That is, these objects
become centres of qualities clearly conceived in connexion with
the sequence of actions which brought them home to the agent
in all their possibilities of satisfaction. Through them the
rational will of the agent has gained expression; to their
realization he has, through effort of contrivance and invention,
made actual conditions subservient; to him they remain per-
manent possibilities of realization, in actual fact or in memory,
according to the circumstances of the case.

But action from intelligent desire has a social significance
which is capable of development through specific instru-
mentalities until it embraces the whole rational community.
It is in fact personally co-operative as well as personally
creative. The end, when it is conceived and planned for, is
given place in the general system of interests and meanings
which all individuals share in common. The agent by a mental
necessity puts his ideas in words, the words which he has
acquired through hereditary social transmission as the objec-

267

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

tive embodiment and vehicle of his thought. Thus he has
related it to the interests and ends that dominate the action
of other men. He may and does talk about his purpose with
his fellows; the result of this discussion is to enlarge his
understanding of the objects which other men value, and the
methods by which they realize them. And the action through
which he realizes his purpose takes place in the world of com-
mon perception open to the observation of other individuals.
They understand his actions in terms of the purpose he has
disclosed to them or they in the light of their own experience
imagine him to pursue. In his action, moreover, he makes use
of the methods and accomplishments which he has acquired as
part of his social inheritance, and also of the tools and instru-
mentalities, the custom and institutions, which are character-
istic of his people and serve to correlate their activities.
Finally when the agent realizes his purpose he expresses the
satisfaction he feels in facial expression, in gesture, in laugh or
song. These visible and audible expressions have a meaning
for his fellows and if they join sympathetically in his rejoicing
it is with a sense of its rational significance. When elaborated
in art-forms, these emotional expressions become means of
communicating both the fundamental personal experiences of
the common human lot and something of the objective condi-
tions and personal significance of these experiences in human
life.

Thus there exist three media of intercommunication through
which intelligently directed activities, carried on to meet the
necessities of life, acquire an accumulating wealth of personal
and social meaning. The first is language. Through the speech
mechanism individuals exchange ideas and experiences, reveal-
ing to each other their beliefs, their preferences, their dis-
coveries, and reaching a mutual understanding on the basis of

268

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

a common intelligence which includes and incorporates differ-
ent personal points-of-view. The second includes the tools and
methods, the customs and institutions through which the
external conditions of human existence, physical and biological,
are made subservient to the rational uses of man. Through
the tools and weapons they invent for industry and for war,
through the methods and procedure they devise for social and
political administration, individuals make socially available the
products of their constructive effort and inventive skill in the
field of action. These technical methods and contrivances
when appropriated and employed by the group give to the
individuals engaged that sense of increased power and practi-
cal solidarity which springs from the consciousness that the
efforts of all are being made most effective through the agency
of the established social technique. The third is art in its
various forms. Man's ability to embody, or find embodiment
for, his emotions in material media and sensible forms affords
another means for realizing, conserving and communicating
his significant personal experiences. Dependent upon facilities
of perception closely correlated with mechanisms of motor
adjustment peculiar to man, the ability to appreciate and
create harmonies of form and colour and sound and move-
ment has increased to an incalculable degree the meaning of
the sense-world and the significance of sense-experience. Art
has been an important factor in the social life of man from its
first beginnings; through the song, the dance, the picture or
carving, the individual could express his feeling of the deeper
significance of things for which no words would be adequate.

If, therefore, we understand the rational will of man as an
organizing agency which embraces by implication the com-
munity of intelligent subjects, we can see how it constructs out
of the materials given in the world of perception ends which

269

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

upon realization progressively expand and enrich the experi-
ence which it shares with other voluntary agents. Through
the instrumentality of language, technical contrivance and art,
objects that possess interest and actuality for the human
individual because they evoke determinate motor responses and
promise distinctive satisfactions, are invested with a rational
significance that involves the whole social community. Through
language his ideas are given place in the world of discourse,
his experience is incorporated in the experience of humanity
embodied in the social tradition and the accepted body of
knowledge. His mental horizons are lifted to include past ages
and places far distant ; he re-lives in imagination the deeds of
heroes and ancestors, is inspired by their example and thrilled
by their achievements; he evaluates objects in the light of the
satisfaction they have afforded to others and, in planning for
their realization, relies upon the facts which his fellows have
learned regarding the order of physical causes and the
behaviour of natural objects. The use of industrial tools,
methods, and mechanisms, the observance of political and
moral customs and institutions, relate the acts of individuals
to the controlling purposes of social life and so impart to them
a universal meaning and value. When the individual exer-
cises his own initiative and originality within the lines laid
down, in the presence or with the knowledge of others who
are likewise employed, his efforts have the significance of
uniting him in working comradeship with his fellows. He is
thus able effectually to identify his own will with the inclusive
human purposes which these instrumentalities and institutions
subserve; his work makes him one in spirit not merely with
his fellow-labourers in the same social system, but with the
inventors, organizers and reformers who have laboured in past
times to perfect these methods and build up these institu-

270

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

tions. From the activities of all in past and present his own
efforts gain added power ; he participates constructively in the
great tasks of economic production and social organization.
Aesthetic appreciation gives personal meaning to the end-
lessly diverse combinations of colour and sound which appear
at first as signs or warnings of further effects organically
beneficial or injurious, to be expected from objects. Their
patterns and their harmonies so quicken imagination and stir
emotion as to suggest those experiences of personal fulfilment
or frustration that are fundamental to the lot of man in whom
the infinite possibilities of creative intelligence appear to
be negated by the limitations of physical existence. Social
and moral progress mean that the organizing intelligence of
man working through the agencies of language, technical con-
trivance and art has constructed from objects and activities
which promised at best the passing satisfaction of prolonged
natural existence, ends of universal import and inexhaustible
interest : knowledge, whose field is the whole of rational experi-
ence; power, which involves the fellowship of all individuals
in productive labour; and beauty which by refining the imagin-
ation creates universal human sympathy — ends for whose
realization natural existence itself becomes but the means and
occasion.

The relation of the two factors we have been considering,
self-determining intelligence and physical causation, remams
the central problem of philosophy. In the world of sense-
perception these two factors meet— hence its baffling and self-
contradictory character. The percipient appears in a double
role, as active subject organizing its experiences so as to
express the unity it shares with other subjects, and as living
individual maintaining its own existence by acts of physical
adjustment. The existence affirmed of the object in the act

271

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

of perception is a conscious acknowledgement of the limita-
tion it imposes upon the self-directed activity of the intelli-
gent individual. But the qualities attributed to existing
objects are distinctive characters by which self-conscious
intelligence identifies external objects in terms of its own
unity. But these qualities, all of them universals, fall into
two classes, those that body forth the relations of externality
and mechanical deteiTnination which hold between the self-
activity of the percipient and the external conditions that limit
it, and those that signify the relationship of qualitatively dis-
tinct elements within the system through which active intellig-
ence expresses its own unity. Thus the world of sense-per-
ception resolves itself upon rational analysis and conceptual
formulation into two orders, the physical nexus or mechanical
system and the 'realm of ends' or the teleological system. The
issue between idealism and materialism concerns the adequacy
of either of these intellectual formulations to reality as a
whole.

The form of idealism most in harmony vdth the facts as
they present themselves in the types of experience we have
been examining is that which holds the physical system to be
the phenomenal manifestation of the difference in point-of-
view between an infinite number of subjective centres all
realizing (in different stages of development) the same system
of rational ends. It is an obvious consequence of this view
that individual subjects do not affect by direct action one
another's development; the development of each self-active
centre is determined only by the system of which it is an
expression and whose possibilities are latent within it. Nothing
is therefore achieved by individuals which is not provided for
in the purpose of the whole ; there is no determination except
teleological determination, the monads are in truth 'window-

272

A PLEA FOR ECLECTICISM

less.' Two fundamental features of the world as we experi-
ence it are in radical conflict with this general view. In the
first place, intelligent individuals not merely reproduce or
represent a system already organized as a teleological whole;
they engage actively in its creation with all the uncertainty
and chance of error and failure that this involves. And,
secondly, individuals are not impervious to one another's influ-
ence, but directly and constantly affect each other's develop-
ment both favourably and unfavourably.

We are forced therefore to maintain the reality of the physi-
cal system as a factor limiting the activity of intelligent In-
dividuals, yet through the uniformity and constancy of its
processes serving as a medium for the communication and
conservation of individual experiences and thus making pos-
sible co-operative human achievement. But if we grant that
the physical system is thus in the full sense real, and if further
we accept the evolutionary cosmogony of physical science,
must we not admit that the realm of ends is epiphenomenal, an
incidental and ineffectual by-product of mechanical forces?
We remember that all qualitatively differentiated content is
subjective because it depends upon the internal organization
of consciousness. Where then was the 'system of significant
differences' before consciousness came upon the scene? Or
what reality will it retain after human intelligence has been
extinguished in the inevitable sequence of cosmic processes?
Shall we say simply that it was 'latent' in the physical system
in the same sense that consciousness and intelligence were
latent in earlier stages of evolution ?

The view which our experience most strongly supports Is
that of reality as a system whose parts through interaction
develop characteristic differences each of which implies, and
in the course of the interaction unfolds, the whole system of

273

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

ditl'erences in its distinctive way. So far as the constituents
of the physical system are concerned, their position and activ-
ity are altogether determined by the action of other parts upon
them — they exist in themselves and for the system to which
they belong. But the system of significant differences exists,
in all its individual expressions, for itself; it is self-objectified
and self-realized. Hence if at an earlier stage of cosmical evol-
ution the system of rational ends failed to express itself in
the conscious life and inter-communication of intelligent indiv-
iduals, it must have existed for a universal consciousness as
a definite possibility of realization. But the realization of
such a universal purpose would, of course, be contingent upon
actual conditions embodied in the physical system itself. Thus
we are forced to recognize an original dualism that condi-
tions the evolution of reality so far as we have experience of it.
The universal purpose projects a system of ends to be realized
by a community of conscious subjects. But actual condi-
tions limit the development of intelligent individuals through
whose activity alone the universal purpose can be realized. Yet
this dualism is in course of being overcome. For these very
external conditions make possible a degree of mutual under-
standing, helpfulness and sympathy that could not otherwise
be achieved and that enriches beyond measure the significance
of ends in whose realization all participate.

H. W. Wright.

274

SOME PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

It might appear strange or even ridiculous that one should
spend one's time in discussing a question so often asked, and
so often answered in the various text-books and treatises on
philosophy, viz., 'What is philosophy?' For has not philo-
sophy had a long and honourable career, and why should there
be any question about the significance of her aims or the
validity of her methods? But unfortunately , or perhaps
fortunately, the history of philosophy reveals much self-
questioning, and many more or less contradictory answers all
along the line of her development. And perhaps never has
there been more self -questioning than there is at the present
time. It is not so much the natural scientists, the traditional
critics of philosophic method, who are sceptical of philosophy
to-day, as the philosophers themselves. The natural scientists
are busy with their own problems, puzzling over disturbing
questions recently raised in regard to the validity of some of
their own most cherished presuppositions and theories. They
have discovered that, while they were strenuously attacking
the metaphysicians, they were in reality metaphysicians
themselves, and they have probably learned that, even in the
pursuit of their own investigations, it will be difficult to get
along without a metaphysic of some sort. In the same way
the philosophers are looking toward, rather than away from,
science, for a more satisfactory solution of their problems.
And so it is not hard to detect an ever-growing sympathy
between two schools of thought which have always
been more or less antagonistic. There is humility on both
sides accompanied by a growing sense of common purpose,
and mutual good-will. It is this rapprochement which I wish

275

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

to elucidate in this essay, particularly from the point of view
of philosophy, and in the light of some present-day tendencies.
In 1892, Karl Pearson, in the introduction to The Grammar
of Science, wrote : 'There is no short cut to truth, no way to
gain a knowledge of the universe except through the gateway
of scientific method. The hard and stony path of classifying
facts and reasoning upon them is the only way to ascertain
truth. It is the reason and not the imagination which must
ultimately be appealed to. . . The poet is a valued member
of the community, for he is known to be a poet; his value
will increase as he grows to recognize the deeper insight into
nature which modern science provides him. The metaphy-
sician is a poet, often a very great one, but unfortunately he
is not known to be a poet, because he strives to clothe his
poetry in the language of reason, and hence it follows that
he is liable to be a dangerous member of the community. The
danger at the present time that metaphysical dogmas may
check scientific research is, perhaps, not very great. The day
has gone by when the Hegelian philosophy threatened to
strangle infant science in Germany : that it begins to languish
at Oxford is a proof that it is practically dead in the country
of its birth. The day has gone when philosophical or theolog-
ical dogmas of any kind can throw back for generations the
progress of scientific investigation.' ^

There is no doubt much truth in Pearson's remarks
regarding the metaphysician. But this applies more to the
metaphysician of the older type. He usually was taken
seriously. He usually took himself very seriously. When, as
is reported, Hegel, lecturing on the history of philosophy,
ended with his own system, and, describing a circle on the
board, said: 'Gentlemen, the history of philosophy is
completed,' he no doubt quite believed that the last word in

^The Grammar of Science, pp. 17-18.

276

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

system-building had been said. Perhaps, also, the Hegelian
philosophy did to some extent interfere with the development
of science for a time. But, as Pearson has himself indicated,
things have changed. Metaphysical theories come and go
without in any way fettering our minds. No one to-day who
is disposed to be critical regards the 'elan vital' of Bergson as
anything but the product of a poetic imagination, however it
may appeal to certain minds on account of its suggestiveness,
and however it may appear to be supported by scientific facts.

But let us endeavour to see the metaphysician's point of
view, as he states it himself. In 1893, F. H. Bradley, in the
introduction to his Appearance and Reality wrote as follows :
'I am so bold as to believe that we have a knowledge of the
Absolute, certain and real, though I am sure that our compre-
hension is miserably incomplete. But I dissent emphatically
from the conclusion that, because imperfect, it is worthless.
And I must suggest to the objector that he should open his
eyes and should consider human nature. Is it possible to
abstain from thought about the universe? . . . when poetry,
art, and religion have ceased wholly to interest, or when they
show no longer any tendency to struggle with ultimate
problems and to come to an understanding with them ; when
the sense of mystery and enchantment no longer draws the
mind to wander aimlessly and to love it knows not what; when,
in short, twilight has no charm — then metaphysics will be
worthless. . . I think it quite necessary, even on the view
that this study can produce no positive results, that it should
still be pursued. There is, so far as I can see, no other certain
way of protecting ourselves against dogmatic superstition.
Our orthodox theology on the one side, and our commonplace
materialism on the other side (it is natural to take these as
prominent instances), vanish like ghosts before the daylight
of free sceptical enquiry. . . Neither, as experience has

277

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

amply shown, can now survive in the mind which has thought
sincerely on first principles ; and it seems desirable that there
should be such a refuge for the man who burns to think
consistently, and yet is too good to become a slave, either to
stupid fanaticism or dishonest sophistry. That is one reason
why I think that metaphysics, even if it end in total scepticism,
should be studied by a certain number of persons.' ^

Without doubt, the metaphysician has a real service to
perform. The unprejudiced historian will, moreover, not deny
him a high place of honour in the development of thought.
For he succeeded in effecting a transition from the older
dogmatic theology to the modern critical point of view,
without, however, as Comte maintains, destroying either
theology or metaphysics. What he did was really to transform
both. This critical attitude, moreover, has grown to such a
degree that it dominates all metaphysical effort to-day, and
has indeed also made itself felt in the field of scientific
endeavour.

But Bradley is also careful to warn us against expecting
too much of metaphysics. 'It is difficult,' he says, 'for a man
not to think too much of his own pursuit. The metaphysician
cannot perhaps be too much in earnest with metaphysics, and
he cannot, as the phrase runs, take himself too seriously.' '' But
if one reads on, one finds that this is applicable not only to
the metaphysician, but that 'the same thing holds good with
every other positive function of the universe', and I am sure
Bradley would not wish to exclude the natural scientist from
the benefits of such excellent advice. And this is, I believe,
the general attitude of mind toward which we have been
drifting. For, since the passages quoted above were written,
much has happened in both philosophy and science which

''^Avpearance and Reality, pp. 3-5.
^Appearance and Reality, p. xiv.

278

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

has loosened up our minds and broadened our outlook. The
result is that, while we have perhaps not ended in total
scepticism, we have landed suspiciously near it so far as some
of the traditional problems and methods of metaphysics are
concerned. And to some extent the same is true in science.
For never was the scientist so uncertain of himself as he is
to-day, and he has begun to show a very considerable tendency
toward and aptitude for metaphysical speculation within his
own sphere. If one wishes to be convinced of this fact, he has
only to refer to the theory of Einstein and the controversies
connected with it; the researches of Rutherford," and
Bateson's discussion of the present position of biology in
regard to the theory of evolution^ — to mention only a few of
the most recent contributions to scientific literature. But this
is by no means a scepticism of despair, which threatens to
upset the whole world and undermine our faith in the very
possibility of knowledge. It is more akin to a healthy sense
of humour, which serves to chasten any idea of finality so far
as our present knowledge is concerned. And in no sphere is
a sense of humour more necessary. For it enables us to see
the possibilities of further adventures into new and romantic
worlds, which cannot fail to increase our interests and
stimulate our efforts.

In speaking of these tendencies in science, I am far from
suggesting the possibility of a return to the older methods of
theology and metaphysics. In this connexion one cannot but
agree with Bateson when he says: 'I have put before you
very frankly the considerations which have made us agnostic
as to the actual mode and process of evolution. When such
confessions are made the enemies of science see their chance.
If we cannot declare here and now how species arose, they

*The Artificial Disintegration of the Elements; Nature, vol. 109,
No. 2740, and vol. 109, No. 2741.

'-Evolutionary Faith and Modern Doubts; Nature, vol. 109, No. 2739.

279

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

will obligingly offer us the solutions with which obscurantism
is satisfied. Let us then proclaim in precise and unmistakable
language that our faith in evolution is unshaken. Every
available line of argument converges on this inevitable con-
clusion. The obscurantist has nothing to suggest which is
worth a moment's attention. The difficulties which weigh
upon the professional biologist need not trouble the layman.
Our doubts are not as to the reality of the truth of evolution,
but as to the origin of species, a technical, almost domestic,
problem. Any day that mystery may be solved. The discov-
eries of the last twenty-five years enable us for the first time
to discuss these questions intelligently and on the basis of fact.
That synthesis will follow on an analysis, we do not and
cannot doubt.' " This, it would seem, is just the true philoso-
phical attitude. For evolution, it is obvious, is not a scientific
doctrine, which has been demonstrated to our complete
satisfaction by the exact methods of science. It is an
hypothesis which, in view of the wide range of facts to which
it has been applied, and of which it attempts a true synthesis,
is essentially speculative or philosophical in character.
Darwin was a great scientist, but in the imaginative handling
of the facts he observed and the hypothesis he formulated, he
was also a great philosopher. For, after all, philosophy is to
a large extent an attitude of mind. It is the expression of a
desire to get beyond the one-sidedness of particular facts,
particular investigations and particular interests, and to see
them all in relation to life as a whole. There is no reason
why the scientific student should not cultivate such an attitude
himself. And perhaps no better way of doing so could be
suggested than a sympathetic study of the history of philo-
sophy and a detailed study of at least one of the great
philosophers. Such a training would, without doubt, do much

^op. cit.
280

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

in the way of accomplishing what Bateson asks for in the
article from which I have quoted above — a closer co-operation
between the systematist in science and the laboratory worker.

Most philosophers would concede the necessity of an
adequate knowledge of the methods and results of science. In
fact many of the great philosophers like Aristotle, Leibniz
and Kant, were masters of the scientific knowledge of their
day. It is always interesting and refreshing to remember
that Kant, who originated the great movement that was so
much objected to by scientists like Karl Pearson, anticipated
by about forty years the theory of Laplace which threatened
to overthrow completely both theology and philosophy. But
the fact still remains that just as philosophers have not always
been able to yoke their philosophical theories and their
theological convictions together and drive them along the
same road, so they have often failed in the same way in
regard to their scientific knowledge and their philosophical
speculations. Too often, moreover, philosophers have not
sought to keep in close touch with the investigations of the
scientist, so that in their speculations they have either ignored
or run counter to these investigations. Sometimes, too, the
philosopher, in his anxiety to make use of scientific facts,
selects these uncritically, or interprets them too exclusively in
the interests of his own theory. Bergson is an example of
such a philosopher. He is so dominated by a great speculative
idea that the facts of science as they are selected and inter-
preted just naturally fit into his scheme of thought. Drever's
criticism of Bergson's theory of instinct, though perhaps not
quite fair to Bergson, brings out this tendency very clearly.'
Bergson's treatment of the aphasias in connexion with his
theory of memory is another example of an interpretation

''Instinct in Man, pp. 92-110.

281

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

that the neurologist or scientific psychologist would, I fear,
find it exceedingly difficult to accept.'*

Such difficulties will be avoided only by a better under-
standing of science. The student in philosophy would do well
to become acquainted with the history of science in order that
he may become familiar with her spirit and learn to appreciate
some of her great achievements. But he must do even more.
In order to get an adequate understanding of scientific
methods he must learn to feel the significance of these
methods. This is possible only if he is able to use them in
some form of independent research. In fact, I am inclined
to think that some of the most permanent contributions of
the future to philosophy will be made by scientists who, having
mastered some particular field of research, will turn their
attention to investigations of a more synthetic type. I am
confident, moreover, that many of the problems, which in the
past have been referred to the metaphysician, will be referred
back to the scientist for further investigation and will be most
completely handled by that type of scientific philosopher which
I have just described. It would seem reasonable that before
we can know reality as a whole, we should seek as adequate
a knowledge as possible of the elements out of which it is
composed. There is, moreover, reason to believe that new
sciences with more highly perfected methods will develop in
relation to such problems. In a recent address on Bohr's
theory of the structure of the atom, Professor Bragg affirmed
that a new science was growing up which could not be called
physics or chemistry and which was more fundamental than
either.^ Such new sciences will no doubt be more speculative
than the present existing sciences but they will conduct their

^Matter and Memory.

^Reported in the Manchester Guardian Weekly, May 5th, 1922.

282

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

investigations in accordance with the rules of scientific
procedure.

So far, I have been speaking of philosophy as if it were to
be identified with metaphysics and as if, moreover, meta-
physics had to do with 'ultimate things' or with the 'Absolute'
as Bradley puts it. But there has been so much discussion on
the subject of 'relativity' recently that one is left with serious
doubts as to the actual existence of 'ultimate things' or an
'Absolute' in Bradley's sense. Perhaps' 'ultimate things' are
only relatively ultimate and the 'Absolute' is only relatively
absolute, which is the same as saying that these are only
working hypotheses which we make use of to systematize our
knowledge and our experience. What then of philosophy?
For philosophy has usually assumed that the realities under
investigation were something more than mental creations. I
shall endeavour to discuss this question by referring to some
contemporary movements.

Modem absolutism originated with Kant, who endeavoured
to solve the problems raised by the scepticism of Hume, which
seemed to leave the world without a metaphysic and indeed
without a confidence in science, a condition to which, as I have
already indicated, the present state of affairs mildly approxi-
mates. For my purpose it will be sufficient to discuss this
movement as it was developed in England by two of its ablest
representatives. Green and Bradley.

In his Prolegomena to Ethics, Green sought to provide
an antidote for the materialistic tendencies of the brilliant
though perhaps over-confident scientific development which
began in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Science
threatened to invade certain realms which had hitherto been
regarded as the exclusive domain of theology and philosophy.
For had not Laplace confidently informed Napoleon that he

283

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

needed no such hypothesis as God in his scheme of nature,
and had not Darwin applied his theory of natural selection to
the explanation of the mental and moral qualities of man?
This naturalistic movement, together with the common-sense
attitude of utilitarianism which was closely associated with it,
found very favourable conditions for its development in
England, and consequently those philosophers who saw the
foundations of religion and morals threatened had to adopt
strenuous measures to combat its influence. And so Green
endeavoured to show that, so far from being able to explain
the mental and moral qualities of man on a naturalistic basis,
science could not explain even nature on that basis. For
when we analyse any object whatever, we find that it resolves
itself into an infinite number of relations which are intelligible
only on the presupposition of a consciousness for which such
relations exist and for which alone unity of such relations is
possible. This consciousness is eternally complete in the sense
that it is beyond time, of which it is the condition. It is in
the same way beyond causality and all forms of finitude. All
forms of reality, whether pertaining to man or to nature are
manifestations of an absolute reality which is in essence
spiritual.

This theory is developed to a higher degree of logical per-
fection by Bradley. Like Green he begins with the facts of
experience which, when analysed, dissolve into a congeries of
relations, the contradictory character of which necessitates
their interpretation as appearances or manifestations of a
higher reality which includes them in a harmonious unity.
Even such aspects of experience as error and evil, which
appear so hopelessly discordant, are transmuted and absorbed
in such a way that they contribute richness to the harmony of
the w^hole. When we endeavour to understand more precisely
the nature of this all-inclusive unity, we find that we must

284

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

define it in the forms of sentient experience. The Absolute is
one system and ... its contents are nothing but sentient
experience. It will hence be a single and all-inclusive experi-
ence, which embraces every partial diversity in concord. For
it cannot be less than appearance, and hence no feeling or
thought, of any kind, can fall outside its limits. And if it is
more than any feeling or thought which we know, it must
still remain more of the same nature. It cannot pass into
another region beyond what falls under the general head of
sentience.' " But if the Absolute is to be defined in terms of
sentience, it is obvious such sentience must be beyond any
particular form we know. For thought, feeling and volition
are relational, and therefore appearance. We cannot then
speak of the Absolute as mind, consciousness or intelligence.
We must try to picture an absolute experience of an intuitional
type which is essentially of the nature of consciousness, and
yet transcends the contradictory elements involved in its
relational character.

Long before the guns of the Allies had battered down the
most persistent foiTn of Absolutism in the country of its birth,
there had been going on, at first intermittently, and later
almost continuously, a bombardment at short and long range
of the fortress which the absolutists had established for
themselves in England, and from which they dominated for
the most part the whole English-speaking world. This attack
was conducted by certain allied groups of thinkers, the
personal idealists, the pragmatists and the new realists who,
though they had many internal diff'erences, were able to
concentrate very effectively upon the weak spots of their
opponents' defences. They battled for a new democracy in
philosophy, for the rights of the individual as against the
autocracy of the Absolute which persisted in swallowing up

^oAppecurance and Reality, pp. 146-7.

285

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

the individual without regard to his successes, his failures, his
hopes and his fears. They protested, moreover, against the
method of endeavouring to explain the simple every-day facts
of experience in relation to an inaccessible and unknown
Absolute, instead of using the ordinary methods of common-
sense, with which it may be assumed human nature is fairly
adequately endowed. I do not propose to go into the details of
this struggle and to endeavour to give an estimate of the
outcome. But one cannot fail to recognize that a great blow
has been struck at methods of abstract metaphysical explana-
tion. And it is not for the reason usually given by the
personal idealists and the pragmatists — that Absolutism is
too intellectual. It is true that one would search far to find
a more brilliant piece of dialectic than Appearance and Reality.
But this is really conducted in the interests of a certain type
of mysticism which permeates the whole work. In short.
Absolutism is more closely related to the needs of religion
than to the necessity of scientific explanation. For religion
seems to require some sort of spiritual interpretation of the
world, which need is served, from an intellectual point of
view, by the Eternal Consciousness of Green or the Absolute
of Bradley.

But probably one of the most uncritical terms used in
philosophy is the term 'spiritual'. For the absolutist, the
spiritual character of the world is based on the assumption
that it is a manifestation of some absolute form of mind or
consciousness or sentience as above described. But the
pragmatist, like the nominalist of old, has dealt rather harshly
with some commonly accepted abstract terms. When James
endeavoured to show that there is no such thing as truth as
an abstract entity, that in fact only truths exist and, moreover,
that these 'live for the most part on a credit system,' he
reflected on the credibility of a large number of terms

286

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

which had always been accepted without question on account
of their age and familiar usage. And this is what happened
to such terms as 'mind', 'consciousness', 'sentience' and the
like. They are not to be regarded as entities but as processes,
and therefore by their very nature they must exist in time
and involve certain causal relations. They cannot, then,
except by a violent process of abstraction which abolishes their
real nature, be conceived of as eternally complete or as
constituting an Absolute in the sense of Green and Bradley.
This faith in mind or consciousness as an entity was first
rudely disturbed by James's conception of the 'stream of
consciousness.' But it has received its most telling blows
from the more recent developments in psychology among
which the behaviouristic movement is to be specially
mentioned. I do not wish to discuss the validity of these
theories, but merely to indicate that it must appear to be
very precarious business to endeavour to oppose the natur-
alistic conception by setting up as an ultimate principle
something like consciousness, when there is so much
difference of opinion as to what consciousness is, and when
there is, moreover, a very strong tendency on the part of
certain influential schools of psychology to explain it on a
naturalistic basis. It is difficult to see how, by this method,
even with all the logic attached to it, the scientist can possibly
be convinced that mind is the condition rather than the
product of nature. And now, to complete the dethronement
of mind as an ultimate reality, and at the same time to console
to a certain degree the adherents of the spiritualistic view of
the world, comes the very recent hypothesis of Bertrand
Russell, whose speculations are always worthy of careful
consideration. I quote from the preface of his latest work.
'This book has grown out of an attempt to harmonize two
different tendencies, one in psychology, the other in physics,

287

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

with both of which I find myself in sympathy, although at
first sight they might seem inconsistent. On the one hand,
many psychologists, especially those of the behaviourist
school, tend to adopt what is essentially a materialistic
position, as a matter of method if not of metaphysics. They
make psychology increasingly dependent upon physiology
and external observation, and tend to think of matter as
something much more solid and indubitable than mind.
Meanwhile the physicists, especially Einstein and the
exponents of the theory of relativity, have been making
"matter" less and less material. Their world consists of
"events", from which "matter" is derived by logical
construction. Whoever reads, for example. Professor
Eddington's Space, Time and Gravitation, . . . will see that
an old-fashioned materialism can receive no support from
modern physics. I think that what has permanent value in
the outlook of the behaviourist is the feeling that physics is
the most fundamental science at present in existence. But
this position cannot be called materialistic, if, as seems the
case, physics does not assume the existence of matter. . . .
The view that seems to me to reconcile the materialistic
tendency of psychology with the anti-materialistic tendency of
physics is the view of William James and the American new
realists, according to which the "stuff" of the world is neither
mental nor material, but a "neutral stuff", out of which both
are constructed.' "

Without going into a discussion of the above-mentioned
theories, which have tended to undermine the rule of Absol-
utism, one may come to certain general conclusions. There is
growing up a freedom from religious and anti-religious
leanings and prejudices of the familiar type, and a purely
disinterested attitude toward truth, which one would imagine

i^r/ie Analysis of Mind, pp. 5-6.

288

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

ought to be fundamental to the highest form of religion.
Here the metaphysician and scientist may meet on common
ground and there will be a mutual gain from a proper
understanding of each others' methods and aspirations. Here
the speculative method will find its true significance ; for that
tendency of the human mind so well described by Bradley,
towards metaphysical speculation, will not be discouraged, but
rather properly directed. And perhaps no better discipline
can be recommended in this respect than a careful study of
Appearance and Reality itself. But it will always be necessary
to remember that we are still very far from ultimate truths
and that short cuts are possible only when we know the
general direction. If this point of view be construed as
scepticism, I must affirm that it is as healthy an attitude of
mind as I can conceive, for it opens up infinite possibilities of
research and infinite possibilities of achievement. And so, if
we think of the Absolute as the totality of existence, it may
be that the Absolute grows and develops and registers achieve-
ments, and the searcher after truth, scientist or philosopher,
may play a real part in the way of making some contribution
to this higher development of the world of values.

In concluding this part of my essay, I should like to reinforce
my arguments regarding the general attitude of philosophy
to science and to ultimate problems by means of a quotation
from Professor Perry, one of the leaders of a school which
is at present exercising very considerable influence on the
direction of philosophy. It will be interesting to compare this
quotation with those from Pearson and Bradley to realize
what progress has been made along the lines of a true
synthesis of scientific and philosophic endeavour. The realist
. . . would seek in behalf of philosophy the same renunciation,
the same rigour of procedure, that has been achieved in
science. This does not mean that he would reduce philosophy

289

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

to natural or physical science. He recognizes that the
philosopher has undertaken certain peculiar problems, and
that he must apply himself to these, with whatever method he
may find it necessary to employ. It remains the business of
the philosopher to attempt a wide synoptic survey of the
world, to raise underlying and ulterior questions, and in
particular to examine the cognitive and moral processes. And
it is quite true that for the present no technique at all com-
parable with that of the exact sciences is to be expected. But
where such technique is attainable, as for example in symbolic
logic, the realist welcomes it. And for the rest he limits
himself to a more modest aspiration. He hopes that philoso-
phers may come like scientists to speak a common language,
to formulate common problems and to appeal to a common
realm of fact for their resolution. Above all he desires to get
rid of the philosophical monologue, and of the lyric and
impressionistic mode of philosophizing. And in all this he is
prompted not by the will to destroy but by the hope that
philosophy is a kind of knowledge, and neither a song nor a
prayer nor a dream. He proposes, therefore, to rely less on
inspiration and more on observation and analysis. He
conceives his function to be in the last analysis the same as
that of the scientist. There is a world out yonder more or
less shrouded in darkness, and it is important, if possible, to
light it up. But instead of, like the scientist, focussing the
mind's rays and throwing this or that portion of the world
into brilliant relief, he attempts to bring to light the outlines
and contour of the whole, realizing too well that in diffusing
so widely what little light he has, he will provide only a very
dim illumination.' ^^

There is another point of view which follows naturally
from the conclusions drawn above. For just as the scepticism

'2Perry: The Present Conflict of Ideals, pp. 367-8.

290

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of Hume in regard to the more speculative problems of
science and philosophy was accompanied by a deeper interest
in the problems of human life and an attempt to deal with
them, not from a purely speculative point of view, but upon
the more naturalistic basis of psychology, so, if one might
sum up the trend of present-day thought, one might find
ample material for a new Treatise on Human Nature. And
this is, I believe, a very significant feature of present-day
tendencies. For the philosopher is concerned not merely with
the 'origin and purport of the universe,' as Pearson puts it,
or *a knowledge of the Absolute', to use the words of Bradley,
but with the interpretation of the facts and purposes of
every-day life. These facts are quite as interesting and
important as those with which the scientist and the meta-
physician deal, and cannot be explained either by the exact
methods of the former or the purely speculative methods of
the latter. For we do not need to know either the constitution
of the atom or the nature of the whole universe to think
deeply about those realities which are of most intimate
concern in practical life. And if, as Huxley affirms, 'science
is . . . nothing but trained and organized common sense' and
'the vast results obtained by Science are won by no mystical
faculties, by no mental processes, other than those which are
practised by any one of us, in the humblest and meanest
affairs of life,' ^' surely we may see a place in the affairs of
man where science and philosophy may co-operate in complete
harmony.

The personal idealists have insisted upon the necessity of
interpreting reality from the standpoint of human experience
instead of from the 'visionary and impracticable standpoint of
absolute experience.' Following the lead of such men as
Poincare who emphasized the tentative character of scientific

^^On the Educational Vahie of Natural History Sciences.

291

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

hypotheses, and Bergson, who sought to demonstrate the
practical nature of intelligence generally, they were inclined
to interpret all scientific laws in terms of human purpose. But
the best of arguments may be carried too far. The personal
idealists still accepted the spiritual interpretation of the
world in the sense that nature is a manifestation of mind or
minds. But the new realists, coming back to the common-
sense point of view, maintained that, although the mind
contributes certain elements to the world we know, there are
nevertheless elements in that world which exist independently
of our minds. It thus follows that, while we may succeed to
some extent in making reality conform to our wishes, there
is a very large fraction of it which goes its own way, and
which the scientist endeavours to follow to the best of his
ability.

There is then a realm of reality governed by human
purposes, as distinguished from that realm which is governed
by natural law. It may be that ultimately human purposes
may be explained on the basis of natural law; but this has
not yet been done; so we are justified in accepting the dis-
tinction, provisionally, at least. It is in this sphere of life,
in which the minds of actual living human beings are at work,
that the philosopher will find himself most at home. What
methods will he find most effective for his purpose?

The critics of the older idealism — the personal idealists and
the pragmatists — have endeavoured to eschew metaphysics of
the purely speculative type. They have insisted upon the
necessity of doing justice to the feelings and the will instead
of attaching undue importance to the intellect, which they
affirm is only a part, and that too a subordinate part, of
personality. But while they have suggested the necessity of
paying due attention to the facts of psychology and to the
whole personality, they have not attempted a psychology of

292

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

personality. They have in fact been as one-sided in the
emphasis they place upon the feelings and the will
as the Absolutists were held to be in the emphasis
they laid upon the intellect. They even insisted that
our philosophical theories are for the most part a product of
our feeling and volitional nature. They have perhaps come
too near the truth so far as many philosophical theories are
concerned. But one would like to believe that philosophy
should adopt as critical a point of view as possible, a point
of view which like that of science must be predominatingly
intellectual. They have, moreover, set up a formula for
testing truths, forgetting that the standards in relation to
which the 'practical working' of truths is to be judged, are
very complicated and need analysis. In fact, they have for
the most part been content to talk in general terms and, so
far as their positive results are concerned, they are often
quite as vague as the absolutists. Being also strenuously
opposed to materialism they have contented themselves with
propounding an alternative metaphysical theory. Thus, in
order to discredit the one-sided optimism which seemed to be
based upon the monism of the absolutists, they invented a
new government of the world called 'pluralism' to serve as a
metaphysical basis for a very attractive and invigorating
doctrine called 'meliorism.' It is much like dethroning the old
Jewish monotheism in favour of the Greek polytheism in order
that the sterner view of life associated with the former should
give place to the more humanistic attitude which seemed to
be based on the latter— failing to recognize all the while that
the conceptions of the Jewish God and the Greek Gods grew
naturally out of the peculiar sentiments and aspirations of
the peoples concerned rather than vice versa.

The new realists have emphasized the necessity of a closer
co-operation with science in facing the problems of life, and

293

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

they have discarded epistemological idealism for a moral
idealism built up on the stern facts of life. 'Realism is essen-
tially a philosophy which refuses to deceive or console itself
by comfortable illusions. It prefers to keep its eyes open. But
it is neither cynical nor embittered. It distinguishes the good
from the evil, and seeks to promote it, not with a sense of
assured triumph, but with the confidence that springs from
resolution.' " This is very fine so far as an attitude toward
life is concerned, but the new realists, like the personal
idealists and the pragmatists, have been so busy with their
polemics against opposing schools of thought, that they have
not got down to a study of the particular scientific facts which
must be taken into account in the proper understanding of
life Moreover, in their metaphysical affiliations with the
personal idealists and pragmatists, so far as the pluralistic
doctrine is concerned, they suffer from something like the
same lack of scientific detachment as has been noted above.

Is it possible then to avoid such metaphysical speculations
as have usually been associated with philosophical investiga-
tions and subject the sphere of reality under consideration
to anything like a strict scientific treatment? Can we hope
to approach the problems associated with human values in
something like the way in which the physicist or chemist
approaches his peculiar problems? The nearest advance to
such a method is, I believe, to be found in McDougall's Social
Psychology, which would perhaps be better entitled Psychology
of Personality. With this work one naturally associates
Shand's Foundations of Character. In these works an attempt
is made to study human nature from a truly psychological
point of view. Of course McDougall leaves a place for meta-
physics. He speaks with approval of Schopenhauer's 'will'
and Bergson's 'elan vital', as suitable names for the life-giving

"Perry, The Present Conflict of Ideals, pp. 379-380.

294

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

background of living beings, but he introduces this in the
manner of what James calls an 'over-belief, and fortunately
does not allow it to obtrude itself in any way into the general
argument. He is willing to go a long way also with the
behaviourists and admit that physiology can be of great value
in psychological investigation, but just as physiology has
methods of its own, and cannot be reduced to physics and
chemistry, so psychology has methods peculiar to itself and
cannot be reduced to physiology.

I am aware that there are at present many controversies
connected with this movement in psycholog>% which attempts
to arrive at a better understanding of the nature of personality
on the basis of a more adequate analysis of the instincts and
sentiments. But these controversies have to do with matters
of detail rather than with method, and need not detain us
here. The important point is that here we have a method
which, without attempting to imitate slavishly the methods
of the exact scientists, is at least on the way to being as
scientifically exact as the facts under discussion will permit.
It follows, moreover, the lines indicated by such thinkers as
Hume, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, and is more in
accordance with the older traditions of British philosophy.
The failure of these philosophers was due to the backward
state of the psychology of their day, which was too strongly
committed to the hedonistic doctrine and the laws of associ-
ation. But McDougall's theory of the instincts and innate
tendencies is a complete refutation of hedonism from a
psychological point of view. For according to this theory we
find in man a large number of impulses which, in seeking to
realize themselves, give rise to his various desires; and
pleasure, instead of being the one object of desire, is an
afi'ective element incidental to the realization of these desires.
Here we have a pluralism which is truly psychological in

295

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

character and has to do with the laws of human nature
rather than with the government of the universe at large. The
theory of the sentiments has, moreover, effectively refuted
the laws of association as adequate principles of explanation.
For in the development of the sentiments we recognize the
creative activity of mind — an idea which is of considerable
philosophic importance. The harmonious organization of the
sentiments in the light of a dominant sentiment or ideal might
be regarded as the psychological counterpart of metaphysical
monism. But it is a monism which represents a strictly
human point of view and offers a unity of life which is
fraught with infinite possibilities of effort and achievement.
I quite realize that I have not succeeded in giving anything
like an adequate answer to the question with which I started.
I have been content to point out a direction which would
appear to hold out considerable promise so far as the future
development of philosophy is concerned. For just as in the
larger questions with which philosophy has always been
concerned there is much to be gained by a closer co-operation
with science, so in that sphere of human values in which the
philosopher is bound to be more particularly interested, there
is everything to be gained by a better understanding of the
results and methods of psychology. The value of the psycho-
logical point of view has come to be recognized in the study
of morals and religion, and there is a growing tendency to
apply its principles and methods to every field of philosophic
endeavour, as well as to such practical spheres as education,
medicine, law and industry. For, living as we do in a world
beset with so many practical problems to be solved and so
many adjustments to be made, international and domestic,
we have begun to realize that perhaps the reality which most
baffles our understanding is human nature itself. In this
field there is much to be done in the way of a better under-

296

PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

standing of human nature, and a better direction of human
effort; and so we may hope that, just as we have learned to
look to the scientific expert for the proper handling of our
material problems, so we may in the future look more
confidently to the highly trained psychologist and philosopher
for assistance in dealing with the intricate problems which
have to do with human relations and human aspirations.

J. M. MacEachran.

297

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY.^

Spencer in his Data of Ethics treated his subject from
several successive standpoints entitled, The Physical, The
Biological, The Psychological, the Sociological. He also
attempted to co-ordinate all these various stages into what
he termed a Synthetic Philosophy. This would give a fifth
standpoint, the Philosophical. These five terms might be used
to describe several different types of evolutionary theory. Let
us note how these arose, that is, let us trace the evolution of
evolutionary theory.

Physical Evolution. Early Greek speculation was domi-
nated by this standpoint which found its culmination in the
Atomists. Among these Empedocles is noteworthy. He is
quoted in the article 'Evolution' in the Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica by J. Sully and T. H. Huxley.

After a general Cosmology dealing with the formation of
the Cosmos from the four original elements, fire, air, earth,
water, by love and discord (attraction and repulsion) he
proceeds to treat of the first origin of plants and of animals
including man. As the original elements entered into various
combinations there arose curious aggregates, heads without

iDuring the years between 1891 and 1900, in connexion with the
University Extension Course in the University of Toronto, I gave a
series of lectures under the title 'Eras of Doubt and Triumphs of Faith',
in which I traced five great turning points in human civilization, showing
the connexion of these upheavals with speculative thought, viz., The
Sophists and Socrates; Stoicism, Epicureanism and Christianity; Medi-
aevalism and The Renaissance; French Materialism, The French Revolu-
tion and the beginnings of Modern Democracy; Evolution and Develop-
ment. During the Session of 1905-1906, the lecture on Evolution and
Personality was given at Queen's University, Kingston, before the
Philosophical Society, Professor John Watson presiding. I have added
a few footnotes. James Gibson Hume.

298

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

necks, arms without shoulders. These got strangely combined.
Men's heads on oxen's shoulders, heads of oxen on men's
bodies, etc. Most of these combinations could not survive and
so disappeared. Only in the rare cases where the several parts
that contingently came together were adapted to one another
did they survive.

As man, lower animal, and plant, are all composed of the
same elements in different proportions, there is an identity
of nature in them all. They all have sense and understanding.

It is quite easy to trace here the early outlines of our modern
theory of evolution. Already we have the assertion of the
identity of nature in man, lower animal and plant, the parti-
cipation of all in sense and understanding — the survival of
those suitably 'adapted.'

It was the attempt to level down a theory of knowledge to
this account that guided or misguided the Sophists and
awakened the critical or sarcastic comments of the great
Socrates.

What is suggested in Socrates as a substitute for the
Sophistic naturalism is built upon and extended in Plato and
Aristotle. In Aristotle we have a comprehensive 'synthesis'
that might be termed philosophical, and as it was opposed to
the naturalism it might be termed philosophical development
rather than philosophical evolution.

It is obvious that there is a direct antagonism between the
evolution of the naturalistic and sophistical writers and the
development in Aristotle's idealistic constructions, and this
antagonism between these two types can be traced through
all succeeding speculation and it persists to-day. Unfortun-
ately many people uncritically confuse evolution and
development or imagine that if development is conceded or

299

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

affirmed 'evolution' is admitted or affirmed. Furthermore as
in Aristotle, so now, the opposition between these is not
equally balanced. For Aristotelian development is wide
enough to include evolution in nature within it as a part of
the whole system, but evolutionary naturalism must exclude
idealistic development or else level it down to naturalism.
Development is tolerant, evolution is intolerant.

After the Atomists the interest shifts from the physical
cosmos to the moral and religious puzzles for which Aristo-
telianism was more suited. And throughout the middle ages
the chief interest is in the moral and religious situation.
Christianity utilizes Greek idealism in combating naturalism
and eventually so divided matters that a moral dualism arose,
nature seeming to fall under the domain of the Prince of
Darkness, as in the legend of Faust.

Perhaps some of the popular prejudice against physical
science, as also some of the enthusiasm for it, may in Christian
countries have some root in the survival of the party spirit
engendered in this old mediaeval dualism.

But with the rise of humanism and the new learning there
is not only a revival of Greek literature but also a return at
least to some extent of the Greek spirit of impartial inquiry
and innocent wonder, and this allowed an opportunity for the
rise of science. Now though Science and 'Naturalism' are not
identical, the student who concentrates on physical science is
more apt to be impressed by the theory of naturalism, and
we soon find a recrudescence of the naturalistic theory side
by side with the early scientific discoveries.

Very notable was the discovery of the circulation of the
blood by the Englishman, William Harvey, in 1628. Although
in 1651 Harvey tried to teach a form of Epigenesis, this was
not welcomed, but what was then called evolution was pre-

300

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

ferred, because as evolution was then defined it was more
simply, more mechanically conceived than Epigenesis. By
this early evolutionary theory growth was merely the
expansion of a miniature plant or animal into its full size.

Life itself was to be mechanically stated, mechanically
explained; that is, we now have a 'physical evolution' theory
in the ascendant among the scientists. Descartes under the
sway of this view eagerly dissects animals and after aji
ingenious mechanical account of the origin or conformation
of the Cosmos from its original matter and motion, auda-
ciously suggests that life in the animal is merely heat and
expansion causing the blood to circulate, and that this heat
arises naturally as in the fermentation of wet hay. Descartes,
however, calls a halt when he comes to what he calls the
'reasonable soul' in man. Here he turns to Dualism to save
the situation, and he believes that the only way to get the soul,
or to secure its immortality after he does get it, is to insist
on an absolute separation between matter and spirit. This is
doubtless the real source of his 'dualism', though he later
claimed to derive it from 'clear and distinct' thought.
Descartes' dualism grew out of a mechanical starting-point
and a mechanistic method — it became a great puzzle.

Thomas Hobbes, however, has an easy way out of the diffi-
culty. The soul is a body that thinks (occasionally) is all he
could see in Descartes' 'Cogito ergo sum.' At bottom, in last
analysis, everything is Motion. Hence when the so-called
object 'worketh on the eyes, ears and other organs of a man's
body and by diversity of working produceth diversity of
appearance', this 'appearance' in consciousness is and must
be motion, for 'motion produceth nothing but motion.' The
original 'inner motion' is sensation, the parent of all the
progeny that later appears. Imagination is 'decayed sense'

301

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

or retarded motion, memory is decayed sense or inner motion
almost stopped. Reason consists in trains of imagination or
combinations of inner motions. Volition is an inner motion
reappearing as an outer motion. Aristotle's celebrated delib-
eration is merely a conflict of inner motions.

But even Hobbes, in the onward march of his consistent
and relentless materialism has intervals of repentance, or
shall we call them deeper insights where he can assert that
truth is not an attribute of things but of speech, and so though
'nature cannot err' man does run into error. Also, though
nature cannot err, yet 'passions unguided are mere madness',
and life under mere nature or natural passions is one in which
the life of man becomes 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short',
and so Hobbes sets out to find 'laws of nature' or of reason,
to take control of 'rights of nature.'

The French Materialists, borrowing what suited them from
Hobbes and from some portions of John Locke where he
speaks of the mind 'for the most part passive', and still more
relying on those parts of Descartes in which animals were
treated as machine-like automata, took the bold step of
declaring that man too was merely a machine-like automaton,
without any so-called 'reasonable soul' being required. This
is most clearly expressed in La Mettrie's 'L'homme Machine.'

The confidence in this plan of explanation became arrogance
in the French Encyclopaedists, who could scarcely believe a
man could be a scientist unless he were also a pronounced
materialist. This probably marks the culmination of con-
fidence in 'physical evolution' as a materialistic theory. For
Bishop Berkeley began to ask a few questions about the
meaning of 'matter.'— What does 'matter' mean? How do
we know it? Do we know it at all? The Materialists found
it exasperatingly difficult to answer these simple and seem-

302

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

ingly quite reasonable questions. Could it be that they, the
leaders of enlightenment, were dealing in mysteries more
occult and inscrutable than those taught by the theologians
and mystics?

Even those who found it most convenient to answer
Berkeley by kicking stones or by grinning felt in their hearts
that Berkeley's destructive criticism of 'matter' could not be
grinned away, let them grin never so wisely. It thus soon
came about that we find a remarkable, a sudden, a startling
right about face on the part of the materialists. They cannot
prove a 'materialistic' substance, but they can sarcastically
refer to the impossibility of knowing an 'immaterialistic
substance.' -

The older, cruder materialistic doctrine, now gives place
to a milder doctrine; it becomes transmuted into a 'Psycho-
logical Naturalism' following the lead of David Hume's
psychological 'gentle force that commonly prevails' elaborated
by Hartley, Priestley, the Mills, Spencer, Bain, into the
Association theory, the bulwark of the new naturalism, or
what we shall call 'Psychological Evolution.' David Hume
with the fear of Berkeley before his eyes is frankly agnostic
about 'substance.' Herbert Spencer's 'unknowable' is already
writ large in David Hume. David Hume proceeds to diminish

^That Berkeley anticipated this counter-attack on 'immaterial sub-
stance' and had an answer is shewn in Dialogue III:

'Hylas: Words are not to be used without a meaninfj, and as there is
no more meaninpr in spiritual substance than in material substance, the
one is to be exploded as well as the other.

Philonous: How often must I repeat that I know or am conscious of
my own being; and that I myself am not my ideas, but somewhat else,
a thinking active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates
about ideas. I know that I, one and the same self, perceive both colours
and sounds: that a colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound a colour;
that I am therefore one individual principle, distinct from colour and
sound, and, for the same reason, from all other sensible things and inert
ideas.' But I am not in like manner con.scious of either the existence or
essence of matter.'

303

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Causation by the method of Procrustes until it fits the dimen-
sions of his 'customary conjunction.' J. S. Mill continues the
amputations, and Logic and Mathematics are also suitably
diminished. It soon becomes admitted by the psychological
naturalistic evolutionists that they by their method are
precluded from knowing reality as substantiality or truth as
causality or mathematical certainty. Now if they would not,
like the dog in the manger, try to prevent other methods being
tried, surely no one could find fault with them for confessing
their own lack of power.

While naturalistic 'psychological Evolutionism' was thus
running into agnosticism and failure, Leibniz was trying to
construct a very ambitious philosophical system, admittedly
borrowing from Aristotle, but believing that he had reconciled
materialism and idealism in his "TMonadology.*

There are many brilliant things in Leibniz, but instead of
really discovering a new constructive method, he merely
hitches up together in a double team empiricism and ration-
alism— and only God is able to drive this team.

It is Kant who sees the situation clearly — David Hume's
Empiricism ending in scepticism— Leibniz's system an external
compromise. Kant gives credit to David Hume for 'waking
him from a dogmatic slumber'. He was, however, not a heavy
sleeper. David Hume points out how impossible it is to derive
Causation by mere deductive analysis, but he tries something
quite as unsatisfactory when he tries to reduce Causation to
'customary Conjunction'. It is both interesting and somewhat
saddening to find how very near indeed the brilliant Scotchman
came to stating the problem of Causation as Kant later stated
it. David Hume in his 'Treatise', Part III, Sec. 3, says 'since
it is not from knowledge or any scientific reasoning that we
derive the opinion of the necessity of a cause to every new

304

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

production, that opinion must necessarily arise from obsen'a-
tion and experience. The next question, then, should naturally
be How experience gives nse to such a princivle.'

This question if followed up might have led to Kant's dis-
coverj' of 'Causality' as a 'condition of the possibility of
experience', but unfortunately David Hume does not follow it
up. The next sentence is a disappointing abandonment of the
problem and the substitution of something quite different and
much simpler, viz., how we as a matter of fact pass from a
particular cause to a particular effect in our ordinary experi-
ence and how we are led to an expectation of something
similar. And putting the cart before the horse he concludes
that because an expectation arises from the rule being found
to obtain, the rule is derived from the expectation.

Kant, however, keeps at the central problem which had
been abandoned by David Hume. He reconsiders Experience
more carefully and critically to try to discover the place,
function and significance of causality ivithiyi experience. Let
me quote from Morris in his Introduction to Kant :

'This is one of the oddities of the history of speculation,
namely, that philosophic materialism with its mechanico-
sensible theory of knowledge (what I have termed
psychological evolution in David Hume and his successors)
being always suicidal, not able to defend itself, turning all
its ontological science into nescience and changing the real
material universe it set out to magnify and defend into a
spectre, has at last to turn for protection or for its
relative justification to another doctrine, apparently the
precise opposite of itself. It is spiritualistic idealism
alone which finding in knowledge something more than
mechanical sense, rescues the material universe for us as
a sense of objective though dependent reality.'

805

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Though Kant believes that he has proved the validity, truth
and reality of 'substance' and 'causality', he also believes that
these are true within experience and are not the whole truth
about experience. Substantiality and Causality are true
within what Kant calls the phenomenal, that is the experienced
world. They have no 'absolute' reality apart from such
world.

We now turn from physical and psychological naturalistic
evolution to the rise of the question of evolution or develop-
ment— one or the other within the realm of sociology and
biology, and here we find the idealistic development theory
first attempted in Sociology, then the evolutionary (natural-
istic) theory being introduced into Biology, and then the
whole situation, viz., whether in a total synthesis or philoso-
phical interpretation we shall follow naturalistic evolution or
idealistic development, being keenly debated.

Leibniz by his theory of higher and lower grades of monads
had a kind of premonition of later evolutionary methodology;
but Kant, as we have seen, distrusted Leibniz's method. While
Kant succeeded in substituting a synthetic constructive theory
of the principles of physical science, he stops short at efficient
Causality. It is only after he has written his Critique of
Practical Reason and returned to the Critique of Judgement,
that the question of design or purpose within nature becomes
an issue.

So though Kuno Fischer finds much 'development' in Kant,
I confess that I do not discover it so widely. Nevertheless,
Kant's treatment of the teleological judgement and definition
of organism is a valuable contribution towards a re-instate-
ment of something like Aristotelianism and does not rely on
Deism and dualism as some of Kant's positions elsewhere do.
And of course one must admit that in spite of the extreme

306

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

individualism in the formulation of Kant's ethics, nevertheless
he adds to his great maxim to 'treat personality in your own
person and in the person of others as an end, never as a
means', the further organic or social command that we should
seek a 'kingdom of ends', and this obviously would involve
persons being means as well as ends in mutually assisting one
another within the 'kingdom'.

But it is not Kant, but his disciple Hegel, who consciously
sets to work to extend the organic or social implications in
morality and in society as moral. Hegel quite consciously and
explicitly carries over the Aristotelian conception of develop-
ment into the domain of sociology. Continuity and progress
is asserted as being found even through the discordant vari-
ations and successive controversies in History of Philosophy,
and in Philosophy of History a great providential purpose is
traced or at least attempted in his well-known summary of
the significance of the various epochs of civilization.

Hegel published his Phenomenologie in 1807 and outlined
this method of treatment. Fifty-one years later appeared
Darwin's Origin of Species. D. G. Ritchie writes an illumina-
tive comparison between Hegel and Darwin and with the
Hegelian contempt for mere chronology entitled it Danvin
and Hegel instead of Hegel and Darwin. Hegel always
asserted that History must be more than description. It must
undertake 'the hard work' of interpretation. Hence whether
his interpretations were valid or otherwise he never tried,
like some naturalistic evolutionists, to palm off a mere
description of an effect as the elucidation or discovery of its
cause.

Herbert Spencer some time later applied the method of
'naturalistic evolution' to the problem of sociology, and had
made considerable headway along this line in this field, when

307

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

everyone was startled by the irruption of this evolutionary
explanation within the field of biology by Darwin and Wallace
in 1858. That is, if we may now be permitted a retrospect,
the method and theory of evolution was not first proposed by
Darwin in biology and then taken up in other realms. On the
contrary both as evolutionary naturalism and idealistic devel-
opment it had been attempted in all the other realms except
biology. Biology, instead of being the first to try this method
of explanation, was in reality the last, and Darwin's work
instead of making a beginning was rather a master-stroke as
a finishing stroke.

Indeed the controversy between naturalistic evolution and
idealistic development had occurred and persistently recurred,
and just when the idealists had congratulated themselves on
their extension of development into philosophy, history and
sociology, the naturalistic evolutionists went them one better
by having a naturalistic evolutionary system simply presented,
ably applied in biology by a master workman, an outstanding
man in science. Darwin himself was an extremely cautious
writer. He had no ambition to write an all-comprehensive
theory of evolution like Herbert Spencer. One thing he knew
and knew thoroughly — biology, and one thing and one only he
attempted, namely, to give an account of biology along these
lines.

Darwin was much like Wellington in the Peninsular war;
he had too his 'Torres Vedras' ; this for Darwin was biology.
It is true he ventured at times a slight distance beyond his
stronghold. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these excursions
was in his attempt to throw light on the social instincts in
men and lower animals. He tries to explain the possibility
of 'remorse' occurring in animals by a hypothetical case of a
bird yielding to the migratory instinct to the neglect of the

308

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

brooding instinct and later when too late recalling her dere-
liction. Here without doubt Darwin was putting forth a
suggestion of how to lift up the lower animal consciousness
so as to give it a rudimentary conscience, and some of his
followers by a similar interpretation of instincts tried to lower
the level of the human conscience to a naturalistic basis.
Darwin himself seemed to be quite aware of the uncertain and
hypothetical character of this whole explanation but his
followers greedily seized on the suggestion. Especially timely
was this suggestion of a social-instinct conscience, for the
empirical writers most inclined to naturalistic explanation had
been compelled to exercise much ingenuity to get over the
great transition from egoism to altruism, but with a semi-
altruistic social instinct to start with, half their troubles
disappeared.

Darwin, then, besides rewriting biology gave a tremendous
impetus to 'naturalistic evolution' in every realm.

Spencer is the man who most widely exploited and applied
the general principle in all directions, and though as attempt-
ing to co-ordinate all sciences into one great synthesis, he may,
according to his own definition of philosophy, be marked as a
philosophical organizer, he was scarcely to be ranked as a
critical philosopher, and it soon appears that a kind of
'psychological evolution' is his fundamental solvent of all
difficulties.

It can scarcely escape a careful reader that of all the grades
and stages and transitions with which he busies himself
Spencer's chief attention is focussed on the problem or diffi-
culty of bridging over the seeming gap or chasm between the
lower animals and the human animal. And the chief effort to
bridge this gap is directed towards the attempt to secure a
continuous unbroken psychological account that would begin

309

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

with lower animals and by slight and imperceptible grada-
tions pass over to and end in human psychological experiences.

Now Spencer's work was made very much easier for him
by the fact that before he began to level up sub-human experi-
ence in lower animals his predecessors from Hobbes through
David Hume had spent a tremendous amount of ingenuity in
levelling the human experience downwards towards the lower
animals.

David Hume had claimed it as a special merit for some of
his psychological principles that they could be equally well
applied to lower animals and to man. Indeed when Darwin
started levelling up the bird consciousness of remorse there
was a danger that the birds would secure consciences after
human beings had lost them.

Without following the details of the well-known controver-
sies that raged so fiercely for a time, let us simply call
attention to the inherent inadequacy and fallacy involved in
'psychological evolution' as a naturalistic doctrine.

In so far as this is restricted to descriptive treatment of
various aspects in human or sub-human experience, it is not
only not reprehensible, but most helpful both for science and
philosophy; but when psychological descriptions of lower
animals are foisted upon human beings as an adequate state-
ment of human experience, that is neither science nor
philosophy. Human experience must be directly examined,
not fitted into moulds borrowed from studying lower animals.
And psychological descriptions of lower animals or higher
animals or men as description is one thing, as a philosophy it
is another. It is, as philosophy, an interpretation or theory
and must there stand the tests applicable to all theories or
interpretations. Descriptions can take limited areas and stop
there, but philosophy must always link up part with part into
a coherent view.

310

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

The usual supposition that prevailed for a while that
because lower animals are less complex and have a simpler
experience, they should be more easily studied and the study
of them should precede human psychology soon had to admit
that however complex and difficult human experience may be
it is more directly accessible to human investigators.

In the field of interpretation or explanation the earlier
evolutionists, including Spencer (though there were keen
controversialists and debaters among them such as Huxley),
were, however, very trustful about the adequacy of several
principles assumed from Darwin, and only after the polemical
dust cloud cleared away were they ready to reconsider their
own principles critically. One fallacy they fell easily into
was to use the term evolution quite ambiguously. The differ-
ence between naturalistic evolution and idealistic development
was a refinement too subtle for most of them. Hence wherever
development was conceded, it was supposed that naturalistic
evolution must be conceded. Professor Watson in his book,
Comte, Mill and Spencer,^ has directed much pertinent criti-
cism against the misuse of the term 'design' by the evolution-
ists. He specially charges them with making ostensibly a
direct attack on all use of the conception of Design. It turned
out that they were really attacking the Deistic external design
such as was advocated in Paley; but later theological writers
(who were theistic, not deistic) had an indwelling design, and
the evolutionists, though they thought they had discarded
design altogether, were soon found themselves advocating an
immanent design.

It by no means follows that the inner design held by theists
is identical with the immanent design taught by the evolu-
tionists, but the evolutionists were fighting a past system when

iThe later edition is entitled An Outline of Philosophy.

311

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

fighting Paley — they were not meeting up-to-date theological
views at all.

When one comes to think of it, it is somewhat amusing when
we remember that the extraneous Deistic view of design that
the evolutionists attacked, and so gleefully discarded, was in
reality objectionable just because it was so naturalistically,
even mechanically conceived. It had been borrowed by Paley
from current science and utilized in his theological construc-
tion. Now the new immanent design to which evolutionists
were committing themselves was measurably nearer to the
philosophical view of design as it had been long before
expounded even in Aristotle. In popular or semi-popular
misconceptions about what 'evolution' is and means, we still
find a continuation of the original confusion. That this con-
fusion needs clearing up is obvious. But we must diagnose
before we can prescribe. Let us try to bring out the confusion
or contradiction that is quite widespread in talking about
'evolution'. Let us like Berkeley, then, ask the question, what
is meant by 'the natural law of evolution'? That phrase will
cover what many people mean by Evolution. Now to get
matters still more clearly focussed let us ask what we mean
by the term 'natural law' and by 'of evolution'.

Natural Lawl We must exclude many meanings often
given to law when we use the term natural. We do not mean
civil law, for instance, nor what was meant during the middle
ages when 'natural law' or 'law of nature' meant a Stoic
principle of reason inherent in nature. We mean a law of
nature as nature is now understood, but how is it now under-
stood? Nature is understood as the objective realm from
which volition or the artificial is excluded. In this field
everything is supposed to occur with a species of necessity
or compulsion and this is usually called Causation. When the

312

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

causes or sum of conditions are given the effect must follow.
Furthermore, it is still usually supposed that in this effect
there is nothing beyond what is included in the sum of condi-
tions; that is, there can be nothing additional in the effect.
That would be quite miraculous and quite unaccountable or
quite impossible.

Of Evolution. But now turn to the usual conception
attached to 'of evolution' and quite a new attitude of mind is
found asserting itself. Now we are asked to think of a process
extending over a longer or a shorter time — if any difficulty
arises in the shorter time, it is usually supposed that this will
all disappear if we lengthen the time. So on the whole it is
safer to speak always of long times rather than short ones if
you are to avoid awkward questions. At the end of this period
of time something is supposed to emerge which instead of
being equated with what we started from at the beginning is
triumphantly declared to be far in advance, far beyond, quite
superior to what was at the start. Sully and Huxley in the
article Evolution to which I have previously referred make
this quite explicit.

Not only is an advance asserted by 'evolution' but this
advance is an improvement, an increased value. 'At the same
time, inasmuch as conscious and more particularly human life
is looked on by the evolutionist as the highest phase of all
development, and, since man's development is said to be an
increase in well-being and happiness, we do not greatly err
when we speak of evolution as a transition from the lower to
the higher, from the worse to the better.'

'Evolution is thus almost synonymous with progress,
though the latter term is usually confined to processes of
development in the moral as distinguished from the physical
world.'

313

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Now if we put together our results we find Natural Law —
of Evolution — breaking into two quite discordant parts. In
so far as we stress 'natural law' we think of physical nature
and assume that the end will be on the same level as the
beginning. But when we say 'of evolution' we slip away from
the 'physical world' and its equivalence in cause and effect
and we run over into the moral world of progress and take
this in, and here we assert a 'progress' or advance. But
carrying over our view of necessity from the physical into the
moral we have a necessary progress.

Altogether it is a great situation and most interesting. I am
reminded of what used to be an old debating subject among
the Canadian Scottish pioneers: 'What would happen if an
irresistible force met an immovable object?' In 'natural law'
we have the immovable object, it cannot be budged beyond
what was originally given in its sum of conditions, but in the
'of evolution' we have the irresistible force that must prevail
in spite of all obstructions and gives us 'progress'.

Now most evolutionists alternate back and forward between
the 'immovable object' and 'the irresistible force' in their
views about naturalistic evolution. By the way, if the Natur-
alism is stressed can evolution ever escape the 'immovable
object' standpoint? For instance, try to conceive a fatalisti-
cally naturalistically compelled progress without volition or
choice, and yet evolutionary writers toy with this folly
whenever they try to write out a deterministic evolutionary
ethics.

It is true that Sully and Huxley, wandering over the whole
field in their article, recognize as one kind of 'evolution' the
development theories. But though certain limitations and
difficulties are admitted as still confronting evolution, no hint

314

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

is given towards coming to tenns with these two funda-
mentally opposed philosophical interpretations.-'

Kant, however, has given some glimpses at this 'antinomy' —
and though Kant's solution is not thorough-going, he provides
for an irresistible force in his theory of duty and freedom —
and it would seem that when the 'irresistible force' of duty
meets the 'immovable object' of impulse, desire or nature in
any of its forms, it was the object that was alleged to be
immovable that had to move — or in other words, nature and
natural law is a hypothetical imperative and as such sub-
ordinated to or instrumental to the 'categorical imperative' of
the subject or spirit as moral.

Instead of frankly facing the dilemma in their contradictory
conceptions of a 'natural law of evolution' later 'naturalistic
evolutionists' dodge the issue by deriding philosophy. They
are scientists and so can slip in whatever aspect suits each
case they are dealing with. But this is the ostrich plan of
hiding the head in the sand.

Let me now briefly sum up wherein naturalistic evolution as
a philosophical explanation or complete world-view has failed
all along the line.

1. Physical Evolution as Naturalism Fails. Because
instead of maintaining the reality of its basis, the physical
universe, it found itself in its account of knowledge on its

•■'Sully and Huxley under Metaphysical Systems note Dualism and
Materialism and Pantheism, then Spiniozistic parallelism and a 'double
aspect' curve, materialistic on one side, pantheistic on the other. But
they never come in sipht of constructive idealistic development, possibly
because in terminology they use evolution and development as synony-
mous; and when in theory they pret a prlimpse of idealistic development,
they rep:ard it as a subordinate aspect of naturalistic evolution. As a
matter of fact naturalistic evolution as a lesser aspect mifjht f^et included
within the greater constructive idealistic development, but we cannot
include a greater under a lesser. In short, they pluck the feathers off
the peacock and think they have chan^red it into a jackdaw, then they
stick the feathers on a jackdaw and think they have changed it into
a peacock.

315

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

own psychology compelled to abandon the validity of both
substantiality and causality and had to fall back on the weak
substitution of 'the unknowable' for substance and the
'customary conjunction' for Causation.

Idealistic development in Kant has to rescue the validity of
substantiality and of causality and thus save the 'naturalistic'
evolutionists from committing suicide.

2. Biological Evolution as Naturalism Fails. It runs
into contradiction and failure in its treatment of design. It
attacks design, but this turns out to be an attack by biology
on physics. It turns out that after it gets rid of physical
mechanical dualistic design it slips in without any
acknowledgement, an implicit, immanent design.

It is constructive idealistic development which faces this
issue and agreeing with the naturalistic biological evolutionists
that mechanical, physical design is inadequate also shows that
merely biological explanations of design also fall short of the
whole sweep of immanent design as it is found not merely
in biology but also in psychology and sociology.

3. Psychological Evolution as Naturalism Fails. It lends
itself to explaining away logic and mathematics without
which science ceases to be science. If everything is reduced
to the level of merely contingent sequences we have neither
science nor coherent experience. The mechanical bias, or
atomistic tendency misled the psychological evolutionist into
reducing experience into atomistic experiences.

It is constructive development which shows us that experi-
ence is not a mere aggregation of experiences, and endeavours
to trace the principles inherent in and valid for experience;
thus restoring psychology to its honourable place as a contrib-
ution to the upbuilding of both science and philosophy instead

316

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

of becoming a mere negative dissolvent as it became in the
hands of the naturalistic psychological evolutionists.

4. Sociological Evolution as Naturalism Fails.

For in so far as the naturalism prevails we run back to the
immovable and static and so must deny human freedom and
personal initiative. But there can be no human society with
a significant ethics in civil laws, or political organization,
where all is mechanically accounted for.

It is constructive idealistic development which gives us a
coherent statement of the principles involved in significant
ethics, political progress and the realization of purposes, the
significant 'designs' in human society.

Summing up. Naturalistic theory as philosophy appearing
in various shapes as 'physical evolution, biological evolution,
psychological evolution, and sociological evolution, in every
case runs into bankruptcy and failure, and in each case the
rescue is made by constructive idealistic development.

Let us now turn to our second problem : the bearing of these
two types of explanation or theory, naturalistic evolution, or
idealistic development on the problem of personality.

II.

Personality.
According to the view of naturalistic evolution we can very
simply solve this problem. The answer is easy — there is no
such thing as personality. If we accept naturalistic evolution
we must simply drive out personality as St. Patrick drove the
snakes out of Ireland. But is there not another alternative?
A Frenchman who heard the story about St. Patrick is said
to have exclaimed: 'Vy did he not leave the poor snakes alone
and drive out the Irish instead?' So we may hesitate whether
to drive out personality by naturalistic evolution or drive out

317

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

naturalistic evolution by personality. Naturalistic evolution
may have to mitigate its intolerance. When we recall how
one principle after another had to be 'driven out' to satisfy
'naturalistic evolution', it will not seem strange to us that
personality too must go if we hold to naturalistic evolution,
and just as we had to turn to constructive idealistic develop-
ment to rescue and restore other principles and actualities,
so it is not unlikely that here too we may have to turn to
constructive idealistic development if we are to maintain
anything of the nature of personality. If we look back over
the long history of philosophical polemics we shall always
find that only in the case of constructive idealistic development
have we any really serious attempt to strive towards, stumble
towards, search for personality.

But here we need to pause to distinguish very carefully
between two tendencies both often called 'Idealistic' but totally
unlike. We need to distinguish carefully between constructive
organizing development idealism, and deductive analytic
rationalistic idealism.

The latter is probably at bottom quite as intolerant of
personality as naturalistic evolution ever was, and so we must
follow the pathway of constructive idealistic development
assailed on one side by naturalistic evolution and on the other
by rationalistic formalistic idealism. Let us note and contrast
these in earlier speculation. In Greek speculation, Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle were 'constructive idealists', asserting
development and referring to a person who possessed regul-
ative reason and deliberative will.

But in the Stoics we have a type of analytic formal rational-
ism in w^hich personality is forced violently into ready-made
moulds. The Stoics speak mainly about laws of nature or
laws of reason, but the levelling process is everywhere in
evidence.

318

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

The Stoics kept speaking about 'law', 'law' — sometimes this
'law of nature' or 'law of reason' means merely physical
mechanical law, sometimes it means mathematical law
involved in physical happenings, sometimes it means logical
law involved in our experience of physical happenings in
their mathematical relations and sometimes it means moral-
social law or the order that should ideally obtain in our human
experiences, however they may be related to physical nature
with its mathematical aspects. Nevertheless, there is a steady
drift of the 'should be' of the moral into the 'must be' of the
logical-mathematical physical. Ultimately the necessity
becomes explicit fatalism, and though the Stoic began bravely,
even heroically, with the assertion of a proud even defiant
will, gradually this will is hemmed in, circumscribed more and
more, till at length it remains if at all only as mere
resignation.

Now what happened long ago with Stoicism becomes re-
peated over and over again with later rationalistic pantheistic
systems. If personality ever seems to get a footing it always
ends in mere resignation. The fact is that both Naturalism
and Pantheism start at the wrong end. They have no use for
Kant's 'Copemican revolution'.

Naturalism: Nature, or the world as a whole is impersonal.
Man is a part of nature, therefore he is impersonal. Q.E.D.

He thinks he is personal — then let him read our demonstra-
tion and he will see he is mistaken, that is all.

Or Pantheism: The Universe as a whole is impersonal, man
is a part of this Universe, therefore he is impersonal — Q.E.D.
Man imagines he is personal, well let him read our demon-
stration and correct his foolish imaginings, that is all.

Now at the outset, constructive idealistic development
repudiates the method employed by both Naturalism and

319

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

rationalistic Pantheism. They start wrong, they reason
wrong, they end wrong. But again and again, constructive
idealistic development is misconstrued and it is supposed to
be refuted by arguments that are really directed against
analytical rationalism.

David Hume for instance thought he was once for all
settling those who believed in a self, by claiming that he could
never catch a particular state self, nor a substance self. Well,
what of it? The particular state self is the empirical natural-
istic misconception ; the abstract substance 'I know not what'
is the rationalistic misconception about the self. Locke who
did believe in a 'something we know not what' immaterial
substance, self, nevertheless in his chapter on personal identity
did really come in sight of a truer view of a persisting prin-
ciple through varying experiences, co-ordinating them into a
coherent experience. And Berkeley replying to the claim that
both material substance and immaterial substance were
exploded, clearly stated the self as the 'one individual
principle' who perceived both colour and sound and yet was
not identical with either colour or sound.

Kant does not hesitate to accept David Hume's criticism of
an 'immaterial substance' self, 'something we know not what'.
But Kant gives suggestions towards a constructive idealistic
view of a self, especially in his development and proof of the
synthetical functioning underlying or involved in all experi-
ence ; in his insight that synthetical unity underlies and renders
possible the shallower 'analytical identity' and Kant discovers
the self not merely in knowledge but in conduct, where he
sees that duty is an undeniable experience wherein 'I ought'
involves *I can.'

Hegel though at times swinging towards a pantheistic
rationalism, on the whole is a keen critic of this fallacious

a20

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

procedure. He insists that 'subject' is a more ultimate prin-
ciple than 'substance' as usually understood, and that the
formalistic method of the 'mere understanding' is the parent
of countless errors and misconceptions in philosophy. Fortu-
nately for us who have the great heritage of British
speculation, the personal is seldom long forgotten. The
Oxford scholars who have so treasured Greek literature with
its fine suggestiveness, easily grasped and extended hints
taken from Kant and Hegel towards modernizing and extend-
ing the tendencies already dimly foreshadowed in Aristotle,
and these so-called Neo-Hegelians, or Neo-Aristotelians,
T. H. Green, the Cairds, Ritchie, Watson, along with the later
constructive Scottish school thinkers, have gone a long way
to develop the principles of constructive idealistic development
and have all perceived how central, how fundamental person-
ality must be in a constructive idealistic development theory.
Now if we may be permitted to indicate directions in which
we may further extend their work and insight bearing on
personality, we should be inclined to make the following
suggestions :

First: We need to scrutinize very carefully our psychological
foundations. Many early attempts to grapple with the
problem of personality were baffled or nullified because they
ran against a prevailing psychology which was really incorrect
but which claimed a scientific ultimateness to which philo-
sophy must submit. There are two erroneous tendencies that
easily creep into and pervert scientific psychology'. Though
claiming to describe and state facts of experience as they find
them, one set of psychologists can never find anything but
what they have pre-determined to find, and they pre-dotermine
to find experience all broken up into the ultimate atomic
elements, a psychological atomism, that easily lends itself to
materialistic philosophical manipulation, ending with utter

321

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

loss of vital principles and of course inevitably losing
'personality' in any attempted reconstructions. The earlier
'rationalistic' bias carried over into psychology led to a discov-
ery of 'faculties' separate, distinct and independent. Later
psychologists have pretty well riddled these separate distinct
and independent faculties, but they have run over to the other
abstraction of separate distinct and independent ultimate
elements of a simple kind like the ancient atomists, and they
scarcely realize that this is a variation merely of the old
mistake. What is greatly needed at the present moment is
not less but more psychology, psychology which while claiming
not to philosophize will not slip in false philosophy, but truly
describe the actual living, actively working, concrete conscious-
ness. The believers in constructive idealistic development are
quite willing to base their philosophical interpretations on a
valid impartial and complete psychological foundation, but as
philosophers they prefer to do their own theorizing, make
their own constructions, formulate their own interpretations.
Let me very briefly note how personality will appear within
any serious attempt to interpret human experience fairly and
without explaining it away in favour of some preconceived
misconceptions or assumptions.

1. Consciousness. To begin with, as Descartes long ago
suggested, instead of our deriving or deducing consciousness
from something else which is supposed to be more real or
better known, we should really discover that consciousness
itself is what is most directly, most certainly known, and until
we have some test of what constitutes reality, we must assume
consciousness to have some kind of reality, and in any case
we will need consciousness both to discover and to prove
reality wherever or however we claim to reach such reality.
Kant's 'Copernican revolution' consists in his clear statement
of the necessity for beginning with actual concrete human

322

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

experience as the basis and starting-point of all our investig-
ations, reflections, and conclusions. If it turns out upon
critical re-consideration that objects and subjects are indis-
pensably involved in this actual concrete human experience,
that will constitute the proper proof of the validity and reality
of such objects and subjects.

2. Self -Consciousness. A predominant amount of investig-
ation has centred on these objects involved in human
experience, but we desire now to concentrate on the subjects
also as certainly and indispensably involved and to try to
state just what subject means; and reflectively reconsidering
the actual experience, our human consciousness, we discover
that the human conscious subject may become self-conscious:
that is to say, it is characteristic of human consciousness that
it may rise to an explicit awareness of the content of its own
conscious life — the knowing subject may dispassionately, even
critically, view or review the known content within its con-
sciousness, what Kant calls the 'Empirical Ego'. In this
dispassionate critical evaluating survey the human subject
rises to the possibility of morality for there begins the power
of discriminating between temptation and sin, and from this
distinction we may rise to the emphasis or preference whereby
one is endorsed and retained, the other condemned, opposed
and eliminated.

3. Self -regulative Consciousness. At such stage and exer-
cising this function consciousness becomes self-regulative of
the content of its accepted life-filling — by approval holding
fast to what it regards as good and lovely, by disapproval
reacting against or trying to shun or escape what it views
or regards as unworthy or undesirable. And this approving
and disapproving is no external re-arrangcment of a foreign
field extraneous to the self, it rather constitutes a building up

323

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

or destroying of the conscious life itself. This activity
modifies the actor.

4. Sclf-ynodifying Corwciousness. By its selective emphasis
the character of the approving, disapproving self becomes
modified. It advances or recedes, it is improved or is degraded.
If the choice is of the unsuitable or unworthy, the self suffers
loss and self-destruction or self-degradation; but if on the
contrary the selective approval is in accordance with what is
fitted for the subject, is what we term wise or well-considered,
or right or good, we find the self issues after its choice in a
self-developed increase.

5. Self -developing Coyiscioiisness. The normal or hopeful
or proper tendency should be, we assume, self-development, so
much so that many writers find it almost impossible to
state coherently how it is possible for a self to commit suicide,
except perchance by inadvertence and misconception, and
hence self-development is more easy to formulate than self-
degradation, nevertheless there is one kind of choice that
seems to enter not abnormally or viciously or pathologically
but normally into self-developing consciousness, this is the
paradoxical choice and action termed self-sacrifice, namely,
that to save our life, we must lose it, in some manner.

6. Self-sacrificing Consciousness. Not alone in some of
the great crises of life but in its lesser moments and ordinary
routine, self-sacrifice seems to enter in some way as an integral
factor within the normal moral developing active conscious-
ness. For whenever the consciousness first comes in sight of
a line of action or an ideal of conduct that surpasses what
formerly it had sought, the higher nobler way if approved
or adopted will seem to come into conflict with the plan of
life or content of life with which the self had previously
identified itself. There will seem to arise a conflict between

324

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

the old lesser ideal and the new greater, higher ideal. Thus
every acceptance of a higher level will seem to involve a
struggle or require a sacrifice of the lower in favour of the
higher, a sacrifice or seeming sacrifice. Hence therefore we
meet what seems to me a perverted and false view of this
sacrifice taught by many ascetic writers. Those writers turn
all the attention on the negative aspect in the transition which
they represent as a rejection or casting out of the lower level,
but as a matter of fact in a real advance from a lower to a
higher level what we need to stress is not the giving up of
the lower level, but the taking up of the effort towards the
higher level and with this the inclusion of the good in this
higher level as our good, which if secured and obtained and
incorporated will end in self-fulfilment not self-loss, in any
sacrifice of self in that sense. The self, as it were, dedicates
itself to this new purpose or ideal and if this is really nobler
it must if followed and attained bring real self-fulfilment.

7. Self -dedicating fulfilment of Consciousness. When we
follow up this new line of investigation, it soon turns out that
as a rule such self-dedicating fulfilment is usually when we
turn from a purpose or plan which while bringing some
pleasure or advantage to us does it unduly at the expense of
other selves. So that this level cannot be discussed or under-
stood without implicating a social reference or reference to
other selves— self-deciding fulfilment then means co-operating
with others in a good that they can share with us, this is the
field Kant referred to as a 'kingdom of ends.'

8. Co-operating Consciousness — or selves mtdnally as-
sisting. This is the point where we reach special diHiculties.
At first ethical investigators could only represent the one as
benefiting at the expense of the other, and one set of writers
advocated that others were means to the one self, who should

325

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

seek his own welfare. Others advocated 'benevolence' in
sacrifice as a plain duty. But if our analysis of self-sacrifice
be correct as a positive including a wider content, then we
are not really asked to give up altogether the legitimate
demand of the individual for self-maintenance of welfare, but
we widen the content of welfare to the self.

It must be in this widening social co-operative moral con-
sciousness that we get the key to the religious life with its
marvellous uplift and completion of the moral consciousness.
So it will not surprise us that some writers advocate a giving
up of the human self, to the Divine, but may we not rather
speak of this momentous transition in the moral consciousness
as an including or taking up in our approval and well-being,
the association with and acceptance of the Divine person as
necessary for the realization of our self-hood?

It will be seen that I now have reached a point where the
moral consideration reaches the religious, where human
personality touches on Divine personality. I do not propose
to follow further. But I have gone far enough to indicate
that the religious life so intimately vital in human experience
involves and implies a personal Divine good being, who should
be explicitly accepted in the moral experience of human
persons.

As to the proofs of the existence of such a Divine person-
ality, I can merely add that this to me means more than the
usual proofs of existence given in some discussions. It is God
as person that I am interested in, if there be such a person,
as I believe there is. It is quite true that since Kant refuted
the ancient 'proofs' many have regarded it as vain and foolish
to attempt any proofs of God's existence. But as a matter of
fact what Kant showed was that the usual rationalistic
deductive method and the usual empirical method are alike

326

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

incapable of proving God's existence, but many forget that
Kant has shown ad 'nauseam, that these two methods are
equally incapable of proving anything whatsoever. And if
Kant found other methods, constructive methods, for proving
other things, might not these same constructive methods be
used in dealing with the question of God's existence? As a
matter of fact we may point to some of these attempts.
Royce's book, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, while it
rejects the abstract formal ontological proof, turns attention
to the meaning of truth as truth, as always a truth for an
adequate or trustworthy judge of truth.

T. H. Green in his Prolegomena to Ethics rejects the old
cosmological argument because of its narrow and extraneous
conception of Causality. But basing his views on the Kantian
view of substance and causality in a phenomenal world. Green
argues to the 'eternal consciousness' as the implied basis of
the phenomenal world.*

The defenders then of design or purpose have long ago
abandoned the extraneous design as a proper statement of
nature. Even naturalistic evolution has been compelled
however to slip in an indwelling tendency in nature, and in
spite of the former scorn heaped on the 'anthropomorphism' of
those who assumed that nature had some purpose fulfilled in
mankind. Sully and Huxley admit the following:

'In a sense it may be said that the theory of evolution
helps to restore the ancient sentiment toward nature as
our parent the source of our life. It is well to add, how-
ever, that the theory of evolution, by regarding man as the

♦While Green rejects the extraneous 'dcsiprn' arpfumont, in his
ethical writing?, he tries to justify a belief in an indwellintr purpose,
and points as a 'condition of the possibility' of our moral 'self-roalization'
or moral development, our affinity with, our co-oporation with, our
dependence on, a 'spiritual principle' that possesses in actuality what
is in us as yet possibility or partially developed actualization.

327

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

last and highest product of nature, easily lends support to
the idea that all things exist and have existed for the sake
of our race. This seems, indeed, to be an essential element
in any conception we can form of a rationally evolved
universe.'

This is indeed far from meeting the whole case but it certainly
tends towards the persistent claim of idealistic development
that we cannot level man down to physical nature.

But to discover God as implicated in man as well as physical
nature we must pass from physical descriptive science to the
moral experience of mankind and what is implicated in man's
power of choice and moral aspiration, and moral advancement.

When we take into account not merely our sentient life but
also our intellectual, artistic and social activities, and espec-
ially our moral distinctions and moral actions and moral
ideals, it would seem to be more reasonable to say 'God is our
parent and the source of our life,' than to say with naturalistic
evolution 'nature is our parent and the source of our life.'

Naturalistic evolutionists in recent times have somewhat
abandoned their allegiance to Herbert Spencer's formulations,
which so closely followed Hobbes's 'inner motion' determinism
and David Hume's 'customary conjunction' with some
'unknowable' in the agnostic abyss, and have turned more to
the new explanations set forth in Pragmatism. In so doing
they have made appreciable progress away from materialism
and agnosticism and towards constructive idealism. William
James's many jibes and merry quips at rationalistic formalism
and intellectualism may have some pertinence against formal-
istic pantheistic rationalism, they do not touch constructive
idealistic development. Then when James insists that from
the outset psychological experience has in it unity and
coherence essentially and not accidentally or artificially or by

328

EVOLUTION AND PERSONALITY

some subsequently superimposed logical relatings, this too
rejects the rationalistic theories but is quite in harmony with
Kantianism and modem constructive idealistic development.
Only of course James thinks this unity is an ultimate fact, yet
a fact in some vague way accounted for by the sentient organ-
ism in relation to the world. Here he merely glances at an
explanation that does not explain. Then when James repu-
diates the implicit fatalism in rationalistic theories and
passionately pleads for an indeterministic even arbitrary
volitional action or will in man, he does not oppose constructive
idealism, but he not merely by this rejects rationalism, he also
overturns the whole naturalistic evolutionary psychology and
ethics from Hobbes through Hume and Mill up to Spencer
and Bain. All the naturahstic expositors were detenninists
in their account of volition, and James has gone over to the
ranks of the constructive idealists, who have long before him
developed the significance of volition and moral freedom much
more fully and adequately than James has done.-'

And lastly when James proposes to test the truth of their
theories by their serviceability for life, though this is some-
what vague and looks more like corroboration than proof, yet
it is a test that will never stagger a believer in the appeal to
actual concrete experience. In short all James's emendations
are really abandonments of naturalistic evolution as material-
istic. They are distinct approaches towards a constructive
idealism.

Our claim is that the theistic hypothesis or interpretation,
if we so call it, is a more adequate and satisfactory explanation
of the facts and all the facts of human experience than the

•'•William James revolts aprainst Pantheistic fatalism, and in j)l.ic.; of
its monism puts dualism, pluralism, Deism — he docs not rise to Thoisrn.

BcrpTKon in Crcalivc Evolution seems to be reviving: Srhopt-nhauor's
ingenious attempt to describe a creation without any ('rcator.

329

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

hypothesis or theory of materialism or the hypothesis or
theory of Pantheism.

If we add James's practical test as to how each theory when
applied in practice would work out on *a further life', we may
remind ourselves that Christianity, though often crudely
expressed by pantheistic or mechanically minded expositors,
is quite clearly a theory of life that assumes human responsible
personality and a Divine Person. As to the effects of this
theory on life and conduct we can see that where it has been
accepted and life has been governed by principles in accord-
ance with this theory, civilization has advanced. To me it
seems beyond controversy that personality in man is the only
reasonable inference to draw from human experience and any
theory like materialism or pantheism that ignores this or
explains away the personality in man because it does not
harmonize with their preconceived ideas is guilty of making
assumptions take precedence over facts. If we speak at all
or think at all of human antecedents as 'parentage' we will
need to look for such parentage higher than some impersonal
naturalistic principle or some impersonal pantheistic principle.

Christ's teaching that God is our Father, we are His child-
ren, seems to be the interpretation that would best explain
the stubborn facts.

James Gibson Hume.

330

EMERGENT REALISM.

I feel it an honour to have been asked to contribute to a
volume in celebration of the golden wedding of Professor John
Watson and the Chair of Philosophy in Queen's University,
Kingston. I happen with him to belong to the now rapidly
thinning ranks of the generation that knew in the flesh the
remarkable group of thinkers, who taught in Oxford and
Glasgow in the 'seventies and 'eighties of last century, and
were the founders of the modern Idealist tradition of which,
among active teachers, he is the most distinguished living
representative. It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure
that I hail him across the ocean and congratulate the Univer-
sity on still retaining him on its staff. Others who, though
happily younger than I, belonged to the same generation are
writing in this volume of the rise and progress of the type
of thought for which Idealism stands. I propose in what
follows to tr>' to illustrate its method by applying it in criti-
cism of another, in name at least, antagonistic to it. I propose
to confine myself to two points, on the one of which it seems
to me that Realism has something important to teach latter
day Idealism, on the other of which it likewise seems that
it has something to learn from it.

No writers have contributed more to what Dr. Peter Wust
has called the 'Resurrection of Metaphysics' in our time than
those of the new School of Realists. But Realism, and even
'New Realism' is a wide word. There is the Realism which
has come to be known as 'critical', which, .so far as I under-
stand it, while insisting on the dualism of mind and its object,

331

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

hesitates to commit itself to any theory of their ultimate
nature and relation to each other, and would perhaps have
been better named 'Agnostic.' There is the more thorough-
going sort that, starting from the world of objects
as known to physical science, proposes to dispense with
the subjective factor altogether, and work out a philosophy in
which mind appears as a 'cross-section' of the nervous system.
We might call it 'monistic' Realism, but that some of those,
who accept it as a method, would probably disown any idea
of treating the world, with its endless plurality, as referable
to any simple unifying principle. Lastly (to mention no
other varieties) there is the form which has been recently
developed in England by such writers as Professor Lloyd
Morgan and Professor Alexander, the distinguishing feature
of which is the union of the dualistic method of treatment of
mind and its object with a theory of evolution that recognizes
the emergence of new levels of existence, constituting a
hierarchy in which life and mind take their place as correlated
with a certain degree of complexity in the basal conditions. In
an article like this any review of these various forms is
obviously impossible. I have elsewhere^ attempted an estimate
of the stability of the general attitude of mind known as
Realism. Here I propose to confine myself to the last, which
seems to me to have most to teach Idealism both by its agree-
ments and disagreements. Fortunately it has recently been
developed with great speculative power in Professor Alexan-
der's Gifford Lectures on Space, Time and Deity. Here
Realism has come to its own in an erudite and comprehensive
metaphysic the manifest relation of which to Plato gives it a
peculiar interest for Idealists. It is in view of this relation-
ship that I wish to approach it, not so much in the spirit of

^Life and Philosophy of Edward Caird, chapter on 'Idealism and
Recent Thought.'

332

EMERGENT REALISM

the maxim 'fas est et ab hoste docerV , as of the Proverb
'Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance
of his friend.'

II.

There is no doctrine so distinctive of Realism in all its
forms as that of the independence of reality upon the knowing
mind^ — of object from subject. Yet the doctrine thus gen-
erally stated is full of ambiguity. Naive or non-metaphysical
or again pluralistic Realism may find itself free to assert an
absolute independence. On the other hand to a metaphysical
Realism like Alexander's, founded upon the unity of the
Space-Time substance, all statements of the independence of
any of the elements of reality must be taken as only relative.
Mind, or the fact of being knoun to mind, is to make no
difference to the object know^n or contemplated. On the other
hand, mind is to be an attribute or perfection of the reality
known and we are tempted to ask if a thing's attributes or
perfections make no difference to what it does. But we shall
be told that this is only a verbal point. What is meant by
independence is an epistemological not a metaphysical fact.
What is asserted is the actual objective existence of every-
thing that is 'contemplated' or presented in knowledge,
independently of the act of knowing. Being known is
only one of the relations into which the object enters, some-
thing that happens to it in its life-history, but that makes no
difference to it. Wherever we have an object of knowledge,
something contemplated as contrasted with the process of con-
templating or living through the experience of it, we have
something there, existing in its own right (in the last
resort, it is usually added, something physical, though we
need not trouble about this here) and owing none of its
characters to the knowing subject. Pri-nui facie the doctrine
seems only a formal statement of common sense belief. But

333

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

in the attempt to carry it out consistently it turns out to be
full of paradox. Secondary qualities, images, illusions are
only a few of the difficulties it has to meet. To anyone in
the present generation who cares for philosophy as an experi-
menting with ideas, instead of as the 'finding of bad reasons
for what we believe upon instinct', nothing has been
more exhilarating than the courage and freshness with which
this old problem has been handled by the represen-
tatives of the New Realism in dealing with these difficulties —
by none more acutely than by Professor Alexander.
That some have been led to short-cut the argument by elim-
inating the subjective element altogether and treating the
'knower' as only a cross-section of the physical system seems,
as Alexander has said, quite 'natural.' Perhaps also, as he
says, it is true that no one who has not felt the attraction of
this simplification is competent to have an opinion upon it.
While rejecting it himself on grounds with which Idealists at
least can have no quarrel,^ in his doctrine of the 'compresence'
of knower and known he has asserted as uncompromisingly
as any the fundamental doctrine of the independence of object
and subject in the sense explained.

Heroic as is his attempt to work this thesis out in detail, it
has resulted only in bringing home to the reader the inherent
impossibility of success. In the end we are driven back on
the hypothesis, which Idealists share with critical Realists
as the only one that meets the facts, namely that the form
under which objects are presented to us in knowledge depends
not less on physiological and psychical than on physical
conditions. But this is not the end of the matter and there
remains an element of truth in the realist doctrine of inde-
pendence, which it is of vital importance to assert in view of

20p. cit., vol. II, p. iii, ff.

334

EMERGENT REALISM

the direction that idealist thought in some of its leading
representatives has recently taken.

Idealism is in no danger of reverting to a subjectivism of
the Berkeleyan type. It is no part of it to make capital out
of 'sensations' and 'ideas' as subjective data. In all its
modem forms Idealism takes its start rather from Kant's
doctrine of the synthetic activity involved in all knowledge
and everywhere speaks in the language of Act. But we recall
that historically the dualism by which Kant sought to 'save
appearances' was superseded by Fichte's attempt to sum up
all reality in the act of the Ego. Those who have followed
closely recent developments of idealistic philosophy must
have been struck with the repetition they threaten of this
history. In the name of a purely formal conception of freedom
and in the supposed interest of morality, progress and all the
idols of Liberalism, the new Idealism seems ready to risk all
that was of essential value in the old. With Pragmatism
perhaps we need not concern ourselves. It has had its day —
brilliant but brief. But its place is being taken by a form
of doctrine even more attractive to the modern mind because
more deeply informed with the moralistic and historical
spirit, which is so marked a characteristic of the present time.
The main outlines of the 'New Pragmatism' of Croce • and the
'creative' or 'actual Idealism' of Gentile,' are by this time
familiar to English students of philosophy. This is not the
place for criticism of them. It is sufficient to point out the
ambiguity that, from the point of view of the older Idealism,
must attach to any philosophy, which, in the interest of the
reality of History and Progress conceives of itself as pledged
to the denial of any reality, sivr Natiira sive Drus, that
transcends the time-process. This is not merely in Bradley's

^Philoaophy of the Practical, Enp:- Tr., p. 304.
*DiscorHi di Religione, p. 72.

335

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

phrase to part company with all considerable religions but to
empty history and progress themselves of all significance. If
History does not mean the actualization of something that has
eternal reality beyond change in time, if it does not mean in
Russell's realistic phrase bringing more of God into the world,
it is difficult to see what it means. In contrast to any such
pale water-colour sketch"' of idealistic teaching the uncom-
promising assertion by Realism of the existence of an
infra- and a supra-mental world comes as a breath of life. If
the choice were between an Idealism which finds all reality
summed up in the time process (however spiritually it inter-
prets the act which fills the moment) and a Realism which
conceives of the spiritual act as only a mode of a non-spiritual
reality which manifests itself in it there could be little doubt,
I think, which is the more spacious hypothesis. But this is
not the only choice. The question at issue between the Ideal-
ism of the great tradition and the new Realism is not whether
the world is mind-created in this narrow sense, or revealed to
mind for what it is independently of the mental act. All
sound philosophy must hold by revelation. The real issue
concerns the ultimate nature of the world which is revealed.
Is it possible to interpret it in terms that exclude all reference
to that which we first know in mind — that to the nature of
which, therefore, the life of the mind gives the only authentic
clue? It is the bearing of the philosophy before us on this
question to which I desire now to turn.

III.

There is a familiar form of Realism which as we have seen
has no use for mind. The world we can know is a mechanico-
chemical system of physical reactions for the description of
which all reference to ends or values whether immanent or

5The phrase used in this connexion is Santayana's.
336

EMERGENT REALISM

transcendent is irrelevant. But this is not Alexander's
theoiy. On the contrary, his whole metaphysical phil-
osophy centres in the theory of the nisus which is immanent
in things, and it is on the view we take of what this theory
is and implies that our ultimate estimate of it must depend.

True the nisus comes before us as only a feature of the
Space-Time substance in which Alexander finds the matrix of
all reality, and an idealist might be expected to pre-
face any allusion to this side of the theory with a heated
disclaimer of so abstract and empty a conception. I am sorry
to say the subject leaves me quite cold. The question of the
primordia rerum or ultimate constituents of the physical
world seems to me altogether a matter for physicists. The
controversy between those who hold to an etherial base and
those who hold that a space-time or motional continuum is all
that need be presupposed makes the subject an exciting one to
physicists at the present time. To the lay intelligence an
ether in which we are told there is no motion, but only strains,
and a space-time or a motion which is a motion of nothing, are
both conceptions which are sufficiently paradoxical. If one
may judge from the present trend of thought in relativist
writers like Einstein, it looks as though Alexander's hypothesis
of space-time substance were in the ascendant. If so, it is
another instance of the anticipation of scientific theory by
speculative philosophy, and we may join in congratulating the
author. But this to philosophy is not the interesting part of
the discovery. According to Alexander space-time is not
merely motion. It is motion endowed with a nisus or creative
urge not only towards ever new but towards ever 'higher'
forms of existence material, vital, psychical. It is the
emphasis laid on this feature that distinguishes the th(>or>'
before us from other kinds of Realism and raises doubts about
the form its author has given to it.

337

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

Recent philosophy, both realist and idealist, is strongly
imbued with the idea of a nisus, elan or immanent drive in
things. Considering the part this idea is called upon to play,
it is rather surprising to find how seldom it is subjected to
analysis and criticism. The word clearly means more than
motion, though motion is involved in it. It may be said to
stand to motion as evolution or progress stands to change. As
progress involves the presupposition of some objective to be
realized, something that is to be accomplished through
change, so there is implied in the idea of a nisus the
direction of the 'motion' to something which is more than
motion, something that can best perhaps be described as ideal
as contrasted with the real or actual. The difference is that,
while in 'progress' the emphasis is upon the actual process, in
'nisus' it is upon the inward urge that guarantees the progress.
The whole question turns upon the way in which we are to
conceive of this inward urge. If we keep to experience, we
may say at once that we know nothing of it as a property of
space and time in the abstract. If we extend the idea to them
it is only on the analogy of what we know of it in the concrete
world of mechanical or chemical attraction (as in the formation
of a planetary system or a crystal) , of the tropisms and growth
of plants, the instincts of animals, and the purposes of men. In
all of these we have to conceive of it (if we are to remain
true to the spirit of science) not as a second entity distinct
from the material parts and somehow like the vitalist's
entelechy added to them from without, but simply as an aspect
or attribute of the particular constellation in which it appears.
What prevents the recognition of this in vitalist writers is the
fear of finding themselves committed to a materialistic or
merely mechanical interpretation of the world. As a matter of
fact, the recognition of the principle of nisus as a universal
attribute of things is all that is required as an escape from the

338

EMERGENT REALISM

merely external determination that mechanism is thought to
imply. But this leaves us still with the question of the way in
which we are to conceive of this fundamental feature in the
space-time substance. Idealistic philosophy from the time of
Plato has conceived of it in terms of reason or X070?, inter-
preted as the principle that works towards organization,
whether in knowledge under the form of wisdom^ or in practice
under the form of love. In both it is a creative energy, a
X0709 «77repyLtaTt«o9, as fundamental and essential to

things as the vXt) or medium in which it works. Modem
science and philosophy with the bugbear of 'Design' and theo-
logical apologetics before their eyes fight shy of the idea, but
we have to work in these matters with the empirical facts and
the analogies that lie nearest to our hand, and we are wholly
within our right, as Professor Alexander himself urges in
connexion with causality and other categorical elements. In
seeking for light on the attributes we contemplate in nature in
the experience which we enjoy. It is on this principle that
Hegel uses such terms as thought and idea to express the
teleological principle in things, and that writers like Caird
and Bosanquet insist on the idea of an indwelling logic in
human life. This manner of speech may be a little lower than
that of the angels, but until we become as they, knowing things
(it may be) from the inside, instead of, as we know them,
only from the outside (to this extent at least behaviourists),
we may be content to leave it there.

If then we return to the Space-Time continuum we seem to
have one of two things : either we must interpret it strictly
in terms of motion or Space-Time substance, in which case
the question of a nisus and of 'emergency* does not arise, or we
endow it with an attribute of anticipation of what is not yet,
but has the capacity of becoming, which transforms it into

"Cp. the hymn to Wisdom in Prov. viii, esp. 22-31.

339

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

something quite other than the Space-Time either of common
sense, of physical science, or of Alexander's philosophy. We
can understand the hesitation of one group of what we might
call the niso-genic writers, to speak with Hegel of the prin-
ciple as Spirit, lest they should be committed to an untenable
form of Theism; of another to speak of it with Green as
'timeless' through fear of the 'block universe' of the absolut-
ists; but what it is difficult to understand is a philosophy
which, admitting the element of nisus, yet stops short of the
principle it implies: namely, that the beginning must be
interpreted by the end, not the end by the beginning,
and that the beginning of things must somehow be not less
than their emergent perfections. What this philosophy
seems anxious to avoid is on the one hand a starting point
other than physical science would admit, and on the other a
closed universe which should exclude the possibility of higher
perfections than we know in the mind of man. We have already
noted the limits of the deference to physical science. With
regard to the other; Idealism, at least, can have no quarrel
with a doctrine which conceives of the universe as the possessor
of unsearchable riches and as having new perfections in store',
which, in comparison with human achievements, we may very
well describe as angelic or divine. Its quarrel is with the
mysticism that refuses to accept the clue that the last perfec-
tion of self-conscious reason puts into our hands for the
interpretation both of what goes before and of what will be
hereafter. While admitting and even insisting on an element
of discontinuity in the different levels of existing matter, life,
etc., it holds that a linear discontinuity such as Alexander
maintains is one thing, a plurality of elements within an all-
embracing whole, as of members in an organism, is something
quite different. The first reduces everything to mystery; the
second holds the torch that lights up the chamber in which we

340

EMERGENT REALISM

find ourselves, to explore the darkness of the passage by which
we have come. Dark though much of this may remain, the
future course lies open in the reason's ideal of a life which is
more fully what our present life partly is. Alexander appar-
ently holds that it is through faithfulness to these ideals' that
we will further the coming of the next perfection ; but by con-
ceiving of these ideals as merely mind-made and as without
immanent relation either to the beginning or end of the
process he surrenders the ground for such a faith and severs
the connexion between morality and religion.^

It is hardly surprising that this whole side of his
philosophy should have been suspected by otherwise
sympathetic writers as alien to realistic methods. Idealism
from the time of Socrates has been ready to acknowledge
that we know not what we shall be, but it has always
added, with Socrates, that we know enough to say that we shall
be more fully what is required of us by our nature as partici-
pants in the ideas of beauty and good. On such a view Deity
is not some unknown, apparently unknowable, perfection
coming somehow so far as we at any rate are concerned
e^codev , but the fullness of that which in our experience we
know fragmentarily and momentarily in every act that truly
embodies these ideals. My argument in this paper has been
that while Idealism can afford to go all lengths with Realism
in asserting the objective reality of what is known, this
is not the end of the matter. Granted that knowledge is

^ 'Deity is on the side of goodness.' 'Goodness or pood will is material
on which deity is built, and deity is in the line of proodness not of evil.'
(vol. II, p. 413).

sSee the interestinji: passapre, vol. li, p. 405, flf., where Dr. Johnson is
quoted: 'A wicked follow is the most pious when he takes to it. Hell
beat you all at piety.' Alexander consistently enoup:h refuses to apply
to relij!:ion in particular the principle which he rejects in f^oneral,
though implied as I have maintained in the nisus — of interpreting' the
bepinninp: by the end, the confused pietism of early relijrion by that which
demands of us 'to do jusMy and love mercy, and .so walk humbly with
God.'

341

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

the revelation of an 'independent reality/ it is the revelation
of a world that only becomes intelligible to us when interpreted
as one in which ideals in themselves timeless or, more gen-
erally, values are realized. If, as I believe, Alexander is right
in maintaining that values imply soul or mind, any view
which involves (as I think with Dean Inge^ that Idealism
does) the ultimate identity of reality and value asserts ipso
rcrbo the dependence of reality in some sense upon mind.
Whether by this route we come back to the older idealistic
doctrine of the essential relativity of subject and object is a
further question which I have not space to enter on here. I
have said, I hope, enough to show that a Realism which accepts
the doctrine of 'emergency' seriously is not so far from an
Idealism that lays (as that which Professor Watson repre-
sents does) an ever-growing stress on 'evolution' as their
names might indicate. Its most outstanding feature is the
summons it contains to go back for our true bearings not to
Kant, but to Plato. If, as I believe, this is the path also of a
sound Idealism, there may be found here a ground for the
friendly meeting of what Bosanquet has called 'extremes in
contemporary philosophy.' ^°

John H. Muirhead.

°*The ultimate identity of existence and value is a venture of faith
to which speculative Idealism is committed.' (Outspoken Essays, p.
271), where he clearly means reality, not existence in time.

^oSee Bosanquet's book with this title.

342

APPENDIX.^

Bibliography of Publications by Professor John Watson
Books and Articles.

1. Education and Life. An address delivered at the opening of the

Thirty-second Session of Queen's University, Kingston. A. M.S.,
Queen's University, Kingston, 1872, pp. 20.

2. The Relation of Philosophy to Science. An Inaugural Lecture deliv-

ered in Convocation Hall, Queen's University, Kingston, Oct. 16,
1872. A.M.S., Queen's University, 1873, pp. 37.

3. Science and Religion, A reply to Professor Tyndall on 'Materialism

and its opponents.' Canadian Monthly, vol. ix, 1876, pp. 384-397.

4. Empiricism and Common Logic. Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

vol. X, 1876, pp. 17-36.

5. Ethical Aspects of Darwinism. Canadian Monthly, vol. xi, 1877,

pp. 638-644.

6. The Relativity of Knowledge. An Examination of the doctrine as

held by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Journal of Speculative Philosophy,
vol. XI, 1877, pp. 113-137.

7. Professor Tyndall's .Materialism. Canadian Monthly, vol. xiii, 1878,

pp. 282-288.

8. The World as Force (with special reference to the philosophy of

Mr. Herbert Spencer). L Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol.

XII, 1878, pp. 113-137.

IL Indestructibility of Matter, ibid., vol. xiii, 1879, pp. 151-179.

9. A Phase of Modern Thought. Rose-Belford's Canadian Monthly,

vol. Ill, 1879, pp. 457-472.

10. Kant and his English Critics. A comparison of critical and empi-

rical philosophy. Macmillan, N.Y., 1881, pp. xii | 402.

11. Schelling's Transcendental Idealism. A critical exposition. S.

Griggs, Chicago, 1882, pp. 251.

12. The Philosophy of Kant, in Extracts. Bailie, Kingston, 1882, pp. 194.

^Compiled by Miss Mary Rayson.

343

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

13. The Philosophy of Kant as contained in extracts from his own

writings. First Edition, Maclchose, Glasgow, 1888. Second

Edition, 1891. Reprinted, 1894, 1897, 1901. 1908. Third Edition,
1919, pp. x-1-356.

14. Mr. Spencer's Derivation of Space. A Discussion. Mind, vol. xv,

1890, pp. 537-544.

15. The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, as contained in extracts from

his own writings. Bailie, Kingston, 1891, pp. 154.

16. The Critical Philosophy and Idealism. Philosophical Review, vol. I,

1892, pp. 9-23.

17. Metaphysic and Psychology. Philosophical Review, vol. il, 1893, pp.

513-528.

18. The .Middle Ages and the Reformation. Queen's Quarterly, vol. I,
1893, pp. 4-11.

19. The Problem of Hegel. Philosophical Review, vol. in, 1894, pp.

546-567.

20. Dante and Mediaeval Thought. (The Chancellor's Lectures in

Queen's University).

I. The Theology of Dante. Queen's Quarterly, vol. I, 1894, pp.
253-266.

II. id. ibid., vol. il, 1895, pp. 25-38.

III. The Politics of Dante, ibid., vol. ll, 1895, pp. 110-122.

IV. The Form and Content of the Divina Commedia. ibid., vol. ll,
1895, pp. 235-248.

V. Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, ibid., vol. ii, 1895, pp. 269-287.

21. Browning's Interpretation of the Alcestis. Queen's Quarterly,

vol. Ill, 1895, pp. 41-49, and 93-106.

22. The Absolute and the Time-Process. Philosophical Review, vol. iv,

1895, pp. 353-372, and 486-505.

23. Comte, Mill, and Spencer. An Outline of Philosophy, Maclehose,

Glasgow, and Macmillan, N.Y., 1895, pp. xx+302.

24. Hedonistic Theories from Aristippus to Spencer. Maclehose, Glas-

gow, and .Macmillan, N.Y., 1895, pp. xiii+248.

25. Leibnitz and Protestant Theology. New World, vol. v, 1896, pp.

102-122.

344

APPENDIX

26. Christianity and Idealism. The Christian Ideal of Life in its rela-

tions to the Greek and Jewish Ideals, and to Modern Philosophy.

Macmillan, N.Y., Electrotyped, 1896.

2nd Edition, with additions, 1897, pp. xxxviii-j-292.

27. Balfour's Foundations of Belief. Queen's Quarterly, vol. iv, 1896,

pp. 14-29; and 93-104; 1897, pp. 181-188.

28. Art, Morality and Religion. Queen's Quarterly, vol. v, pp. 287-296.

ibid., vol. VI, 1898, pp. 132-153.

29. An Outline of Philosophy, with Notes Historical and Critical. (1st

Edition under the title: Comte, Mill and Spencer, 1895), 2nd
Edition, Maclehose, Glasgow, 1898, pp. xxii-t-489.

30. Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Queen's Quarterly, vol. vi, 1898,

pp. 35-55.

31. The Cartesian Cogito ergo sum. Kant's Criticism of Rational

Psychology. Kantstudien, vol. ii, 1898, pp. 22-49.

32. The Metaphysics of Aristotle. Philosophical Review, vol. vii, 1898,

pp. 23-42; pp. 113-134; pp. 248-275; pp. 337-354.

33. Philo and the New Testament. Queen's Quarterly, vol. vil, 1899,

pp. 81-100.

34. The New 'Ethical' Philosophy. International Journal of Ethics,

vol. IX, 1899, pp. 413-434.

35. Recent Theology and Philosophy. Queen's Quarterly, vol. vii, 1900,

pp. 228-235.

36. Gno.stic Theology. Queen's Quarterly, vol. Vll, 1900, pp. 259-284.

Ibid., vol. VIII, 1900, pp. 1-15.

37. An Outline of Philosophy. 3rd Edition, Maclehose, Glasgow, and

Macmillan, N.Y., 1901, pp. xxii-f489.

38. The Outlook in Philosophy. Queen's Quarterly, vol. viii, 1901. pp.

241-256.

39. Leslie Stephen's 'The Utilitarians.' Queen's Quarterly, vol. ix,

1901, pp. 57-60.

40. Thomas Aquinas. Queen's Quarterly, vol. ix, 1902, pp. 264-276.

ibid., vol. X, 1902, pp. 58-71.

41. Thirty Years in the History of Queen's University. Quecn'.s Quar-

terly, vol. X, 1902, pp. 188-196.

42. Review of Grant and Hamilton's 'Principal Grant.' Queen's

Quarterly, vol. xii, 1904, pp. 207-212.

345

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO JOHN WATSON

43. Humanism. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xiii, 1905, pp. 106-126,

44. Philosophy and Cosmogonies. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xiv, 1906,

pp. 134-148.

45. The Philosophical Basis of Religion. A series of Lectures. Macle-

hose, Glasgow, 1907, pp. xxvi+485.

46. Plato and Protagoras. Philosophical Review^, vol. xiv, 1907, pp.

469-487.

47. Lessing as Art Critic. Queen's Quarterly, vol. XV, 1907, pp. 54-61.

48. Christianity and History. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xv, 1908, pp.

163-175.

49. Edward Caird as Teacher and Thinker. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xvi,

1908, pp. 303-313.

60. The Philosophy of Kant Explained. Maclehose, Glasgow, 1908, pp.

xi4-515.

51. Mr. Rashdall's Defence of Personal Idealism. Mind, vol. xviii, 1909,

pp. 244-251.

52. Religion in the Early Roman Empire. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xvil,

1910, pp. 333-341.

53. Some Remarks on Radical Empiricism. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xviii,

1910, pp. 111-119.

54. The Interpretation of Religious Experience. The Gifford Lectures,

delivered in the University of Glasgow in the years 1910-12. Part
First, Historical. Part Second, Constructive. Maclehose, Glas-
gow, 1912, pp. xiv+375; pp. x+342.

55. Pragmatism and Idealism. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xxi, 1914, pp.

465-472.

56. German Philosophy and Politics. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xxii, 1915,

pp. 329-344.

57. German Philosophy and the War. Queen's Quarterly, vol. xxiii,

1916, pp. 365-379.

58. A Typical New England Philosopher (George Sylvester Morris).

Queen's Quarterly, vol. xxv, 1918, pp. 282-291.

59. The State in Peace and War. Maclehose, Glasgow, 1919, pp.

xii+296.

346

HtlNKD BY

THE JACKSON PRESS

KINGSTON. ONT.

I HI. LiNIVFRSITV LIBKARV
This book is DUK on the h>st date stamped below

MAR.2 3 1959

MAY '^'^ ISSJ-
to

mZ TiVC WZEXS FROM dAtE OF RECEJPI

JAN 1 9 1983

L-fl
,■•13 (.1203)

UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

Kiilo^^ipiii^^

B21
W33P5

IIP ^m lTHCn^l DC-

AA 000 723 876 9

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Philosophical essays presented to John Watson"

See other formats