EESE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Received .
Accessions No. <J>'**-<J<J 'J Shelf No.
THE
RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY
OR
THE UNIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE:
A COMPARISON
OF THE
CHIEF PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS
OF THE WORLD
MADE WITH A VIEW TO REDUCING THE CATEGORIES OF THOUGHT, OR THE
MOST GENERAL TERMS OF EXISTENCE, TO A SINGLE PRINCIPLE,
THEREBY ESTABLISHING A TRUE CONCEPTION OF GOD.
BY
RAYMOND S. PERRIN
NEW YORK— G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
27 AND 29 WEST 23D STREET
LONDON— WILLIAMS & NORGATE
1885
T4-
COPYRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1885
Press of
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York
PREFACE.
THERE is a popular dictum among priests and philosophers
that God, or the First Cause, is unknowable, and yet all re-.
ligions aim to teach the nature of God, and all philosophies
strive to define the First Cause.
Here is a manifest contradiction ; but the questions in-
volved are of such magnitude and require so much study
that, for the most part, it is allowed to pass unchallenged.
The cultivated mind, whatever its antecedents, holds a
judicial position. That is to say, the educated and thought-
ful members of society are looked to, to pass impartial
judgments upon questions concerning the general welfare.
This impartiality is particularly necessary in philosophy, for
thought is hedged about with prejudices, and almost every
man represents some logical sect or school which he feels it
his duty to support.
The great obstacle which religion and philosophy alike
encounter, in offering an explanation of the universe, is the
difficulty of finding a symbol of divine power or unity. A
symbol to have any real value must represent some fact, it
must be the emblem of some experience. Otherwise it is a
purely negative form of speech, a mere confession of igno-
rance.
The symbol which philosophy proposes for divine unity
has precisely the same meaning as that which religion offers.
They are both emblems of mystery ; they are both confes-
sions of ignorance. In so far, therefore, as these two great
spheres of knowledge, called philosophy and religion, have
attempted an ultimate analysis of existence they have failed;
the labor of both is incomplete.
iii
iv PREFACE.
Philosophy, however, has approached this great problem
from another side : it has endeavored to build up a synthesis
of knowledge ; to discover the harmony or interdependence
of all facts. It has endeavored to reach, by proceeding from
particulars to generals, a universal principle.
The theorists of philosophy, commonly known as meta-
physicians, impatient of this slow method, would satisfy the
natural craving for a true symbol of divine unity by postu-
lating an unknowable principle, an emblem of mystery, as the
ultimate fact. This postulate, however, has been steadily
rejected, and the great quest goes on, insisting upon a true
analysis of being.
In this endeavor of philosophy to arrive at an ultimate
analysis, the great practical difficulty has been to reduce the
categories of thought, or the most general terms of existence,
to a single principle. The speculations of all ages contem-
plate this puzzle of universal terms, and endeavor with un-
tiring purpose to form, from the dissimilar parts, a divine
unity.
It is to the rules and principles of this great calculation
that the present work is devoted. The data employed are
derived from the most respected authorities, the conclusions
reached are confined to the equivalents of these data, and
the argument is developed in easy stages from the beginning
to the end.
To solve the metaphysical problem is to point out the
interdependence of all phases of knowledge by affiliating the
activity of perception with general activity, or by showing
the relation of the different aspects of existence, to existence
in general. This is to accomplish the unification of knowl-
edge, which has been the aim of all philosophies and of all
religions.
By what more direct way could this end be achieved than
by reviewing the story of human speculation from its rela-
tive beginning in ancient Greece to the present day, by
tracing the efforts made in the same direction, although
more indirect, which we find in the religions of the world,
PREFACE. V
and comparing each of these organized attempts at an under-
standing of life with the result of an ultimate analysis?
By this treatment the story of ancient and modern phi-
losophy is given a new interest. Instead of employing the
old historical method, the nearness of the approach of each
school to the solution of the problem of thought is pointed
out ; and the movement of the mind toward this goal is
shown to be the inevitable course of human progress.
The contemporaneous systems of Herbert Spencer and G.
H. Lewes are carefully reviewed and their results affiliated
with the sum of philosophy. So important are the psycho-
logical and sociological questions dealt with in these systems
that nearly one half of the space given to the review of phi-
losophy is allotted to them.
The successful study of the subject of Religion is shown
to be dependent upon a knowledge of the nature of lan-
guage and perception. In order to separate the supersti-
tious from the rational in belief, the history of all the great
religions is examined and the generic relation of Christianity
to the other faiths of the world is pointed out. As a conse-
quence the mind and character of Jesus are subjected to
established rules of historic and moral criticism. The ideals
of humanity for which Jesus so earnestly contended are found
to have been distinct principles in all the ancient civilizations,
and it is urged that we will need, in order to realize these
ideals, a higher intellectual and moral discipline than is taught
by Christianity.
To the study of morality and the establishment of a true
conception of God the best endeavors of the author have
been directed. The enormous advantage which a just knowl-
edge of the meaning of ultimate terms affords becomes
apparent when the question of the relation of personal to
general existence is discussed. The problems of ethics are
completely beyond the mind that harbors the belief in a
divine providence or a design in nature. These enthrone-
ments of personal existence distort all the higher logical
perspectives, and a morality which depends upon such an
understanding of life cannot be a true inspiration.
INTRODUCTION.
IT is well known that religion, as well as philosophy, de-
pends upon language for the expression of its truths. This
seems a simple proposition, but what are its consequences?
If language is the sole medium of development of the higher
thoughts and feelings, in its genesis may we not hope to
discover the deepest truths of life and mind ?
Before the complex symbols which we call words came
into use, and hence before the mind acquired the faculty of
forming thoughts or extended comparisons, activities or
motions were the only medium of expression between sentient
beings. Language is the development of these expressive
actions, and so highly complex has it become, so far removed
from its rude beginnings, that it seems another order of
creation, a system of miraculous origin. But when we
remember that intelligence is a concomitant development
with language, that thought or spirit is but a building up of
words into ideas, and that these words are merely condensed
memories, common experiences which have become current
from tongue to tongue, is it not evident that there is no im-
penetrable mystery in speech, and that its product, mind, is a
synthesis of simple and familiar truths ?
Again, when we retrace sensibility or feeling, from which
language has been gradually evolved, to its beginnings in
organic life, we find no absolute demarcations ; we find that,
all life, whether mental or physical, is interdependent.
Hence the wonders of the intellect or the soul are only
wonders of complexity. The activities so intricately com-
bined in thought and feeling are perfectly familiar to us in
their simpler forms, and in the course of their development
Vlii INTRODUCTION.
they include no facts which are not assimilable with our
experiences. But this announcement of the divine unity of
life, is not a welcome one to the majority of minds ; on the
contrary, it is generally regarded as an attack upon an ancient
privilege of the mind, — the right to declare itself incompre-
hensible.
Thus, in endeavoring to construct a true philosophy, we
encounter at the outset a deep-rooted prejudice against
those simple explanations of life which spring from a com-
prehension of the nature of language. When the play of
thought and feeling which constitutes every thing that is
spiritual in our existence is discovered to be but a refine-
ment of organic activities, the first impulse is to look with
suspicion and dread upon such a levelling of the imagination.
Alarmed for the safety of its venerable myths, religion op-
poses the analysis of mind, and loudly proclaims against a
synthesis of knowledge which will bring all facts, whether
human or superhuman, into the true order of their develop-
ment.
Before the power of such an analysis as this, mysticism
shrinks a frightened spectre from the theatre of mind, drag-
ging in its train all the dissembling images of an undisci-
plined fancy. The hierarchy of heaven and the hosts of
hell, that have so long ruled over us, awake in their precipi-
tous retreat a tempest of emotions which rise to call them
back in the name of all that is holy. The light which drives
these spectres away leaves those who have worshipped them
almost sightless. The God which they could touch and
measure with their limited thoughts and feelings has van-
ished in the pure light of day, and in the cold immensity
they are left alone, and, as they would believe, spiritually
ruined. To such as these the truth seems terrible, that life
is only action, that its possibilities lie in the direction of
moral achievements, that its hopes, so far as they overstep
these limits, are wild and fruitless fancies.
To language, then, which is responsible for the extrava-
gances of human belief, we must look for the solution of the
INTRODUCTION. IX
great enigma. The central truth of language is that it is an
elaboration of the single principle of motion. In this fact
all lines of thought and feeling converge. God is the divine
unity of life, of which principle all individual existences are
but limited expressions. Every event, every happening,
whether human or extra-human, repeats this truth.
Mind, therefore, is the function of conditions which are
far wider and deeper than human life ; its images, so far as
they are not true reflections of this universal order, are de-
ceptive ; its perceptions spring from the concurrence of laws
which are as independent of consciousness as they are capable
of explaining the whole range of mental activity.
Perception accounts for mind, not mind for perception;
because perception is a simpler fact than language, and mind
is the product of language. The activities of nature express
conditions which are merely repeated in the processes of
mind, for the simplest activity declares a truth as profound
as any of the imaginings of the intellect. In this sense, and
only in this sense, nature perceives itself, intelligence is uni-
versal.
But man would appropriate the principle of life and
knowledge to himself. He would affirm that the infinity
and eternity of relations, of which humanity is but the pass-
ing form, are subservient to his existence ; that every thing
happens in reference to himself ; and, as the great currents
of nature toss him about in his struggle at self-maintenance,
he builds a world of phantom beings supposed to be inde-
pendent of natural processes in order to keep his theories in
countenance. As the history of the race progresses, and
the mastery of ignorance increases, this burlesque of nature
moves further and further into the background of thought,
for, as our view of cause and effect is widened, fewer and
fewer inconsistencies appear demanding to be clothed in
these unearthly forms.
The discovery of the nature of language imparts to us the
true knowledge of life. It discloses sensibility and feeling
(which are but forms of motion) as inarticulate perception,
and thought as an organic activity.
X INTRODUCTION.
Language is the first fruit of social life. For ages, ges-
tures or expressive motions were employed to eke out the
indefinite meaning of words, and where the faculty of speech
did not exist or was but slightly developed, gestures have
constituted of themselves a rude language. It is the growth
of definiteness in language which marks the progress of
humanity. In the delicate and intricate articulations of
thought we have the only instrument by which man can
establish extended relationships between himself and the
universe. Thought is not a thing apart from language ; the
spirit of a race breathes in the words and sentences which
have grown up to express the common life, and in the simple
laws which govern this development we find written the
nature of the thinking being. The nature of a being, its
origin and destiny, are revealed in the relations it bears with
surrounding life. To adequately express such relations a
definiteness of speech, hitherto unattained, is the first requi-
site ; for how are we to weigh in the balance of the mind
such fine proportions of thought unless the values of the
terms we employ are first clearly distinguished ?
The mind, then, is an activity which illuminates existence,
exalting the delicacy and range of human relations, and
giving to each individual that spirit of universal sympathy
which we call morality.
Religion and philosophy are ever offering us symbols of
existence, promising clearer views of life. But when we find
that these symbols do not harmonize, we are told that there
is an innate disorder in the uttermost regions of knowledge,
that all analyses lead at last to impenetrable mysteries.
And yet the universal measure of success in thought is the
establishment of order in the place of disorder, of definite
knowledge in the place of mystery. Does it not seem as
though this explanation were but a subterfuge ?
Ever since man has been able to state categorically his
beliefs concerning life and nature, the problem of Motion has
occupied the highest place among his thoughts. The effort
to solve this problem can be traced in an unbroken thread
INTRODUCTION. XI
from the dawn of philosophy to the present day. The cate-
gories of thought in which this problem is stated form the
burden of all metaphysical speculations, and the reduction
of these categories to the simple fact of Motion gives us the
solution of the metaphysical problem.
In the more vague and emotional sphere of religion the
same problem is unconsciously dealt with. The First Cause,
the most general principle, the one God, or the highest
among many gods, is the burden of all theological reasoning.
As the attributes of deity become more refined ; as they
exchange, through the agency of thought, the anthropomor-
phic or personal for the divine or most general, their identity
with the aspects of motion becomes evident ; for the Infinite
and the Absolute mean simply space and time, the objective
and subjective aspects of Motion.
The principle of universal gravitation or the absolute inter-
dependence of all things can be applied to mind and speech.
All words centre about a single word, all activities, inorganic,
organic, and superorganic, are strictly serial and intercon-
nected ; they are indivisible excepting in so far as they yield
to classification. In a word, the activities of the mind, and
of nature, are forms of motion and can be expressed in terms
of its aspects, space, and time. Applying this rule to lan-
guage we find it impossible to frame a sentence without
employing a verb, the symbol of action, and all the parts of
the sentence are but modifications of this action expressed
in terms of place and time.
This generalization, apparently so simple, is of transcen-
dent importance. It is fatal to every superstition and every
form of mystery. It defines the limits of language and
the nature of perception, for it shows that thought is in
reality but action.
To establish so important a conclusion as this, analysis
alone will not suffice. The analysis must be accompanied
with a synthesis which shall join the culture of the past with
that of the present and show that the unification of knowl-
edge is the natural consequence of the intellectual and moral
development of the race.
Xll IN TROD UC TION.
This means that we need a new religion — a religion
which shall appeal to the reason as well as to the emotions ;
which shall establish not a divine mystery, but the divine
unity of life and mind.
In Greece, thought was first emancipated from feeling ; and
true to the myth of the goddess Athenae, reason sprang into
the world a complete being armed cap-a-pie, ready for action.
Before this, thought had been involved with feeling, in religious
sentiment ; it had asserted its supremacy in many individuals
and in many ways, but it had never obtained its freedom and
established itself as an independent power in the world.
This logical sovereignty, which was so firmly established in
ancient Greece, has lasted through many vicissitudes to the
present day. In the meantime society has developed to
such an extent, that its other great forces clamor for an
equal recognition. Feeling becomes louder and louder in
her protestations of equality with the intellect. Her plea
is that morality is not the function of the mind any more
than of the organism, of reason any more than of slowly
acquired habit ; that the will is not a purely logical phe-
nomenon, but that its energies spring from and disappear
in the labyrinths of sentiency; that in a word, there is a
logic of feeling as well as a logic of signs, and the intellect is
the companion of the heart, not its despotic ruler. Thus
the despotism of reason is disputed, and we have the extra-
ordinary spectacle of philosophy — ay, even metaphysics —
disproving the unreasonable pretensions of an alleged " pure
reason " and winning success by the subjugation of these
pretensions.
The Pythagoreans were the first who attempted a complete
classification of the facts of the universe. Their effort,
though feeble, was in the right direction ; for the first prin-
ciple of perception is analysis, or classification ; and knowl-
edge can never be unified until an ultimate or complete
analysis has been performed. Aristotle repeated this effort,
and inscribed his celebrated ten categories of thought.
The history of thought has moved on, through the inter-
INTRODUCTION. xiii
ruptions of the decline of the Greek and Roman states, and
the lethargy of the Dark and the Middle Ages. The light of
Islam threw a pale glare upon the thought of Greece, but it
soon faded out. Then the scholastic age ushered in the
revival of learning, and the arena of intellectual war was re-
opened in Europe. Many and fierce have been its conflicts.
Descartes and Spinoza followed upon the wrangling of the
Schoolmen, and established great systems of original investi-
gation. Bacon anticipated this effort, and opened the career
of logic in England. Then Kant reared his unequalled
monument of Idealism in Germany, his example being
followed by an army of the most thorough and devoted
students the world has produced. It was in Germany that
the exclusive sovereignty of the mind reached its zenith,
when Kant declared that all reality was subjective, that Mind
was the cause of the universe. Against this audacious tenet
Science entered a protest, which soon assumed the propor-
tions of a great impeachment ; and the psychologists of Eng-
land superseded the idealists of Germany in the world of
thought. The study of mind as the function of an organism
was the form which this protest first took. It needed but a
Darwin to show the perspectives of organic life, and a
Spencer to point out that the individual was but a single link
in the continuous chain of life and mind, for this great
movement, supported by the best scholars on the Continent,
to produce a. silent revolution in knowledge.
The world, then, has fully entered upon -a new era of
thought. But whether this thought is to be the sole
enjoyment of a few, or is to become the common prop-
erty of a great civilization, is a question which time must
decide. If it is to become general, the reform of knowl-
edge must penetrate to the very foundations of society ;
which means that the religious and the intellectual faith
of the multitude must be pledged to a single power or
government. To accomplish this, a new civilization must
arise, and whether it can arise out of any thing short of the
ruins of the old, is the question which presses upon our age..
XIV INTRODUCTION.
The civilization to which we belong bears, by common
consent, the name of Christian. It has been brought to us in
developed forms by different nations. Among us it has
grown up into a new nation, different from any thing, in
some respects greater than any thing, that the world has yet
seen. But a rational view of history shows a certain mo-
notony in our experiences which forbodes evil. For if we are
passing through the same forms of development that past
civilizations have experienced, what right have we to expect
a better or a higher fate ? With Roman principles of law
and government, with Grecian love of the intellectual and
the beautiful, with the Scandinavian worship of freedom, and
the Semitic worship of God, we lack but one element of a
great national life, which is morality. If Christianity could
secure for us this greatest boon, we should be safe ; but does
it, can it, fulfil this all-important function ? Morality is not
merely the expression of the sentiments, or beliefs, of an
individual or race ; it is the type of its life. Its advocates
must not, therefore, appeal to faith or to reason alone ; they
must appeal with equal force to both.
Christianity is a religion of faith. It is admitted far and
wide, and among its most devout followers, that it cannot
sustain itself against the keen analysis of science, or the
commanding synthesis of history, but that it depends upon
faith for its life. The question then arises : Is this a safe re-
ligion for our age? Can we afford to bring up children, in a
world teeming with intellectual energies, under any thing
less than the broadest and highest logical discipline ?
In advocating the Religion of Philosophy, there seems
little hope of success. All imaginary advantages are on the
side of the Religions of Faith. These religions do not scruple
to hold out the promise of rich rewards in another world, for
services and belief, — of aeons of blissful existence for the
faithful ; nor do they hesitate to threaten the unbelieving
with punishments too dreadful to be described. The Re-
ligions of Faith monopolize all the popular incentives to
morality. As a consolation for the misery resulting from
INTRODUCTION. XV
the still unmastered passions, they emphasize the temporal
character of human happiness, and contrast it with joys
which they say are eternal. To the weary they promise
rest ; to the bereaved, reunion with the dead ; to the poor,
plenty ; to the sick, health. All these obligations are ac-
cepted upon faith. Their redemption is postponed until the
empire of time and space shall have passed away.
Philosophy takes none of these advantages; it stoops to
no such disingenuous methods. It sounds the alarm of a
fleeting existence, it teaches the dire limitation of personal
life, it identifies time with eternity, and matter with infinite
space. It teaches that as there is no absolute death, there
is no absolute personal life ; that the absolute means time,
or the unchanging, and that individuality is transient and
ever-changing. It teaches that cause and effect are but
different aspects of each event, and that there is no need of
a supernatural power to entail the effects of conduct, for
they are inevitable. It appeals to nothing but the most im-
personal sympathies as the incentive to morality; and yet it
affirms that morality is the only real success of life. Thus
without a single pretext of authority, except the voice of
conscience pleading through the experience of ages the cause
of humanity ; unenforced by mysterious fears, unsustained
by ecstatic hopes, it confronts the gorgeous imagery, the
superb organization, the venerated associations of the Re-
ligions of Faith, and demands that their creeds shall be
brought into harmony with the discoveries of science and
history, that their promises shall be limited to their responsi-
bility and their knowledge, and that their moral teachings
shall be made to appeal to the highest nature of man.
With these reforms, and nothing less, will philosophy be
satisfied. To the realization of this ideal will all its efforts
be bent. And should the materials of our civilization prove
unequal to the tension of these principles, it will become
the mission of Philosophy to deposit among its ruins the
germ of a higher life.
CONTENTS.
PART /.
THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
CHAPTER. . PAGB.
I. THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. . . .3
Thales — Anaximines — Diogenes of Apollonia — Anaximan-
der — Pythagoras.
II. THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD 24
Xenophanes — Parmenides — Zeno of Elea — Heraclitus —
Anaxagoras — Empedocles — Democritus.
III. THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. ... 42
The Sophists— Socrates— Plato.
IV. ARISTOTLE, THE STOICS, THE CYNICS, AND THE
SKEPTICS OF THE NEW ACADEMY. ... 62
Aristotle — Zeno the Stoic — Antisthenes — Diogenes — Epi-
curus— Pyrrho — Arcesilaus — Carniades.
V. THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL, SCHOLASTICISM,
AND THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. ... 85
Philo — Plotinus — Abelard — Bruno — Bacon.
VI. MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 105
Descartes — Spinoza — Hobbes — Locke — Hartley — Leibnitz
— Berkeley — Hume.
VII. GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 144
Kant — Fichte — Schelling — Hegel — Schleiermacher —
Schopenhauer.
VIII. THE ECLECTICISM AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY OF
FRANCE AND THE SCOTCH SCHOOL. . . 180
Gassendi — Malebranche — Condillac — Cabanis — Gall —
Royer-Collard — Cousin — Comte — Reid — Hamilton.
XV111
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
IX.
PART 21.
THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
PAGE,.
211
HERBERT SPENCER
The Relation of Perception to Universal Activity — The
Definitions of Evolution and of Life — The " Unknow-
able."
X. HERBERT SPENCER (continued) 239
An Independent Study of the Relation of Perception to
Organic Life — The Interdependence of Thought, Feel-
ing, and Action.
XI. HERBERT SPENCER (continued') 254
The Analysis of Reason — The Fundamental Intuition —
The Contrasted Theories of Perception.
XII. HERBERT SPENCER (concluded) 278
Sociology an Instrument in Determining Ultimate Beliefs.
XIII. GEORGE HENRY LEWES. ..... 296
Belief in the Unknowable — Its Influence upon the Study
of Psychology.
XIV. GEORGE HENRY LEWES (continued). . . .312
The Principles of Psychology.
XV. GEORGE HENRY LEWES (continued). . . . 326
The Unity of the Whole Organism as a Factor of Mind —
Lewes' Definitions of Experience and Feeling.
XVI. GEORGE HENRY LEWES (concluded). . . .351
The Relation of Universal to Organic Activities — Lewes'
Theory of Perception.
PART III.
THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
XVII. SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY
Resemblance between Primitive and Modern Religious
Beliefs — Superstition the Negative, Morality the Positive
Form of Religion.
367
CONTENTS. XIX
CHAPTER. PAGE.
XVIII. THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. . . 390
In Egypt the Belief in Immortality Reached its Highest
Development — Mysticism and Idealism.
XIX. THE RELIGIONS OF CONFUCIUS, ZOROASTER, AND
BUDDHA. ....... 416
All the Higher Ideals of Christian Morality Firmly Estab-
lished Principles throughout the World Ages before our
Era — The Resemblance between Christian Worship and
the Worship of Earlier Faiths.
XX. THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE, ROME, SCANDINAVIA
AND ISLAM 440
Widely Contrasted Types of Religious Belief Showing
Constant Principles of Development.
XXI. THE HEBREW RELIGION 468
Semitic Monotheism — The Jewish Conception of God.
XXII. THE RELIGION OF CHRIST 489
The Origin of the Faith — The Doctrines of Jesus — A
Glance at the Present State of Christianity in America.
XXIII. THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. . . . .523
An Ultimate Analysis Essential to an Understanding of
Morality — The Scope of Moral Perceptions — The Effect
upon Conduct of the Belief in a Personal God and a
Future Life — Language and Intelligence as Factors in
Morality — The Origin of the Idea of Duty or Obligation
— The Questions of Personal and of National Purity.
XXIV. APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA IN BEHALF
OF THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY. . .551
The Question Considered with Regard to Nations and Men
— The Question Considered with Regard to Children —
Religion is the Highest or Most General Thought and
Feeling ; Morality the Embodiment of Both in Action
— The Home is the Citadel of Individual and of National
Purity.
PART I.
THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
PART I.
THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY.
Thales — Anaximenes — Diogenes of Apollonia — Anaximander — Pythagoras.
s^V
IN searching, for the dawn of philosophy one becomes lost
in the perspectives of the past. The comprehension of any
study depends so largely upon what is brought to it by the
student, upon the suggestions of his own knowledge, that in
reading the myths and theories which have come down to us
from the most ancient thinkers, it is natural to imagine them
pregnant with the deepest meaning. We see in these early
efforts to comprehend man and nature vague expressions of
the very problems which occupy us to-day. Thus, owing
to the plane of experience from which we regard ancient
thought, we are apt to overestimate its significance. For us
the difficulty is, to limit the meaning of the language of the
ancients by the actual knowledge which they possessed.
In this difficulty a knowledge of the nature of language
comes to our assistance. Language itself is but a system
of symbols representing ideas by virtue of an agreement
which is the slow outgrowth of usage. The nicety of the
adjustment of words to ideas is to be estimated by the pre-
cision with which the ideas are called up by the words.
If, for instance, a certain combination of words leaves a
choice or uncertainty as to the idea intended to be conveyed,
the expression is imperfect in proportion to the extent of the
uncertainty. In thinking, we are obliged to employ words,
3
4 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
for thought itself is partly the function of words : language
is a part of the structure of which thought is the activity.
This brings us to the great truth, that there is an inter-
dependence between ideas and words, between thought and
its expression ; that order and success in the one imply sym-
metry and definiteness in the other. It follows, therefore,
that in studying the history of philosophy we can estimate
the quality of the thought of each age by the character as to
directness or definiteness of the terms in which we find it ex-
pressed.
We shall have no need of going beyond the history of
Greece for a beginning of philosophy. The contributions to
thought which come from other and earlier sources are all
represented in the efforts of the early Greek thinkers. The
degree of definiteness depends so largely, after all, upon the
actual experience of the race (its progress as indicated by
the spread of knowledge), that the higher generalizations can
never far supersede that classified particular thought
known as Science. Viewing intellect in its broadest light, as
the logical or moral aspect of life, actions express thought
with even greater precision than words. Valid comparisons
between early races and nations in respect to this quality of
definiteness as displayed in their general conceptions, must
therefore be made to include more factors than those which
are commonly called " intellectual." Such comparisons
must be extended to their whole civilizations, including the
phenomena of their arts and sciences, their religions and
their morals.
As a result of such a comparison, the Greek nation stands
forward clearly as the progenitor of the higher types of
European civilization and thought. In the history of Greek
thought we find all the phases of speculative development
which illustrate the inception and primary growth of the art
of generalization ; and as this is the whole field of philoso-
phy, to extend our examples to those furnished by the Hin-
doos, Egyptians, Chinese, Persians, Hebrews, or any other
nations, would be to needlessly lengthen what is at best a
THE DA WN OF PHILOSOPHY. 5
tedious story. Tedious by reason of its slowness, but it is
deeply interesting when viewed as the explanation of what
we are, and as giving us some idea of what we may become.
Viewing thought as the perfecting process, or the purifica-
tion of individual life, which is the most comprehensive
theory of intellectual progress, the history of speculation
becomes a matter of great practical interest. As we
study the beginnings of human speculation and follow out
its development we cannot but be impressed with the great
logical possibilities which lie before us. Let us begin, there-
fore, this story of human speculation with the far-famed ad-
ventures of the Greek mind.
Thales, who is supposed to have been the first Greek phi-
losopher, was born at Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor.
There are no means of determining the exact date of his
birth, but the first year of the 36th Olympiad (B.C. 636) is
generally accepted as correct. Like most of the prominent
men of Greece, he seems to have taken an active interest in
public affairs. Egypt is credited as the source of his learn-
ing, and, as he is said to have been a proficient in mathema-
tics, there is little doubt that the famous Egyptian geometers
were among his early instructors. The principal feature of
his philosophy was the theory that water was the source of
all things. In thus postulating a substance as a first cause,
the battle of philosophy was begun. To the observing and
thoughtful Greek, six hundred years before Christ, the uni-
verse was a chaos of unexplained and irreconcilable differ-
ences. The now familiar physical forces had not been dis-
joined in thought from the substances which manifested them.
When, indeed, we consider the unquestioning belief in the
absolute and ultimate character of these ideal separations
which we may observe in the writings of Tyndall, Balfour
Stewart, Tait, and other Physicists of our day, even the
ancient Greeks might be regarded as having a logical advan-
tage over modern science ; yet the darkness in which the
poverty of analysis, in the time of Thales, must have en-
shrouded all nature can hardly be overestimated. The pro-
6 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
cedure of the mind is ever constant ; thought establishes its
base-lines and triangulates its more or less accurate advances ;
and these projections reach toward a universal principle, a
single fact by which all other facts may be explained.
Thales naturally sought out a cause, or chief antecedent,
of all that he saw around him, and his induction was more
elaborate than would at first appear. It was during his time
that a spirit of contemplation and investigation first made
its appearance among the Greeks. Hitherto men had con-
tented themselves with accepting what they saw without ex-
planation, remanding all obscure phenomena to the realm of
superstitious adoration. Thales being the first in Greece
who sought to establish a primal cause, is regarded as the
originator of philosophic inquiry. It is not easy to return
from our more advanced point of scientific observation to
that of Thales. Yet there can be little doubt that his choice
of water as the ultimate or formative principle of nature
was based upon extended observation supplemented by
thought. He was impressed with the universal presence of
moisture in animals and plants, in the earth and in the skies.
Seeds were apparently nourished by moisture ; all life
seemed due to the presence of water. His cosmological
theory too was no doubt biased by the ancient superstition
that the earth floated upon water ; for it is natural to sup-
pose, when we consider the matter in connection with more
modern thought, that this early step taken to establish a first
principle was not entirely free from the then ruling influence
of myths. Thales also endeavored to explain that every
thing was evolved from seed-germs ; the whole world, as well
as individual beings.
This, however, leads us to the doctrines of Anaximenes,
who is said to have been born in the same Greek colony as
Thales, in the 63d Olympiad (B.C. 529). His views were
fundamentally the same as those of Thales, though his ex-
planation of the primary essence was different. Anaximenes
could not accept water as the cause of all, for to him air
seemed to be life. He taught that air was the origin of all
THE DA WN OF PHILOSOPHY, J
things ; that it was infinite, and in its pure state invisible.
Only through its qualities — heat, cold, moisture, and motion
— could it be known to us. To its eternal motion he attrib-
uted all change, for he reasoned that motion alone is the
power manifested in all the transformations of nature. He
also believed that the condensation of air had produced,
the earth, which he supposed perfectly flat, and supported
by air. He also thought that the heavenly bodies were flat ;
and he is said to have been the first to discover that the
moon shone by the sun's light. Anaximenes goes a step
further than Thales, for from individual life he endeavored
to deduce universal life. It is true that this effort took the
form of a theory, that the universe was a living organism,
palpitating with the same kind of life observed in terrestrial
organisms. So ancient is this belief, however, that it is hard
to say in what degree Anaximenes surpassed Thales in his
conception of the truth which underlies it.
Another famous theory of the universe was offered in this
epoch, by Diogenes of Apollonia,1 born about the Both
Olympiad (B.C. 460). He argued, with Anaximenes, that air
was the origin of all things, but, giving it a deeper significa-
tion, he compared it to the soul ; though the word soul, for
him, meant life in a general sense, rather than mind distinc-
tively. As the primary substance of Thales was more than
the element itself — was water endowed with vital energy, —
so the air of Diogenes was more than the atmosphere ; it was
air full of vital qualities of warmth and life which ensouled
the universe. Life was to him Intelligence : " For without
reason," he says, " it would be impossible for all to be ar-
ranged so duly and proportionately as that all should main-
tain its fitting measure ; winter and summer, day and night,
the rain, the wind, and fair weather, and whatever object we
consider, will be found to have been ordered in the best and
most beautiful manner possible."
There is something very interesting in these intensely
1 Diogenes of Apollonia is not to be confounded with Diogenes the cynic,
the contemporary of Plato.
8 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
human if crude speculations. The accuracy with which they
have been repeated by the thoughtful of subsequent ages
speaks volumes for the constancy of mental procedures, if
not for the progress of knowledge. It would not be difficult
to find, even in our day, men of high standing in the intel-
lectual world who reason precisely as did Diogenes of Apol-
lonia, with regard to universal intelligence. In other words,
they apply to matter and to general phenomena a word
which expresses conditions of human sentiency that have
been built up into what we term intelligence or mind.
They imagine that the order of nature can only be explained
by the sequences of thought ; whereas all mental activity
is but an expression of this order of nature, a consequence of
conditions that are far wider and deeper than human life. It
would thus be hardly fair, to charge Diogenes, who lived
about twenty-three centuries ago, with anthropomorphism,
for at that time the circumscriptions of human life, now so
familiar, had scarcely been thought of, much less delineated ;
but to interpret, in our times, the order of nature as a man-
ifestation of intelligence, is to lose sight of the limits of
language and the nature of perception.
Diogenes believed that air was intelligence, or order itselL
" That which has knowledge is what men call air ; it is it
that regulates and governs all ; and hence is the use of air
to pervade all, and to dispose all, and to be in all ; for there
is nothing that has not part in it. " l
It is seen from the above that Thales, Anaximenes, and
Diogenes tried to explain the universe from a physical basis,
citing water, air, and air-life as the origin of all things.
There was a man, however, who lived about the same time
as Thales, who seems to have divined the great truth that
the physicial, substantial, or statical aspect of nature is not
an ultimate fact, but rather a phase or aspect only of the
ultimate fact. The learned disquisitions on the nature of
matter, which form so prominent a feature of the philoso-
phic literature of our century, were probably an unknown.
1 See Ritter, vol. I., p. 214.
THE DA WN OF PHILOSOPHY. 9
luxury to the early Greek thinkers ; so that we have no
choice but to admire the independence and astuteness of
Anaximander in taking a position so much in advance of that
occupied by the teachers of modern physics. No one who stu-
dies the science of Physics, as it is taught in the universities
of the world to-day, would suspect that matter was not an
ultimate fact. Those who speak of the absolute weight and
extension of atoms, postulating a material cause of all
phenomena, reason precisely as did Thales, Anaximenes and
Diogenes. To regard matter as an ultimate fact is to re-
verse the order of preception, for matter can never mean
more than an aspect of motion.1
Anaximander is said to have been born in the 42d Olym-
piad (B.C. 610). He excelled in the political and scientific
knowledge of his time. " He was passionately addicted to
mathematics, and framed a series of geometrical problems,"
and is credited with the invention of the sun-dial and the
origination of the system of geographical maps.
Anaximander is stated to have been the first to use
the term principle for the beginning of things. He defined
this word as the infinite. One of his tenets was : " The
Infinite is the origin of all things." In thus seizing upon
a principle, not a substance, as the ultimate generalization,
1 To show how vain it is to consider any special property of matter as ulti-
mate, we quote the pertinent objections which Judge Stallo brings against the
habit of regarding weight or density as absolute.
" The weight of a body is a function, not of its own mass alone, but also of
that of the body or bodies by which it is attracted, and of the distance between
them. A body whose weight, as ascertained by the spring-balance or pendulum,
is a pound on the surface of the earth, would weigh but two ounces on the
moon, less than one-fourth of an ounce on several of the smaller planets, about
six ounces on Mars, two and one-half pounds on Jupiter, and more than twenty-
seven pounds on the sun. And while the fall of bodies, in vacua, near the sur-
face of the earth amounts to about sixteen feet (more or less, according to lati-
tude) during the first second, their corresponding fall near the surface of the
sun is more than four hundred and thirty-five feet.
" The thoughtlessness with which it is assumed by some of the most eminent
physicists that matter is composed of particles which have an absolute primor-
dial weight persisting in all positions and under all circumstances, is one of the
most remarkable facts in the history of science." — " Modern Physics," p. 205,.
10 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Anaximander at once rose above materialism, and perceived
that divine unity which alone can harmonize life and mind.
Speaking of this principle, Ritter says : " The reason
why Anaximander regarded the primary substance as infinite
finds a natural explanation in the infinite variety of the
evolutions of the world, which have their ground in it. He
is represented as arguing that the primary substance
must have been infinite to be all-sufficient for the limit-
less variety of produced things with which we are en-
compassed. Now, although Aristotle expressly charac-
terizes this infinite as a mixture, we must not think of it as a
mere multiplicity of primary material elements ; for to the
mind of Anaximander it was a unity, immortal and imperish-
able, an ever-producing ENERGY. This production of
individual things was derived by Anaximander from an
eternal motion of the infinite; from which it would appear
that he ascribed to it an inherent vital energy, without, how-
ever, employing the terms life and production in any other
acceptation than the only one allowable by the character of
his philosophy, — in the sense, i. e., of motion, by which the
primary elements of the infinite separate themselves one
from another." *
Anaximander acquired a great reputation for learning;
and as the Greeks spoke little but their own language. his
wisdom was, for the most part, the result of a direct study of
nature. " His calculations of the size and distance of
the heavenly bodies were committed to writing in a small
work, which is said to be the earliest of all philosophical
writings."3 His inventions of the sun-dial and of geograph-
ical maps, and his passionate love of mathematics, above
.mentioned, declare him to have been a man of definiteness
and thoroughness in his researches ; and this is the more in-
teresting when we consider that he struck the key-note
of philosophy, that he framed an hypothesis which all subse-
quent research has proved unable to destroy.
1 Ritter, vol. I., p. 269.
2 Lewes : " Biographical History of Philosophy," p. n.
THE DA WN OF PHILOSOPHY. 1 1
The speculations of Anaximander, coming to us from
a period five centuries before the beginning of the Christian
era, before even Greece had reached her political and literary
supremacy, stand out with prominence from their faded his-
torical surroundings. And when we think that the doctrines
of Pythagoras were the natural outgrowth of these specula-
tions, and that even they were said to have their exact coun-
terparts in the philosophy of the " Jews, Indians, Egyptians,
Chaldeans, Phoenicians, nay, even the Thracians," we are
compelled to acknowledge that the much vaunted progress
of philosophy among us is a claim that at least should be
investigated.
Pythagoras, about the time of whose birth there is much
dispute, opinions varying from the 43d to the 64th
Olympiad, was the founder of a very large and important
school of thought.
To him we seem to owe the term philosophy ; for although
the word was not current in his tirr.c, he declared himself to
be a lover of wisdom for its own sake, which is to-day the
accepted definition of philosopher. He regarded contem-
plation as the highest exercise of man, and emphasized the
distinction between seeking wisdom for ulterior purposes and
seeking it for itself. It is to denote this distinction that he
employed the term. philosopher. His aim was to reform life
by cultivating religious sentiment, and by instilling morality
into politics.
The accounts of Pythagoras depict for us that spirit of
exclusiveness which seems to have prevailed among the
leaders of learning, as well as of religion, in the early history
of thought. This tendency accounts for the constitution of
the secret society of the Pythagoreans, into which initiation
could only be obtained after five years of probation, — years
during which many privations and other tests of character
were imposed. Indeed, so severe were these disciplines,
chief among which was the injunction of silence, that many
novices gave up in despair ; these were adjudged unworthy
to enter the " sanctuary of science."
12 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Pythagoras seems to have differed from the savants of his
time in his ideas of the social and intellectual importance of
women,' fifteen of whom were among the members of his
school. Some accounts say that he lectured to and taught
women, and that his wife also was a philosopher.
The motto of the Pythagorean school was, " Not unto all
should all be made known." Concerning its doctrines there
is little unanimity of opinion ; they are said to have been
derived principally from the Eastern nations ; and nothing
indeed could be more natural than such a lineage, as from
these nations came nearly all that was prior to Greek
thought. The religious conceptions of Pythagoras, among
all his teachings, are alone admitted to be of a Greek origin.
Ritter tells us that the Egyptians taught him geometry, the
Phoenicians arithmetic, the Chaldeans astronomy, and the
Magi morality.
The Pythagorean school is represented as being not only a
scientific, but a religious and political society. Many mar-
vellous things are told of its founder; but it is generally
conceded that he attracted many students from distant
countries ; that nothwithstanding the symbolical nature of
his doctrines he advanced scientific knowledge, especially
mathematics ; and that both in politics and in speculation
he exerted a great influence over the age in which he lived.
The attention which this school received from the later
Greeks is instanced in the works of Aristotle, who modelled
his categories of thought, or most general principles, upon
the Pythagorean plan. Thus Aristotle describes its thought :
" In the age of these philosophers [the Eleats and Ato-
mists], and even before them, lived those called Pythagore-
ans, who at first applied themselves to mathematics, a sci-
ence they improved ; and having been trained exclusively in
it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the
principles of all things.
"Since numbers are by nature prior to all things, in num-
bers they thought they perceived greater analogies with that
which exists and that which is produced, than in fire, earth,..
THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. 13
•or water. So that a certain combination of numbers was
Justice ; and a certain other combination of numbers was
Reason and Intelligence ; and a certain other combination
of numbers was Opportunity ; and so for the rest.
" Moreover, they saw in numbers the combinations of har-
mony. Since, therefore, all things seemed formed similarly
to numbers, and numbers being by nature anterior to things,
they concluded that the elements of numbers are the ele-
ments of things ; and that the whole heaven is a harmony
and a number. Having indicated the great analogies be-
tween numbers and the phenomena of heaven and its parts,
and with the phenomena of the whole world, they formed a
system ; and if any gap was apparent in the system, they
used every effort to restore the connection. Thus, since
ten appeared to them a perfect number, potentially con-
taining all numbers, they declared that the moving celes-
tial bodies were ten in number ; but because only nine are
visible they imagined a tenth, the Anticthorne.
" We have treated of all these things more in detail else-
where. But the reason why we recur to them is this — that
we may learn from these philosophers also what they lay
down as their first principles, and by what process they hit
upon the causes aforesaid.
" They maintained that Number was the Beginning (Prin-
ciple) of things, the cause of their material existence, and
of their modifications and different states. The elements
of number are Odd and Even. The Odd is finite ; the
Even, infinite. Unity, the One, partakes of both these,
and is both Odd and Even. All number is derived from
the One. The heavens, as we said before, are composed
of numbers. Other Pythagoreans say there are ten Prin-
cipia, those called co-ordinates :
" The finite and the infinite.
" The odd and the even.
" The one and the many.
"The right and the left.
*' The male and the female.
14 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
" The quiescent and the moving.
" The right line and the curve.
" Light and darkness.
" Good and evil.
" The square and the oblong.
" * * * All the Pythagoreans considered the elements as
material ; for the elements are in all things, and constitute
the world. * * *
" * * * The finite, the infinite, and the One, they main-
tained to be not separate existences, such as are fire, water,,
etc. ; but the abstract Infinite and the abstract One are re-
spectively the substance of the things of which they are
predicated ; and hence, too, Number is the substance of all
things. They began by attending only to the Form, and
began to define it ; but on this subject they were very im-
perfect. They define superficially; and that which suited
their definition they declared to be the essence of the thing
defined ; as if one should maintain that the double and the
number two are the same thing, because the double is first
found in the two. But two and the double are not equal
(in essence) ; or if so, then the one would be many ; a con-
sequence which follows from their (the Pythagorean) doc-
trine."1
It has been the aim of all historians of philosophy to>
classify the systems of belief which have reached us from,
the past, paying due regard to their succession in time, in
certain groups, or types of thought, which are more or less
closely identified with the localities or countries in which
they have appeared. This seems the most natural method
to pursue in writing a description of thought as it has oc-
curred in history. But when the object is, as in the case of
this work, to examine the whole subject of human knowl-
edge, a less elaborate historical method will better serve.
Instead of going through the tedious repetitions of detail in
all the recognized philosophies, and pointing out their inter-
dependencies, classifying them into such schools as the
1 Lewes: " Bio. His. of Phil.," p. 34.
THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. 15
Ionian or physical, the Pythagorean or mathematical, the
Eleatic, and the Megaric, we will content ourselves with a
brief sketch of the most important systems, and a portrayal
of the original features in each. The other method has
been so exhaustively applied by such writers as Ritter, Ten-
nemann, Degerando, Victor Cousin, Hegel, Zeller, and
Uebervveg, and its results, after all, are so purely historical,
so meagre in a logical and developmental sense, that there is
little encouragement for others to follow it.
We will confine ourselves, therefore, to the endeavor to
show, by selections from the accounts of these philosophies,
that there has been one great problem of thought which they
have all attempted to solve, and that the nearness of the
approach of each to the solution of this problem has
little or no connection with their relative positions in
history. The organic history of our race is so incom-
parably great when measured by the few centuries of
progress which make up the sum of recorded history, that
in the strict sense of the word we have no ancient philosophy
to study. The Greek mind suffers nothing by comparison
with the mind of the nineteenth century. With regard to
their natural capacity for dealing with the fundamental
problems of thought, the Greeks were our peers. If intro-
spection, or any purely logical achievement could have sup-
plied this coveted knowledge, we should have inherited it
from them in the same perfection in which their art has
reached us. Neither with the Greeks nor the moderns has
there been any want of intellectual acumen. There is a
deeper cause for our failure, thus far, to grasp this problem
of thought.
What is this cause ? It is to be found in the limitations
which have hitherto restricted our conceptions of knowl-
edge. Human knowledge in the higher sense means human
life, and the problem of thought can only be solved by the
development of knowledge as a whole. From the time of
the ancient Greeks to our day, the nature of man has pro-
gressed but very little. Human character appears rather in
1 6 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
the attitude of about ascending to a higher plane than of oc-
cupying it. And until this ascent has been actually made,
we cannot look upon the struggles of the Greeks to solve
the problems of thought as antique or alien. Their meth-
ods, their aspirations, and their successes, judged by accepted
standards, were in essence like our own ; and with our own
they compare very favorably. In describing, therefore, the
outlines of the thought of Thales and his immediate succes-
sors, and in emphasizing the success of Anaximander in his
effort to reach a solution of the great problem before us,
strange as it may seem, we have already drawn the logical
boundaries of the whole history of philosophy. Notwith-
standing that the achievements of Socrates, Plato, and Aris-
totle have not yet been mentioned, and that the writings of
Descartes, Kant, and their successors, up to the time when
contemporaneous writing begins, are yet to be described ;
the whole logical compass of these illustrious writers has
been anticipated by previous thought, and the farthest reach
of their speculations proves to have been familiar ground
to prehistoric minds. The corroborations of these state-
ments are to be heard on every hand. The futility of
thought, the hopeless search of metaphysics, the limits of
the knowable, — even so recent a movement in philosophy as
agnosticism — the modern term for the belief in an unknow-
able— are but expressions of the common verdict, that these
early Greeks, and their predecessors in the East, went just
as far as we have gone, in an intellectual sense, toward solv-
ing the first problem of life.
When we say that the growth of knowledge as a whole
will alone realize any actual progress in this constant effort
of our race to achieve an ultimate analysis, we merely specify
that science and religion as well as thought are necessary
factors in this growth, and that what is known as specula-
tion and unaided introspection are of themselves utterly im-
potent to accomplish the desired result. After this state-
ment it may seem abrupt to offer the student a key to the
ever-recurring enigmas of philosophical systems, as we find
THE DA WN OF PHILOSOPHY. I/
them recorded in history. But as the charge, that philoso-
phers have reasoned in a circle from the earliest records of
human speculation, is not a new one, to emphasize the po-
sition here advanced we must demonstrate the possibility of
progress.
It is the task of this work to show that knowledge is not
merely thought, but that it includes conduct ; that truth
cannot find a fuller expression in words after all than in ac-
tions, and as a consequence, that we shall have to extend
the sphere of metaphysics to that of morality, identifying
these spheres as but phases of one fact of development in
order to accomplish our demonstration. In offering, there-
fore, at the very outset, a key to the metaphysical problem,
it might appear that I have anticipated our argument, but I
do not go beyond that department of truth which is indi-
cated by the general title of these chapters. As we ap-
proach the climax of Greek Philosophy, in the systems of
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, if we are to show that the
thought of these men has no higher significance than earlier
speculations, it will be necessary to have some common
measure for the significance of words ; — :for all philosophy
aims at an ultimate analysis. This needed criterion, then,
we will proceed to explain.
There is in England a school of geologists who have re-
nounced all forms of generalization. They refuse to build
up any theories of the organic history of our planet, but
devote themselves entirely to the accumulation and classifi-
cation of geological data. This resolution is the outgrowth
of the many disappointments with which the generalizations
or theories of geologists have met. The insuperable difficul-
ties of estimating the comparative remoteness of events,
when the only record of them is to be found in solidified
sand and mud, all the results of physical forces and condi-
tions which repeat themselves over and over again, leaving
no traces of their chronological interdependence, have dis-
couraged these scientists, and they have determined to
-hazard no further opinions until they have accumulated
1 8 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
more facts. This is a silent reproof to the less conscientious
members of their profession who " have imagined that they
could tell us what was going on at all parts of the earth's
surface during a given epoch ; and have talked of this de-
posit being contemporaneous with that deposit, until, from
our little local histories of the changes at limited spots of
the earth's surface, they have constructed a universal history
of the globe as full of wonders and portents as any other
story of antiquity."
The only radical distinction between the development of
ancient and of modern philosophy is that which arises from
the poverty of the ancients in scientific facts. In other
words, the only difference between ancient and modern
knowledge (leaving out for the present the moral aspect) is
the growth of science. This does not deny to philosophy an
exclusive sphere relatively independent both of science and
religion ; on the contrary, it circumscribes that sphere. It
does emphatically deny, however, that there is any other
method of mental apprehension used in any of these three
spheres of human activity than that now universally ac-
knowledged to be the method of science. Mind is a function
of the organism, and has a definite and invariable mode of
procedure. To identify the principle of this procedure with
that of the humbler organic activities is the special task of
the succeeding part of this work ; but it is not too soon to
make the statement that truth is independent of words, that
facts express themselves. If we fail to interpret facts aright,
it is a failure of harmony between our minds and our sur-
roundings, a maladjustment of inner to outer activities.
The classification of facts which constitutes our intelli-
gence and accounts for every aspect of it is a classification
of changes. These changes express relations which have
their terms in other changes, and so on to eternity and in-
finity. If we would express these changes in numbers, we
should merely reduce them to units of time ; if we would
express them in quantities, we should merely reduce them
to units of space ; if we would seize these changing phenom-
•
THE DA WN OF PHILOSOPHY. 19
ena and analyze them in order to determine their weights
and affinities, we should merely express many relations in
terms of simpler relations, — for weight and affinity are re-
lations having for their terms more or less familiar condi-
tions ; if we would comprehend the aggregates of changes
viewed in the heavens and on the earth, we should merely
enlarge the scale of the very method of investigation which
we have applied to lesser groups. If we turn our attention
to our race and generalize the principles of its development,
we use the same method and our effort expresses the same
law ; the analogy never ceases, and it never begins. We
discover our lives to be the function of this infinity and
eternity of conditions.
Philosophy, rebelling against imaginary limits to percep-
tion, would turn its face away and peer into the depths
beyond. Resolutely it has held this attitude for centuries.
Its eye has not dimmed, its hope has not abated, but the
misty distances into which it has been peering have gradually
been peopled with facts ; for science has patiently plodded
on, enlarging the sphere of reality until we find ourselves in
a universe of facts grand enough to satisfy our proudest
hopes. When we look back at this steadfast unsatisfied gaze
of the ancients trying to penetrate phenomena, we regard
them with a certain poignant pity, because their horizon of
reality was so limited. But to-day where is the mind that
has taken full advantage of its opportunities in this newer
world of knowledge? Who can afford to look unintelli-
gently or contemptuously upon our domain of facts ? Who
can complain of the method which has accomplished such rich
results ? Not the philosopher who would truly interpret
nature. There are phases of nature, however, which seem
to evade the scientific method ; they are the phenomena of
humanity. The questions which they raise are those of our
origin and destiny, of our relations to one another and to
the universe.
This is a philosophy which would still bid defiance to the
slow teachings of experience ; it is impatient of the restraints
20 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
and the discipline of universal order; it claims a higher
source of knowledge than that of the classification or com-
parison of facts. This philosophy is called religion ; to its
study we devote the third division of this work. It is to
that philosophy which stands between science and religion,
which occupies the territory of mind or language, that we
would now give our attention.
The word entity is a fiction. There is no such thing as an
unrelated fact, an unconditioned existence. The mind rep-
resents a principle, but it is the principle of all activity.
Both ancient and modern philosophy teem with efforts to
reduce diversity to unity, the many to the one. This one is
not a place or a time, but a principle. The word principle
means first ; the word first means one. Hence to succeed in
this effort, to discover that unity which is the natural goal of
classification, will be to accomplish the object of philosophy
and amalgamate it with the departments of knowledge
hitherto distinguished as science and religion.
For the discovery of this ultimate fact, so long sought,
philosophy wholly depends upon that method of comparing
facts which is pursued in the sciences. From the time of
Thales to that of Kant, philosophy has consisted of nothing
but the grouping of observed facts, and deductions from
them. Words have never been more than an attempt to ex-
press what has already been expressed in these facts. If
mind is a fact, it must be the product of other facts ; if it is
.a phenomenon, it must be the function of its conditions ; if
it is a relation, it must have its terms in the other relations.
To say that it is an entity, is to corrupt our language with hid-
den contradictions, to stultify the mind. As we have seen,
the only ultimate difference between the philosophies of
different ages is to be found in the command of facts enjoyed
by each age. Apart from this, the scope of all philosophies
has been identical. The question of the ultimate analysis was
just as clearly stated in the speculations of Thales, Anaxi-
mander, and Pythagoras, as in Descartes, Spinoza, or Kant.
The latter writers, especially Kant, had a vast accumulation
THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. 21
of empirical data, scientific knowledge, to aid them in their
speculations, but they had not successfully applied them
to the science of mind. The postulate of Descartes (" I
think, therefore I am "), the God of Spinoza, and the
idealism of Kant, were no nearer the ultimate generaliza-
tion than the speculations of the earliest thinkers. They
one and all strove to reduce all imaginable diversities to one
principle. The vastly superior scientific knowledge of the
modern thinkers only seemed to increase the field of their
diversities, it did not bring them to the ultimate simplicity.
This ultimate simplicity has many names ; in seeking for
it, it has been denominated the ultimate unity, truth, fact,
principle, cause, substance, energy, force, existence, or
reality. Thales, in the paucity of his scientific experience,
thought that it was water ; Anaximenes, that it was air ;
Diogenes of Apollonia, that it was living air ; Anaximander
of Miletus, that it was the eternal motion of the infinite ;
Descartes considered it a dual principle of mind and matter;
Spinoza calls it God. Kant attributes this ultimate reality
to mind alone, and Herbert Spencer calls it the " persistence
of force." Where is the progress of the intervening twenty-
five centuries ? Surely it is in scientific knowledge, and not
in pure philosophy.
Will it be too much to ask the reader to believe that this
ultimate reality or principle is plainly and unmistakably
confronting us wherever wre turn, that it alone accounts for
every experience, and that the only reason why it has so
long escaped us is, that it is an inseparable and primordial
quality of our very existence ? It is too near to be seen, too
easy to understand ; and for this reason, and only for this
reason, it is difficult to explain. If singleness of mind is
strength, then indeed it requires the greatest intellectual
power to grasp this fact. It would seem, though, that
the requisite condition of the mind to appreciate this truth
is not that of great tension, or a very high degree of train-
ing, but a self-discipline, a submission to the power of facts,
a renunciation of mental or verbal conceit ; in a word, the
22 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
very thing in an intellectual sense that religion demands of
us in a sentimental sense in order to know God.
To present the argument in a scientific form, the whole
burden is to prove that matter and space are words which
have the same ultimate signification. Matter is clearly a
generalization of the statical side of phenomena. Under
analysis matter disappears in motion. Space is simply our
term for infinity or extension, and therefore the argument
turns upon the point whether the universe is a plenum or
not. In further support of the fact that it is, I refer the
reader to an argument in " Problems of Life and Mind," by
G. H. Lewes, as a powerful corroboration of this view, that
matter and space are terms which are logically indistinguisha-
ble. This argument, entitled " Action at a Distance," is
given entire in Chapter XV., Part II., of the present work.
Some time after I had made an attempt J to explain the
above theory of the identity of matter and space, this essay
gave me unexpected assistance. Although it does not state
in terms that matter and space are the same thing, this is an
irresistible inference from the argument. The question is one
of such transcendent importance in philosophy, and this
argument by Lewes seems to me so conclusive, that I thus
refer to it in advance.
The consequences of this reasoning are momentous. Un-
less this theory stand, the categories of thought, or ultimate
realities, will remain discrete, as we find them in Herbert
Spencer's " Psychology," and in all other modern philoso-
phies, namely, Space, Time, Matter, Force, and Motion.
Some writers add Cause, but it is now generally admitted that
Cause stands for merely one aspect of every phenomenon,
the obverse side of which is Effect, cause being thus a term
denoting a purely logical distinction. Others, again, postu-
late Consciousness as an ultimate reality. Spencer, for
instance, distinctly declares consciousness to be an irreduci-
ble principle, but this error is fully met and set aside by
Lewes.
1 An anonymous brochure published in 1881.
THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. 2$
The interdependence of the five ultimate terms, above-
named, has not as yet been successfully demonstrated ; but
if matter and space are admitted to be the same reality,
under different aspects, the difficulty at once disappears ;
for then motion becomes the ultimate reality and space and
time become its obverse aspects. Space and time have no
separate existence apart from motion ; their identity is
merged in this ultimate fact.
As stated above, the amount of mental reorganization or
reform necessary to grasp this simplest of all facts is such as
to place it practically beyond the reach of minds that have
been trained to cherish the distinctions which this theory
would destroy. We have met many people of scientific and
philosophic training who are logically incapacitated for re-
ceiving this truth ; they would no more believe that matter
and space were the same thing than a devotee would surren-
der his faith. It is, therefore, to the younger class of think-
ers that we must appeal, — thinkers who have not committed
themselves too deeply, who are open to conviction, who are
hospitable to new truths when they are clearly stated and
amply sustained.
If motion is the ultimate reality, and space and time are
its obverse aspects, all ultimate terms must be made to take
their places in this trinity of realities. The word infinite,
for instance, can have no signification beyond that of space;
and the terms extension, coexistence, and unlimited, so often
found in philosophic writings, all stand for the statical aspect
of motion, the most convenient name for which is space.
On the other hand, the word absolute has no signification
beyond that of time, and the terms sequence, invariable flux-
ion, and unconditioned, mean in their deepest sense the same
thing as time. With this understanding of the ultimate sig-
nificance of the chief philosophic terms, it will be compara-
tively easy to continue our review of philosophy, for we
have the key to every metaphysical situation.
CHAPTER II.
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD.
Xenophanes — Parmenides — Zeno of Elea — Heraclitus — Anaxagoras — Empedo-
cles — Democritus.
ACCORDING to the well-known essay of Victor Cousin,
Xenophanes was born in the 4<Dth Olympiad (B.C. 620616}
and must therefore have been the contemporary of Thales.,
Although he is counted among the early philosophers, he
was more a poet than a thinker. He is called the " Rhap-
sodist of Truth." Banished from his native city, probably
on account of his convictions, he wandered over Sicily as a
Rhapsodist 1 during the remainder of his life, which lasted
nearly a hundred years. His chief aim seems to have been
to oppose to the worship of nature and of many gods a pure
monotheism, to spread the doctrine of the unity and eternity
of God, and to dispel the deep superstitions of his age. Al-
though by no means indifferent to the beauty of the Homeric
fables he fiercely opposed the religious falsehood which they
contained. Plato, great as was his appreciation of every thing
good in literature, took the same position, as can be seen by
the latter part of the second and the beginning of the third
books of his Republic. In fact, does it not appear as though
the criticism of Plato might have been suggested by these
verses of Xenophanes ?
" ' Such things of the Gods are related by Homer and Hesiod
As would be shame and abiding disgrace to any of mankind ;
Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other.' "
1 The Rhapsodists were the minstrels of antiquity. They learned poems by
heart, and recited them to assembled crowds on the occasions of feasts.
24
THE PRE-SOCRA TIC PERIOD. 2$:
In another place the following verse occurs, showing how
intimately religious feeling and philosophy were conjoined
in the minds of-the ancients :
" One God, of all things divine and human the greatest,
Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in spirit."
Identifying God with the universe — the All — Xenophanes
again says :
" Wholly unmoved and unmoving, it ever remains in the same place,
Without change in its place when at times it changes appearance."
God moved all finite things ; " without labor he ruleth all
things by reason and insight."
These things sung by a wandering Greek minstrel six
hundred years before the beginning of our era, among a
people whose only strong bonds of union were connected
with religious observances, show how deep-seated are re-
ligious feelings, and how much they depend for expression
and refinement upon the advance of knowledge.
Parmenides, who was born about the 6ist Olympiad
(B.C. 536), belonged to a wealthy and distinguished family
of Elea. It is said that his early life was wasted in dissipa-
tion, and that it was only after his friends, Ameinias and
Diochaetes, had persuaded him to join the Pythagoreans
that he embraced a philosophic life and began to contem-
plate " the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still
air of delightful studies."
Parmenides made a great logical advance on Xenophanes
when he warned us that to see Truth we must rely on
our reason alone, and not trust our senses, which lead
us merely to human Opinion. This discrimination is of
much historic interest as it anticipates the doctrine of innate
ideas. He believed in the unity of all Being, or, in other
words, that all that exists is in its essence the same — the
One ; that Being alone fills space, while the fullness of
all Being is Thought. Non-Being, he assumed, could not be,
because nothing can come of nothing. If, therefore, Being:
26 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
existed, it must embrace all existence. He regarded the
senses as the cause of all error, as they reflect the appearance
of plurality and mutability, and oblige us to follow our
many sensuous impressions to apprehend the changeable
and the many ; thus preventing us from understanding the
One — the divine truth in all its reality.
Parmenides wrote a philosophic treatise entitled " Nature,"
which was divided into two parts ; the first described what
he termed absolute Truth as disclosed to us by the reason ;
and the second endeavored to describe the difference between
this absolute Truth and human Opinion ; a task which
has been attempted many times since, up to the present day.
Parmenides expresses himself thus :
" Such as to each man is the nature of his many-jointed limbs,
Such also is the intelligence of each man ; for it is
The nature of limbs (organization) which thinketh in men
Both in one and in all ; for the highest degree of organization gives the high-
est degree of thought."
An advanced psychological theory as viewed from this
century.
Parmenides denied motion in the abstract, but was obliged
to admit that according to appearance there was motion.
Zeno 1 was called by Plato the Palamedes of Elea, " on ac-
count of the readiness and scientific skill with which he in-
dicated the contraries of all things." * He was a singularly
prominent character among the ancient philosophers. Born
to high social position, which gave him political power,
he early manifested a disdain for the honors of rank and
office, and sought that seclusion which is the natural sphere
of thought. Some accounts charge him with a misanthropic
disposition, but there are good reasons for believing that the
political corruption and general immorality of his age
repelled him and held him aloof from public life. His
character can be judged of from the following words which
are attributed to him : " If the blame of my fellow-citizens
1 Not Zeno the stoic. "Ritter, vol., I., p. 470.
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 2/
did not cause me pain their approbation would not cause me
pleasure."
To Zeno's high character and austere conduct is due much
of his celebrity. His contemporaries failed to understand
how benevolent and studious occupations could wean him
from the sensuous pleasures with which he was surrounded.
The invention of Dialectics — the name given to the first
attempts at formal logical analysis — is by the universal con-
sent of antiquity attributed to Zeno. " It may be defined
as a refutation of error by the reductio ad absurdum as a
means of establishing the truth."
Zeno was a devoted patriot, without being ambitious.
This character he showed while Greece was freeing herself
from the yoke of the Persians and trying to establish free in-
stitutions. He was much attached to his little colony of
Elea, and only occasionally visited Athens (where he had
Pericles among his pupils) to spread abroad his doctrines.
On his last return to his native colony, he found it in the
hands of the tyrant Nearchus (or Diomedon, or Demylus),
against whom he conspired. Failing in the attempt, he was
dragged before the tyrant, when " he gave proof by his ac-
tions of the excellence of his master's doctrines, showing that
a strong soul fears only that which is unworthy." Being
called upon to testify against his fellow-conspirators, " he
bit his tongue out and spat it in the face of the tyrant." 1 The
people, roused by this act of heroism, fell upon Nearchus and
killed him. Here the story is lost, the manner of the philso-
pher's death being unknown.
It is said that Zeno was the first Eleatic philosopher who
wrote in prose. To the system of Parmenides, his master,
he brought nothing new, but he labored bravely to establish
it. This he sought to do by his method of reasoning called
Dialectics, which employs principles generally acknowledged
to be true, as the bases upon which to build each structure
of facts.
1 Cousin: " Fragments Philosophiques," Zenon d'Elee.
28 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Zeno argued particularly against multiplicity and motion.
He said, like his teacher, that there was but One thing really-
existing and that every thing else was but the appearance of
the One, and had no real existence. Motion he believed did
not exist in reality, but only in appearance ; for, he argued,
every object filling a space equal to its size is at rest in that
space at any given moment — as an arrow flying through the
air is at each moment at rest in the same space. Of course
space and time are here reduced to their most minute par-
ticles, and therefore he concludes that motion is not, but is
only the appearance of, motion, or a number of spaces in
which the object is momentarily at rest.
It will be seen at a glance, if it is remembered that
matter and space are the same thing, how simple this great
question vof motion becomes. What Zeno tries to
prove is, that a moving body never moves away from the
space that it occupies, which is equivalent to saying that a
thing cannot move away from itself, — a postulate so sensible
that we cannot wonder at the force with which it struck the
ancients.
These brief accounts of the early philosophies are given
solely to show how invariably all attempts at generalization
centre about a single problem, and how the various interpre-
tations given to this problem are merely different expres-
sions of the ultimate fact, motion. To reduce all systems
of thought to their most abridged form, and place them in
the order of their logical merit would suffice, therefore, if we
were to regard philosophy from the ideal standpoint, assure
reason. But however much we may extol the power of
"reason," we can never lift it above what it is. In the case
of the individual it is simply the logical aspect of individual
life ; in the case of a society it is the logical aspect of social
life. In the case of a race, the logic of action becomes in-
corporated in wider customs and broader principles forming
what we call Conscience.
If we look deeper down into this logic of action we shall
find it expressed in the very structure of the organism.
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 29
Thus the bee is a practical geometrician : it finds and em-
ploys in the construction of its cell the best angle for saving
space and securing strength. Its little mind, or sensorium,
is incapable of expressing this calculation in symbols, or of
reducing it to those general principles which give it, for us,
the form and value of a demonstrated problem : but the bee
has inherited a nervous structure which is the expression
and embodiment of the habits of its ancestors. Whether
they were compelled, by the Darwinian theory of " the sur-
vival of the fittest," to use this best-adapted angle, or
whether Mr. Spencer's auxiliary theory of "the direct
adaptation of the organism to its environment " was the
cause, the logic of the actions of the bee is expressed in its
tiny organism ; or, the formation of the proper angle in its
waxen cells is the natural or logical activity of this or-
ganism.
Applying, now, this principle to our own life, the reason-
ings of every individual are attempts to convert into the
symbolic form of language the logic of the actions of our
race. All the excursions into the supposed conditions of
life which philosophers have made, so far as they have failed
to bring back some clearer principle of action, are but verbal
constructions, curiosities in mental architecture. Those who
love these ruins for their own sake, write minute histories of
philosophy, making it their aim to record the details of each
system. When, however, the object is to extract from the
history of thought its modicum of truth we must adopt
the method of measuring each system by a single logical
standard, and we must regard the thought of each age as
the natural and necessary consequence of its social or moral
organization.
Philosophy, after all, is merely an attempt to identify
human nature with more general principles. There are no
laws of motion or of the most general existence.1 The re-
1 ' ' There is no form of material existence which is its own support or its own
measure, and which abides either quantitatively or otherwise than in perpetual
-change, or an unceasing flow of mutations. * * * And the fact that every
30 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
current activities which we observe in phenomena are classi-
fied and reduced to more and more general principles until
we come to the most general fact, which is Motion. No
law or rule of action has pre-eminence, therefore, as being a
law of motion otherwise than by virtue of its degree of sim-
plicity.
If we would review philosophies, we must review lives
and characters ; if we would understand Greek thought, we
must study Greek life and its surroundings; if we would
understand universal thought, we must study the progress
of civilization as pictured in the gradual formation of an ul-
timate generalization, or the conception of God as the divine
unity or principle.
Heraclitus was the famous weeping philosopher, coupled in
history with Democritus the laughing philosopher :
" One pitied, one condemned the woeful times ;
One laugh'd at follies, and one wept o'er crimes."
Some writers think both of these characteristics are mythi-
cal, while others say they are no doubt exaggerations of
truth ; but " there must have been something in each of these
philosophers which formed the nucleus round which the
fables grew."
Heraclitus was born at Ephesus about the 6gth Olympiad
(B.C. 503). He is represented as being of a very haughty
and melancholy temperament, holding his fellow-men and
their pursuits in contempt, and as being too proud to accept
the distinguished position offered him in his native city,
thing is, in its manifest existence, but a group of relations and reactions at
once accounts for nature's inherent teleology. * * * It follows therefore,
that the establishment and verification of the laws of motion are impossible.
And yet no one knew better than Euler himself that all experimental ascertain-
ment and verification of dynamical laws, like all acts of cognition, depend upon
the insulation of phenomena. * * * Euler's proposition can have no other
meaning than this, that the laws of motion cannot be established or verified
unless we know its absolute direction and its absolute rate," which are con-
tradictions in terms. [The italics are the author's.] Stallo : " Modern Physics,'*
pp. 185, 186, 202.
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 31
because it would oblige him to associate with men lacking
in moral character. He was a misanthrope, a critic of that
severe order which fails to see any good in others. But his
virtue, dogged as it was, became famous. The follow-
ing letter, written by Heraclitus to Darius, king of Persia,
in reply to a cordial invitation to visit his court, throws some
light upon his character :
" Heraclitus of Ephesus to the king Darius, son of Hystas-
pes, health !
"All men depart from the path of truth and justice.
They have no attachment of any kind but avarice ; they
only aspire to vain-glory with the obstinacy of folly. As
for me, I know not malice ; I am the enemy of no one. I
utterly despise courts, and never will place my foot on Per-
sian ground. Content with little, I live as I please."
It is not surprising to learn that the author of this letter
" retired to the mountains and there lived on herbs and roots
like an ascetic."
In opposition to the mathematical school which taught
that reason was the source of all truth, and that impressions
through the senses were the source of the uncertainty of
knowledge, Heraclitus believed that it was through the or-
gans of sense that we drank in all knowledge, all truth, and
that it was only the ill-educated sense that gave false im-
pressions.
The great question for him as well as for Parmenides, and
indeed for all philosophers, was that of the origin of ideas.
Thinkers on this important question, from ancient times to
our day, have been divided into two principal classes, those
who, like Parmenides, believe in idealism, holding sense in
contempt, and those who, like Heraclitus, believe in material-
ism, holding that all knowledge is derived through the senses.
Thus we find in these almost prehistoric times, the deepest
questions of mind or perception discussed, and answered
quite as satisfactorily as they are to-day by' the great major-
ity of metaphysicians. The only difference is, that all who
discussed these questions in those days had the advantage
32 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of being the originators, to at least some extent, of their
different theories, whereas, in our time the metaphysician,
however fantastic may be his taste, finds some theory ready-
made to please him, and hence by the practical world is
generally regarded as a delver in an exhausted soil.
This popular impression with regard to metaphysicians
cannot be complained of, when it is considered that, as a
class, they show no advance beyond the difficulties and delu-
sions of their most remote predecessors. It is for this reason
that such writers as Herbert Spencer treat metaphysics con-
temptuously, and openly declare it to be an effete science.
They are, nevertheless, compelled to take up the very prob-
lems which this science treats of, and attempt to solve them,
before they can fairly begin the study of mind. The ques-
tion, What is the ultimate reality ? must be answered before
mental procedures can be fully understood. This is because
the mind can be successfully studied only through its func-
tions ; activities which at the outset must be either distin-
guished from or identified with wider or more general activi-
ties. It would be unjust to say, that Spencer has not iden-
tified mental with universal activity, for he distinctly traces
-both to the principle which he calls "the persistence of
force," but he does not identify this principle with motion,
nor does he point out the relations which such ultimates
as matter, space, force, and time bear to his principle, " the
persistence of force," or to the principle called motion. He
therefore, without acknowledging it, enters into the sphere
of metaphysics, but leaves it in as great confusion as before
the advent of his system.
When it is remembered that heat is a form of motion, the
.following generalization of Heraclitus will not appear so wide
of the mark :
He conceived human intelligence to be a portion of the
Universal Intelligence, man's soul but an emanation of the
Universal Reason, or Fire ; and thus man, being merely a
part of the whole, must necessarily be imperfect and transient ;
while mankind came a little nearer to the truth, as many
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 33
parts approach nearer to the whole than one part. Fire, or
heat, was to him the God, the One, from which all things
emanated and to which all things would return. Life was
but a constant change, and all things followed in a perpetual
flux and reflux ; the quicker and more perfect the motion,
the higher and more perfect the life.
Ritter says in this regard: " The notion of life implies
that of alteration, which by the ancients was generally con-
ceived as a form of motion. The universal life is therefore
an eternal motion, and consequently tends, as every motion
must, toward some end, even though this end, in the course
of the evolution of life, present itself to us as a mere transi-
tion to some ulterior end." '
Heraclitus saw vital energy in all phenomena, endless
change in all things ; for him all was in motion, and he
denied that there was any absolute rest, the harmony of the
world was contained in its ever-conflicting impulses : even
the very consciousness of life is founded on constant mo-
tion. Is any thing but a fuller knowledge of physical phe-
nomena lacking in these inductions?
Anaxagoras is credited with having had such illustrious
pupils as Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates. On leaving
Clazomenae, his native city, he went to Athens, at a time
when this city was rising in political importance, and be-
coming the centre of Greek learning ; when the great Age
of Pericles was at its dawn, and commercial and military ac-
tivity indicated a glorious epoch. " The young Sophocles,
that perfect flower of antique art, was then in his bloom,
meditating on that drama which he was hereafter to bring
to perfection in the Antigone and the (Edipus Rex."
With Anaxagoras Ionian philosophy became naturalized
in Athens ; though he had to struggle hard, during the
many years he lived there, to overcome the prejudices of the
people. His philosophy was astute, and commanded wide at-
tention. But the names of his pupils remind us that we are
approaching the close of what may be called the first growth
J" Hist, of Ancient Philosophy," vol. I., p. 239.
34 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of Greek thought, known as the pre-Socratic epoch. The
tenets, therefore, of Anaxagoras have a certain freshness
which subsequent systems lack, in proportion to their re-
moteness from early Greek philosophy. To show how dis-
heartening the monotonous repetitions of philosophy are to
those who compare ancient and modern thought, and how
they encourage belief in that mystery or superstition called
the unknowable, we have but to read such passages as the
following from Lewes :
" Philosophy has been ever in movement, but the move-
ment has been circular ; and this fact is thrown into stronger
relief by contrast with the linear progress of Science. In-
stead of perpetually finding itself, after years of gigantic
endeavor, returned to the precise point from which it started,
Science finds itself year by year, and almost day by day,
advancing step by step, each accumulation of power adding
to the momentum of its progress ; each evolution, like
the evolutions of organic development, bringing with it
a new functional superiority, which in its turn becomes the
agent of higher developments. Not a fact is discovered but
has its bearing on the whole body of doctrine ; not a me-
chanical improvement in the construction of instruments but
opens fresh sources of discovery. Onward, and forever on-
ward, mightier, and forever mightier, rolls this wondrous
tide of discovery, and the ' thoughts of men are widened by
the process of the suns.' While the first principles of
Philosophy are to this day as much a matter of dispute
as they were two thousand years ago, the first principles
of Science are securely established, and form the guiding
lights of European progress. Precisely the same questions
are agitated in Germany at the present moment as were
agitated in ancient Greece ; and with no more certain
methods of solving them, with no nearer hopes of ultimate
success." And this from the most eminent of modern
philosophic writers.
Anaxagoras thus announces the principles of his system :
" Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 35
or ceases to be ; for nothing comes into being or is de-
stroyed ; but all is an aggregation or secretion of pre-exist-
ent things; so that all becoming might more correctly be
called becoming-mixed, and all corruption becoming-
separate." *
This idea recalls Spencer's definition of Evolution, "the
progress from the simple, indefinite, and homogeneous,
to the complex, definite, and heterogeneous."
The Nous of Anaxagoras is employed as the creative prin-
ciple or ultimate fact. The mistake which the critics of this
system generally make is to imagine that this Nous is simi-
lar to human intelligence. When on further examination
into the system they find that such an intelligence has
no place in it, as an ultimate fact, that it means the simple
fact of motion not the complex fact of mind, they declare
that there is a contradiction ; without seeing that they are
themselves alone responsible for it. The original power of
the universe Anaxagoras declared to be this Nous, which is
generally interpreted as Intelligence, hence he is said to
have opposed mind to matter. This principle he identified
with all motion, viewing it as the source of all order in the
universe. It was the rarest and purest of all things, some-
thing above the confusion of phenomena, its characteristics
being singleness, power, and life. He rejected Fate and
Chance as empty words having no ultimate significance.
A short time before the Peloponnesian war, Anaxagoras
was accused by his enemies of impiety, and was tried and
condemned to banishment. On leaving Athens his proud
remark was, " It is not I who have lost the Athenians ; it is
the Athenians who have lost me." He was an old man
when he retired to Lampsacus, where he was much re-
spected by the citizens, and lived quietly until his death,
which occurred about the year 428 B.C. On his tomb may
be seen this inscription :
" This tomb great Anaxagoras confines,
Whose mind explored the heavenly paths of Truth. "
'Ritter, vol. I., p. 284.
36 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
According to our best authorities, Empedocles was born
at Agrigentum in Sicily ; he descended from a powerful and
eminent family, and enjoyed a high reputation through his
espousal of the democratic cause, at the same time that his
native city rose to its greatest splendor and became the rival
of Syracuse. This was about the 84th Olympiad (444 B.C.).
Like most of the early philosophers, he is said to have trav-
elled much in distant lands, and to have acquired a great
store of knowledge in the East. His love of distinction was
so great that it led him to allow a belief in his divinity. He
dressed in gorgeous robes, wore a golden girdle and the
Delphic crown, and surrounded himself with a courtly train
of attendants. It was said that he possessed power to per-
form miracles, to calm the winds, and to call the dead to
life. In fact his personal history is so full of marvellous
stories, so embellished by fable, that it is a very difficult
matter to arrive at any truth concerning it. But we may
say with certainty that he possessed rare intellectual gifts,
and that he was extremely disinterested and generous, as he
refused the government of Agrigentum when the citizens
offered it to him, and he is said to have devoted most of his
wealth to giving dowries to poor girls that they might marry
young men of rank.
Of the doctrines of Empedocles, Ueberweg1 says: "Em-
pedocles posits in his didactic poem ' On Nature/ as the ma-
terial principles or ' roots ' of things, the four elements, earth,
water, air, and fire, to which he joins as moving forces two
ideal principles, love as a uniting and hate as a separating
force. The periods of the formation of the world depend on
the alternate prevalence of love and hate."
To thus express the economy of the universe in sym-
bols of human emotions, is but to follow the principle of
idealism to one of its logical consequences. To say that
" the mingling of the elements is the work of Love, their
separation is effected by Hate/' is the same order of reason-
ing as that great tenet of idealism which declares mind to be
1 Ueberweg : " History of Philosophy," translated by G. S. Morris.
.
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 37
the absolute cause of all phenomena, and that the universe is
governed by a supreme intelligence. Any theory which makes
human methods and human feelings universal, any theory
which disregards the limits of human life, is a species of
idealism. Perhaps the mildest form of this idealism is the
belief that love is universal ; for what is love but affinity ?
and how natural it is to attribute to universal affinities the
warmth and individuality of the strongest human sentiment.
The procedure of perception is from one fact to many — from
the fact of personal existence to that of general existence.
In Idealism we have a system which has established its in-
ability to look beyond personal existence.
The belief of Empedocles, that Love was the chief crea-
tive power, and that it was identified with the Universal
Principle, is also interesting, as it throws light upon the
logical origin of the central principle of Christianity.
Democritus, the laughing philosopher, was born at Ab-
dera, in the 8oth Olympiad (B.C. 460). One writer suggests
that perhaps the native stupidity of his countrymen, who
were famous for abusing the privilege of being stupid,
afforded him continual cause for merriment. His family,
who were noble and wealthy, entertained Xerxes at Abdera,
and the king, as a recompense, left some of his magi as in-
structors for the young Democritus.
The gathering mists in the history of philosophy, even at
this early date, are to be seen in the efforts of leading
writers to classify the philosophy of Democritus. " Rein-
hold, Brandis, Marbach, and Hermann, view him as an
Ionian ; Buhle and Tennemann, as an Eleatic ; Hegel, as
the successor of Heraclitus and the predecessor of Anax-
agoras ; Ritter, as a Sophist ; and Zeller, as the precursor of
Anaxagoras." * Is it not already apparent that the sphere of
philosophy is limited to the determination of an ultimate
principle, and that the approach of each age to the solution of
this problem is the measure of its knowledge? The systems
we have reviewed are the efforts of powerful minds to pene-
1 G. H. Lewes : " Biographical History of Philosophy."
38 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
trate beyond sensible impressions to a logical focus, in which
all lines of observation converge, disclosing the unity of
cause. The ancients' knowledge of cause and effect, al-
though limited, was not too limited to constantly suggest
the possibility of this final generalization ; and all thought
which attempted this problem was by common consent
called philosophic, without analyzing its merit. There was
no adequate standard of definite knowledge by which to test
the validity of thought, and therefore the classes into which
historians have divided the ancient systems are of very little
use, except as aids to the memory in acquiring an historical
knowledge of philosophy ; for the logical distinctions upon
which these classifications are based are too vague and con-
tradictory to be of any real value.
As I have heretofore suggested, the question of merit in
philosophic systems reduces itself to a comparison of the
directness and definiteness of the ultimate or most general
terms employed.
If we are in the possession of the secret which all these
systems seek, we shall have little difficulty in judging of the
nearness of their approach to it. The fulness of our appre-
ciation of this great truth depends upon the quality and ex-
tent of our knowledge, the training of the character as well
as the intellect, for knowledge does not live in words alone.
The progress of knowledge, therefore, is the development
of this greatest of all truths among men, and the history of
philosophy is but a register of their efforts to get at the begin-
ning, or greatest simplification of knowledge ; not its end. Is
it not clear that the beginning of knowledge should be the
deepest or most general fact ?
We have aleady said that, as far as unaided introspection
could accomplish the result, the ancients made as much pro-
gress in philosophy as has been realized at any subsequent
time. They detected the principle of universal unity, they
declared it to be a principle, not a person, and they gave it
such names as God, Motion, Love, Intelligence, Unity, and
Mind. Their deepest thought was always religious, their
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 39
deepest feeling always gravitated toward morality. Was it
possible for them to form a conception of the universal
principle such as we can form ? They had not the wealth
of discovered facts which science has bequeathed to our age.
Could they reason that light and radiant heat are different
•aspects of one kind of energy ; that the ray of light reaching
us from the farthest star is not a fluid passing from space to
space, but a definite agitation of an interstellar medium of
infinite extension, and that therefore there can be no break
in it, no absolute vacuum; that the universe \s a. plenum;
that all differences between resistance and non-resistance,
between matter and space, are relative, not absolute? Could
they have ascertained the fact that all words meaning un-
conditioned, such as absolute, abstract sequence, or force con-
sidered apart from matter, were simply outgrowths of the
conception of Time, that they can mean nothing more than is
given in this subjective aspect of Motion ? Or could they have
known that all words signifying unlimited, such as infinite,
abstract co-existence, extension, or matter considered apart
from force, were simply outgrowths of the conception of
Space, that they can mean nothing more than is given in
this objective aspect of Motion ? This deepest of all truths,
the idea of one in three and three in one, has been dimly re-
flected in the minds of the oldest thinkers which even tradi-
tion tells of; it has found its way into religions and taken
upon itself interpretations which almost forbid its recogni-
tion ; but it is the beginning of knowledge, not its end ;
the only use that can be made of it is to enable us
to declare a common agreement with regard to first prin-
ciples, and devote our attention to Knowledge, which is
Life.
This agreement will not take place until Science has made
these first principles so clear that they will become the com-
mon property of the world. This result cannot be reached
until the ultimate signification of our most general (meta-
physical) terms has been placed beyond dispute. When a
term meaning time is used, we have a right to insist upon the
40 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
limits of that conception, and so with the term space. Thus
armed with clear and definite ideas of the scope of language,
the most ordinary intellect can expose the fallacies of the
conventional metaphysicians, and the tortures to which these
autocrats of our higher speculations have subjected com-
mon-sense minds for the past twenty-five centuries will hap-
pily cease.
To continue our narrative : Democritus declared Being to
consist in an infinite number of small invisible bodies mov-
ing in the void, — these were the primary elements, and all
production was caused by the change of relation among
them. He accepted motion as something eternal, and did
not attempt to explain it. Atoms, he said, being indivisible,
must necessarily be self-existent, and all consists of Atoms
and the Void.
The atomism of Democritus is a very profound specula-
tion. In it he tried to distinguish between the ideas of
force and those of weight, and of course did not succeed.
Lewes, anxious to compare Democritus to Leibnitz, declares
that the atoms of Democritus had no weight, only force ;
while on the same subject Zeller says : " Democritus sup-
posed that all atoms are too small to be perceived by our
senses ; this he was compelled to assume because every sub-
stance perceptible to sense is divisible, changeable, and of
determinate quality. But magnitude directly involves
weight, for weight belongs to every body as such ; and as all
matter is homogeneous, it must equally belong to all bodies ;
— so that all bodies of the same mass are of the same weight.
The proportion of weight of particular bodies is therefore
exclusively conditioned by the proportion of their masses,
and corresponds entirely with this ; and when a large body ap-
pears to be lighter than a smaller one, this is only because it
contains in it more empty space, and therefore its mass is
really less than that of the other. Thus the atoms must
have weight, and the same specific weight ; but at the same
time they must differ in weight quite as much as in magni-
tude. This doctrine is of great importance for the Atomic
THE PRE-SOCRATIC PERIOD. 4*
system : texts which maintain the contrary are to be consid-
ered erroneous."
It is difficult to perceive what progress modern physicists,
who regard matter as an ultimate fact, have made beyond
this ancient theory.
CHAPTER III.
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT.
The Sophists — Socrates — Plato.
BEFORE attempting a description of the doctrines of Soc-
rates, Plato, and Aristotle, which are looked upon as the
climax of Greek thought, it will be well to call attention
to the storm of common sense that swept over Greece just
before and during the advent of these men. It was a
general movement of dissatisfaction with the results of
philosophic thought ; a reaction which has often repeated
itself since then. Its leaders are referred to in the writings
of their opponents as Sophists ; and as these writings con-
stitute the chief literature of that epoch, our notions of the
Sophists have been modelled by their bitter antagonists. The
doctrines of the Sophists were the natural consequence of
the decline of the first schools of philosophy. They were of
use in bringing the different schools into comparison and
showing the defects of each. Protagoras, the first and most
accomplished of the Sophists, was born at Abdera. It is
stated that Democritus instructed him in philosophy, but
there is probably little truth in the statement, as Protagoras
was older than Democritus ; still it indicates a certain con-
nection between the thought of the two philosophers. Pro-
tagoras endeavored to trace the origin of all conceptions to
sensation. His doctrine was, that all thought is the same as
sensation, and is limited by it ; and that as all sensation is
but relatively true, all knowledge is relative, and therefore
imperfect. In the energetic mind of Protagoras these con-
clusions led to outright skepticism. It resulted in the for-
42
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 43
mula : " Man is the measure of all things " ; an epigram
which expresses with wonderful clearness the doctrine of
Kant and the great school of modern idealists. In tracing
all thought to sensation, however, we have a forecast of
modern psychology. The following translation from Sextus
Empiricus is perhaps the best description extant of the psy-
chological doctrines of Protagoras.
" Matter," says Protagoras, " is in a perpetual flux ; whilst
it undergoes augmentations and losses, the senses also are
modified, according to the age and disposition of the
body."
" The reasons of all phenomena (appearances) resided in
matter as substrata ; so that matter, in itself, might be what-
ever it appeared to each. But men have different percep-
tions at different times, according to the changes in the thing
perceived. Whoever is in a healthy state perceives things
such as they appear to all others in a healthy state, and vice
versa. A similar course holds with respect to different ages,
as well as in sleeping and waking. Man is therefore the
criterion of that which exists ; all that is perceived by
him exists, that which is perceived by no man does not
exist."1
It would be hard to find a simpler and more lucid expres-
sion of the Kantian theory of perception than this doctrine
of Protagoras. From the speech of Callicles, in " Plato's
Gorgias," we can gain an idea of the way in which the
Sophists regarded philosophy.
" Philosophy is a graceful thing when it is moderately cul-
tivated in youth ; but, if any one occupies himself with it
beyond the proper age, it ruins him ; for, however great may
be his natural capacity, if he philosophizes too long, he must
of necessity be inexperienced in all those things which
one who would be great and eminent must be experienced
in. He must be unacquainted with the laws of his country,
and with the mode of influencing other men in the inter-
course of life, whether private or public, and with the pleas-
1 " Pyrrhon. Hypot.," p. 44. (Trans, by Lewes.)
44 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
ures and passions of men ; in short, with human characters^
and manners. And when such men are called upon to act,
whether on a private or public occasion, they expose them-
selves to ridicule, just as politicians do when they come to
your conversation, and attempt to cope with you in argu-
ment ; for every man, as Euripides says, occupies himself
with that in which he finds himself superior ; that in which
he is inferior he avoids, and speaks ill of it, but praises what
he excels in, thinking that in doing so he is praising himselL
The best thing, in my opinion, is to partake of both. It is,
good to partake of philosophy by way of education, and it
is not ungraceful in a young man to philosophize. But if
he continues to do so when he grows older, he becomes ri-
diculous, and I feel toward him as I should toward a grown
person who lisped and played at childish plays. When I see
an old man still continuing to philosophize, I think he de-
serves to be flogged. However great his natural talents, he
is under the necessity of avoiding the assembly and public
places, where, as the poet says, men become eminent, and to
hide himself, and to pass his life whispering to two or three
striplings in a corner, but never speaking out any thing great,
and bold, and liberal."
It is to be seen by this that the Sophists were merely ag-
gressive skeptics. They lost faith in the power of man to
reason out his relations with the universe, and turned their
attention to studying the relations of men to one another.
Both the skeptics and the Sophists were convinced of the
insufficiency of all knowledge, but the former contented
themselves with reasoning upon this conviction, while the
latter turned from philosophy and devoted themselves to
politics and rhetoric.
Thus Plato represents Protagoras as arguing, " that the:
wise man is the physician of the soul. He cannot, indeed,
induce truer thoughts into the mind, for all are alike true,
but better and more profitable ; thus he may heal the souls
not merely of individuals, but also of States, since, by the
power of oratory, he may introduce good and useful senti-
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 45
merits and opinions in the place of the base and the hurt-
ful." '
In Grote's " History of Greece," as well as in Lewes'
*' History of Philosophy," a spirited defence of the Sophists
is made against the many and bitter attacks of Plato and of
those who followed his example. It is worthy of remark
that the criticisms which Socrates directed against the
Sophists are free from that party spirit which characterizes
the attacks of the Platonists. We find no such bitterness
between Socrates and the Sophists in the biographical work
of Xenophon.
The Sophists acquired wealth and power by educating the
children of rich and noble families ; and judging from the
constant polemics of Plato against them, their influence
must have been great. It is said of them that they held as
a principle that nothing was right by nature, but only by
convention, and that following this pernicious rule of expe-
diency they made all law and justice yield to personal in-
terest. But these are too general terms in which to condemn
any class. They suggest more antithesis than is possible
between right and reason. It must be remembered that
with the Sophists disputation became an art, and that, like
many of our modern journalists and lawyers, carried away
by their own eloquence, they sometimes made the worse
cause appear the better. When it is said that much of the
immorality of the time is attributable to the influence of
their teaching, the limit of just criticism is reached. They
were the intellectual leaders of their age, but the degener-
acy of that age had causes far beyond their control. It is
certain that about this period egotism reigned supreme, State
trampled upon State, and the people of Greece, losing all
respect for law, were not slow in violating private as well as
public rights. The quibbling nature of the Greeks, and their
excessive love of lawsuits, led them to value the art of
oratory like that of arms, as an important means of self-
defence, especially as each citizen was obliged to appear in
1 Ritter : " Hist, of Ancient Philosophy," vol. I., p. 578.
46 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
person before the courts of justice and plead his own cause.
To become a master in the art of disputation was the ambition
of all, for no one could hope to attain to a high position with-
out this acquirement. It would be ungrateful to the Sophists,
however, not to acknowledge the indirect benefits which we
have derived from their influence ; for " if forensic oratory
does sometimes make the worse appear the better reason, it
also makes the good appear in all its strength. The former
is a necessary evil, the latter is the very object of a court of
justice."
The reign of doubt, both scientific and moral, which in-
vaded all departments of Greek life during the supremacy of
the Sophists, received a strong check from the influence of a
great moral teacher, whom the needs of the times produced.
This teacher was Socrates, who was born B.C. 469, during
the golden period of Greek intellectual life, though his ca-
reer was synchronous with the decline of Athenian political
power. The story of his trial and execution is one of the
most touching and impressive in history. The Peloponne-
sian war, which ended in the fall of Athens, was carried on
during the active life of Socrates ; and the causes which
were working the ruin of the Athenian Empire — the decline
of manhood and patriotism — seemed to call this great moral
teacher into being.
" Every thing about Socrates is remarkable — personal ap-
pearance, moral physiognomy, position, object, method, life,
and death."
Among the art treasures of the Acropolis there was for
many years a group of graces which tradition accredited
to Socrates. According to Diogenes Laertius the young-
sculptor attracted the interest of Crito, a wealthy Athenian,
who provided for his education, and afterward became a de-
voted disciple of the moral reformer whose powers he had
so early recognized.
In the second division of this work, entitled The Nature
of Perception, we have attempted to demonstrate that thought
is a manifestation of natural laws ; that it is an expression
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 4;
of the conditions of life, — the inevitable expression ; but the
conditions are far too complex to admit of any predictions
of events, excepting in the most general terms. In the case
of great moral teachers or prophets, such as Socrates, that
which constitutes their influence and enraptures others, is
not a mystical power of divination concerning the particu-
lars of the future, but the grasp of truth expressed in the
grandeur and purity of their lives. Their powers of divina-
tion are wholly natural. They perceive the future because
they have discerned the deepest principles of life, and apply
them in judging coming events. Knowing and feeling these
principles more deeply than others, they command a wider
view of human life.
Modern psychology teaches that perception is a purely
natural activity akin with activities which we regard as sim-
ple or comprehensible ; what distinguishes mental from
what are known as natural phenomena is simply the higher
complexity of the conditions. Moral perceptions, therefore,
such as have made Socrates immortal, presuppose but a
higher and broader life, deeper sympathy, further insight,
greater logical sensitiveness.
Many suppose with regard to men as with regard to re-
ligions, that " if they contained no mystery they would in-
spire no reverence." This is only true for those who are en-
tirely beyond the influence of the divine unity of nature,
who imagine that familiar things are somehow isolated from
the unfamiliar, who have never thought out the great truth
that every fact is indissolubly connected with all facts, and that
it is the principle of perception that discloses to us that uni-
versal fact which explains both life and mind. Any hypothe-
sis concerning future events can only be a more or less in-
telligent judgment of consequences from experiences. If
prophesies of future events are by nature imagined experi-
ences, what shall we say of predictions which are declared to
be entirely beyond the pale of experience? The nature of
language declares them to be self-contradictory ; for language,
and thought, which is in great part the function of language ...
48 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
to be intelligible must represent experiences. Under this
category of self-contradictory statements must come all at-
tempted descriptions of a future life — essentially different
from the life which we experience. To be intelligible, every
thought must be subordinate to the broad generalization
that life is an eternal and infinite principle without begin-
ning or end, and that this principle is manifested in every
kind and degree of phenomena.
These remarks are required by the fact that we are about
to recount the earliest attempt to establish a philosophical
basis for the belief in a future existence.
Among all the earlier nations, and among nearly all sav-
age tribes, a future life has been more or less distinctly be-
lieved in. In fact, it would be difficult to find a religion or
a philosophy in which this belief is not a prominent feature.
But a refinement of intelligence which can alone come with
an increased definiteness in our understanding of general
terms, a purification of language, brings these vague and
unrestrained beliefs under a higher and higher discipline.
The details of a physical immortality are one by one rejected
as inconsistent, until the belief, as it is held by the better
class of minds, to-day is a formless principle, which they dare
not limit even by the most general description. Closely
allied to the belief in immortality is the idea of a personal
God, or a design in nature commonly known as the doctrine
of a Divine Providence.
All these beliefs, which are logically inseparable, we find
warmly entertained by the great moralist of ancient Greece.
Although Socrates was not the first to treat of the immor-
tality of the soul, he was the first, as we have said, to give
it a philosophical basis. We find in his arguments in sup-
port of the theory of a divine providence many anticipations
of the modern writers upon Natural Theology.
All those deep sentiments which are more or less perfectly
voiced in the religions of the world were constantly arising
in his mind and asserting themselves in his conversations.
"' How is it, Aristodemus, thou rememberest or remarkest
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 49
not, that the kingdoms and commonwealths most renowned,
as well for their wisdom as antiquity, are those whose piety
and devotion have been the most observable ? and that even
man himself is never so well disposed to serve the Deity * as
in that part of life when reason bears the greatest sway, and
his judgment is supposed to be in its full strength and
maturity ? * * * Then shalt thou, my Aristodemus, under-
stand there is a Being whose eye pierceth throughout all
nature, and whose ear is open to every sound ; extended to
all places, extending through all time ; and whose bounty
and care can know no other bound than those fixed by his
own creation." 2
The fitting mission of Socrates was the education of
youth, for he saw more honor in making wise and virtuous
citizens and rulers than in being chief ruler of the state him-
self. He was willing to assist all in the paths of knowledge,
but each must conquer truth for himself. The injunction of
the Delphic god, " know thyself," seemed to realize his phi-
losophy. He confined himself chiefly to ethical questions
concerning both public and private life, seeking to counter-
act the influences of sophistry, with its debasing opinion
that there was no truth for man, only the shadow of it, with
which he might " disporte himself at will."
Order seems to have been the motive of Socrates' method.
He lived in a time when science was in its infancy. The
method of science, well understood to-day to be wholly that
of sensible experiences and their logical extension into the
sphere of mind, was then hopelessly confused with vague
theories and speculations. Socrates did not by any means
penetrate to the principle of perception. His psychology
was of the rudest sort, but he insisted upon order in mental
procedures by demanding definitions. His whole method
was simply an effort to systematize the every-day thinking
1 "Although both in doctrine and conduct Socrates invariably evinced his re-
spect for the national deities, still it cannot be denied that he shared the opinion
which had led many of the earliest philosophers to attack and reject polytheism,
namely, that one supreme God ruled all human things." — Ritter, vol. II., 27.
3 Xenophon : " Memorabilia," chap. iv.
50 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE
of his fellow-men. He would take the most familiar sub-
jects, and ask his pupils to give their understanding of them.
Hence common observation, not minute research, was his
field. Of course, in these conversations it was necessary to
classify objects, forming them into groups and sub-groups.
The words genus and species, and the notion of the indi-
viduals included in them, were employed by Socrates. For
him these classes merely represented different families of
objects and the individuals composing them, classified on
the basis of certain kinds of relationships. This primitive
classification, without the aid of which it is impossible to
proceed to any great lengths in reasoning, was the beginning
of logic — a very much abused as well as an overestimated
word. The simplest thought involves logic, which word
means, in its plainest sense, a conscious employment of the
fundamental process of all thought, the classification of ob-
jects. So that Socrates was merely an orderly thinker of
great natural benevolence and integrity, who found so much
disorder of thought and action about him that he devoted
his life to giving others the two-fold benefit of his clearer in-
tellectual perceptions and of his higher ideals of conduct.
That he produced a revolution in thought, initiated the in-
ductive method, and founded Greek Philosophy (which are
claims that his biographers repeatedly make), are only other
ways of expressing the above facts. The point to which we
would call attention is, that Socrates, while he was the
subtlest of disputants, was not, in our sense, a metaphy-
sician. Up to his day, and during his time, metaphysics
were in too rude a state to be recognized as a form of inves-
tigation. Philosophy had not as yet agreed upon a vocabu-
lary which could make the separation of metaphysics and
science possible. Taking the experiences of daily life for
his data, his conclusions had to do with human actions more
than with ultimate principles. The only ultimate principle
that he posited was the existence of God, his symbol of per-
fect action. He devoted himself to the study of the nature
of Knowledge as expressed in human conduct, and his chief
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT, 51
conclusion was the identification of Virtue and Knowledge.
Socrates hovered on the threshold of that long avenue of
thought which in its detours has included the whole field of
metaphysical speculation. His pupil Plato, followed by
Aristotle, plunged into this labyrinth, and they have been
followed by the great majority of those who have become
what might be called professional thinkers ; but Socrates
held on so firmly to the principle that thought and action
are but different sides of the great fact called Knowledge,
that he never exchanged the world of facts for the world of
words, in which metaphysicians live. We do not mean that
Socrates consciously grasped this principle in any thing like
the fulness with which it can be understood in this age ; for
this fulness is the product of its growth in the countless di-
rections which scientific investigation has taken. There are
also many indications of the metaphysical tendency of mis-
taking words for things in his teachings. He saw that all
phenomena were but coordinated changes, and he sought
for a stable existence. But he never declared that this stable
or unchanging existence 1 was an inherent quality of words
(or of the ideas which they represent), as distinguished from
the objects of thought which give rise to both the words
and the ideas. This assumption constitutes the first and
last mistake of metaphysics.3
Plato did make this assumption, and, having once made
it, he was forced to elaborate the error into a system of ex-
planations from wrhich modern idealism has sprung.
In approaching the works of Plato, it will be well to define
again the position which we have taken, namely, that the
logical circle in which all attempts at ultimate analysis inev-
itably revolve has already been described by the philosophy
of Greece. The point or principle at which all analysis ends
1 We would call the reader's attention to the fact that the phrase "unchang-
ing existence," although often employed in metaphysical writings, is a meaning-
less contradiction in terms, because all existence has for its source or ultimate:
fact the principle of change.
3 "Names henceforth have the force of things." See Plato's " Cratylus,"'
passim.
52 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
and all synthesis begins has already been disclosed through
the speculations of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Hence, now
that we are about to examine the genius of another thinker,
let us bear in mind that any truths which he may have to offer
us, if they are new, are only other applications of this funda-
mental truth which we have discovered. In other words,
the only field for novelty left to those who have solved the
metaphysical problem is that of variety, for we have estab-
lished the divine unity in performing an ultimate analysis.
We must not adopt the prevalent notion that Plato was
essentially a poetical idealist, a dreaming philosopher, and
the author of the popular conception of platonic love.
" Plato [says Lewes] was any thing but a dreamer or an
idealist ; he was a severe thinker, a confirmed dialectician,
and a great quibbler. He gathered into a beautiful whole
the scattered results of the earlier Greek philosophy, and
yet his metaphysics are so abstract as to puzzle all but the
most persevering student. His moral character has come
down to us free from stain. Both his morals and his politics
are of the highest logical severity, almost above the reach of
humanity. He seems to have regarded human passions and
pleasures with contempt. For him life was worth nothing
if not devoted entirely to the search of truth."
Aristocles, surnamed Plato (the broad-browed), was born
at Athens or ^Egina, in the 8;th Olympiad (B.C. 430),
about the time of the Peloponnesian war and the death
of Pericles. By birth he was connected with some of the
most distinguished families of Athens. He received an ex-
cellent education, in which gymnastics were not neglected ;
for, like a true Greek, he considered that gymnastics did for
the body what dialectics did for the mind. His early youth
was devoted to poetry, music, and rhetoric ; but at the age
of twenty, when he became acquainted with Socrates, he
abandoned these pursuits and devoted himself entirely to
philosophy. The melancholy meditative mind of this re-
markable scholar led him to love the contemplation of
^Nature. Skepticism, that fever of the age, was not without
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 53
its effect upon him. Along with doubt went the deep
craving for belief, and under the guidance of his beloved
master he earnestly sought for truth. He remained with
Socrates until death separated them. He sought at the
trial to defend his master, but this was not permitted him ;
he then begged Socrates to accept a sufficient sum of money
to buy his life, but Socrates preferred to die for his convic-
tions.
A public garden in the neighborhood of Athens, called
the Academia, was the resort of Plato and his pupils.
Here the famous lectures were given which are still imitated
in almost every seat of learning in Christendom, and it will
be our special endeavor to explain the subtle errors which
are involved in the reasonings of this greatest of the ancient
dialecticians.
The story which has been so widely circulated concerning
the inscription over the door of his academy, "Let none but
Geometricians enter here" is supposed to have originated in
the purely argumentative nature of the discourse. The chief
objection to its authenticity was that Plato regarded mathe-
matics as entirely distinct from philosophy, not only in its
objects but in its method of reasoning. Nor did he admit
poetry to his philosophy. Poets he held to be inspired mad-
men, unconscious of what fell from their lips.
Throughout a long lifetime of thought, many changes of
opinion must naturally take place in an active mind, and it;
is most necessary to remember this in regard to Plato. We
find that in his old age he discards the idea of Socrates, which
identifies virtue with knowledge, and vice with ignorance,
thereby making vice involuntary. Plato adds incontinence to
ignorance as the cause of our errors ; and in speaking of
anger and pleasure as the causes of our faults, he mentions
ignorance as being a third cause.
Like Socrates, he was in doubt respecting the certainty of
knowledge ; and if his life was devoted to the search of
truth, it was without professing to have found it.
Plato approached to the solution of the central question
54 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of metaphysics — and this is the more wonderful when we
consider the condition of science in his day — for Aristotle
says that Plato, in the Timczus, maintained space and matter
to be the same, but that, in what are called the unwritten
opinions, he considered space and place to be the same.
Socrates, in his investigations, relied mainly on the in-
ductive mode of reasoning, and on definitions. These did
not satisfy Plato : he found it necessary to go still further,
and to insist upon analysis as a philosophic process, it being
impossible to understand the whole without first under-
standing the parts, or, as he says, " seeing the One in the
many." Long before Plato's time the idea had become
prevalent that sense-perception was unreliable and incom-
plete, as it was but the knowledge of the changeable, or of
phenomena. But it was far too early in the history of
knowledge to grasp the idea that all life is change, and that
the unchangeable which they sought was the principle of
Unity, and not another kind of existence. In transitory
phenomena Plato did not perceive the true existence, but
only the image of it. To know real existence (his words
were deeper than he knew) one must seek to discover the
invariable in the variable, the One in the many.
During the summer of 1881, I had occasion to visit the
Concord School of Philosophy, in Massachusetts, which I
had been informed was founded principally upon the doc-
trines of Plato. There was a little rustic chapel built
among trees in a picturesque position. It was at some dis-
tance from the village, so that the lecturers and students
had a pleasant walk to and from the grove. I arrived in
time to hear an evening lecture ; it was on the subject of
Faded Metaphors, — a very pleasing discourse, of a character
to serve as an interlude to the heavy philosophic arguments
which were the order of the place. After the lecture I met
a school-teacher from the west, who had come there deter-
mined to learn philosophy ; and, being very anxious to know
the drift of the thought of the school, I asked him if he was
able to make the philosophy which he learned there agree
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 55
with such knowledge or facts as he possessed ? He replied
with perfect earnestness : " In this school we learn a philoso-
phy that is above the range of what are generally termed
facts." " But," I insisted, " supposing you cannot make
\vhat you learn agree with such facts as you have, what do
you do then?" " Then," he replied, " we make the facts
agree with our philosophy."
In the morning, there was a lecture upon the Idealism of
Plato, given in the tone of a disciple of that great master.
It occupied two hours. One of the illustrations used — and
it cannot be denied that it is a fair consequence of Platonic
reasoning — was this : " The St. Louis Bridge does not really
exist in the structure that spans the Mississippi ; its real ex-
istence is in the idea of the engineer who constructed it."
Here is Plato's answer to Diogenes, who thought he had
demolished the theory of idealism by saying, " I see indeed a
table, but I see no idea of a table." Plato replied, " Because
you see with your eyes and not with your reason." Twenty-
three centuries after this reply was made, we find the
disciples of Plato in America teaching the same difference
between the perception of the senses and that of the reason.
Both Plato and his modern disciples agree in saying that the
phenomenal, the changing, or the unreal, is that which is
perceived by the senses, and that the noumenon, the unchang-
ing, or the real, is that which is perceived by the reason.
" Plato, "says Lewes, " held that human knowledge is nec-
essarily imperfect, that sensation troubles the intellectual
eye, and that only when the soul is free from the hindrances
of the body shall we be able to discern things in all the in-
effable splendor of truth."
We would not question the fact that the " ineffable splen-
dor of truth " is obscure, and that we need purification of
mind and life to perceive it, but we wish to emphasize the
great truth that the aspect of the natural procedure of per-
ception, which is known as the perception of the senses, is
not to be regarded as a degraded aspect because in the nar-
row view taken of it we cannot see the highest results of
56 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
thought. We should regard the perception of the senses as
a means to an end ; we should remember that the limits we
give it have no objective existence, that they are purely the
effect of our method of classification, which is another name
for perception itself ; and that therefore the perception of
the senses is just as exalted in its nature as the highest
achievements of the reason.
This principle of Idealism, this disease of philosophy,
which was announced by Plato, burlesqued by Berkeley, per-
petuated by Kant, renewed by Hegel, and revived in this
country by the Concord School of Philosophy, is, that there
are two distinct kinds of human perception, — one the per-
ception of the reason, and the other the perception of the
senses ; the product of the one being noumena, ideas, reality,,
and that of the other phenomena, objects, change.
This is not the place to demonstrate the fallacy of sup-
posing that there are two distinct kinds of perception, pro-
ducing different results. In the second division of this work
I hope to show the inconsistency of this idealistic theory
from the organic standpoint ; but here we have to do with
the super-organic sphere, that of language, and we must de-
pend upon the demonstrated significance of words for our
refutation. Are not the means at hand? If the ultimate
principle, existence, reality, is the fact of motion, or change,,
how can phenomena, which is another word for change, have
less to do with reality than noumena, which is a term created
to express unchanging existence ? Where shall we find un-
changing existence ? Two other terms which we find con-
trasted by the ideal theory are reality and change ; and this
contrast illuminates the whole question ; for do we not suf-
ficiently understand the meaning of metaphysical terms to
see that change and reality both stand for the same ultimate
principle? Thus the antithesis which idealism seeks to
establish between reality and change falls to the ground
when the contrasted terms are measured by one standard of
reality. But there is one more position which Plato holds,,
namely, the contrast of reality between ideas and objects.
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 57-
Aristotle says : " Plato followed Socrates respecting defini-
tions, but, accustomed as he was to inquiries into universals,
he supposed that definitions should be those of intelligibles
(i. e. noumend] rather than of sensibles (i. e. phenomena] : for
it is impossible to give a general definition to sensible objects,
which are always changing. Those Intelligible Essences he
called Ideas ; adding that sensible objects were different
from Ideas, and received from them their names ; for it is in
consequence of their participation in Ideas, that all objects of
the same genus receive the same name as the Ideas." *
It is with a certain reluctance that we make this quota-
tion ; for, although it is one of the clearest of all the interpreta-
tions of Plato's idealism, it has that fatal mist about it which
has permanently enshrouded so many powerful minds. Here
are the quicksands of philosophy which have swallowed up
so many thinkers, who by their gigantic efforts to extricate
themselves have made enduring fame. Recognizing the
danger of this perilous place, let us remember our principles,,
and we shall be safe.
To repeat : " Definitions should be those of intelligibles
(i. e. noumend) rather than of sensibles (i. e. phenomena], for it
is impossible to give a general definition to sensible objects,
which are always changing." Intelligibles which are after-
ward identified with ideas are unchanging existences (i. e.,
noumend], and sensibles which are afterward identified with
objects are changing existences (i. e. phenomena]. The ob-
ject of Plato is to prove that intelligibles, ideas, unchanging
existences, noumena — terms which are all identified as having
the same ultimate significance — represent reality ; and that
sensibles, objects, changing existences, phenomena — which
are also identified as terms having the same ultimate signifi-
cance— represent the opposite of reality. This brings out
Plato's central idea (of the truth of which we are now able
to judge), namely, that unchanging means real, and that
changing means unreal. This is the idealist theory as it
first appeared in the world, reduced to its simplest terms.
'Metaph. I., 6, p. 28. Bohn.
58 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
It is next to impossible for minds trained to this school of
thought to escape this dogma and recognize that the central
fact of the universe is change.
Plato's thought is susceptible of a much higher inter-
pretation than is to be found in modern Idealism, as he
"sought to detect the One amidst the multiplicity of ma-
terial phenomena, and, having detected it, declared it to be
the real essence of matter, so also did he seek to detect the
One amidst the multiplicity of ideas, and, having detected
it, declared it to be God. What ideas were to phenomena,
God was to ideas — the last result of generalization. God
was thus the One Being comprising within himself all other
Beings, the Cause of all things, celestial and terrestrial.
God was the supreme Idea. Whatever view we take of the
Platonic cosmology — whether God created ideas, or whether
he only fashioned unformed matter after the model of ideas
— we are equally led to the conviction that God represented
the supreme Idea of all existence ; the great Intelligence,
source of all other intelligences ; the Sun whose light illu-
mined creation."
This interpretation is clearly a logical development of the
thought of Plato. It discloses the highest results of the
Platonic reasonings, and does not confine itself to what is
said in the original. The ability of Lewes to thus instil
a higher meaning into the dialectics of Plato cannot be
doubted by those who have read his invaluable writings on
the " Problems of Life and Mind," which will be fully re-
viewed in Part II. It is nevertheless difficult to read this
far-seeing interpretation of Plato's thought without wonder-
ing that its author failed to perceive the simple solution of
the metaphysical problem, especially as we find abundant
evidence in Lewes' works that he was conscious of the need
and of the possibility of this solution.
Plato held that intelligence was another name for God.
He reasons that, in this world of changing phenomena, evil
dwells, and to overcome the evil we must lead the life of
1 Lewes : " Hist, of Philosophy," p. 229.
^%few*2/
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 59
the gods. Now, what was the life of the gods? Every
Platonist will tell you that it is a life of the eternal contem-
plation of Truth, of Ideas. Man must find his salvation in
dialectics.
A glance at Plato's psychology will give us a still better
idea of the character of his thought, and its degree of diver-
gence from what is acknowledged in our day as safe or sci-
entific reasoning. Plato considered the soul as a self-sub-
sisting essence, the principle of all motion in the universe ;
it always has been, and always will be. It does not depend
for its existence on its union with the body ; and as it ex-
isted before the union, so it will exist after the separation.
The difference between animate and inanimate bodies is,
that the former has a soul which moves it from within,
Avhile the latter is moved from without ; so the soul is
everywhere the moving force, which can neither be pro-
duced nor decay, else all motion would eventually cease.
This double-edged belief in immortality (the belief in a pre-
natal as well as in a future existence) is really the only con-
sistent form which it can take.
Thus we see that during the time of Plato there were just
as pure conceptions of the Deity as can be found in our
time. God, by the best minds then, was regarded as a prin-
ciple, not as a person ; the source of all light and good, and
the end of all generalization. The concrete conceptions of
the Deity, so prevalent among us, which ascribe to him the
attributes and limits of humanity, are merely less successful
efforts to reach an ultimate principle, although they occur in
a later age. It is also to be seen that morality, in ancient
Greece, was taught with a directness and freshness which
compares with any method to be found in our age, and that
these moral teachings are the more to be admired on account
of their freedom from those personal incentives which have
crept into the ethics of more recent times. The great
moral teacher of Galilee, who bore the same relation to the
decline of Roman power and manhood that Socrates bore to
the decline of the power and manhood of ancient Greece,
60 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE,
was not to be heard for nearly four centuries, and yet there
is not a precept which he taught, nor a sentiment which he
breathed, that has not its counterpart and peer in the annals
of Greek thought and feeling. It would be well, before
leaving Plato, to call attention to the fact that Lewes objects
to calling Plato an idealist, as that phrase is usually under-
stood ; and in the same breath he says, " Plato was an invet-
erate dialectician." It is these fine distinctions between
different degrees of error in metaphysics which make this
study perhaps the most fruitless and discouraging in the
whole field of research.
Speaking of Plato's ideal theory, Lewes says: "Plato,
according to Aristotle, gave to General Terms a distinct
existence, and called them Ideas. He asserted that there
was the abstract man no less than the concrete men; the
latter were men only in as far as they participated in the
ideal man." If this is not idealism, as the word is usually
understood, then the word idealism cannot be used to indi-
cate any definite type of belief.
Again Lewes says : " Dialectics was the base of the Pla-
tonic doctrine. Indeed, Plato believed in no other science ;
dialectics and philosophy were synonymous. For dialectics,
(or logic) to be synonymous with philosophy, the theory of
Ideas was necessary. Dialectics is the science of general
propositions, of general terms, of universals. To become
the science, it must necessarily be occupied with more impor-
tant things. Ideas are these important things ; for Ideas
are at once the only real Existences and General Terms."
If Dialectics is the science of universals, and universals
are ideas, and ideas are the only real existences, surely dialec-
tics, at least as Plato taught the science, is nothing more nor
less than Idealism. If Plato's ideas, however, were continu-
ally changing, as we are told they were, while the meaning
of his terms remained relatively constant, there is plenty of
room for confusion in expounding his thought.
The influence of Plato upon subsequent ages is only sec-
ond to that of Aristotle. Throughout the time of the Alex-
THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT. 6 1
andrian school, in which Plato's philosophy received so
many interpretations, until the second century of our era,
when Ammonius Saccas founded the school of the Neo-Pla-
tonists, the mind of Plato seems to have presided over the
most thoughtful part of the world.
The second generation of the Neo-Platonists went to great
lengths in mysticism, citing texts from the writings of their
" God-enlightened master " as authority for all sorts of
extravagances of faith, among which were the revival of the
ancient rites of expiation, divination, astrology, and the inter-
pretation of visions ; all of which had been strongly con-
demned by Plato. Plutarch, and Boethius (the last of the
Neo-Platonists), redeemed somewhat the character of this
philosophy, until it almost disappeared after the Emperor
Justinian interdicted all instruction in the Platonic schools.
The early Christian Fathers owe much of their theology
to Plato. " Justin Martyr, Jerome, and Lactantius, all speak
of him as the wisest and greatest of philosophers. St.
Augustine calls him his converter, and thanks God that he
became acquainted with Plato first and with the Gospel
afterward." Passages of his Dialogues bear a close resem-
blance to parts of the Scriptures, and the moral ideals which
are pictured in the Platonic accounts of the death of Socrates
are reproduced with singular faithfulness in the Christian
accounts of the tragedy of Christ.
Thus the metaphysical teachings and the original genius
of Plato have become insensibly merged in Christianity. In
the bosom of the Christian Church Plato survives through
the dark ages, when the classics were read only by monks
and churchmen, and Platonism, with its natural logical
opponent the Aristotelian faith, produced through the
agency of Scholasticism that marvellous compound of Greek
thought and primitive science known as Mediaeval Theology.
When in the wake of this development the revival of learn-
ing in Europe brought into life a modern philosophy, the
influence of Plato again asserted itself, and the German
idealists have made this great teacher immortal.
CHAPTER IV.
ARISTOTLE, THE STOICS, THE CYNICS, AND THE SKEPTICS OF THE
NEW ACADEMY.
Aristotle — Zeno the Stoic — Antisthenes — Diogenes — Epicurus — Pyrrho —
Arcesilaus — Carneades.
ARISTOTLE was the scientist of antiquity. His life was
given rather to the investigation of facts than to abstract
speculation. He had an aversion to the unrealities of meta-
physics, and yet he was obliged, in common with every
thinker of every school, to offer his solution of the great
metaphysical problem. This effort led to the formation of
his celebrated ten categories of thought, or the classification
of the ultimate realities, which will receive full treatment as
we proceed.
Aristotle was born at Stagira, a colony of Thrace on the
western shores of the Strymonic Gulf, in the QQth Olympiad
(B.C. 384). His life was one long devotion to the pursuit of
knowledge. His writings were numerous, but only a fourth
part of them is supposed to have descended to us ; and the
authenticity of even these has long been a subject of dis-
cussion among scholars. The influence of these works,
spurious and genuine, upon Eastern as well as European cul-
ture, it is impossible to estimate. " Translated in the fifth
century of the Christian era into the Syriac language by the
Nestorians, who fled into Persia, and from Syriac into Arabic
four hundred years later, his writings furnished the Moham-
medan conquerors of the East with a germ of science which,
but for the effect of their religious and political institutions,
might have shot up into as tall a tree as it did produce in
ARISTOTLE. 6^
the West ; while his logical works, in the Latin translation
which Boethius, ' the last of the Romans,' bequeathed as a
legacy to posterity, formed the basis of that extraordinary
phenomenon, the Philosophy of the Schoolmen. An em-
pire like this, extending over nearly twenty centuries of time,
sometimes more and sometimes less despotically, but always
with great force, recognized in Bagdad and in Cordova, in
Egypt and in Britain, and leaving abundant traces of itself
in the language and modes of thought of every European
nation, is assuredly without a parallel."
The ceaseless civil wars and counter-invasions which make
up the major part of the history of Greece had exhausted
the nation, enabling Philip of Macedon to subjugate the
Greek States. Philip gave the charge of the education of
his son Alexander to Aristotle, who taught the illustrious
boy philosophy during four years. They separated at the
beginning of the Macedonian war. Aristotle went to Ath-
ens to open his school, which received the name of Peripa-
tetic, from his habit of walking up and down the shady
groves of the Lyceum while explaining his philosophy. Alex-
ander departed on his Indian expedition accompanied by
Calisthenes, a pupil and kinsman of Aristotle. The philoso-
pher long enjoyed the favor of Philip and Alexander. "The
conqueror is said, in Athenaeus, to have presented his master
with the sum of eight hundred talents (about one million
dollars) to meet the expenses of his ' History of Animals/
and, enormous as the sum is, it is only in proportion to the
accounts we have of the vast wealth acquired by the plunder
of the Persian treasures. Pliny also relates that some thous-
ands of men were placed at his disposal for the purpose of
procuring zoological specimens which served as materials for
this celebrated treatise." 2 It is a work based on knowledge
evidently acquired by close inspection and special studies of
dissection, and is one which naturalists may still consult
with profit.
Aristotle severely criticised the Ideal theory of Plato, for
1 Blakesley : "Life of Aristotle." 2 Blakesley, p. 68.
64 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
he was convinced that this theory had its origin in intro-
spective, not in physical, researches ; that it sought to sepa-
rate the universal from the material, and put forth doctrines
concerning things which did not correspond with phenom-
ena. He denied to ideas an objective being, and could not,
like Plato, give to qualities, such as weight, size, and color,
separate existences. While Plato believed that from a
single idea man could arrive at the knowledge of all ideas,
Aristotle maintained that all knowledge comes through ex-
perience ; that every idea is caused by a separate sensation,
and that the universal principle is a principle of contradic-
tion, man having power to perceive difference only through
comparing like with unlike. His method was new, his con-
ceptions just ; but, in that early age of knowledge, and
with such narrow data to generalize from, he could not ac-
complish much. Though both these philosophers admitted
that science could only be derived from universals, one gave
Experience as the basis of all science, and taught men to
observe and question Nature ; the other gave Reason as the
basis, and taught men the contemplation of Ideas.
It will be asked : If Aristotle was a cautious thinker, and
closely followed what has since received the name of the
Scientific Method, how could he have been at the same time
so famous a metaphysician ?
This question will be answered by getting at the nature,
not particularly of Aristotle's metaphysics, but of meta-
physics in general. Perhaps the most exact metaphysical
thought which the world has produced up to the time of the
appearance of Lewes's " Problems of Life and Mind," is to
be found in the writings of Herbert Spencer ; and yet Mr.
Spencer would, no doubt, be astonished were he called a
metaphysician. The fact is, no one can take an intelligent
view of life and its surroundings without becoming in some
degree a metaphysician. The moment we attempt any thing
like ultimate questions, we are in the midst of the most pro-
found metaphysical problems. Aristotle stated what he
took to be the ultimate realities or principles of all things,
his ten categories of thought, as follows :
ARISTOTLE. 6$
Relation, Substance,
Quantity, Quality,
Action, Passion,
The Where, The When,
Position in Space, Possession.
It will be seen at a glance that there are repetitions in
these principles. If we refer back to the beginning of Greek
philosophy, we shall find that the ten double principles of
Pythagoras, to whose school Aristotle gave a great deal of
attention, probably suggested the above categories. How-
ever this may be, Aristotle reduced the number of these
principles by one half, as those of the Pythagoreans were
double or coordinates, making twenty in all. Modern
thought has reduced these principles or ultimate realities to
five. In Spencer's system, which agrees substantially with
the best contemporaneous writings upon the subject, they
are stated as follows :
Space, Time,
Matter, Force,
Motion.1
i contend that a generalization of these principles is pos-
sible ; that they are all aspects of the single principle of
Motion. There are so many repetitions, however, among
the terms employed to represent them, that confusion
inevitably results. It should be the aim of a true system of
metaphysics to do away with this tautology. For as Matter
and Space are but different aspects of the statical appear-
ance of the universe, Time and Force are also the obverse
aspects of the dynamical appearance of the universe. The
greatest difficulty in making physics and metaphysics har-
monize, or in making the experiences of phenomena agree
with the ruling principles of all things, is to identify motion
and the thing moved ; or, in other words, to overcome what
1 In Spencer's " First Principles " there are six ultimate realities postulated,
as Consciousness is added to the five above cited ; it is a fair inference from,
other parts of his works, however, that Consciousness is a relative, not an abso-
lute, fact.
66 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
is simply a logical or subjective separation of an indivisible
fact. A large class of scientists persist in imagining a
force as the cause of motion ; in imagining a matter in itself
inert and propelled by this force ; the two being in some
way conjoined, they do not attempt to say how, make what
we call Motion. They then introduce Time to the com-
bination as another necessary element, and considerately
supply an infinite Space for its convenience and occupancy.
These logical preliminaries being arranged, the universe goes
on without difficulty. Is it not wonderful that all these
principles should work together so well in spite of the
inartistic way in which they have been put together by
human physicists ?
Dr. Holmes says somewhere that whenever he comes in
contact with a mathematician he imagines he hears the
click of the wheels within his head ; but if we must imagine
that there are wheels in the heads of mathematicians, to
account for the accuracy of their calculations, what shall be
our symbol for the stupendous cohesive and organizing
power supplied by the modern physicist who can make
isolated principles hold together and work out all the
wonders of evolution? How much more in accord with our
attitude as students of the majestic sequences of evolution,
having for their obverse aspects what we call infinite space
and absolute time, would it be to recognize that divine
unity, that universal principle, which we symbolize as power
in so many ways, which we apprehend through the ever-in-
creasing experiences of life. Let us not regard this prin-
ciple as a veil which obscures reality from us, as a limit
to knowledge, or a boundary of the " unknowable" for it is
that of which Life or Knowledge consists.
Aristotle's metaphysics were about as coherent as the
science or actual knowledge of his time; and this is the
highest compliment that can be paid to any thinker. All
the early thinkers sought with wonderful perseverance the
knowledge of the First Cause. The Four Causes of Aris-
totle, though they had been separately recognized, had not
ARISTOTLE. 6?
all been proclaimed necessary. Aristotle, like a true philos-
opher, while he considered nothing that happens unworthy
of notice, yet gave his chief attention to the solution of the
problem of First Causes. He maintained that there were
four, as follows : First, the Material Cause, or Essence ; sec-
ond, the Substantial Cause ; third, the Efficient Cause, or
the principle of motion ; fourth, the Final Cause, or the Pur-
pose and End.1
After what has been said, it is hardly necessary to go into
the merit of these speculations ; they are obviously the ex-
pression of a very high order of reasoning power, making
the best use of such materials as were at hand. We can-
not help regarding them with respect, considering the
opportunities of their author; and as they occur again in
the works of later thinkers, we should maintain the same
attitude toward them ; for the superior advantage which we
enjoy in the way of scientific knowledge is partly a product
of these very speculations.
The progress of knowledge consists of an ebb and flow
between hypothesis and verification, thought, and science ;
and it is the rivalry or interaction of these opposite modes
of procedure repeated in the individual, the school, the
epoch which constitutes the true progress of our race.
The strength of Aristotle lay in his marvellous command
of facts and in his power of grouping them. Plato will al-
ways be regarded as a finer writer, and, in the literary sense,
as a greater genius. Aristotle never reached the sublime
heights of abstraction which we find in the theology of
Plato ; he rather occupied himself with bringing the results
of previous thought into harmony with actual knowledge,
and enlarging this knowledge through the agency of new
facts, — a more patient and thorough method than Plato's.
The science of Logic is said to have been originated by
Aristotle. If we admit this to be the case, we must be careful
fitter gives the four causes as follows: The Material, the Formal, the
Moving, and the Final : and says that Aristotle sometimes speaks of only three
Causes, identifying the Form with the End. He calls Form that which a thing
is in truth and apart from matter, — it is the notion of the Essence.
68 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
to limit the definition of logic to an exposition of the laws and
methods of reasoning, for it is clear that actual reasoning is lit-
tle dependent upon a knowledge of this science. Some of the
greatest feats of reasoning which history records occurred
before Aristotle was born, before logic was recognized as a
science. Logic enables us to compel assent to propositions,
rather than to discover truth. In other words, it too often
constitutes merely a training in the art of disputation. Peo-
ple are disconcerted and defeated more than convinced by
its processes. In his treatment of logic Aristotle seems to
have laid aside in part his distinct scientific character.
He made the mistake of regarding logic as the art of think-
ing, instead of " a portion of the art of thinking." He saw
the dependence of thought upon words, and imagined that
truth or falsehood in logical processes wholly depended upon
combinations of words, or propositions, instead of upon the
facts or things which the propositions represent. The fine
distinction that Aristotle made between the definitions of
words and those of things is declared by Mill to be futile.
As this theory of Aristotle involves a mistaken idea with
regard to the scope of language, we will give the argument
of Mill at length.
" The distinction between nominal and real definitions, between definitions
of words and what are called definitions of things, though conformable to the
ideas of most of the Aristotelian logicians, cannot, as it appears to us, be main-
tained. We apprehend that no definition is ever intended to ' explain and un-
fold the nature of the thing.' It is some confirmation of our opinion, that none
of those writers who have thought that there were definitions of things, have
ever succeeded in discovering any criterion by which the definition of a thing
can be distinguished from any other proposition relating to the thing. The
definition, they say, unfolds the nature of the thing : but no definition can un-
fold its whole nature ; and every proposition in which any quality whatever is
predicated of the thing, unfolds some part of its nature. The true state of the
case we take to be this. All definitions are of names, and of names only ; but,
in some definitions, it is clearly apparent that nothing is intended except to
explain the meaning of the word ; while in others, besides explaining the mean-
ing of the word, it is intended to be implied that there exists a thing, corres-
ponding to the word. Whether this be or be not implied in any given case,
1 See J. S. Mill's " System of Logic," p. 26.
ARISTOTLE. 69
cannot be collected from the mere form of the expression. ' A centaur is an
animal with the upper parts of a man and the lower parts of a horse,' and ' a
triangle is a rectilineal figure with three sides,' are, in form, expressions pre-
cisely similar, although in the former it is not implied that any thing conform-
able to the term really exists, while in the latter it is implied as may be seen by
substituting, in both definitions, the word means for is. In the first expression,
' a centaur means an animal,' etc., the sense would remain unchanged ; in the
second, ' a triangle means,' etc., the meaning would be altered, since it would
be obviously impossible to deduce any of the truths of geometry from a propo-
sition expressive only of the manner in which we intend to employ a particular
sign.
" There are, therefore, expressions, commonly passing for definitions, which
include in themselves more than the mere explanation of the meaning of a term.
But it is not correct to call an expression of this sort a peculiar kind of defini-
tion. Its difference from the other kind consists in this, that it is not a definition,
but a definition and something more. The definition above given of a triangle
obviously comprises not one but two propositions, perfectly distinguishable ;
the one is, ' there may exist a figure bounded by three straight lines ' ; the
other, ' this figure maybe termed a triangle.' The former of these propositions
is not a definition at all ; the latter is a mere nominal definition, or explanation,
of the use and application of a term. The first is susceptible of truth or false-
hood, and may therefore be made the foundation of a train of reasoning. The
latter can neither be true nor false ; the only character it is susceptible of is
that of conformity or disconformity to the ordinary usage of language.
"There is a real distinction, then, between definitions of names and what
are erroneously called definitions of things ; but it is that the latter, along with
the meaning of a name, covertly asserts a matter of fact. This covert assertion
is not a definition, but a postulate. The definition is a mere identical proposi-
tion, which gives information only about the use of language, and from which
no conclusions affecting matters of fact can possibly be drawn. The accom-
panying postulate, on the other hand, affirms a fact, which may lead to conse-
quences of every degree of importance. It affirms the actual or possible exist-
ence of things possessing the combination of attributes set forth in the defini-
tion ; and this, if true, may be foundation sufficient on which to build a whole
fabric of scientific truth." :
From the above it is seen that the operation on words or
symbols, of which logic consists, is limited in its results by
the collateral understanding of the symbols employed ; so
that the formalities of logic are entirely subordinated to the
original thought and investigation which enrich and make
more definite the meaning of words.
Thought is, no doubt, the function or activity of words or
1 J. S. Mill : " System of Logic," pp. 112, 113.
70 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
language, but it is independent of words in the sense that
words are at best but copies of actions, while thought, in the
deepest sense, is action.
There is a divergence between the Aristotelian and the
Platonic methods which lasts throughout the subsequent
history of philosophy. The two systems were opposite
views of a single group of facts, or a different selection of
facts from a single organon of truth.
Aristotle was a scientist, Plato a theologian. Aristotle
endeavored to build up a synthesis of thought from a wide
range of facts, and was comparatively indifferent to an ulti-
mate generalization ; Plato, on the contrary, regarded all
facts as subservient to a single fact, and never tired in his
efforts to illustrate the omnipresence of this principle by ex-
pressing every thought and feeling in terms of a divine
Unity. From these two schools we trace the growth of
science and of metaphysics, of patient investigation accom-
panied by verification, and the contemplation of universals.
The natural philosophy of Aristotle was far more metaphysi-
cal than that of the present day. The natural philosophy of
modern times is a science based upon mathematics, and be-
gins with such general principles as are given, for instance,
in the Principia of Newton. This science considers all ulti-
mate questions concerning existence and first cause as be-
yond its sphere. Aristotle, on the contrary, sought to base
his theories of Nature upon ultimate conceptions ; he tried
to make the line of thought unbroken between the most ab-
struse metaphysical reasonings and his interpretations of
physical phenomena. The difficulty in finding an ultimate
reality upon which to build knowledge, Aristotle met by ac-
knowledging the impossibility of any unconditioned or ab-
solute creation or beginning to the universe. By a dexter-
ous verbal manoeuvre he explained that the regions from
which all things have sprung are those of the possible or po-
tential, and that the transition from this mystic state brings
us to the actual. Possibility and Actuality, therefore, he
tells us, are the opposite poles of reality, and the
ARISTOTLE. 71
meaning of the often-recurring " is " and " became" or the
perplexing problems of existence and first cause, are thus
disposed of. Aristotle speaks of " Nature " as " a principle
of motion and rest essentially inherent in things, whether
that motion be locomotion, increase, decay, or alteration."
He reasons that there is only one Universe or Cosmos, and
that outside of this there is " neither space, nor vacuum, nor
time." The irresponsible way in which so many modern
writers on metaphysics and theology speak of space and
time, and separate the idea of time and eternity, can be
traced to Aristotle, who said that " the things outside " of
the Cosmos " existing in neither space nor time, enjoy for
all eternity a perfect life of absolute joy and peace. This is
the region of the divine, in which there is life and conscious-
ness, though perhaps no personality ; it is increate, im-
mutable, and indestructible.
" Descending from this region— if that can be called region
which is out of space altogether — we come in the Aris-
totelian system to the ' First Heaven,' the place of the fixed
stars, which ever revolves with great velocity from the left
to the right. In a lower sphere, revolving in the contrary
direction, are the sun, moon, and planets ; and we are told
that we must not suppose that either stars or planets are
composed of fire. Their substance is ether, that fifth ele-
ment, or quinta essentia, which enters also into the composi-
tion of the human soul. They only seem bright like fire
because the friction caused by the rapidity with which they
are carried round makes them red-hot. The reason why
the stars twinkle, but the planets do not, is merely that the
former are so far off that our sight reaches them in a weak
and trembling condition ; hence their light seems to us to
quiver, while really it is our eyesight which is quivering.
Sun, moon, and stars alike are living beings, unwearied, and
in the enjoyment of perfect happiness. * * *
" Aristotle argued that if the earth were to move, it could
only do so 'unnaturally,' by the application of external
force in contradiction to its own natural tendency to rest
72 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
round the centre, and that no such forced movement could
be kept up forever, whereas the arrangements of the Cosmos
must be for all eternity. Therefore the earth must be at
rest ! As to its shape, Aristotle was more correct ; he proved
it to be spherical." 1
Alexander von Humboldt says : " The great influence
which the writings of Aristotle exercised on the whole of
the Middle Ages renders it a cause of extreme regret that
he should have been so opposed to the grander and juster
views of the fabric of the universe entertained by the more
ancient Pythagorean school."2
" Unconvinced by the speculations of the Pythagorean
school, and of Aristarchus of Samos, the great Alexandrian
astronomer, Ptolemy, in the second century of our era, re-
affirmed the Aristotelian views as to the spherical form and
motion of the heavens, as to the earth's position in the centre
of the heavens, and as to its being devoid of any motion of
translation. And the Ptolemaic system satisfied men's minds
until, with Copernicus and Galileo, modern astronomy
began."
The firm hold which the speculations of Aristotle obtained
upon the world can be judged of when we remember that
the theories of Copernicus, supported by Galileo and Des-
cartes, were so slow in gaining ground against the Ptolemaic
system, that Shakespere died in the belief that the world
held a fixed position with regard to the rest of the universe ;
and Milton framed his plan of the universe, in " Paradise
Lost," according to the teaching of the Ptolemaic school, in
which he had been educated.
The cause of this is that Christianity incorporated with its
faith the Aristotelian philosophy, further elaborated by
Ptolemy and St. Thomas Aquinas. As a reminder of which
the peripatetic logic and metaphysics still survive, as a
part of the formal instruction in Roman Catholic ecclesias-
tical institutions of the present day.
1 See Alexander Grant's " Aristotle," pp. 138, 140, 141.
a " Cosmos," vol. I., note 48.
THE STOICS. 73
The Stoics no more than the Sophists can be said to have
founded any special doctrine, or set of principles, clearly dis-
tinguishable from the complex of philosophy. Like the
Cynics, their doctrines were widely diversified, and repre-
sented a sort of general criticism of philosophy, rather than
any type of thought that could be clearly demarcated from
the established schools. It was not so with the pronounced
Skeptics. Skepticism is a well-defined belief ; and although
the strongest types have disappeared, the logical character-
istics which Pyrrho and Carneades brought into such prom-
inence in ancient Greece are still constantly asserting them-
selves in every form of society. The Stoics were numerous,
and many of them celebrated. Zeno founded the sect, and
Brutus and Marcus Antonius were among the last who con-
tributed to its renown.
The Stoics classed themselves as followers of Socrates,
and they were in fact nearly related to him by their doc-
trines. They seem to have been the most rational of the
Greek philosophers ; they made logic and physics auxiliary
to ethics, teaching that action or conduct was the chief
problem of man. They taught that the supreme end of life,
or the highest good, is virtue ; for virtue is inseparable from
perfect happiness. This they supported by the still higher
principle that virtue is sufficient for happiness.
" Physics, with the Stoics, includes not only Cosmology,
but also Theology. They teach that whatever is real is
material. Matter and force are the two ultimate principles.
Matter is per se motionless and unformed, though capable
of receiving all motions and all forms. Force is the active,
moving, and molding principle. It is inseparably joined
with matter. The working force in the universe is God." 1
Zeno, who was probably the most illustrious of the Stoics,
was born at Cittium, a small city in the island of Cyprus, of
Phoenician origin, but inhabited by Greeks. The time of his
birth is not known. In his youth he was engaged in com-
merce, as his father was a merchant ; but after reading the
1 Ueberweg : " Hist, of Philosophy," vol. I., p. 194.
74 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
works of Socrates, which his father brought him from
Athens, his mind became entirely occupied with philosophy.
In his mature age, on his first visit to Athens, he was ship-
wrecked, and, having lost all, he joined the Cynics, whose
ostentatious display of poverty pleased him at the time.
But his moral sensibility soon revolted at their grossness and
insolence. After twenty years of serious study in different
schools, he formed one of his own at Athens. The place
selected was the Stoa, or Porch, which had once been the
place of meeting of the poets, but was now deserted ; and
from this Stoa the school derived its name.
Zeno was much admired for the temperance and austerity
of his habits. Though possessed of a delicate constitution,
by leading an abstemious life he lived to an old age. The
Athenians respected him so much that they entrusted him
with the keys of the city ; and at his death they erected
monuments in his honor, with inscriptions to the effect that
his life had been in perfect harmony with his philosophy. It
was certainly the highest praise that they could have be-
stowed upon him.
Greek civilization was now in its decline, and Rome was
fast taking the place in political power that Athens had once
held. Zeno, alarmed at the skepticism of the age, turned
his thoughts chiefly upon moral questions, holding in con-
tempt knowledge which did not immediately refer to conduct.
"The fundamental criterion of truth with the Stoics is sen-
suous distinctness in the mental representation "; 1 or, as Des-
cartes said many centuries afterward, " all clear and distinct
ideas are true." Sextus Empiricus tells us that the Stoics
-called this criterion of truth the " Cataleptic Phantasm;' that
is, the sensuous apprehension.
In the review of Plato, in the preceding chapter, this ques-
tion of the sensuous and intellectual apprehension has already
been dealt with. A more thorough examination of it re-
quires a careful study of the nature of perception, which the
reader will find in Part II.
1 Ueberweg, vol. I., p. 191.
THE CYNICS. 75
Antisthenes, an Athenian, born of a Phrygian or Thracian
mother, was a pupil of Gorgias, the Sophist. After finishing
his studies, he established a school of his own, which he sub-
sequently gave up when he had made the acquaintance of
Socrates. His admiration for this wise man was such that,
with more modesty than most philosophers possess, he be-
came his disciple, and persuaded all his own pupils to follow
him, telling them that in so doing they could best learn wis-
dom. He took such pride in his poverty that Socrates one
day said to him : " I see thy vanity, Antisthenes, peering
through the holes in thy cloak."
It is difficult even for wise men to walk in the narrow
path of moderation ; and Antisthenes, after the death of his
master, carried poverty to such extremes that he became re-
pulsive. In his virtuous zeal he carried every thing to ex-
cess, ignoring completely the Socratic moderation. He held
all sensuous enjoyment in such contempt that he is repre-
sented as saying : " I would rather be mad than sensual."
Indeed, he and his followers became so indecent and un-
couth, that their manners finally resembled those of dogs
rather than men, and caused the refined Athenians to give
them the name of Cynics.
" The doctrine of Antisthenes was mainly confined to
morals ; but, even in this portion of philosophy, it is exceed-
ingly meagre and deficient, scarcely furnishing any thing be-
yond a general defence of the olden simplicity and moral
energy against the luxurious indulgence and effeminacy of
later times." '
Diogenes of Sinope, the famous scholar of Antisthenes,
was the son of a banker who was accused of debasing the
•coin. His son, being implicated, was obliged to fly to
Athens, where he was soon reduced to the most abject pov-
erty. He then went to Antisthenes, who refused to receive
him ; and, as Diogenes would not depart, the Cynic
threatened to strike him with his staff. " Strike ! " an-
swered Diogenes, " you will not find a stick hard enough to
1 Ritter, vol. II., p. no.
76 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
conquer my perseverance." He was then accepted as a
pupil.
The Cynics despised the Athenians for their joyous way
of life, and opposed to it the greatest self-denial. They
maintained that the wise man must hold himself superior to
all outward influences, and out of their utter disregard for
social institutions arose their brutal coarseness.
By the Cynics, philosophy was reduced to the art of life,
but life stripped of all beauty, grace, and pleasure. They
denied that science or definite knowledge was possible, and
refused to accept the Socratic idea, that a definition was the
essence of a thing. Thus they opposed facts to arguments,
maintaining that definitions might prove that there was no
such thing as motion, but this was merely a manipulation of
words and did not alter the facts, which remained the same.
In this it must be admitted that they had an insight into the
great truth that facts express themselves, and are, therefore,
in one sense, independent of words ; a truth which indicates
the limitations of language.
We find among the Cynics the most extraordinary example
of the influence which skepticism can exert upon conduct.
As far as their opposition to the tenets of philosophy was con-
cerned, their skepticism was of a mild type, but their moral
distrust amounted to fanaticism. They arbitrarily dis-
sociated the mind from the body, and regarded the functions
of the one as holy and of the other as unholy. They made
the further mistake of estimating the degradation of bodily
functions by the degree of pleasure derived from their
exercise. They may have had an excuse for this belief in
the excesses of the age, but it brought them to the conse-
quence of such a doctrine — the belief that pain is in itself a
virtue. They saw that virtue could only be attained by
reasoning with the desires, — by a stern self-discipline : con-
necting this idea with that of suffering, they came to despise
all bodily comforts, and actually to court squalor, privation,
and pain.
The Stoics held themselves superior to worldly enjoyments,,
EPICURUS.
and were proud of poverty : they thought that it enabled
them to devote their lives to the study of truth. The
Cynics devoted their lives to illustrating their contempt for
all kinds of pleasure, looking upon joy itself as a reproach
and beneath their dignity. They were admired for this
great force of character, and feared and respected for the
fierce purity of their motives.
Opposed to the repulsive and mutilated morality of the
Cynics we find the celebrated school of the Epicureans. The
popular idea of this school is, that it was licentious and
given up to the worship of pleasure. In fact, the word Epi-
curean has degenerated into signifying " a luxurious and
dainty eater ; a person given to luxury." If there is such a
school in our day it can have but little resemblance to its
prototype in ancient Greece.
Epicurus, the son of poor parents, was born in the lOQth
Olympiad (B.C. 342), at Samos, according to some ; or, ac-
cording to others, at Gargettus, a borough near Athens. He
visited Athens at the age of eighteen. Xenocrates was then
teaching in the Academy, while Aristotle was in Chalcis.
After studying for a short time under Xenocrates he left
Athens, and resided in different cities of Greece until the age
of thirty-six. He then returned to Athens to teach his own
philosophy, in a school over which he presided until his
death.
Opportunities were not lacking at this time for study
in Athens. The Platonists had their Academic Grove, the
Aristotelians walked along the Lyceum, the Cynics growled
in the Cynosarges, the Stoics occupied the Porch, and the
Epicureans had their Garden.
" Here, in the tranquil Garden, in the society of his friends,
Epicurus passed a peaceful life of speculation and enjoyment.
The friendship which existed amongst them is well known.
In a time of general scarcity and famine they contributed to
each others' support, showing that the Pythagorean notion
of community of goods was unnecessary amongst friends,
who could confide in each other. At the entrance of the
78 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Garden they placed this inscription : ' The hospitable keeper
of this mansion, where you will find pleasure the highest
good, will present you liberally with barley-cakes and water
fresh from the spring. The gardens will not provoke your
appetite by artificial dainties but satisfy it with natural sup-
plies. Will you not be well entertained?"
It is believed now that Epicurus was a man of pure life,
who by his doctrines sought to inculcate moderation and ab-
stemiousness. He differed from Plato and Aristotle in one
essential point. He regarded philosophy as the Art of Life
rather than the Art of Truth ; declaring it to be an activity
which, by means of ideas and arguments, procures the hap-
piness of life. Epicurus did not seek the pleasure of the
moment, but the uninterrupted course of happiness through
life. This was to be obtained through the enjoyments of
the mind, which are lasting, rather than through those of the
senses, which are fleeting. He taught that virtue was in-
separable from true pleasure; and though he did not ex-
actly condemn all luxuries, he saw that a simple life was
best, saying, "wealth consists not in having great posses-
sions, but in having small wants." Thus, from the skepti-
cism which the imperfect philosophy of the age inspired,
Epicurus sought a refuge in morals, and endeavored to place
them on a philosophic basis.
To Epicurus are attributed some of the most astute gener-
alizations which are to be found in Greek thought. Ueber-
weg says : " Epicurus considers the dialectical method
incorrect and misleading. * * * Representations are re-
membered images of past perceptions. Beliefs are true or
false, according as they are confirmed or refuted by percep-
tion. * * * Animals and men are the products of the
earth ; the rise of man to the higher stages of culture has
been gradual. Words were formed originally, not by an ar-
bitrary but by a natural process, in correspondence with our
sensations and ideas. * * * Opinion or belief is due to
the continued working of impressions on us. The will is
excited, but not necessarily determined by ideas. Freedom
PYRRHO. 79
of the will is contingency (independence of causes) in self-
determination." ]
It would be hard to find, even among the most modern
writers, a better statement of the fundamental facts of bi-
ology, psychology, and philology than these words of Epi-
curus.
The teachings of Socrates were said to have been a reac-
tion against the skepticism of his time ; and yet Pyrrho,
whose career did not begin until after the death of Socrates,
is regarded as the founder of skeptical philosophy. This ,
apparent anachronism is to be explained by the fact that
skepticism existed as a definite type of belief in Greece long
before its organization into a school by Pyrrho. This school
developed later on into the New Academy. Among its.
pupils we find the names of Horace and Cicero.
Of the doctrines of Pyrrho, but an outline has come down
to us, so mixed are they with the teachings of his pupils.
These doctrines centre, like all skepticism, in the tenet that
there is no criterion of truth. Perhaps in the writings of
Sextus Empiricus is found the most complete portrayal of
the doctrines of skepticism.
The celebrity which the school of Pyrrho attained is due
more to the prominence of the doctrines which it combated
than to any originality in its own teachings. It is easy to
criticise. Skepticism criticised the creations of Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle, and well-nigh brought them to naught.
It exposed the weak points in these systems, but it offered
nothing worthy to take their place. Skepticism and Faith
are opposite intellectual extremes, and an undue tendency
toward either is enervating to the mind. Faith is trust in.
appearances, skepticism is distrust in appearances. Appear-
ance and disappearance are our symbols for change. All.
knowledge springs from these changes : to alternately trust
and distrust them, to experiment and verify, is the natural
course of perception. It is not to be wondered at, therefore,
that the actions and reactions which have gone to make up-
1 " Hist, of Philosophy," vol. I., pp. 203, 205.
80 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
the growth of knowledge should have produced the greatest
extravagances of belief and unbelief.
The extremes of faith and of skepticism are equally
opposed to thought. Science has no fear of skepticism,
for the element of doubt is never neglected in its conclu-
sions. Scientific facts are frustrations of doubt ; they rest
upon the " Universal Postulate/' the underlying principle of
certitude, the inability to believe the negation of a propo-
sition, which alone constitutes conviction. Skepticism is
said not to be a belief, but an unbelief. This is a misappre-
hension, for it is a clearly-defined doctrine, resting upon evi-
dences supposed to be axiomatic in their certainty. It has
a well understood method, and it has even created elaborate
dogmas. Its tendency is to depress conviction, not to
destroy it. Its position with regard to belief is like that of
the misanthrope who declared that he was most happy when
utterly alone, but was obliged to confess that he needed
some one to whom to communicate this happiness.
Let us examine some of the convictions of Skepticism.
Skepticism affirms that there is no criterion of truth. The
evidence it offers for this assertion is, that knowledge can be
only a knowledge of phenomena, and phenomena are the ap-
pearances of things, not the things themselves. According
to the Academicians, perceptions bore no conformity to the
objects perceived, or, if they did bear any conformity to
them, it could never be known. They assume that there is
a reality deeper than phenomena, or change, which they call
noumena. They mean, however, by phenomena, truth (facts),
for they assert that there is no measure or criterion of truth ;
and as they cannot reach the noumena to compare or meas-
ure them, had they this criterion, they must regard phenom-
ena as their organon of truth. Their assumptions, then,
amount to this : We have no absolute standard of facts by
which to measure the truth of facts ; and if we had, it would
be of no use, because there is a noumenon behind facts which
is more true and more real than facts themselves. This
noumenon is an unchanging existence, whereas facts are
THE SKEPTICS OF THE NEW ACADEMY. 8 1
changing existences. Now, was there ever such a mass of
contradictory statements as this ?
Have we not already reached a point which enables us to
say that existence cannot be other than changing existence,
and that, therefore, unchanging existence is a contradiction
in terms. May we not now call upon the skeptics to prove
that there is such a thing as unchanging existence, before we
can accept their statement that there is a noumenon^ or a
deeper source of truth than phenomena?
Their assertion that perceptions bear no conformity to the
objects perceived, or, if they did, that it could never be
known, really amounts to this : A lady viewing herself in a
mirror is bound to believe that she is looking at some one
else, or that she is some one else ; or if she is not, it does not
matter, as she cannot know who she is. And it is said that
skeptics can believe nothing !
Of course Arcesilaus and Carneades would have thought
this a frivolous way of meeting their profound arguments.
But let us bear in mind that profundity is not necessarily
proven by a confusion of ideas. Nor would we take advantage
of the rich inheritance of our century in definite knowledge to
make it appear that the acute intellects who puzzled the
Greeks and confounded the Romans were stumbling over
obvious errors. What we wish to prove is, that the Skeptics
had beliefs as well as other people, but that these beliefs
were divorced from facts by the tautologies and circumven-
tions of reasoning from a false premise.
If belief is but a phase of knowledge, a natural movement
of the mind which springs from the deeper impulses, — those
dim, inarticulate perceptions which we call faith, — then is not
Skepticism an artificial and unnatural belief, but none the
less a belief?
An analysis of these beliefs brings us inevitably to those
deep movements of consciousness, those simple and natural
perceptions upon which rests the whole structure of certi-
tude.
Arcesilaus was born at Pitane in the i i6th Olympiad (B.C.,
82 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
316). He was the successor of Crates to the Academic
chair, and is said to have filled it with great ability. The
difference between the views entertained by the Academi-
cians and those of the absolute Skeptics, we are told, is that
the former declared that all things were incomprehensible,
and that the latter did not affirm any thing, not even
that all things were incomprehensible. As it would be diffi-
cult to criticise the views of the latter class, we may consider
the Academicians the most pronounced Skeptics, for we are
in no danger of being contradicted by the other branch of
the sect.
Carneades, the most illustrious of the Academicians, was
born in the 141 st Olympiad (B.C. 213), at Cyrene in Africa.
Diogenes, the Stoic, instructed him in the art of disputation.
He was sent to Rome as ambassador, and astonished all
who heard him in that city by the brilliancy of his eloquence.
He was much praised for his celebrated discourse on Justice ;
but when trying to prove the uncertainty of all human
knowledge, he spoke against justice as strongly as he had
spoken for it ; Cato, the Censor, startled by these sophistries
hastened to have him dismissed from the city for fear that
he would corrupt the Roman youth. One of the pupils of
Carneades confessed that he could never discover what the
real opinion of his master was, so skilled was he in the art
of disputation.
Arcesilaus, while he admitted the arguments of Plato
which destroyed the certainty of Opinion, also admitted
those of Aristotle which destroyed the Ideal theory; thus
he left himself nothing but absolute Skepticism. The chief
problem which occupied the Academicians, briefly stated, is
this : Does every modification of the mind exactly corres-
pond with the external object which causes the modification ;
or, in other words, do we know things as they really are ?
The fact that all knowledge is derived through the senses
made them doubt its accuracy. It is true that the senses
are the outposts of the understanding, but what has that to
do with what takes place within the citadel of thought?
THE SKEPTICS OF THE NEW ACADEMY. 83
Can the Skeptic say where sense leaves off and reason
begins? He cannot. Then is it not safe to say that all
reason has a sensuous aspect, and that all sense has a
reasonable or logical aspect ?
We know that such truth as we possess is the function of
certain conditions ; that these conditions are those of per-
ception ; that reason is one aspect of the mental procedure
called perception, and that objective phenomena, or change,
is the other. We know that phenomena and reason, there-
fore, are related to each other as cause and effect, and that
cause and effect are simply two aspects of the same thing.
When light awakens the phenomena of sight within us, and
this, with the cooperation of other activities of our complex
organism, is elaborated into an idea, or the- phenomena of
reason, we have but sequent groups of changes, natural
chains of cause and effect, uniting and explaining observed
phenomena, sensuous apprehension, and ideas. The greater
the number of changes coordinated in the mind, made pos-
sible by accumulated modifications of the mental structure,
the greater the extent of reason ; the greater the com-
mand of facts, the wider and deeper the generalizations
or the establishment of interdependencies among facts. To
state, therefore, that things are not in reality what they
seem, is an entirely gratuitous assertion. We know things
as they affect, and to the extent that they affect, us.
This effect is the function of a definite structure. As the
modifications of the structure increase, this function or
response becomes more extended. To know an object in
the sense that the Skeptics imagined that we ought to know
it (to have an absolute knowledge of it) could only be accom-
plished by changing identity with the object — by becoming
the object ; as then, and only then, the perception would be
the function of its whole nature.
This is the way that God knows things, because God
shares his existence with every thing.1 We, whether it be
regarded as fortunate or unfortunate, enjoy some sort of in-
1 This expression, it is understood, is purely symbolical.
84 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
dividuality, and our perceptions are never more and never
less than the natural relationship or interaction between our-
selves and the things perceived. In the silent contemplation
of nature we come face to face with the deepest realities,
but the moment we would translate these realities into the
metaphor of language we are defeated on every hand.
What is more real than action ? What is more unreal than
its portrayal in words ? What is more certain than a feeling,
a sentiment, or a thought ? What is more impotent than
the best attempt at its conversion into symbols? The
incontrovertible part of life is its action, the delusive part is
its speech ; words are forever meaningless to those who have
not actually experienced the thoughts which they express.
The whole history of thought is a struggle with metaphors,
an effort to express thought and then a confusion of the ex-
pression with the thing expressed. As language, the great
medium of thought and feeling, enriches the lives of all who
use it, so it is the source of endless confusion and error to
those who have not actually lived up to its significance.
The issue we take with those who are willing to surrender
the results of philosophy to the Skeptic is now apparent.
Skepticism is only an involved and obscure philosophy, a
system of ultimate beliefs. Contrary to its teachings, we
hold that there is a successful philosophy, a successful
metaphysics, and that the most absolute Skepticism which
it is possible to state in terms is both a positive and a
mistaken belief.
These arguments, which seek to disclose the Scope of
Language, cannot be further produced without attempting
a close study of the Nature of Perception, which follows in
its allotted place. I am content for the present if I have
helped to dispel that logical presumption which has hung
for so many centuries like a dark cloud over the entire field
of thought.
CHAPTER V.
THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL, SCHOLASTICISM, AND THE REVIVAL
OF LEARNING.
Philo— Plotinus — Abelard — Bruno — Bacon.
THE fall of Greek independence and the advent of Skep-
ticism dethroned philosophy in Greece, and the centre of
speculative thought was transferred to Alexandria. Here,
during the first centuries of our era, Greek thought and
oriental mysticism combined in the formation of Chris-
tian theology. Alexandria, for three centuries previous to
this time, had been the centre of vast commercial as well as
literary enterprise. Its celebrated library, which contained
inestimable treasures of Egyptian, Indian, and Greek litera-
ture, (destroyed by Christian fanatics under the arch-
bishop Theophilus, in 391 A.D.) had been enriched and
fostered by such men as Euclid, Conon, Theocritus, Calli-
machus, Apollonius Rhodius, and Hipparchus.
For three centuries the Alexandrian school of philosophy
contended with Christianity for the intellectual and moral
control of Europe. It was not a fight between religious
faith and reason, as might be supposed, — for religious faith
was the foundation of the Alexandrian philosophy ; it was a
struggle between the special beliefs of Christianity, which
were formed by the early Christian fathers into a complete
organon of faith, and the incomplete beliefs which philoso-
phy at that time offered. This struggle still continues, with
the difference that the completeness of philosophical beliefs
now is far in advance of the Alexandrian school. The chief
objection to resigning Christian faith for Philosophy is that
something is given up with the former which is not replaced
85
86 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
by the latter, and the objection is valid ; for until Philosophy
can round out and organize its tenets so as to present a
complete system of belief, with a definite creed, a moral law,
a source of inspiration, a cosmology, a distinct theory of the
origin and destiny of our race, — expressed of course in terms
which comply with the laws of perception, — until then, re-
vealed religion will have an advantage over philosophy
which will decide the choice of the multitude irf*its favor.
The question which presses upon us is whether it is not
possible to make of philosophy a religion superior to any
faith which the world has yet known.
The curious feature of the Alexandrian philosophy is, that
it was founded on faith, not on reason. Reason had been
defeated by Skepticism, and it was declared, by what was
then an unanswerable argument, that it was not a criterion
of truth. A philosophy of Skepticism sprang up which
denied the validity of human reason and demanded another
criterion of truth ; for belief is ever active, it never tires of
the effort to establish itself in fact. The philosophy of the
Alexandrian school took the stand that Faith was the criterion
of truth. It is interesting to know, therefore, that Christianity
owes to philosophy its doctrine of faith, so predominant
among its teachings. It is to the ingenuity of the teachers
of philosophy, who, defeated by Skepticism, sought another
explanation of the source of knowledge than reason, that re-
ligion owes this bulwark of its creeds, this unanswerable
argument of Faith. It is certainly a most fortunate starting-
point for any special belief, for it was devised as a defence
against the reasonings of Skeptics and has proved invulner-
able to all kinds of reasoning, both true and false.
Philo, the Jew, the first of the Neo-Platonists, was born in
Alexandria, shortly before the beginning of the Christian
era. He had imbibed the doctrines of the New Academy,
and therefore made no attempt to refute Skepticism ; he
merely tried to avoid it and to build a system of belief
which would endure in spite of Skepticism, not in place of
it. The manner in which he expressed his criterion of truth
THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL. 8/
is as follows : " The Senses may deceive, Reason may be
powerless ; but there is still a faculty in man — there is
Faith. Real Science is the gift of God ; its name is Faith ;
its origin is the goodness of God ; its cause is Piety." That
Hebrew anthropomorphism which regards the Universal
Principle or Ultimate Generalization that the Greeks called
God, or the One, as a person having human attributes, as-
serted itself in Philo's teachings. Again : Mysticism, that
peculiar belief of oriental nations, far more ancient than any
thing which has come to us from the Greeks, was also a
factor in the doctrines of Philo ; and from these various
sources he framed a theology which is reproduced with
wonderful faithfulness in the Christian system of belief.
The most singular tenet of mysticism is that of a mediator
between God and man, made necessary by the inaccessible
nature of Deity. This mediator the Mystics called The
Word.
The school of Alexandria was founded by Ammonius
Saccas, toward the close of the second century of the
Christian era, at a time when civilization was on the decline.
This school gathered to itself many great and noble minds
which gave it unwonted brilliancy and power, while its
rivalry with Christianity spread its renown throughout the
world. For three centuries, this school lasted, during which
time Plotinus revived the doctrines of Plato ; Porphyry and
lamblicus sought to make it rival Christianity ; and Proclus
tried to harmonize philosophy and religion. This grand in-
tellectual centre to which the religious culture of our
era can be so clearly traced was indeed cosmopolitan in
its influences. Not far from the temple of Serapis, Greek
Skepticism, Platonism, Judaism, and Christianity, were all
interpreted.
Alexandrian Eclecticism,1 though based on the doctrines of
Plato, had much that was original in it ; but its composite
1 Eclecticism is that method of philosophy which believes that by placing the
better parts of all systems of thought in comparison the highest truth will make
itself apparent. In modern philosophy, this method has been employed in.
.France by Victor Cousin and his contemporaries.
88 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
character produced by degrees a mystic pantheism wholly
foreign to Greek thought. If the method of the school was
Platonic, its doctrine of the Trinity rendered it clearly mystic.
What is generally understood by the term theology is a body
of beliefs, largely originated by the teachers of philosophy
known as the Neo-Platonists, concerning the attributes of God.
These men, as above stated, were not only opposed to the
special tenets of Christianity, but endeavored to found a re-
ligious organization in opposition to the Christian church.
The Alexandrians exaggerated the vicious tendency so
prevalent in most religions, to despise human nature.
" Plotinus blushed because he had a body: contempt for
human personality could go no further."
Plotinus was the chief author of the metaphysics of the
Alexandrians, an exceedingly subtle and involved system,
especially interesting because it is closely reproduced in
modern German speculations. This system rests upon the
identification of subject and object as the principle of human
perception. If the explanation of perception which the
Alexandrians offered were reduced to its simplest terms it
would be correct ; but it is so involved, so many repetitions
in the use of ultimate terms occur, that it is impossible to
give it any definite form. The object seems to be to prove
that the varieties of the universe are but modes of God's
existence. If God is viewed as the universal principle, the
theory is essentially true, although unhappily expressed.
The commanding generalization which it suggests is clouded
by the fault of regarding God as a person, and the power
which is represented by divine unity as an intelligence. This
tendency to view human intelligence as universal degrades
what would otherwise be a sublime philosophy into a pan-
theism, or the belief that the universe is God and that God
is a personal intelligence. Thus Plotinus taught that "the
Sensible world was but the appearance of the Ideal world,
and that the Ideal world, in its turn, was but the modes of
God's existence." The correct view of the nature of per-
ception which we see struggling to the surface in the teach-
THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL. 8c
ings of Plotinus is obscured by that mystic theory known as
the "ecstatic vision of the Infinite" (or God). Nothing
could be more destructive to a true philosophy than this
superstitious notion of perception, which postulates that the
knowledge of God is essentially a mystery. The fault of
this theory will be fully exposed in our review of German
thought ; for in Germany the Alexandrian metaphysics have
reached their farthest development. The origin of this,
theory of the ecstatic vision of God has already been indi-
cated, as it is merely mysticism in a metaphysical form.
All Christian metaphysics sprang from the belief in mys-
teries. The mystery of the Incarnation, the Redemption,
and the Holy Trinity, as they have been differently inter-
preted, have given rise to the great heresies,1 and all the
subsequent Christian sects. Strange to say, modern philoso-
phy also rests upon a fundamental mystery, which is called
the Unknowable. No philosophy can succeed or become an
adequate guide to life (a religion) which does not establish
beyond all cavil the reality of human knowledge, the im-
possibility of a fundamental mystery in life or nature. Until
philosophy can build its truths upon a firmer foundation
than mystery, revealed religion will be its logical peer ; for
in fact there are few religions, taking them all in all, that are
not better philosophies than Agnosticism.
The dispute as to the priority of the Alexandrian or the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity is familiar to all students
of theology. Both doctrines clearly point to beliefs of great
antiquity. A brief description of them in the forms which
they respectively assumed under Christian and anti-Christian
philosophy, will suffice for our purpose. The doctrine of
the Christian Trinity is the highest and most " mysterious"
of Christian beliefs. The fullest statement of this mystery
is to be found in the Athanasian creed : " That we worship
one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ; neither confound-
ing the persons nor dividing the substance ; for there is one
person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the.
'Arianism, Sabellianism, and Nestorianism.
^90 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one ; the glory equal ; the
majesty co-eternal." The most striking argument which is
offered in support of this complex belief is, that the names
applied to God in the Old Testament, such as Elohim,
having a plural signification and being used in connection
with a singular verb, suggest a combination of the ideas of
unity and plurality in the Godhead. To any one not initi-
ated into the mysteries of theology, the thought would
occur that the use of a plural name for God by the ancient
Hebrew tribes meant that they believed in more than one
God ; but the theologians tell us that, on the contrary, it
meant that they believed in one God composed of three dis-
tinct persons. We have looked in vain among the traditions
of Moses, however, for any of the scholarly subdivisions of
deity in which the Alexandrian Jews so delighted. Nothing
can more clearly exonerate Moses from any connection with
the complicated idea of three gods in one, than the artless
manner in which he is made to speak of Yahveh in the
ancient Hebrew Scriptures.
Plotinus was more original in his explanation of the Trin-
ity than the Christians : he does not consider Moses at all
in this explanation, although he was literally surrounded by
learned Jews; in fact he explains the Hypostases, or Sub-
stances, of deity with a provoking indifference to all our
theories of Semitic monotheism. In speaking of the Alexan-
drian doctrine of the Trinity as compared with the Christian,
Jules Simon says : "The unity of one God in three differ-
ent persons or hypostases (substances), this is all the resem-
blance, up to the present time, that we have found between
the trinity of Plotinus and the Christian Trinity. But each
of the hypostases of the god of Plotinus differs radically from
the corresponding divine persons of the Christian dogma;
and the opposition is not less great when we consider not
only the persons but their diverse relations. Thus, in the
Christian doctrine, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
know and love one another. The Father loves the Son and
THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL. 9!
is beloved by him, the Holy Ghost knows the Father and the
Son, and has of both an equally complete and direct knowl-
edge. In Plotinus, on the contrary, each hypostasis knows
and loves exclusively the preceding hypostasis, and remains a
stranger to inferior hypostases. Unity, which has nothing
above it, knows and loves nothing, and Plotinus only admits
in trembling that it loves and knows but itself. He can
say with Spinoza, ' No one can desire to be loved by God,
for it would be to desire that God should cease to be per-
fect.' " '
Is it not safe to say, upon a careful comparison of these
two doctrines of the Trinity, that the Christian myth is
the more sensuous, because in it the attributes and powers
of each person of the Godhead are declared to be equal,
which makes 'it impossible to regard the Christian theory of
the Trinity as pointing to a universal principle through the
subjective and objective aspects of life ?
In passing from ancient to modern philosophy we must
remember that Rome holds no important place in the annals
of human thought. This great empire rose and fell without
producing any perceptible movement in philosophy. Roman
speculation, which was never more than a faint reflection of
that of Greece, fed upon the Alexandrian culture during and
long after the Augustan age ; and the great Church of Rome
established its faith and took up its chief theological positions
under the guidance of this same culture. From the decline
of philosophy in Alexandria to the revival of learning in
Europe, all organized thought seems to have been enlisted
in the service of the church. Christianity fostered the learn-
ing and logical skill which survived amid the decay of the
Roman Empire and the crude political beginnings of the
barbarian states ; and thus the church was for centuries the
custodian and promoter of the intellectual and moral order
of Europe. But although Rome protected thought, she
afterward enslaved it ; and, when the mind of Christendom,
encouraged by the growing liberties of our civilization,
1 " Histoire de 1'Ecole d* Alexandria, " vol. I., p. 332.
92 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
opposed these restraints, it found in the church, instead of a
friendly protector, a powerful and determined enemy.
Scholasticism proper began with the schools (scholce)
opened by Charlemagne in the eighth century. These
schools were instituted in the episcopal sees, in the mon-
asteries, convents, and cloisters of the new Germanic Em-
pire. For centuries previous to this, Christian culture had
shown itself chiefly in the writings of the Greek and Latin
fathers of the church ; but now the famous doctors of the
Scholastic age arose. Joannes Scotus, the Irish erudite of
the ninth century, began the movement, which was carried
on by St. Anselm (1034), who is considered the reviver of
metaphysics after the decline of the Roman Empire. The
impetus given to thought by Charlemagne soon spread its.
results throughout Europe, and the writings of Albert the
Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, remind us of
the vast proportions which the theological disputes of the
Middle Ages assumed.
The most interesting character among the Scholastics,
from a philosophic standpoint, is Abelard. This celebrated
French logician, born near Nantes in 1079, manifested at an
early age a genius for dialectics. This was before the revival
of learning, but philosophy and theology were already be-
ginning to take divergent paths. There is no evidence that
Abelard was a great student or a profound thinker ; but he
must have had a ready insight into the inconsistencies of the
current philosophy of his time. Becoming eager to exercise
his natural faculty for metaphysical discussion, he went to>
Paris at the age of twenty and joined the school of William
de Champeaux, a renowned teacher of the art of disputation.
It was not long before Abelard challenged his teacher and
defeated him in argument ; then the character of his am-
bition became apparent. He was not primarily a lover of
wisdom, but rather of the glories and triumphs of contro-
versy. He looked upon the past as a repository of knowl-
edge containing more truth than his age possessed, and
throughout his teachings this attitude was maintained, which-
SCHOLA S TICISM. 93
caused them to lack the inspiration of progress. In our age
we are not discouraged by believing in the retrogression of
knowledge ; our studies are full of hope, we feel the possi-
bility of increasing knowledge, of exalting human life.
During the revival of learning in Europe, all study was a
retrospect, and thought flowed down from the intellectual
heights of ancient Greece to the lower levels of the later
civilizations.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Abelard con-
tented himself with exhibiting to admiring crowds the treas-
ures which he found in the literatures of the Greeks and the
Romans, and that he felt the hopelessness of any endeavor
to add to the achievements of the past.
We are reminded by his fate that the deepest reproach
that can be made to a teacher, is that of unfaithfulness to
his precepts.
He was a brilliant orator and a master of the art
of disputation ; but in teaching there is no power like
that of example ; and as he lacked those sterling virtues
which alone could have made his life correspond with the
ideals which he held up for others, his career challenged ad-
miration but failed to command respect, or to exert any
deep influence.
Abelard was a representative Scholastic. He has been
called by different writers a nominalist, a realist, and a con-
ceptualist. Others think that his doctrines contain all these
kinds of thought in more or less definite proportions. For
our purpose it will be well to avoid these fine distinctions,
as they never mean any thing sufficiently definite to repay
the trouble of analyzing the terms.
There is one broad distinction, however, running through
all philosophic thought which can form the sufficient basis
of our classification. This distinction begins in the differ-
ence between the teachings of Aristotle and those of Plato.
Plato gave an objective existence to ideas ; he believed that
thoughts came nearer to the source of things than the
things themselves ; and as we can only recognize ideas by
94 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
names or words, he mistook symbols for realities, and be-
lieved that, by operating on these symbols, deeper truths
could be reached than by studying nature directly. This
was the dialectics of Plato, and can be best described by the
term Idealism. The antithesis of idealism is science, — the
patient investigation of facts accompanied by verification,
and the grouping or classification of these facts into more
and more general ideas. The ideas of science are always
subordinate to facts, because they are derived from them.
This, in general terms, is Aristotle's theory, and is distin-
guished from Plato's in that Plato held ideas to be superior
to facts. Of course there is a fundamental truth of which
both these interpretations are more or less distinct expres-
sions, but the difference between the theories is broad and
clear ; other and more minute distinctions are unnecessary
for the understanding of the general history and principles of
philosophy. For instance, Realism is a belief which sup-
poses that certain kinds of ideas, known as general terms or
abstract ideas, such as animal — man — truth, have an objec-
tive existence. Idealism maintains that all ideas have ob-
jective existences, such as both the idea of a given man, and
the idea of man in general, or that of a given animal and
the order animal. Nominalism is the ultra scientific posi-
tion. It holds that names stand for relations which we per-
ceive among facts, and that all relations are merely functions
of their terms or conditions : that a general name, such as
circle, simply stands for the relation of a circumference to
its centre ; that this relation can be generalized by apply-
ing it to many simpler groups of facts ; but in each case it
is strictly the function of these facts and has no separate
existence.
Realism, on the contrary, holds that the name circle
stands for a type of existence independent of all conditions.
It is a modified form of that rank Idealism of Plato which
believed in divine archetypes from which all concrete em-
bodiments were derived ; that an attribute or quality was
not simply the expression of certain conditions, but was a
SCHOLASTICISM. 95
mystic genus or supernatural order of being, a mysterious .
something more real than the conditions expressing it.
This Idealism has fallen into such disrepute that the word
real has come to signify the exact logical opposite of it.
Real, to us, means rational, sensible, true, the antithesis of
ideal, fanciful, unreal. Is it surprising, therefore, that com-
mon-sense people should be puzzled when they are told that
Realism is a species of Idealism, and that it is the theory
that general names, such as circle — beauty — right, have a sep-
arate existence from round things — beautiful objects — right
actions ; that, in a word, Idealism believes that all reality is
in the mind ; Realism, that about seven-eighths of all reality
is in the mind ; whereas Nominalism leaves things as they
are, and claims for the mind no monopoly of reality ? But
the confusion becomes doubly confounded when we find the
Scholastics declaring that Aristotle, who is supposed to stand
for the rational or scientific order of perception, was a Real-
ist or a semi-Idealist. Aristotle, who honestly endeavored
to oppose the Idealism of Plato, became so entangled in its
mystical phraseology that his works were interpreted in the
Middle Ages as Scholastic Realism, and were identified with
religious orthodoxy.
The broad distinction which exists between Idealism and
Science is the only safe one to use in philosophic classifica-
tion. This distinction, as we have before said, can be traced
to the difference between Aristotle and Plato ; but as both
these great masters were monopolized by the church for
many centuries, the interpretations put upon their works are
more than confusing. Hence we shall not be surprised to
find a long line of logical reformers from Abelard even to
Francis Bacon denouncing the teachings of Aristotle as a
means of opposing Idealism.
Abelard was a strange mixture of Idealism and Nominal-
ism. An analysis of his thought in this regard would be as
tedious as profitless, for it suggests nothing original and
gives no indications of a direct study of nature. His career
was neither scientific nor, in the best sense, philosophic.
-96 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
We must not forget, however, that he contended long and
earnestly for freedom of thought, and practically began the
movement which resulted in the separation of philosophy
and theology, the severing of that union which had been
effected by the Alexandrian school.
To glance at another civilization, the Mohammedan cul-
ture is not without its position in the history of thought.
The Arabians were diligent students of Greek philosophy,
and had translated a number of Aristotle's works into their
language long before the revival of learning among the Chris-
tian nations. An Arabian philosophy grew up which was a
combination of Mohammedanism and Greek thought, as
Scholasticism was a combination of Greek thought and
Christianity. The chief feature of this philosophy was mys-
ticism. All Eastern thought has a tinge of mysticism —
that strange faith which has the doctrine of total depravity
for one support, and the principle of ecstatic communication
with God for the other. The Mystics had a contempt for
human energy. One of their orders symbolized this idea by
planting a stick in the desert and carrying water hundreds
of miles across the burning sands to water it. They believed
that the highest possible existence is absolute inaction, in
order to superinduce a reverie, or ecstasy, which is the con-
dition necessary to have perfect communion with God.
This idea is distinctly visible in Plato's teachings, and it
lingers in modern philosophy in the greatly modified form
of a belief in a priori ideas. Such an advanced work, even,
as Spencer's "Psychology" has a faint trace of it in the
notion of irreducible intuitions.
We find nothing in the system of Algazzali, the greatest
of Arabian philosophers (born in the city of Tours, 1 508 A.D.),
which is sufficiently distinct from the thought already re-
viewed to merit notice, unless it be this element of mysticism
which pervades the school, and which is abundantly repre-
sented in Christian culture.
Philosophy as well as religion has had its martyrs. In A.D.
1600 Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome by
SCHOLA S TICISM. 97
the Holy Inquisition for teaching independence of thought.
It is true that he attacked religious beliefs with great force,
but he did it through philosophic writings and lectures. An
Italian of great learning, he conceived an intense feeling of
rebellion against the narrowness and superstition of his
time, and devoted his life to advocating principles of intel-
lectual reform. At that time the works of Aristotle were
regarded by the learned world with the same superstitious
reverence as that in which the Bible is now held ; and as
almost all learning was then confined to the church, there
was a strange combination of Aristotle's logic and physics,
the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, and the Christian
dogmas, forming the accepted faith of the church. All those
who opposed any part of these beliefs were persecuted as
enemies of the Christian religion. The hold which this
combination of imperfect science and blind religious belief
had upon the public mind, is scarcely conceivable to us.
" In 1624 — a quarter of a century after Bruno's martyrdom
— the Parliament of Paris issued a decree banishing all
who publicly maintained theses against Aristotle ; and in
1629, at the urgent remonstrance of the Sorbonne, decreed
that to contradict the principles of Aristotle was to contra-
dict the Church ! There is an anecdote recorded somewhere
of a student, who, having detected spots in the sun, commu-
nicated his discovery to a worthy priest. ' My son/ replied
the priest, ' I have read Aristotle many times, and I assure
you there is nothing of the kind mentioned by him. Go,
rest in peace ; and be certain that the spots which you have
seen are in your eyes, and not in the sun.' '
For ten years previous to Bruno's imprisonment at Venice,
where he languished without books or writing materials for
six years, he had wandered over the Continent and into
England. He was encouraged by Queen Elizabeth, and
through her influence lectured at Oxford. Before this he
lectured at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he attracted great
attention and became very popular. After leaving England
he visited Marburg, Wurtemburg, and Prague. In almost
98 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
every place his aggressive nature and principles brought him
in conflict with the superior powers, and his visits to the seats
of learning were short and stormy. At last, returning to
Italy, whence he had fled, he was apprehended, suffered his
long imprisonment, and was put to death.
Together with the prevailing religious beliefs, Bruno bit-
terly and persistently attacked Aristotle and Ptolemy, and
in the more hospitable universities, debates of great pomp
and ceremony were organized to oppose his teachings. It is
to be remembered that these tournaments of learning were
a feature of the age. Bruno was a constant satirist of the
pedant, whom he held responsible for a great deal of the
narrowness of the times, and lost no opportunity to bring
him into ridicule. Speaking of him, he says : " If he laughs,
he calls himself Democritus ; if he weeps, it is with Her-
aclitus ; when he argues, he is Aristotle ; when he com-
bines chimeras, he is Plato ; when he stutters, he is Demos-
thenes."
Bruno was not a scientist, but he had the scientific spirit ;
he advocated the study of nature, instead of that unscientific
introspection which was the habit of his time. It may seem
strange that he was so opposed to Aristotle, and still so
thoroughly in sympathy with the Aristotelian method ; this
can only be explained by the narrow way in which the writ-
ings of the great Stagirite were interpreted by the church.
Bruno never could have come into contact with the broad
spirit of the Aristotelian method, or he would have recog-
nized in it the same hopes and ambitions which he enter-
tained himself. Bruno's philosophy had not become eman-
cipated from Scholasticism, as indeed but few modern
philosophies have. The highest generalization of the an-
cients, to which they gave the name of God, or Divine
Unity, had become substantialized by constant use in re-
ligious thought until its meaning was degraded by undue
limitations.
This substantialization of the Universal Principle, or the
idea of deity, is the great obstacle to an understanding be-
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 99
tween philosophy and religion. These two contrasted
interpretations of deity employ the same terms but
give to them different meanings ; and so deeply rooted has
this misunderstanding become, that it is virtually beyond
correction. New generations must grow up with a common
knowledge of the meaning of these most important of all
words, before a reconciliation can be effected.
After the time of the Neo-Platonists and the Alexandrian
school, philosophy for fifteen centuries remained subservient
to religion and degenerated into a mystic theology. Such
men as Bruno rebelled against this low order of thought, and
struggled to throw off the concrete meanings imposed upon
ultimate terms ; they were only partially successful, and
passed away leaving their work incomplete. But from the
turmoil of mixed theological and philosophic debate, called
Scholasticism, the science of Metaphysics again springs into
existence, and the word God becoming purer and purer
in its meaning, at last assumes the form of the Ulti-
mate Reality, or Universal Principle — Motion, — the ob-
jective and subjective aspects of which are Space and Time.
Thus Science and Theology unite in the Synthesis of
Knowledge, giving us at once the only true philosophy, the
only pure religion.
Francis Bacon, about the merit of whose works there has
been so much dispute in England, especially during the
present century, was born in 1561. He studied at Cam-
bridge, and afterward took up the profession of law, in which
he became eminent. Under the reign of James the First his
fortune advanced rapidly. In 1616 he was sworn a member of
the Privy Council, and in the following year was appointed
Keeper of the Great Seal, then created Baron of Verulam,
and Viscount of St. Albans. Macaulay says : " The moral
qualities of Bacon were not of a high order. We do not say
that he was a bad man. He was not inhuman or tyrannical.
He bore with meekness his high civil honors, and the far
higher honors gained by his intellect. He was very seldom,
if ever, provoked into treating any person with malignity
100 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
and insolence. * * * No man was more expert at the soft
answer which turneth away wrath. He was never ac-
cused of intemperance in his pleasures. His even temper,
his flowing courtesy, the general respectability of his de-
meanor, made a favorable impression on those who saw him
in situations which do not severely try the principles. His
faults were — we write it with pain — coldness of heart and
meanness of spirit. He seems to have been incapable of
feeling strong affection, of facing great dangers, of making
great sacrifices. His desires were set on things below."
In the zenith of his prosperity a sudden reverse was at hand.
Notwithstanding his large income, his habits of extravagance
tempted him to accept bribes. He was charged with cor-
ruption, and, after an attempt at defence, publicly acknowl-
edged his guilt. The sentence was severe : he was condemned
to imprisonment during the King's pleasure, and fined forty
thousand pounds ; he was declared incapable of holding any
office in the State or of sitting in Parliament, and was also
banished from Court. This sentence was scarcely pro-
nounced when it was mitigated, for he passed only two days
in the Tower, when he was liberated. Retiring to Gorham-
bury, he devoted himself to literature during the remainder
of his life. When the rest of the sentence was finally remit-
ted, and he could have resumed his seat in the House of
Lords, he did not do so, shame, perhaps, preventing him.
On his death-bed, knowing that if he had thought pro-
foundly, he had nevertheless acted most unworthily, he said :
" For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable
speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next age." His
confidence was not misplaced ; men have dealt leniently
with him, for " turn where we will, the trophies of that
mighty intellect are full in view."
Bacon is accredited with the honor of establishing the
modern scientific method. Although it would be difficult
to find an age, since history began, completely without a sci-
entific method, a glance at the situation in the time of Bacon
1 Macaulay's " Miscellanies," p. 255.
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. IOI
will convince us that much of our scientific advancement
and educational reform are to be traced to his influence.
Bacon lived in a time of marked theological and metaphysi-
cal activity. The great work of Copernicus had just begun
to unsettle the Christian beliefs, and Galileo was in the midst
of his controversy with Rome. The paths of science and
religion were beginning that redivergence which has since
brought these two branches of knowledge into such antag-
onism. Lessing's "Fragments" and the acrimonious wars
which they engendered were yet unheard of, but theological
debates filled the air, and there was a certain freshness and
earnestness about these collisions which they are without to-
day. Science was so feeble and had so few friends, religion
was so generally held as the arbiter of all questions of the
understanding, that Bacon's unflinching devotion to the
scientific method, his supreme indifference to the war of
words around him, showed a deep appreciation of the real
needs of his time.
Bacon is often called the father of experimental philosophy,
but his works attempt no solution of the metaphysical prob-
lem ; he carefully avoids throughout the use of ultimate terms.
His idea of the nature of perception constitutes the great
force of his system. He saw clearly that human knowledge
is but an aspect of life, and that it springs from a fact which
is more than human and deeper than personality. He saw
the futility of trying to express this fact in terms either of
human or divine personality, and therefore declared that all
knowledge was subordinate to or expressed by facts. Gen-
eralizations, he reasoned, are only broad classifications of
facts. He overlooked, however, the great truth that all facts
must take some part in human life in order to be classified,
and that the constant human or subjective term in every
perception can be made to disclose a constant objective
term ; that in the multiplicity of facts a unity can be dis-
cerned, a principle which accounts for universal as well as
individual life.
One of Bacon's celebrated aphorisms is : " Man, the min-
102 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
ister and interpreter of Nature, can act and understand in as
far as he has, either in fact or in thought, observed the
order of Nature: more he can neither know nor do." In
other words, to understand any thing perfectly, that thing
must harmonize with our experiences. If our experiences
are not sufficiently extended to receive great truths, we must
extend them by the accumulation of more facts, as the only
means of increasing knowledge, or, what is the same thing,
of enlarging life. If we were to reduce Bacon's method to a
single sentence, we would say: do not jump at conclusions !
His power and originality centre in the " systematization
of graduated verification as the sole method of research."
He shows a great contempt for the conventional meta-
physical method of forming generalizations from insufficient
facts.
" There are two ways," he says, " of searching after and
discovering truth ; the one, from sense and particulars, rises
directly to the most general axioms, and resting upon these
principles and their unshaken truth, finds out intermediate
axioms, and this is the method in use ; but the other raises
axioms from sense and particulars by a continued and gradual
ascent, till at last it arrives at the most general axioms,
which is the true way, but hitherto untried.
" The understanding, when left to itself, takes the first of
these ways ; for the mind delights in springing up to the most
general axioms, that it may find rest ; but after a short stay
there it disdains experience, and these mischiefs are at length
increased by logic for the ostentation of disputes.
" The natural human reasoning we, for the sake of clear-
ness, call the anticipation of nature, as being a rash and
hasty thing ; and the reason only exercised upon objects, we
call the interpretation of nature."
To interpret nature, therefore, was Bacon's only way to
learn. As Bacon paid little or no attention to an ultimate
analysis, he never seemed to realize that the greatest need
of the race is a point of beginning for perception, so that all
the " graduated verifications," upon which he so earnestly
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 103
insisted, should invariably lead us back to one incontroverti-
ble principle. That he, nevertheless, felt the possibility of
such an analysis is manifest from the following passage in
his " Novum Organum " : "But let none expect any great
promotion of the sciences, especially in their effective part,
unless natural philosophy be drawn out to particular sciences ;
and, again, unless these particular sciences be brought back
again to natural philosophy. From this defect it is that
astronomy, optics, music, many mechanical arts, and what
seems stranger, even moral and civil philosophy and logic, rise
but little above their foundations, and only skim over the
varieties and surfaces of things, viz. : because after these
particular sciences are formed and divided off, they are no
longer nourished by natural philosophy, which might give
them strength and increase ; and therefore no wonder if the
sciences thrive not, when separated from their roots."
The roots of all science he thus conceived to be moral or
natural laws. To reduce these natural laws or experiences
to a single principle never seemed to occur to him as
feasible.
Bacon said that Aristotle corrupted natural philosophy
with logic, which simply means that he reasoned beyond
his depth.
Aristotle for centuries was regarded as the originator
of the inductive method, because he was a scientist and
studied nature, carefully accumulating facts and drawing
from them general laws. He classified facts through resem-
blances of different kinds, and gave to these resemblances
names. His attention was largely devoted to the study of
comparative anatomy, the resemblances in the structure of
animals. These classifications have led to our present divi-
sion of the whole animal kingdom into five sub-kingdoms,
each of these sub-kingdoms again divisible into provinces,
each province into classes, and the classes into successively
smaller groups, orders, families, genera, species. Surely
thus far Aristotle did not corrupt natural philosophy. But
1 " Novum Organum," I., Aph. 79, 80.
104 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
he did strive to reach an ultimate analysis, and to this end
he framed his ten categories of thought. He also indulged
in a great deal of metaphysical speculation, which Bacon
regarded as a sheer waste of time. It is an interesting fact
that Bacon should have differed so much from Aristotle and
still have inherited from him his own chief distinction ; for
Bacon is now widely known as the apostle of the inductive
method of philosophy. This method is supposed by some
to constitute a kind of reasoning distinct from that em-
ployed in the deductive method ; whereas all that is really
meant by the terms induction and deduction is a different
manner of investigating facts, the process of reasoning being
constant in all methods. Before Aristotle's time the animal
kingdom was regarded as a great mass of unrelated phe-
nomena. Biology was unknown, and anatomy and physiology
were confined to such rude results as could be obtained by
untrained observation. The result was that the knowledge
of animal life was chaotic. As we have seen, Aristotle
studied animal structures, and from comparisons built up
classes of resemblances. This is the inductive method of
research, because it is said to proceed from particulars to
generals. It is contrasted with the deductive method, or
the procedure from generals to particulars.
The fault which Bacon finds with Aristotle, then, is sim-
ply that he did not proceed to the farthest lengths of rea-
soning, that he did not define the contrasted nature of
individual and general existence, without breaking loose
from his careful synthesis of organic life. This objection of
Bacon's is well taken ; but it must be remembered that
Aristotle was far less fully equipped for such an undertaking
than Bacon might well have been, and that the latter lacked
the ambition and courage for the attempt.
CHAPTER VI.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY.
Descartes — Spinoza — Hobbes — Locke — Hartley — Leibnitz — Berkeley — Hume.
IF it is to England that we owe the inauguration, through
Francis Bacon, of experimental science, it is to France that we
are indebted for the firm establishment of Modern Philosophy.
The writings of Rene Descartes Duperron mark the transi-
tion from mediaeval to modern thought. To be a great thinker
is a higher distinction in France than in any other country.
Not that there are as many scholars in France as there are
in Germany, or that the logical achievements of England
suffer by comparison with those of the continent ; but
the French language affords the least opportunity of all
tongues for vagueness of expression, and hence a system of
philosophy, to command lasting respect in France, must be
distinguished for clearness, definiteness, and good sense.
Such, allowing for the time in which it was written, is the
system of Descartes.
Born in 1596, Descartes was contemporaneous with Galileo,
and suffered not a little from the spirit of religious intoler-
ance which pervaded Europe at that time. Educated by
the Jesuits, he had no sooner mastered the religious and
philosophic thought of his time than he announced his dis-
satisfaction with it. He declared that the only result of his
studies had been to enable him to discern his utter ignorance.
At the age of twenty-three he conceived the project of re-
organizing the philosophic knowledge of the world, and be-
gan a series of travels principally in his own country, for the
purpose of studying life. These travels, which lasted about
ten years, included various periods of service in the army. The
105
106 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
garrison life afforded him opportunities of study, and brought
him in contact with many scholars of note. Mathematics
was the favorite study of Descartes, and it was not long be-
fore he achieved a European reputation in this science. The
faculty which he acquired for solving problems was marvel-
lous. The discovery of the application of algebra to geome-
try, his chief scientific merit, was a crisis in his career. The
manner in which he approached this discovery he thus
describes: "The long chains of simple and easy reasons
which geometers employ in arriving at their most difficult
demonstrations made me fancy that all things which are the
objects of human knowledge are similarly interdependent ;
and that, provided we abstain from assuming any thing false,
and observe the correct order in deducing things one from
another, there are none so remote that we cannot reach and
so hidden that we cannot discover them. I was at no trouble
in finding out where to begin ; for, considering that the
mathematicians only had attained to some certainty, and
this because they occupied themselves about the easiest sub-
ject of all, I thought I should examine this first. And
then, considering that to know the mathematical sciences,
I should sometimes require to consider them each in detail,
and sometimes only to retain or understand several of them
conjointly, I thought that to consider them better in partic-
ular I must consider them in lines, because I could find noth-
ing simpler, or more distinctly representable to my imagina-
tion and senses ; but to retain them, or to consider several
of them together, it was necessary to explain them by the
briefest possible symbols, and thus I should borrow all that
was best from geometrical analysis and from algebra and
•correct the defects of each by the other."
This puissant method opened up new fields of discovery
to Descartes. Not content with applying it to mathematics,
he saw its bearing upon the physical sciences, and even enter-
tained a vague hope of applying it in some form to the
study of mind. " Not that I ventured to examine forth-
with all manner of problems, which would have been a vio-
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. IO/
lation of my rules; but, knowing that their principles must
all be derived from [first] philosophy, in which I could, as
yet, find none that were certain, I thought that here, above
all, I ought to establish them." Thus we see that the exact
deductions of mathematics had a charm for Descartes, and
supplied him with a method to which he always afterward
adhered. During these ten years of wandering, Descartes
resided at times in Paris, where he had the advantage of
scientific friends — as well as the distraction of Court life
into which his good social position introduced him. This
scientific association gave him ample exercise in mathemat-
ics and developed in him a taste for other investigations,
among which is prominently mentioned practical optics ;
but he longed for more abstract studies and the retirement
which makes them possible.
At the age of thirty we find him secluding himself in Hol-
land and beginning the work which resulted, eight years
afterward, in the publication of the " Discourse on Method,"
and the celebrated " Meditations." The appearance of these
works interested at once the learned world, and their author
was almost immediately recognized as an original and pow-
erful thinker. Charles the First of England and Christina
of Sweden urged him to come to their respective Courts.
The civil war in England decided his choice in favor of
Stockholm, where he became interested with Christina in
the establishment of an academy of sciences. Descartes'
delicate health, however, soon succumbed to the rigor of
the northern climate. With Scandinavian indifference to
comfort, Christina insisted upon taking her lessons in phil-
osophy at five o'clock in the morning of an Arctic winter.
Descartes was too chivalrous to demur; and scarcely had
he begun to teach his royal friend the principles of his phil-
osophy, when he was taken with the illness which in a few
days caused his death.
In the development of the mind of Descartes we find mir-
rored the dawn of modern philosophy in Europe. His ap-
preciation of the Advantages of a broad culture can be judged
108 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of from the famous autobiographical passage in the opening
of the " Discourse on Method " : " I know that the languages
I then learned were necessary for the understanding of
ancient authors ; that the grace of myths stimulates the
mind ; that the memorable deeds in histories exalt it, and,
being read with discretion, and in forming the judgment,
that the reading of all good books is like a conversation with
the best people of past centuries who have written them, —
nay, even a studied conversation, in which they disclose to
us only their best thoughts ; that eloquence has incomparable
strength and beauty; \hakpoetry has enchanting delicacy
and sweetness. * * * But I came to think that I had spent
enough time at languages, and even in the reading of
ancient books and their histories and fables: for it is almost
the same thing to converse with men of other ages as it is
to travel ; but if one travel too long, one becomes a stranger
to one's own home. * * * I highly esteemed eloquence
and loved poetry ; but I thought that both one and the
other were mental endowments rather than the fruits of
study. Those who have the strongest reasoning faculty and
digest their ideas most thoroughly, so as to make them clear
and intelligible, are always best able to persuade men of
what they propose even though they talk bos Breton and
have never learned rhetoric ; and those who have the most
pleasing fancies, and can express them with best adornment
and most sweetness, will still be the best poets, even should
the art of poetry be unknown to them."
Passing from this delineation of culture to his philo-
sophic position, we find that Descartes perceived that a
vacuum, or absolutely empty space, was an impossibility.
He said that the essence, or first principle of matter, or sub-
stance ', is extension, and that wherever there is extension there
is matter ; or, which is the same thing, he identifies Matter
with Space. " The substance which fills all space must be
assumed as divided into equal angular parts. Why must
this be assumed ? Because it is the most simple, therefore
the most natural supposition. This substance being set ins
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 109
motion, the parts are ground into a spherical form, and the
corners thus rubbed off, like filings or sawdust, form a second
or more subtle kind of substance. There is, besides, a kind
of substance, coarser and less fitted for motion. The first
kind makes luminous bodies, such as the sun and fixed stars;
the second makes the transparent substance of the skies ;
the third kind is the material of opaque bodies, such as earth,
planets, etc. We may also assume that the motions of these
parts take the form of revolving circular currents, or vortices.
By this means the matter will be collected to the centre of
each vortex, while the second or subtle matter surrounds it,
and by its centrifugal effort constitutes light. The planets
are carried round the sun by the motion of this vortex, each
planet being at such a distance from the sun as to be in a
part of the vortex suitable to its solidity and mobility. The
motions are prevented from being exactly circular and reg-
ular by various causes. For instance, a vortex may be
pressed into an oval shape by contiguous vortices." *
With these rather fanciful theories of physics, — fanciful
from our point of view, but exceedingly penetrating when
we consider the state of science in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, — Descartes makes the most important
assertion in the whole range of physical truth, but he seems
to have little conception of its vast logical importance. This
assertion was the identification of Matter and Space, as con-
vertible terms, representing the ultimate statical generaliza-
tion. The ultimate fact with Descartes was personal exist-
ence, or consciousness. From this he deduced the fact of
general existence, or God. His famous dictum, " I think
therefore I am,'* is really an identical proposition ; for the
kind of existence postulated is Consciousness, or the act of
thought. His proposition simply means, Existence being
thought, I think therefore I exist, or, I think therefore I
think. The method of Descartes is a faithful elaboration
of his fundamental tenet of consciousness. His capital
axiom is, ll All clear and distinct ideas are true" ; which means
1 Whewell : " Hist, of the Inductive Sciences," vol. II., p. 134.
110 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
that thought justifies itself. This rule, although true in the
sense that all facts justify or express themselves, is merely
an argument against a superstitious belief in causes. It ad-
vocates a careful scrutiny of the relations between cause and
effect.
The assertion that all clear and distinct ideas are true,
does not disclose the nature of perception ; nor does the
dictum "I think therefore I am " throw any light upon the
purely relative nature of the fact of individuality, or per-
sonal existence. Descartes, in deducing the existence of
God from personal existence, clearly reversed the order of
perception ; for God is the Ultimate Reality, the chief fact
from which all individual facts are but derivations.
In perception, the individual responds to the universe ;
and as the individual is but a part of the universe, the fact
of personal existence is subordinate to that of general exist-
ence, or God.1 God cannot, therefore, be deduced from
consciousness, but consciousness may be deduced from God.
The conception of Deity is an ultimate analysis. Every
conception, however humble, employs this fact as an inte-
gral part.
To reduce the above argument to metaphysical terms,
God is Motion — thoughts, or individual perceptions, are
motions. Here we have Divine Unity contrasted with the
variety which is expressed in personal life.
With Descartes, who read and admired Bacon, and util-
ized many of his valuable suggestions, the beginning of
modern science was fairly inaugurated. In the metaphysical
reasonings of Descartes I am unable to see more profundity
or originality than can be found among the ancient Greek
and Alexandrian authors. The dissatisfaction with the an-
cients, so commonly felt at the time, was more with their
science than with their philosophy, more with the paucity of
their facts than with the use made of them.
1 This interpretation of consciousness is fully explained in the review of the
systems of Herbert Spencer and G. H. Lewes, Part II., where the mind is
studied as the activity of an organism.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 1 1 1
A full appreciation of the greatness of Descartes can be
had only by viewing him in the scientific plane of his age.
His ideas on physics were elaborated before the other parts
of his system, although the fear which the persecution of
Galileo inspired delayed for a long time their publication.
Descartes saw that it was impossible to write upon philoso-
phy without ultimately declaring himself upon these ques-
tions, and therefore his true originality was hidden for a
time through fear of a conflict with the church. Had
he announced his discoveries concerning the operations of
nature as they occurred to his mind, he would have des-
troyed his influence and imperiled his liberty. His first phil-
osophic production was an elaborate exposition of the true
method of investigation. Its title was, " Discourse on the
Method of Properly Guiding the Reason in the Research
of Truth in the Sciences : also the Dioptric, the Meteors,
and the Geometry, which are Essays in this Method." It is
seen that, in this work, an effort was made to avoid religious
controversy. It was distinctly scientific. Of course, in
studying the nature of thought, it is necessary to become
metaphysical ; but where this occurs, the argument is
couched in conciliatory and devout language, with the mani-
fest object of escaping the direct charge of infidelity.
In the fourth division of the " Discourse on Method " the
nature of God and of the human soul is discussed. By a
course of reasoning which ignores one difficulty after an-
other, the author arrives at the conclusion that the human
soul is absolutely distinct from the body 1 ; that this soul is
put into the body by a divine being infinitely perfect, whose
existence is proved by the ideas we have of his perfection.
These ideas disclose to us our imperfection, as the positive
discloses the negative, or as being discloses non-being.8
No one can read the fourth division of the " Discourse on
Method " without seeing in it the identical metaphysical
reasonings which are most popular with the orthodox writers .
1 " Discours de la Methode," vol. I., pp. 158, 159.
* Ibid., vol. I., p. 60.
112 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of the present day. The popularity of these metaphysics is
due to the fact that they are just enough involved to escape
the plain statement that God is not a spirit, but the ultimate
reality or fact of the universe.
The theologians of the seventeenth century, however,
were by no means satisfied with these guarded statements ;
and although Descartes declared himself a conservative in
faith, although he was a " pet pupil of the Jesuits," and
strove earnestly to discuss philosophy apart from religion,
and to uphold the moral teachings of the church, the appear-
ance of his argument on Method was the occasion of a tem-
pest of controversy, in which he was bitterly assailed by the
leading theologians of the Universities of northern Europe,
both Catholic and Calvinistic. These attacks were made by
theological theses against Descartes, in some of which the
printed comments were so offensive that they were struck
out by order of the magistrates of Utrecht.
About four years after the appearance of the " Discourse on
Method," the " Meditations " made their appearance. These
were more religious in tone, and consequently more meta-
physical. Unlike his first work, they were written in Latin,
and constitute a labored argument about first principles.
Although they are considered by many to be the greatest
achievement of Descartes, they are in reality the least valu-
able of his writings. The " Meditations " was printed in Paris
in 1641, with the King's privilege and the approbation of
the Doctors of the Sorbonne. The full title was " Medita-
tions concerning the First Philosophy, in which are demon-
strated the Existence of God and the Immortality of the
Soul." The official sanctions under which this work was
published were obtained by the direct prayer of Descartes,
who felt keenly the attacks made upon his first work. He also
took the precaution of having a dozen copies of the " Medi-
tations " submitted to the ablest theologians of the time, so
that the criticisms might be obtained and published with
the author's replies to them, thus establishing the work in a
controversial light from the beginning. One of the chief
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 113
results of these criticisms, which came from such distin-
guished men as Arnauld, Gassendi, and Hobbes, was to
change the discussion of the immortality to the immateriality
of the soul, which latter title was more in accordance with
the manner in which Descartes treated the subject.
The scientific writings, which form the most interesting
part of the " Method," were omitted in the " Meditations,"
which reduce it to a mere enlargement of the metaphysical
argument of the first publication. This argument concern-
ing the relative importance of the facts of general and per-
sonal existence, or of God and the human soul, has been
fully dealt with above. The question of the principles
of certitude, or the measure of doubt, also receives much
attention in the " Meditations." As has already been ex-
plained in a previous chapter, this question belongs to the
nature of perception, or the study of mind as the function
of the organism, and cannot be successfully discussed in the
absence of an ultimate physical analysis, or without full un-
derstanding of the relation of body and mind.1 What con-
cerns us most is, not the logical position of the " Medita-
tions," for this position has been superseded long ago, but
the effect which the work wrought upon the world and the
life of the author.
In the preface to the " Meditations," Descartes, not feel-
ing quite satisfied with his proof of the immortality of the
soul, says, that a strict proof of this theory would require a
complete development of his whole system of physics. He
suggests that the first requisite is to form a " clear and
distinct " conception of the soul as distinct from the body,
because substances thus clearly conceived to be distinct
must really be so ; which is in effect " taking firm hold of
one's own sleeve in order to jump over the river." In reply
to the objection that Hobbes made to this argument, Des-
cartes admits that we only infer the difference between
mind and body from the difference in their qualities, or ac-
tivities, which as above said, at once remands the whole
'See Part II., chap. i.
114 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
question to the study of mind as the function of an organ-
ism, or modern psychology.
The Protestant theologians of Utrecht and Leyden, irri-
tated by the imprudent enthusiasm of one of Descartes'
disciples, Le Roy (Regius), began a systematic opposition to
the Cartesian philosophy. This movement developed into
a persecution which proved a grievous trial to Descartes. It
began with disputations by theses in the Universities,
which were followed by the public with intense interest.
These disputes were confined for some time to general prin-
ciples, but Le Roy, wishing to force a logical issue with
his adversaries, boldly announced the principle, under the
authority of Descartes, that man was a being composed of
the two elements of mind and extension ; that he was not a
substance per se, but a substance per accidens, which means,
that human existence is not an unconditioned fact, but that
man is a natural phenomenon, and is therefore the function
of his conditions. This announcement was a direct chal-
lenge to the powerful orthodox party. The Protestants,
represented by Voe't and Arnauld, the rectors of the Uni-
versities of Utrecht and Leyden, immediately resented it.
The acumen of these theologians can be judged of from
the fact that they were Aristotelian in their faith, bitterly
opposing the theory of the earth's motion round the sun,
which theory they identified with the philosophy of Des-
cartes. From our point of view, it would seem as though all
the best thought and intelligence of the seventeenth cen-
tury were arrayed against Christian orthodoxy, but this is
hardly fair either to the early Protestants or the Catholics ;
for religion does not oppose science because it is science, but
because new theories of life and mind disturb the authority
and dignity of the church. As long as religion attaches her
faith to persons instead of to principles, to fixed creeds hav-
ing the authority of mysterious books instead of to the great
principles of human progress, so long will those discoveries
which are the natural movement of life disturb her peace. A
religion on the contrary which identifies God with the Uni-
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 115
versal Principle will employ science as a great moral power,
enlisting in its services the best efforts of the mind.
The Calvinist theologians, headed by Voet, were so bitter
in their attacks on Descartes, that an appeal to the Prince
of Orange was necessary to put a stop to the persecution.
The authority of this prince alone saved the theories of Des-
cartes from being formally expelled from the University
teachings, and his books from being publicly burned by the
hangman of Utrecht. The right of private judgment, which
was the fundamental principle of the Cartesian philosophy,
first excited the opposition of the church, both Protestant
and Catholic ; for Christianity rests its judgments or per-
ceptions upon the theory of faith originated by the Alexan-
drian mystics.
The enduring part of Descartes' system, that which has
fairly won for him the name of a great thinker, was his
original investigations of natural phenomena and his able
criticisms of the sciences. His metaphysics, his reasonings
concerning existence, as above indicated, were not in ad-
vance of the best Greek thought. Epicurus made a more
perfect synthesis of life, Anaximano^er a far keener analysis
of first principles; but Descartes gathered together the
learning of his age, enriched it with new investigations, and
co-ordinated it into a system of knowledge which will ever
bear his name and mark an epoch in human history.
The science of mathematics is purely a study of motion
and its aspects ; that is to say, it expresses all its results in
terms of time and space, or of number and quantity, which
are but the aspects of motion.
Descartes felt that all phenomena could be reduced to
terms of time and space, and thus " insisted upon the only
true path ever followed by physical science — its reduction to
the mathematical laws of figure and of motion.
" Having first shown," says Prof. MahafTy, " that by the
earliest of his discoveries all problems in figure could be
reduced to arithmetical formulae, and that these could be
generalized by the use of algebraic symbols, he insisted that
Il6 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
nothing should be assumed in explaining the laws of nature
but the laws of figure and motion. He cast to the winds
the whole apparatus of occult qualities, intuitional species,
and other assumed secrets by which the scholastic Peri-
patetics endeavored to explain, and by which they succeeded
in obscuring and confusing, nature."
The boldness and novelty of this position of Descartes'
can only be appreciated by looking at his scientific sur-
roundings. In our day, we are so accustomed to the asser-
tion that all phenomena can be expressed in terms of mo-
tion, that the importance of this great truth escapes us.
How few among those to whom this proposition is familiar
are willing to admit its full significance, — that all phenomena
means all life, and that the term life includes mind. Des-
cartes, even, failed to rigorously follow out the meaning of
his own induction. He states that all phenomena can be
expressed in terms of motion, which distinctly means that
motion is the ultimate fact of life ; and yet the fundamental
principle of his metaphysics, or his analysis of knowledge, is,
that consciousness, or mind, is the ultimate fact of life.
His application of algebra to geometry, or his expression
of space relationships in algebraic symbols, led to the de-
velopment of the fluctional calculus elaborated by Newton
and Leibnitz, which constitutes the most exact portrayal
science affords of infinitesimal measurements or motions.
This discovery of Descartes' raised the science of geometry
from a mass of isolated demonstrations of figure and meas-
urement, as it came to us from the ancients, to a system of
abstract calculations, in which given powers of co-efficients
are made to represent constant space relationships. Thus
Descartes introduced his philosophy with brilliant discourses
in mathematics and physics, which at once commanded the
attention of scholars, and gave to his more abstract reason-
ings a reputation which they could not have achieved of
themselves.
" The Principles of Philosophy," the first planned and last
published of his capital works, was the most thorough of
MODERN PHIL OSOPH Y. 117
them all ; and yet the author admits that this great treatise
on physics was incomplete, inasmuch as it was not extended
to the treatment of plants, animals, and lastly of man ; so
that what is generally supposed to be the greatest logical
feat of Descartes — his postulate that consciousness is the
ultimate fact of the universe — is seen to be a direct contra-
diction of his best and most original teachings, which tended
to subordinate individual to general existence, or conscious-
ness to the more general fact of Motion, or God.
Benedict Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, in 1632, of a
Hebrew family that had moved from Portugal to escape
persecution. He studied under the auspices of the Jewish
church of his native city ; but his mind soon rebelled against
the limits of this religion, and the Rabbins, finding it impos-
sible to change his course, visited upon him the then terrible
penalty of excommunication.
Among the ancients, the word piety seems to have been
employed in the sense which we give to the word humanity.
It had less to do with formal beliefs and more with charac-
ter. A man who sought universal truth, for its own sake, was
considered pious.
The Greeks knew less of the importance of religious dis-
cipline than we do ; being without the past two thousand
years of human experience, they were unable to distinguish
between intellectual and moral exercise as factors in social
advancement. Again : the intellectuality of the Greeks
was less taught, more spontaneous, than ours. The great!
fact that thought purifies was constantly before them. A
man, to be a great thinker in Greece, had to do, for the
most part, his own thinking. He had not our facilities for
imbibing thought ready-made from others. Those wide
sympathies which are the necessary accompaniment of a
deep understanding of life, presuppose a certain moral
advancement. To discourse of God, or the Universal Prin-
ciple, in Greece, was not that semi-mechanical operation
which we so often see among religious teachers of more
recent times. It was an enthusiasm for the higher or most
Il8 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
general truths, at once elevating and purifying to the whole
life. This thoughtful and devotional cast of mind the
ancients called piety. It demanded a certain capacity, an
earnest and sustained effort to bring the mind into harmony
with its farthest surroundings ; an effort which is sure in
time to compel moral development.
It was this kind of piety that was the inspiration of
Spinoza's life ; and so completely did it possess him, that
the sentence of excommunication with its terrible conse-
quences did not even seem to depress him. His life is a
singular instance of the resources which we possess in the
higher sentiments.
It was not considered enough for the ancient Jewish
doctors to be scholars ; they were required also to learn
some mechanical art by which to support themselves.
Spinoza learned the art of polishing glasses for optical instru-
ments, in which he attained great proficiency. To escape
persecution, he retired to Leyden or Rynsberg, where he
passed the life of a recluse, devoting himself to study.
A heroic firmness that is truly invigorating to contem-
plate shines throughout the life of this man. Our deepest
admiration is aroused by his independence of spirit, his cheer-
ful nature, his moderate wants and indefatigable industry.
In the doctrines of Spinoza we have a worthy study.
Many have complained of the abstruseness of his writings,
but this is largely due to his persistent effort to reduce all
his generalizations to mathematical forms of expression.
The language of numbers and quantities is too cold and
inflexible to serve as a medium of philosophic thought.
To give an idea of the rigidity of Spinoza's style, we cite
a few of his celebrated definitions, and place opposite to
them the interpretation which the reduction of the cate-
gories of thought to a single principle enables one to make.
" DEFINITION III. — By Substance I Existence is the ultimate reality, or
understand that which exists in itself, Motion. Substance, of course, has a
and is conceived/^r se ; in other words, place in the conception of Motion,
the conception of which does not re- For if matter and space are the same
MODERN PHILOSOPHY.
quire the conception of any thing else
antecedent to it."
" DEF. VI. — By God I understand
the Being absolutely infinite, i. e., the
Substance consisting of infinite At-
tributes, each of which expresses an
infinite and eternal essence.
"Explanation. — I say absolutely in-
finite, but not infinite suo genere j
for to whatever is infinite only suo ge-
nere we can deny infinite Attributes ;
but that which is absolutely infinite
includes in its essence every thing
which implies essence and involves no
negation."
" DEF. VIII.— By Eternity I under-
stand Existence itself, in as far as it is
conceived necessarily to follow from
the sole definition of an eternal thing."
thing, and space is merely an aspect
of Motion, our conception of Sub-
stance is a part of that of Motion.
If absolute means time, and infinite
means space, God, or the ultimate
generalization or reality, and Motion,
are convertible terms ; they mean the
same thing, for the aspects of Motion
being space and time, and the attri-
butes of God the infinite and the ab-
solute, they are convertible terms, and
must point to the same fact.
The "Explanation" of the defini-
tion I consider more involved than
the definition itself, and therefore not,
properly speaking, an explanation.
There is but one clear meaning to
the word Eternity, and that is Time.
Time is an aspect of Motion, and is
therefore an aspect of Existence. In
No. III. Spinoza says that Substance
is Existence itself, and in No. VIII.,
that eternity is Existence itself. In
one case he means Space and in the
other Time, and in both his words ex-
press the conception of Motion, which
includes Space and Time.
At the risk of being tedious, we select the seventh and
eighth of Spinoza's Propositions with the Scholium attached,
in order to show how necessary it is to be definite and clear
with regard to the meaning of ultimate terms in forming a
final generalization, and also what store Spinoza placed by
his ultimate generalization, which he called Substance.
" PROPOSITION VII. — It pertains to the nature of Substance to exist.
" Demonstration. — Substance cannot be created by any thing else, and is,
therefore, the cause of itself ; its essence necessarily involves existence ; or it
pertains to the nature of Substance to exist."
" PROP. VIII. — All Substance is necessarily infinite.
" Dem. — There exists but one Substance of the same Attribute ; and it must
either exist as infinite or as finite. But not as finite, for as finite it must be
120 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
limited by another Substance of the same nature, and in that case there would
be two Substances of the same Attribute, which is absurd. Substance, there-
fore, is infinite."
" Scholium. — I do not doubt that to all who judge confusedly of things, and
are not wont to inquire into first causes, it will be difficult to understand the
demonstration of Prop. VII., because they do not sufficiently distinguish
between the modifications of Substance and Substance itself, and are ignorant
of the manner in which things are produced. Here it follows, that seeing
natural things have a commencement, they attribute a commencement to Sub-
stances ; for he who knows not the true causes of things confounds all things,
and sees no reason why trees should not talk like men, or why men should not
be formed from stones as well as from seeds, or why all forms cannot be changed
into all other forms. So, also, those who confound the divine nature with the
human naturally attribute human affections to God, especially as they are ig-
norant how these affections are produced in the mind. But if men attended to
the nature of Substance, they would not in the least doubt the truth of Prop.
VII. ; nay, this proposition would be an axiom to all, and would be numbered
among the common notions."
This effort of Spinoza at mathematical exactness in
thought serves to bring out boldly the nature of the final
problem of philosophy. It demonstrates also the impos-
sibility of using more than one term to denote the Ultimate
Reality, unless the equivalence of meaning between the
terms is distinctly laid down. It also shows how necessary
it is to determine the exact relationship existing between all
the categories, such as time, space, matter or Substance,
force, the infinite, the absolute, etc.
Time and Eternity are used by Spinoza without any
acknowledgment that they mean the same thing. Again :
space, matter, extension, infinite, follow in close succession
without any effort being made to harmonize or compare
their meanings ; whereas in their widest sense they mean
precisely the same thing. This important fact is brought
out indirectly by Spinoza's own arguments ; for a careful
examination of the exhaustive definitions of Substance
which he offers shows that it is impossible to establish any
ultimate difference between the meaning of the terms he
employs to denote space or extension. Again : the words
essence, substance, God, and existence, are used repeatedly
in a similar sense, and yet no distinct declaration is made of
i ft
'< •
•
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 121
their equivalence of meaning. Is it any wonder that meta-
physics should have been declared a failure by the ancient
skeptics, and an effete science by modern agnostics ? And
yet how remarkable it is to see throughout the writings of
these schools an ever-renewed effort to solve the meta-
physical problem !
It is impossible to discuss philosophy in any of its phases
without including, directly or indirectly, this problem. In-
deed, so fundamental is this great question of the meaning
of ultimate terms, that scarcely a thought or feeling can
be imagined that is not, in some degree, influenced by it ;
and the science of metaphysics, instead of being the farthest
removed from practical life, is really the mainspring of all
human action, for it identifies and correlates the energies of
the mind with those of the universe.
When this simple solution of the metaphysical problem
shall have become the property of the thinking world, the
illogical misgivings which we call skepticism, or agnosticism,
will disappear, with all those lower forms of belief in mys-
tery known as superstition, and it will be no longer necessary
for the mind to become shipwrecked among the meanings
of ultimate terms in the outset of the study of human
progress.
Spinoza was the opposite of a skeptic. Although it has
by no means been acknowledged that his system success-
fully refutes the doctrines of skepticism, it opposes these
doctrines consistently throughout. Here the difference
between Spinoza and Lewes appears.
Spinoza declares that our knowledge is real, that our
impressions of things disclose their real nature. Lewes
says that our knowledge is only knowledge of phenomena,
and therefore does not disclose the actual nature of things ;
which is a gratuitous assertion that the actual is a mystery,
or something that cannot be understood.
There is perhaps no more direct way of explaining the
philosophy of Spinoza than by quoting his argument against
the teleological interpretation of nature : this argument
122 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
occurs in the form of an Appendix to the book " De Deo " :
" Men do all things for the sake of an end, namely, the
good, or useful, which they desire. Hence it comes that
they always seek to know only the final causes of things
which have taken place, and when they have heard these
they are satisfied, not having within themselves any cause
for further doubt. But if they are unable to learn these
final causes from some one else, nothing remains to them
but to turn in upon themselves, and to reflect upon the ends
by which they are themselves wont to be determined to
similar actions ; and thus they necessarily judge of the
mind of another by their own. Further: as within them-
selves and out of themselves they discover many means
which are highly conducive to the pursuit of their own
advantage, — for example, eyes to see with, teeth to masticate
with, vegetables and animals for food, the sun to give them
light, the sea to nourish fish, etc., — so they come to consider
all natural things as means for their benefit : and because
they are aware that these things have been found, and
were not prepared by them, they have been led to be-
lieve that some one else has adapted these means to their
use. For after considering things in the light of means, they
could not believe these things to have made themselves, but
arguing from their own practice of preparing means for their
use, they must conclude that there is some ruler or rulers of
nature endowed with human freedom, who have provided
all these things for them, and have made them all for
the use of men. Moreover, since they have never heard
any thing of the mind of those rulers, they must necessarily
judge of this mind also by their own ; and hence they have
argued that the Gods direct all things for the advantage of
man, in order that they may subdue him to themselves, and
be held in the highest honor by him. Hence each has
devised, according to his character, a different mode of
worshipping God, in order that God might love him more
than others, and might direct all nature to the advantage of
his blind cupidity and insatiable avarice. Thus this preju-
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 123
dice has converted itself into superstition, and has struck
deep root into men's minds ; and this has been the cause
why men in general have eagerly striven to explain the
final causes of all things. But while they have sought
to show that Nature does nothing in vain (i. e. which is not
fit for the use of men,) they seem to me to have shown
nothing else than that Nature and the Gods are as foolish
as men. And observe, I pray you, to what a point this
opinion has brought them. Together with the many useful
things in Nature, they necessarily found not a few injurious
things, namely, tempests, earthquakes, diseases, etc. ; these,
they supposed, happened because the Gods were angry on
account of offences committed against them by men, or
because of faults incurred in their worship ; and although
experience every day protests, and shows by infinite ex-
amples, that benefits and injuries happen indifferently to
pious and ungodly persons, they do not therefore renounce
their inveterate prejudice."
This simple and commanding argument remands humanity
to its due place in the universe, and rebukes that inordi-
nate conceit which is known in metaphysics as Idealism,
and in general philosophy as Anthropomorphism. The
former appropriates all reality to the mind, and the latter
all nature to the purposes of man. The charge of athe-
ism which was so generally brought against Spinoza rests
chiefly upon his unfortunate selection of the term Sub-
stance to designate the Ultimate Reality ; for it naturally
shocks the understanding to designate God by that single
aspect of the Universal Principle which we call Substance,
Infinity, or Space. In using the word Substance in this
widest of its applications, Spinoza meant the substance of
existence, or life, the ultimate fact, rather than the statical
aspect of the universe which we call Matter or Space. The
justice of the claim for Spinoza that he distinctly appreciated
the divine unity of nature, and rose above the level of ideal-
ism, and all other teleological interpretations of life, none
who carefully follow his thought will dispute. The most
124 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
condensed description of his philosophy, and one on the
main points of which all the best authorities agree, is given
by Lewes. " There is but one infinite Substance, and that is
God. Whatever is, is in God ; and without Him, nothing
can be conceived. He is the universal Being of which all
things are the manifestations. He is the sole Substance ;
every thing else is a mode; yet, without Substance, Mode
cannot exist. God, viewed under the attributes of Infinite
Substance, is the natura naturans, — viewed as a manifesta-
tion, as the Modes under which his attributes appear, he is
the natura naturata. He is the cause of all things, and that
immanently, but not transiently. He has two infinite at-
tributes— Extension and Thought. Extension is visible
Thought, and Thought is invisible Extension ; they are the
Objective and Subjective of which God is the Identity.
Eveiy thing \s a mode of God's attribute of Extension ; every
thought, wish, or feeling, a mode of his attribute of Thought.
* * * Substance is uncreated, but creates by the internal
necessity of its nature. There may be many existing things,
but only one existence ; many forms, but only one Substance..
God is the idea immanens — the One and All."
The obvious fault in this analysis of existence, or life, is,
that thought is regarded as an ultimate fact, — a fact as simple
and general as space or extension — an attribute or aspect of
God ; whereas thought is a very complex phenomenon re-
quiring a vast plexus of conditions. It presupposes the
facts of sentiency, of organic life, of individuality, and is
therefore far removed in the scale of generality from the
subjective aspect or attribute of God, which is the meaning
that Spinoza applies to it. Again : Extension is said to be
the opposite aspect of God, the antithesis of thought ; while
thought, again, is said to be invisible extension. Confusions
here are multiplied, for matter is the name commonly given
to that space or extension which is sufficiently tangible to be
called visible ; and although thought, viewed as the activity
of an organism, has a distinct statical aspect, there is surely
no necessity for confusing the ideas of thought and matter.,
MODERN PHILOSOPHY.
125
This is where Spinoza has laid himself opten to the charge of
Pantheism, — that theory which invests all nature, animate
and inanimate, with an inherent faculty of thought, and con-
fusing again the ideas of thought and God, disseminates, as
it were, a thinking spirit of God throughout the universe, —
a sort of magnificent fetichism, filling all things with an
omnipotent mystery. How different from that simple and
pure conception of Deity which demarcates thought as
simply an aspect of individuality, recognising in God, or
general existence, the divine principle of Life, having eter-
nity and infinity respectively for its subjective and objective
aspects.
Spinoza did not carry his impeachment of the teleological
interpretation of nature far enough ; for, although he ex-
posed the presumption of the belief that nature moves for
the benefit of man, he confused that attribute of man which
we call thought with the subjective aspect of God. This
confusion was a natural consequence of the Cartesian dualism
(in which philosophy Spinoza had thoroughly grounded him-
self), and also furnished an excuse for the extravagances of
German idealism which were soon to follow.
Spinoza's greatest work is " Ethics Demonstrated by a
Geometrical Method," from which most of the foregoing
quotations are given. It is generally admitted that this
work is a masterpiece of metaphysical reasoning, and many
writers say that it has never been successfully attacked, such
is the rigor and precision of its deductions.
Spinoza lived a life of retirement and privation, princi-
pally in Holland, where he was, in a measure, protected from
the fierce religious persecution of the seventeenth century.
For more than a hundred years after his death he was
generally stigmatized as an atheist and a monster. The
German scholars of Goethe's time, notwithstanding these
epithets, promptly recognized his great genius and the
touching sublimity of his life and character. Goethe says of
him, the man was represented an "Atheist, and his opinions
as most abominable ; but immediately after, it is admitted
126 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
that he was a calm, reflective, diligent scholar, a good cit-
izen, a sympathizing neighbor, and a peaceable domestic
man."
Just at the close of Descartes' career, and before the great
unity of Spinoza's thought had been given to the world,
a mind of singular power and clearness made its appearance
in England. Thomas Hobbes, like most of the scientific
men of his time, was an eminent mathematician. He studied
at Oxford, where the Ptolemaic system of astronomy was
still taught, and where the philosophic lectures were chiefly
confined to scholastic metaphysics. This was before the
law of gravitation or the fluctional calculus had been dis-
covered, as Newton and Leibnitz were in their boyhood.
The circulation of the blood, which had been known
to the Chinese five hundred years before,1 had just been
announced in England by Harvey. The conservation and
equivalence of the physical forces was a fact hardly as yet
suspected. Galileo had discovered the spots on the sun,
the satellites of Jupiter, and Saturn's rings, and was dis-
cussing other questions of astronomy with the monks of
the Holy Inquisition. Kepler was engaged in working
out his laws of the planetary motions. Milton, who had
been carefully taught at Christ's College, Cambridge, that the
sun turned round the earth, was planning the scene of his
great drama of Heaven. The genius of Shakespeare, thirty
years after the great poet's death, was not yet recognized.
The language of France was just attaining its present state
of perfection under the magic sentences of Moliere ; and, as
above indicated, Descartes, the first modern who applied to
philosophy the rule of scientific investigation, had but a few
years before published his " Meditations." It was with these
surroundings that Hobbes, by a masterly analysis of the
facts of consciousness, laid the foundations of the science of
psychology, which has since attained to such development
in England. Bacon before him had insisted that facts could
alone be * the foundation of knowledge ; that theories, or
1 And to at least one Italian physiologist.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 12?
ideas, must always be subservient to facts. Proceeding upon-
this slow but sure method, Hobbes, in a style that is simple,
powerful, and clear, analyzed consciousness and thereby in-
dicated the solution of the great problems of the scope of
language and the nature of perception, which can alone
afford an understanding of the relations of life and mind. It:
is also interesting to note that at this time the world had not
yet heard of the adventures of German thought, as Germany
was lying prostrate under the terrible effects of the Thirty
Years' War, which had virtually destroyed her civilization.
Her great intellectual life had not as yet begun. Hence^
Hobbes had no bad examples of modern idealism to influ-
ence him (Berkeley and Kant were yet unborn) ; nor do his
writings show that he troubled himself much about the.
dialectics of Plato, or the logical difficulties of the Skeptics.
The insight which Hobbes had of the all-important question
of the scope of language is intimated by his famous aphor-
ism : " Words are wise men's counters ; they do but reckon,
by them ; but they are the money of fools." This shows
that he had studied out the great truth that language springs,
from action, and that thought is a part of action inseparable
in nature from the simplest organic and even inorganic ac-
tivities. Instead of this being materialism, it is the most
exalted view of the mind, for it identifies mind with life, —
explaining the presence of the infinite and the absolute in
our conceptions as the obverse aspects of the Universal
Principle of life, or Motion. But it must not be assumed
that Hobbes made a perfect analysis of the mind, — that would
have been impossible with the limited scientific advantages
of his time ; but his conclusions, as far as they went, are the
result of a careful study of facts, and are therefore valuable :
he did not attempt those purely theoretical constructions,
which have since taken up so much room in philosophy.
The connection between thought and sensation is de-
scribed by Hobbes with a candor and simplicity which is re-
freshing, after reading the tortuous theories of the meta-
physicians. It is now a well-established fact that sensation
128 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE,
and thought are but different phases of the activity of a sen-
tient organism. Thoughts are those vastly more complex
co-ordinations of impressions which the highly-structured
nervous organism, through the condensing process of lan-
guage, accomplishes within us ; while sensation is the com-
paratively simple external view of isolated impressions.
But as there is no absolute dividing line between the muscle
and the nerve, or between motorial and psychical phenom-
ena, sensation insensibly becomes thought, and thought
again sensation. These facts of psychology will be fully ex-
plained in the review of Lewes' works on the subject, which
occurs under the study of the nature of perception, in Part
II. The object in thus mentioning them in advance is to
show how clearly Hobbes perceived the true relations be-
tween body and mind. Thus, in speaking of the origin of
ideas, he says : " When a body is once in motion it moveth,
unless something hinder it, eternally ; and whatsoever hinder-
eth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite
extinguish it ; and as we see in the water, though the wind
cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after :
so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the
internal parts of man. * * * For after the object is re-
moved, or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing
seen, though more obscure than when we see it. * * *
The decay [subsiding] of sense in men waking is not the de-
cay of the motion made in sense, but an obscuring of it, in
such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of
the stars ; which stars do no less exercise their virtue, by
which they are visible, in the day than in the night. But
because amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears, and
other organs, receive from external bodies, the predominant
only is sensible ; therefore the light of the sun being pre-
dominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars."
The fault of Hobbes' analysis is not its incorrectness, but its
incompleteness. As far as he goes, he has contributed to
the science of psychology. It is true that his works lay
neglected until James Mill discerned their merits ; that Par-
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 129
liament passed censure upon them on account of the oppo-
sition they excited from the church ; but this is due more to
the ethical and sociological development of Hobbes' thought
than to any thing repulsive in his analysis of mind.
The ethics of Hobbes are any thing but attractive, and his
ideas of social development were as faulty as the exceeding
complexity and difficulty of the subject, and the fact that it
had hardly been touched upon before him, excepting in a
purely theoretical manner, would lead us to expect.
Auguste Comte, who was practically the originator of
sociological science, belongs to two centuries later. Such
writings as the " Republic " of Plato can hardly be said to
belong to a methodical study of the great problems of social
life. Hence, when we read of " Hobbes' Theory of Govern-
ment," and the " Social Contract," we expect little that is
instructive, and we are not disappointed.
Hobbes teaches that the natural state of man is war, or
mutual opposition, and that society consists in the establish-
ment of an authority over him sufficient to overcome this
opposition. The end of society, therefore, is to suppress the
natural propensities of man, — not as we understand it, to
develop his better nature. The absurd part of Hobbes' doc-
trine is the theory that the cause of the formation of society
is the " misery of the natural state of war," and whether the
authority exerted to suppress this natural state be founded
upon the right of superior strength or cunning, or upon jus-
tice, matters not, providing it be strong enough to suppress
the state of war.
According to Hobbes, the justification of a government is
in its strength, and therefore an absolute monarchy is the
best form of government, because the strongest. It is easy
to understand how his philosophy, loaded down as it was with
these imperfect theories, was neglected for two centuries,
and is even yet regarded with enmity by many. Not until
the elder Mill discriminated Hobbes' valuable analysis of
mind from his ethical and sociological theories, was this great
English thinker appreciated even by his own countrymen.
130 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
While Spinoza was quietly elaborating his system of
philosophy in Holland, and Newton and Leibnitz were uncon-
sciously vying with each other in the higher mathematics, the
study of mind, as the function of an organism, was taken up
where Hobbes had left it and further developed by John
Locke (1632-1704). He, too, studied at Oxford and became
a mathematician, but principally devoted himself to medi-
cine, in which science he attained marked proficiency. His
life was cast in those troublous times in England when the
principle of the " Divine Right of Kings," which James the
First had introduced from Scotland, was being tested by the
contending political and religious parties over which his son
Charles the First tried to reign.
The Scotch Covenanters, so terribly in earnest in resisting
that ritual in which they saw but a return to the despotism
of Rome ; the discontented Romanists, representing a large
part of the culture and rank of the nation ; the English
Puritans, who opposed and mistrusted them ; that large
class of dissolute nobles, the immoral tlite of England, too
selfish to espouse any religion for its own sake, too unintelli-
gent to adopt any broad national policy, supporting Royalty
but for its emoluments and license, and laying up by their
vices and crimes that reaction which Cromwell rose to con-
trol ; — among these circumstances it was that England ex-
hausted, at least for herself, the question of the divine right
of kings. And this was the political, social, and moral at-
mosphere in which the ideas of Locke were formulated and
promulgated. Toleration was a word of vast importance
in those days ; hence the conciliatory tone of Locke's writ-
ings. Many have mistaken his disposition to avoid too
pronounced assertions on ultimate questions for logical
weakness or mediocrity : thus Leibnitz calls Locke poor in
thought, " paufertina philosophia" This view has been
taken up by so many critics, that one who approaches Locke
through his general reputation is .surprised to find through-
out his writings so much vigor and firmness of thought. His
aim seems to have been to create a feeling against Scholasti-
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 131
cism, or purely theoretical philosophy and its interminable
disputes, and to study the workings of the mind with a
view to discovering what it could do and what it could not
do. His philosophy, therefore, was that of experience ; for
he examined into what the human mind did after it became
a mind more than into the genesis of consciousness.
In modern philosophic writings the popular term for that
branch of inquiry which begins with the fact of mind, and
proceeds to study its assimilation of ideas, is a posteriori
(or that which comes after the fact of mind). The term
which denotes an inquiry into those principles which are
anterior to the fact of mind is a priori.
It has been the habit of that school of writers in
which Kant is pre-eminent to fix upon arbitrary categories
or forms of thought and call them a priori ideas, for natu-
rally enough they could not explain the existence of the
mind from purely mental experiences. Without any attempt
to explain the genesis of these a priori ideas, however, they
proceed to build up vast theoretical systems in which the
mind is the central mystery, to which all the other mysteries
of their theories are made to point. To these a priori phi-
losophers, or modern idealists, who have prospered most in
the intellectual climate of Germany, we will give attention
in the following chapter.
Locke, as the successor of Bacon and Hobbes, occupied a
hostile position toward this school, which was the beginning
of that broad divergence so plainly seen to-day between
theoretical and practical philosophy, or the German idealists
and the English psychologists.
Locke's principal philosophical work was written as early
as 1671, although it was not published until 1690. The
cause of this long delay was not improbably a very natural
reluctance to augment by any possible means the fierce re-
ligious disputes which were raging in England, and indeed
throughout Europe, during his entire life. This theory
becomes all the more probable when we compare his utter-
ances on religious subjects with the general clearness and
132 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
depth of his thought. In this regard let us first consider
his ethical theories.
Although Locke taught a belief in a personal God, whose
will was the source of all morality in man, he made the
scope of moral conceptions purely human, or organic, by
resolving the meaning of good and evil into that of pleasure
and pain, making the ultimate test of virtue the degree in
which it promotes pleasure and averts pain.
This is a logical necessity, to which all writers upon ethics
are eventually brought ; for the fundamental fact of individ-
ual or organic life is personal existence, and pleasure or
happiness, used in its broadest sense, means successful exist-
ence, or life ; and pain, used in its broadest sense, means the
opposite of this, or death.
The question of conduct, therefore, in its simplest form,
is a question of life and death ; in its developed form it
becomes a study of the most successful or highest life. Al-
though Locke says that he believes morality can be reduced
to a science, which means that conduct can be reasoned
from its origin in the principle of life to all its applications
in the details of our existence, he nevertheless makes use of
much conventional and theological phraseology which de-
prives his system of the purity, breadth, and consistency
which is demanded of such writings in our time. For in-
stance, after reasoning against the existence of any innate
moral rule or idea, he says : " The true ground of morality
can only be the will and law of God, who sees in the dark,
has in his hands rewards and punishments, and power
enough to call to account the proudest of offenders ; for
God having by an inseparable connection joined virtue and
public happiness together, it is no wonder that every one
should not only allow, but recommend and magnify, those
rules to others, from whose observance of them he is seen to
reap advantage himself. The conveniences of this life make
men own an outward profession and approbation of them,
whose actions sufficiently prove that they but little con-
sider the lawgiver that prescribed these rules, or the hell
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 133
he has ordained for the punishment of those that transgress
them." *
Thus we see that, although Locke rebelled against the
theory of innate or supernatural ideas, he had a very me-
chanical way of looking upon the relations between the di-
vine and the human. He seemed to think that the divine
meant a God fashioned after man, dealing out rewards and
punishments in a distinctively human manner, and even
employing a mechanical hell to enforce his will. All this
seems unworthy of the breadth of Locke's mind ; but we
must remember the times in which he lived and the condi-
tion of religious knowledge in England during the seven-
teenth century. After the above quotation, however, it is
not without wonder that we read the following ethical com-
parisons : " Yet, if we ask a Christian who has the views of
happiness and misery in another life, why a man must keep
his word, he will give this as a reason : Because God, who
has the power of eternal life and de^ath, requires it of us.
But if a Hobbist be asked why, he will answer: Because
the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if
you do not. And if one of the old philosophers had been
asked, he would have answered : Because it was dishonest,
below the dignity of a man, and opposite to virtue, the
highest perfection of human nature, to do otherwise." 2
This shows a complete independence of superstition ; and
we are compelled to believe that Locke, like Descartes,
knew better than he thought it advisable to write on re-
ligious matters ; or else, that he had not harmonized his
thoughts on the existence and nature of God with the
results of his other investigations. This opinion is confirmed
by such passages as the following, which, although they do
not deny, are surely intended to undermine the belief in
a supernatural revelation. " So God might by revelation
discover the truth of any proposition in Euclid, as well
as men by the natural use of their faculties come to make
the discovery themselves. In all things of this kind there is
J" Essay Concerning Human Understanding," vol. I., p. 62. * Ibid., p. 61.
134 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
little need or use of revelation, God having furnished us
with natural and surer means to arrive at the knowledge of
them. For whatsoever truth we come to the clear discovery
of, from the knowledge and contemplation of our own ideas,
will always be certainer to us than those which are con-
veyed to us by traditional revelation. For the knowledge
we have that this revelation came at first from God can
never be so sure as the knowledge we have from the clear
and distinct perception of the agreement or disagreement of
our own ideas. * * * The history of the deluge is conveyed
to us by writings which had their original from revelation ;
and yet nobody, I think, will say he has as certain and clear
a knowledge of the flood as Noah, that saw it ; or that he
himself would have had, had he then been alive and seen
it. For he has no greater assurance than that of his senses
that it is writ in the book supposed writ by Moses inspired ;
but he has not so great an assurance that Moses writ that
book as if he had seen Moses write it." 1
The extreme timidity of this criticism of the authorship of
the Pentateuch is to be contrasted with the confidence
with which Professor Max Miiller now speaks upon the sub-
ject to the English public ; but it should be remembered
that Mr. Miiller now places the latest known revelation
of God to man as far back as Abraham,2 which renders all
the historical surroundings of Moses perfectly natural.
The task which Locke set himself in writing the " Essay
on Human Understanding" was, " to inquire into the
original certainty and extent of human knowledge, together
with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion and assent " ;
or, as we would express it to-day, to examine into the
objects of perception, and the principles of certitude, as
distinguished from the nature of perception. Thus he confined
1 "Works of John Locke," vol. III., pp. 140, 141.
3 ' ' And if we are asked how this one Abraham possessed not only the
primitive intuition of God as He had revealed Himself to all mankind, but
passed through the denial of all other gods to the knowledge of the one God, we
are content to answer that it was by a special Divine Revelation." — Max Miiller,
"Chips from a German Workshop," vol. I., p. 367.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 135
himself to that branch of psychology which begins with the
fact of mind.
Locke, employing the ancient simile, viewed the mind as
a tablet upon which experience records its impressions ; a
very inadequate way of looking upon mental phenomena, as
it leaves out of view many prominent conditions. What
resemblance is there, for instance, between a white tablet,
which certainly has no reactionary power of its own, and
a complex organism of definite structure, and therefore
predetermined functions or activities, existing in a medium
of language or intelligence which also has a definite
structure, and hence the power of reacting in a prede-
termined manner ?
The study of language as the social factor in mental phe-
nomena, by such men as Comte, Spencer, and Lewes, has
yielded rich results for psychology ; but this view of lan-
guage was scarcely entertained in the time of Locke. The
nearest approach to this great subject which he made
was his dim foreshadowing of the " association of ideas,"
afterward developed by Hartley and Mill. But Locke had
enough to do to combat the doctrine of innate ideas, which
was so generally accepted in his time. It was acknowledged
that there are predispositions of the mind which give to in-
dividuals, through the accumulated modifications of heredity,
understandings of things, or conceptions, which are practi-
cally before experience ; but these inherited mental ten-
dencies were regarded as ultimate psychological facts defy-
ing analysis, and taking the form of arbitrary, irreducible
categories of thought. This is the theory which Locke op-
posed, and well he might, for its influence has been so per-
sistent as to have governed the metaphysical opinions of
even such recent thinkers as Mill and Spencer, both of whom,
as will be abundantly shown hereafter, devoutly believe in a
priori, unknowable conceptions which they postulate as irre-
ducible and mysterious figments of the mind, whence all
thought springs.
The strange part of this modern a priori philosophy is that
136 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
its advocates include among the mental mysteries the fact
of Consciousness itself,1 which really throws all these specula-
tions about the ultimate principles of mind into hopeless
confusion.
Locke taught that the source of all our ideas is sensation ;
and that thought, or reflection, is the apprehension and gen-
eralization of facts. This is strictly in accordance with the
best conceptions of modern psychology, if the consideration
be not omitted that the organ of thought, which is now
called the sensorium, is only developed by experience, and,
therefore, that its structures contain a potentiality which is
a factor in the formation of ideas ; in a word, without this
definite structure ideas would be impossible, and experience,
as an educator of ideas, would be in vain.
It is interesting to see how Locke approaches the prob-
lem of the categories of thought. Our idea of Space, he
says, is derived from sight and touch. These experiences
are co-ordinated and generalized until we form a symbol or
general idea of all externals, co-existences, or Space. This
idea of Locke shows how much deeper down in the scale of
reality is Motion than its aspects, Space and Time ; for what
myriads of motions, both subjective and objective, are im-
plied in the phenomena of sight and touch, and the co-ordina-
tions of their results in thought !
In the review of Herbert Spencer's works, this theory,
that the origin of our conception of Space is the " sense of
resistance," will be found clearly and fully developed, giving
us one of many points of resemblance between the writings
of Locke and Spencer.
To those who have made themselves conversant with mod-
ern philosophy, the writings of Locke are an unfailing source
of interest, as they show that the psychology for which Eng-
land has become so famous is but a generic development of
his thought.
Improving upon the psychology of Locke, David Hartley
(1705-1757), an eminent English physician, propounded the
1 See Spencer's " First Principles," and Mill's " Logic."
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 137
" vibration theory " as an explanation of the association of
ideas. In his celebrated work, " Observations on Man,"
upon which he labored from 1730 to 1746 (first published in
1749), he tells us that his idea of a physical basis to mind, —
or that there is a physical explanation possible of sensation
and thought connecting the two as muscular action and sensa-
tion,— was first suggested to him by the Principia of Newton.
The theory of "the association of ideas " can, in a simpler
form, be traced as far back as Aristotle. Hobbes noticed
the principle under the name of " mental discourse," but
Locke gave it its present familiar name.
Hartley acknowledges his obligation to a dissertation by
the Rev. Mr. Gay prefixed to the translation of Archbishop
King's " Origin of Evil," in which the principle of " the
association of ideas " is applied to moral phenomena ; but
Hartley was the first to definitely formulate this principle,
which is now " applied to the different practical fields of
language, law, morals, politics, education, religion, and soci-
ology," 1 into a philosophic system, and to make its enunci-
ation the study of a lifetime. It is to be seen from the fact
that this principle was first advocated by men of acknowl-
edged religious spirit, that the ideas of evolution are the
natural fruit of the most devout minds.
Hartley endeavored to prove that the primal fact of con-
sciousness had its physical expression in changes in the
nerve centres of the thinking being, and that the structures
of the nervous system centring in the brain were the physi-
cal counterpart of all mental phenomena ; " that our ideas
spring up, or exist, in the order in which the sensations ex-
isted of which they are copies." The order of occurrence of
ideas, therefore, is determined by the past activities of the
mind as we find them registered in the structures of the
brain. The happiness of this thought is manifest to those
who have traced its development in the psychological studies
of Herbert Spencer and George H. Lewes, where the inter-
actions of function and structure explain all organic life.
'See "David Hartley and James Mill," by G. S. Bower.
138 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
The particular development which Hartley gave the vibra-
tion theory is known as his theory of "neural tremors,"
which, it must be admitted, has many special features that
the advance of Science has proved incorrect. Newton's
hints as to the relation between sensation and motion con-
tributed to the neural hypothesis. The difficulty of the
subject Hartley describes as follows : " If that species of
motion which we term vibrations can be shown by probable
arguments to attend on all sensations, ideas, and motions,
and to be proportioned to them, then we are at liberty
either to make vibrations the exponent of sensations, ideas,
and motions, or these the exponents of vibrations, as best
suits the inquiry, however impossible it may be to discover
in what way vibrations cause, or are connected with, sensa-
tions or ideas."1 As the term vibration is so indefinite as
to mean much the same thing as motion — the ultimate fact
in all phenomena of mind as well as of body, — in tracing con-
sciousness to neural tremors or vibrations we have reached
the theoretical end of the analysis of mind. To state these
neural tremors in terms of time and space, or numbers and
quantities, is the task of the psychology of the future, but it
cannot afford us a deeper or more general principle than we
have already discovered in that of Motion employed as an
explanation of mind.
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz (1646-1716) was a Ger-
man mathematician and philosopher of great merit. He
was the Newton of Germany ; but, unlike Newton, he in-
dulged in metaphysics, and has therefore been considered
more of a philosopher than his great English contemporary,
whose theory of universal gravitation still holds the highest
place among our generalizations of motion. At the age of
twenty Leibnitz endeavored to harmonize the systems of
Plato and Aristotle, and produced a treatise on the " Com-
binations of Numbers and Ideas." At twenty-three he ac-
cepted the office of Councillor of State at Frankfort, and in
the year following, 1668, published his " New Method of
1 "Observ. on Man," vol. I., p. 32.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 139
Learning and Teaching Jurisprudence." In 1670 he ad-
vanced new and bold theories of Motion (" Theory of Con-
crete Motion " and " Theory of Abstract Motion "), which,
when compared with the great discovery of Newton in the
same direction, show how inevitably the mind reverts, in
science as well as in religion, to the problem of the Univer-
sal Principle. About this time Leibnitz visited Paris, where
he met Cassini and Huyghens, and soon after made the ac-
quaintance of Newton and Boyle in London. Here he was
made a member of the Royal Academy, and announced his
discovery of the Infinitesimal Calculus, nearly identical with
Newton's Method of Fluctions.
The ambitions of Leibnitz were not satisfied with the vast
command of the physical sciences which he enjoyed, and
which made him famous throughout France, England, and
Germany, for in the prime of his life he interested himself
in a beneficent effort to harmonize the Protestant and the
Catholic churches. Toward the end of his career (1710) he
produced his great work entitled " Essay of Theodicea, on
the Goodness of God, the Liberty of Man, and the Origin
of Evil " ; in which he advanced the celebrated theory of
Optimism.
Leibnitz confined himself in writing almost entirely to
French and Latin ; for at his time, as will aftenvard appear,
there was comparatively little culture in Germany, and the
Greek language was employed scarcely at all in science or
philosophy; his audience, therefore, was principally in
France and in England ; for it was only toward the close of
his life that Germany began to show signs of the marvellous
intellectual development which she has since achieved.
Among the philosophical writings of Leibnitz his criti-
cisms of Locke are the most interesting, as Leibnitz was a
Cartesian, believing in a dual principle in nature, or an abso-
lute difference between body and mind. His opinions are
clearly based upon the teachings of Plato and Democri-
tus ; and it is a fact of no small interest that as Bacon,
Hobbes, and Locke laid the foundations of English thought,
140 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Leibnitz gave the first impetus to the Idealism of Germany.
The difference between Leibnitz and Locke is thus stated
by the former : " The question between us is whether the
soul in itself is entirely empty, like tablets upon which noth-
ing has been written (tabula rasa), according to Aristotle and
the author of the ' Essay,' and whether all that is there
traced comes wholly from the senses and experience ; or
whether the soul originally contains the principles of several
notions and doctrines, which the external objects only awaken
on occasions, as I believe with Plato." Leibnitz here at-
tempts to prove the existence of innate ideas in order to
oppose the theory that knowledge springs wholly from the
exercise of the senses and reflection. The factor of reflec-
tion, however, which was insisted upon by Locke, is so sug-
gestive as to discover to the close observer a remote agree-
ment between the two great schools of thought which
Leibnitz and Locke respectively represented.
It is to a clear knowledge of the nature of perception that
we must look for a reconciliation of these conflicting theories.
Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753) and Hume (1711-1776) were
the historical successors of Hobbes, Locke, and Hartley as
English writers on philosophy ; but as they respectively re-
produced those eccentricities of Greek thought known as
Idealism and Skepticism, they retarded, if any thing, the
scientific study of mind which their immediate predecessors
had inaugurated. They were both erudites learned in Aris-
totle, Plato, and the Greek Skeptics. But these ancient
theories, deeply interesting as they are when studied as parts
of the civilization which produced them, appear very faded
when compared with modern thought. Hence we find the
metaphysical speculations of Berkeley and Hume tame and
uninstructive.
George Berkeley was born and educated in Ireland, and
was always distinguished for the best qualities of his race —
generosity, morality, and religious fervor ; in fact, the sat-
irist Pope expresses the common verdict of his time in
ascribing " To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." He
MODERN PHILOSOPHY.
published, in 1709, "An Essay Toward a New Theory of
Vision," and in the year following, " The Principles of
Human Knowledge," in which he advanced his celebrated
theory of Idealism, — that there is no proof of the existence
of matter anywhere but in our own perceptions, — as though
the words proof and perception did not both imply mind,
which can never be more than one of the two terms of the
relation expressed in thought. If mind implies an external
relation it implies space or matter. This theory of Idealism
has been examined as it first appeared in Plato, and we
again study it in its subsequent unparalleled development in
Kant's a priori philosophy. Suffice it to say that Berkeley
has been more or less faithfully reproduced in the Subjective
Idealism of Schelling and the Absolute Idealism of Hegel, —
both generic developments of Kant and remote develop-
ments of the Dialectics of Plato, and the Skepticism of the
New Academy ; for, strange to say, the unnatural exaltation
of the fact of perception which we find in Idealism leads
directly to the distrust of mind exemplified in Skepticism.
Berkeley gave evidences of being influenced by Locke and
Hartley. He followed Locke in regarding the proposition,
that a material world really exists, as not strictly demonstra-
ble, but went beyond him by declaring the proposition false.
He followed Hartley in asserting that there was a necessary
succession or association of ideas, but he went beyond him
by declaring that the order of nature was not reflected by
mind, but was caused by mind. " That which we call the
law of nature," he says, " is in fact only the order of the suc-
cession of our ideas." This is manifestly reversing the order
of perception, or assuming individuality to be the ultimate
fact, and general existence to be a subordinate fact derived
from individuality ; the absurdity of which, when followed
to its logical consequences, is beyond expression.
Berkeley published, in 1725, "A Proposal for Converting
the Savage Americans to Christianity." To promote this
idea he undertook to found a college in this country. The
English government promised to aid the enterprise, and he
142 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
sailed for Rhode Island in 1728. During the voyage he
wrote a poem on the subject of his mission.
While in this country he preached for about two years at
Newport, R. I., but the British ministry failing to keep
their promise concerning the projected college, he returned
home.
The Skepticism of David Hume was so marked and so
ably reasoned that it awakened a number of Scottish philos-
ophers, headed by Thomas Reid, to a vigorous polemic
against it, and in Germany incited Immanuel Kant to the
construction of his Critical Philosophy. At the age of
twenty-six, Hume published in London (1738) his "Treatise
on Human Nature," in which the principles of his Skep-
ticism are declared, and of which work Mackintosh says:
" It was the first systematic attack on all the principles of
knowledge and belief, and the most formidable, if universal
Skepticism could ever be more than a mere exercise of
ingenuity." In 1742, his " Essays, Moral, Political and Lit-
erary," appeared ; in 1752, " Political Discourses," and soon
after, the famous " History of England."
Hume traces our idea of Cause to what he calls habit, —
our habit of observing the causes of events ; and from this
he argues that it is impossible for us to form any idea of the
real nature of cause, because our idea is derived entirely
from particular experiences. He forgets that the firmest
ground of certainty is our inability to disbelieve. Hence an
experience which is without exception is universal to us. If
we are able to reduce every conceivable phenomenon, or
experience, to an ultimate fact, which remains constant in
every experience, that fact, to us, is our highest generaliza-
tion of cause, and constitutes the general existence of which
individuality is but the consequence. Infinity, to man, is
that which he is unable to limit ; the Absolute, that to
which he is unable to supply conditions. The former effort
has manifestly more to do with externals, or objects, than
the latter, and is therefore the objective as distinguished
from the subjective, aspect of the irreducible fact, cause, or
MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 143
Motion. Hence Hume, in denying the possibility of our
knowing the nature of the objective connection between
cause and effect, merely stated, in other words, the old
theory of Carneades, that we cannot know phenomena as
they really are. This theory we have fully dealt with in
chapter IV.
As a natural consequence of Hume's theory of the unreal
nature of knowledge, he denied that we could form a con-
ception of God, or the immortality of the soul, — two widely
different propositions, as God is the ultimate fact, and
Immortality is the endless perpetuation of a relative fact,
which gives us a contradiction in terms.
Hume's political writings brought him into prominence,
and after his return from Paris, accompanied by his friend
Rousseau, he was intrusted with the diplomatic correspond-
ence of England (in 1767). Soon after this he retired to
Edinburgh, the scene of his best literary efforts, and lived in
retirement until his death in 1776.
CHAPTER VII.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.
Kant — Fichte — Schelling — Hegel — Schleiermacher — Schopenhauer.
FOR those who have ceased to regard the mind as a mys-
tery, a critical review of the German a priori philosophy
is unnecessary, for they will easily identify this new growth
of Idealism with its kindred errors of the past. They
will regard such events as the Centennial translation of
Kant's ''Critique of Pure Reason/' by Professor Max Miil-
ler, and other like publications, as the last guns which ob-
stinate artillerymen fire after the tide of battle has turned
against them and their cause has been rendered hopeless.
The vast majority of people, however polite may be their
culture, are accustomed to view history through its external
events, and to judge thought by its official position. To
them, reformations are invisible until their effects become
crystallized in structural changes, and logical movements are
unappreciated until they appear in text-books and encyclo-
paedias. To such as these the a priori philosophy will be a
reality as long as animate professors expound it to living stu-
dents. But to the earnest thinker who is in full sympathy with
the progress of his times, whether he be able or not to state
categorically his belief, there are abundant evidences that
Idealism has been permanently superseded by a higher and a
better faith. The proof of this is the increasing contempt
with which scientific men, whatever may be their religion, re-
gard metaphysics, and the importance which the teaching of
morality has gained over the mere defence of dogma through-
out the Christian world. An understanding of the scope
of language has insensibly dawned upon our era, as a result
144
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.
145
of which ideas are subordinated to actions ; beliefs are be-
ginning to be estimated by the lives of the believers; and
although the organization of religion and learning remains
apparently the same, theology and metaphysics, considered
as distinct sciences, are almost universally regarded as merely
formal acquirements of little or no practical value. When
in addition to these facts it is remembered that almost every
surviving system of theology or of metaphysics is idealistic
in its tendency, we perceive that there is in effect a popular
uprising against the empty idioms of the a priori school,
which extends far and wide beyond the limits of philosophic
culture.
We have no idea, however, of depending upon a sympathy
so general and indefinite for the refutation of Idealism.
There are too many instances in history of the re-establish-
ment of false doctrines long after they have been to all
appearances destroyed, to trust to what is, after all, but
a harbinger of victory.
As Germany slowly arose from the almost indescribable
desolation of the Thirty Years' War, she entered upon a
century of her history during which she had no national
existence or memories, no literature or language, no social,
religious, or moral life. The nation had expired when peace
was concluded in 1648. This war not only destroyed an old
civilization which was fairly abreast with that of the rest of
Europe ; it so completely destroyed it that the nation has
been two hundred years in regaining her natural status in
the world. Commercial statistics show that the general pros-
perity of Germany in 1850 had but just reached the level of
that which she enjoyed at the beginning of the war of 1618.
" The highly cultivated language of Luther was forgotten,
together with the whole literature of his time. Many
schools and churches stood abandoned, for public instruc-
tion and public worship had nearly perished. * * * There
was no middle class nor gentry left; the higher noble-
men had become petty despotic princes, with no hand over
them, since the Emperor was but a name ; the lower went
146 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
to their court to do lackey's service. A whole generation-
had grown up during the war, and considered its savage bar-
barism as a normal state of society. * * * For all habits
of self-government, even in the cities, had gone ; the gentle-
men had become courtiers instead of magistrates. An un-
precedented coarseness of manners had invaded not only
courts and cities, but also the universities and the clergy."
A century later, when Frederick II. realized the desires of
Prussia in a reign memorable for its impartial devotion to
the whole nation, firmly establishing the Prussian State, the
intellectual life of Germany was not only awakened but im-
mediately burst into a luxuriant growth. Universities were
established and regenerated, great scholars, great poets, and
great thinkers immediately appeared. Leibnitz, Kant,
Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and the rest, came to glorify the
new national life. The beauties of the ancient classics were
rediscovered, history was read by fresh minds and its organic
nature disclosed, sciences were created to deal with the new
problems of life ; for a nation had arisen and taken a new
interest in humanity. In the midst of this intellectual exal-
tation German philosophy was born. Is it any wonder that
its whole existence has been marked by a kind of subjective
intoxication ?
Each national language formulates its philosophy with an
unfeigned satisfaction and pride. The old, old problems of life^
which Greece absorbed from the East and expressed so vivid-
ly, were new in Germany ; but a careful examination of their
structure discloses them to be of the same logical species as
their progenitors. The German type of these problems,
however, has marked modifications due to a greater and a
higher environment. German philosophy is more Greek
than the Grecian ; it is a refined leaven of the Greek thought,
so powerful that it has fermented the mind of Europe ever
since its appearance. It has produced idealists beside whose
theories Plato's Idealism is rational ; it has produced materi-
alists whom Aristotle would not have recognized ; it has
1 See " German Thought," by Karl Hillebrand.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 147
generated skeptics whom Carneades would have wondered
at. But of all these schools Idealism has taken the deepest
root, its fancies have most pleased the multitude, and what
was in the beginning the innocent recreation of a few literati
has become a national vice.
How different has it been with France and England !
These nations have had their wars and revolutions, but they
have never suffered destruction ; their development has had
no great gap in it ; it has been more gradual, and conse-
quently more rational. During the time that Germany was
slowly regaining life, France was leading the civilization of
Europe under Louis XIV. England was in advance in
political institutions and religious liberty, and, as well as
Spain and Holland, was superior in commerce and conquest;
but in all those graces of life and mind which tend to develop
and refine the individual, and in the unity and strength of
her national life, France of the eighteenth century was pre-
eminent. " The French," says Taine, " became civilized by
conversation. Their phrases, still formal, under Balzac are
looser and lightened ; they launch out, flow speedily, and
under Voltaire they find their wings. Pedantic sciences,
political economy, theology, the sullen denizens of the
Academy and the Sorbonne, speak but in epigrams. * * *
What a flight was this of the eighteenth century! Was
society ever more anxious for lofty truths, more bold in their
search, more quick to discover, more ardent in embracing
them ? The perfumed marquises, all these pretty, well-
dressed, gallant, frivolous people, crowd to philosophy as to
the opera ; the origin of animated beings, the question of
free judgment, the principles of political economy, — all is to
them a matter for paradoxes and discoveries."
Just previous to this time we find Leibnitz complaining of
the sensuality and ignorance of the German gentry as com-
pared with the love of science in England, and the intelli-
gence and culture of the French. Count Mannteufel writes
to Wolff, as late as 1738, " The German princes, who might
be compared to your lords, think it beneath their dignity to
cultivate their mind."
148 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Thus we have England, in the first half of the eighteenth
century, enriched by Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Addison,
and Swift, and learning from Locke and Newton ; France in
possession of Pascal, Descartes, Moliere, Malebranche, Ra-
cine, and Boileau ; England earnest and studious ; France
brilliant and refined, and Germany as yet intellectually un-
born.
Looking at Germany from the closing years of the nine-
teenth century, with an unequalled army of trained scientists
animated by the true spirit of original investigation, and
almost universal culture, with intellectual and religious free-
dom, one might easily expect great things of her. But her
originality, her genius, which attained such a marvellous
life during the century which closed with 1850, has seeming-
ly passed away, and it is in her abnormal Idealism, the natu-
ral consequence of a sudden intellectual development, that we
are to find the cause.
There is a lesson to be learned from the process which
underlies the survival of great names in history. It is
that the most indestructible lives are not necessarily
those which have most interested their contemporaries,
but those which have instigated the most needed re-
forms. As these lives recede in history, they fade out or
become brighter according to the degree in which they
have actually served the needs of their time. We find,
therefore, that the reputation of Kant, the first of the great
German thinkers, depends upon the intrinsic value of his
philosophy, although his philosophy is really the least im-
pressive feature of his life. What Germany most needed,
what every nation most needs, is a true philosophy. Kant
endeavored to supply this need, and if he failed, his great
learning, his broad humanity, his moral acumen, may insure
for him the lasting love and esteem of his countrymen,
but they cannot sustain his greatness as a logical reformer.
The " Critique of Pure Reason " is acknowledged to be
the representative work of Kant. Let us carefully examine
it with a view to forming an estimate of its value.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 149
The first words of the preface are : " Our reason ( Vernunff)
has this peculiar fate, that, with reference to one class of its
knowledge, it is always troubled with questions which cannot
be ignored, because they spring from the very nature of rea-
son, and which cannot be answered, because they transcend
the powers of human reason."
This simply means that the ultimate nature of reason is
incomprehensible, which is rather a discouraging admission to
make at the very outset of a work, the object of which is to
examine into the nature of reason. Kant must have believed,
however, that the nature of reason was comprehensible in
some degree, otherwise he would never have attempted an
exhaustive criticism of " Pure Reason/'
Let it be our object, then, to discover what degree of com-
prehensibility Kant believed in, or hoped for, with regard
to the nature of reason. The preface continues as follows :
" Nor is human reason to be blamed for [being incompre-
hensible]. It begins with principles which, in the course of
experience, it must follow, and which seem sufficiently con-
firmed by experience. With these, again, according to the
necessities of its nature, it rises higher and higher to more
remote conditions. But when it perceives that in this way
its work remains forever incomplete, because the questions
never cease, it finds itself constrained to take refuge in prin-
ciples which exceed every possible experimental application,
and nevertheless seem so unobjectionable that even ordinary
common-sense agrees with them."
This clearly states a well known fact, that the reason
springs from particular experiences and rises to general
truths. But among these general truths, Kant tells us, the
Reason can find no end, no resting-place, and is " constrained
to take refuge in principles which [transcend experience'] ex-
ceed every possible experimental application."
The point to be marked here is, that it is impossible for
Reason to act at all without putting in motion or expressing
its deepest principles. If reason springs from experience, as
Kant admits, we can find in experience the expression of its
150 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
first principles. These categories, or most general principles,
Kant declares, transcend all experience, and yet he clearly
admits that the reason, of which these principles are simply
the aspects, begins in experience. This contradiction we
find still more emphatic further on. In the introduction
Kant tells us, — " If we remove from experience every thing
that belongs to the senses, there remain, nevertheless, cer-
tain original concepts, and certain judgments derived from
them, which must have had their origin entirely a priori, and
independent of all experience, because it is owing to them
that we are able, or imagine we are able, to predicate
more of the objects of our senses than can be learned from
mere experience, and that our propositions contain real
generality and strict necessity, such as mere empirical knowl-
edge can never supply."
Here is an assertion which, in our time, sounds indeed pre-
posterous,— that there is an absolute dividing line, or differ-
ence of nature, between sensuous apprehensions and the co-
ordination of those apprehensions which gives us the highest
achievements of reason. By the term " a priori" which
really means nothing but before, Kant wishes to designate
certain mysterious conceptions which cannot be accounted
for by the natural activities of the sentient organism. But
these principles, notwithstanding their mysterious nature, are
supposed to reside somewhere in the organism. On the
same page we are told that there is a certain kind of
" knowledge which transcends the world of the senses, and
where experience can neither guide nor correct us : here rea-
son prosecutes investigations, which by their importance
we consider far more excellent, and by their tendency
far more elevated, than any thing the understanding can find
in the sphere of phenomena."
This looks rather ominous. If Kant is to take us into
a region of knowledge where our investigations cannot be
verified by any possible experiences, — a region of investiga-
tion which is far more " excellent " and " elevated than any
thing the understanding can find in the sphere of phenom-
GERMAN PHILOSOPH Y. 1 5 1
ena," no one will blame us if we feel alarmed at the thought
of the intellectual apparitions which we are to meet there.
But any reluctance which we may have to accompany our
author is dissipated when he continues, — " Nay, we risk
rather any thing, even at the peril of error, than that we should
surrender such investigations, either on the ground of their
uncertainty or from any feeling of indifference or contempt.
* * * Besides, once beyond the precincts of experience,
we are certain that experience can never contradict us, while
the charm of enlarging our knowledge is so great that
nothing will stop our progress until we encounter a clear
contradiction." ]
From this it is evident that the only defence we are to
have, in the region of knowledge to be traversed by the
" Critique of Pure Reason," against the delusions of the
imagination, is the sense of " clear contradiction." This is a
certain relief ; for it assures us that we are not expected to
leave all sense behind. But the question arises : How,
in a sphere of " knowledge which transcends the world of
the senses," are we to retain enough sense to appreciate a
clear contradiction ?
The modern psychologist has no faith in the existence of
" Pure Reason " ; the very name implies a belief in the
actual separation of what are but aspects of one fact of sen-
tiency. To show how firmly Kant believed in this actual
separation, we give his definition of Pure Reason : " Every
kind of knowledge is called pure if not mixed with any thing
heterogeneous. But more particularly is that knowledge
called absolutely pure which is not mixed up with any expe-
rience or sensation, and is therefore possible entirely a priori.
Reason is the faculty which supplies the principles of knowl-
edge a priori. Pure Reason, therefore, is that faculty which
supplies the principles of knowing any thing entirely a priori.
An Organum of pure reason ought to comprehend all the
principles by which pure knowledge a priori can be acquired
and fully established. A complete application of such an
1 Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," vol. II., pp. 2, 3.
152 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Organum would give us a System of Pure Reason. But as
that would be a difficult task, and as at present it is still
doubtful whether such an expansion of our knowledge is
here possible, we may look on a mere criticism of pure
reason, its sources and limits, as a kind of preparation for a
complete system of pure reason. It should be called a
critique, not a doctrine, of pure reason. Its usefulness would
be negative only, serving for a purging rather than for an
expansion of our reason." ] Any meaning which this defini-
tion has certainly hinges upon the term a priori. The
further service which this term is made to do in Kant's ideas
can be judged of from the following : " I call all knowledge
transcendental which is occupied not so much with objects
as with our a priori concepts of objects. A system of such
concepts might be called Transcendental Philosophy. But
for the present this is again too great an undertaking. We
should have to treat therein completely both of analytical
knowledge and of synthetical knowledge a priori, which is
more than we intend to do, being satisfied to carry on the
analysis so far only as is indispensably necessary in order to
understand in their whole extent the principles of synthesis
a priori, which alone concern us. This investigation, which
should be called a transcendental critique, but not a sys-
tematic doctrine, is all we are occupied with at present.
It is not meant to extend our knowledge, but only to rectify
it, and to become the test of the value of all a priori knowl-
edge." •
Thus we have the privilege of reviewing a transcendental
criticism of a priori knowledge, or, knowledge which acknowl-
edges no connection with experience.
Kant describes the scope of his great work in these words :
" All that constitutes transcendental philosophy belongs to
the Critique of Pure Reason. * * * Transcendental phi-
losophy is the Wisdom of pure speculative reason. Every
thing practical, so far as it contains motives, has reference to
1 Kant's " Critique," pp. 9, 10. a Ibid., pp. 10, n.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 153
sentiments, and these belong to empirical sources of knowl-
edge.'"
The " Critique of Pure Reason " opens with a discourse on
what Kant calls " Transcendental ^Esthetic," and from that
proceeds to " Transcendental Logic," "Transcendental An-
alytic," " Transcendental Dialectic," and closes with the
Method of Transcendentalism, under the respective heads of
" Discipline of Pure Reason " and " Canons of Pure Rea-
son." These titles have a magnificent sound, but there is too
much that is transcendental (above the earth) about them.
The careful or conscientious thinker, being earthly, likes to
keep his feet upon the solid ground of good sense ; he feels
that this is the only position which secures logical strength
and repose, and that no thoughts are too high, too pure, or
too excellent to rest upon so human a base. Correct reason-
ing is logical integrity, intellectual morality ; but we have no
right to impeach the logical integrity of the " Critique of
Pure Reason " by assuming any connection between moral
and intellectual procedures ; for its author tells us plainly, in
the last page of the introduction, that " although the highest
principles of morality and their fundamental concepts are a
priori knowledge, they do not belong to transcendental phi-
losophy, because the concepts of pleasure and pain, desire,
inclination, free-will, etc., which are all of empirical origin,
must here be presupposed." This leaves us in an uncom-
fortable state of uncertainty whether he means that trans-
cendental philosophy has nothing to do with morality, or
whether a priori knowledge has nothing to do with transcen-
dental philosophy. At all events, the assertion is definite
that in transcendental philosophy the moral sentiments, so
far as they represent a motive, have no place.
Hence the author of the " Critique of Pure Reason," in
describing the scope of his work, deliberately takes leave of
all that is estimable and useful in philosophy, namely, the
study of life as a means of illuminating conduct, and applies
himself to the creation of that system of " a priori knowl-
edge " now widely known as German Idealism.
1 Kant's " Critique," pp. 12, 13.
-154 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Herder, the Pindar of Germany, a pupil of Kant, a pro.
found scholar and moral teacher, earnestly denounced the
Kantian philosophy. James Sully, in the Fortnightly Review
of October, 1882, thus describes the antagonism of teacher
and pupil :
" Herder's conception of history as but an extension of
nature's processes was diametrically opposed to Kant's
dualism of human freedom rising above and opposing na-
ture. * * * He had no liking for Kant's critical philoso-
phy, with its cumbrous apparatus of ' intellectual forms.'
To his concrete mind ever impressed with the organic unity
of man, it seemed to resolve the human intellect into a num-
ber of unreal abstractions. It was a distinct retrogression
from the experience philosophy of his predecessors, and
along with the French Revolution threatened ' to send back
the world a hundred years.' Herder's chief dislike of the
Kantian philosophy, however, arose out of his view of its
hurtful consequences in literature, art, and theology. ' Criti-
cism ' was the fashion of thought of the hour. ' In every
journal ' (writes Herder) * these dogs and curs bark and yelp
the critical canons without canon, without feeling, law, and
rule. God help us!' The sharp separation of art and mo-
rality and the worship of pure form in art which Schiller and
Goethe were preaching, were professedly based on Kant's
teaching. And then there was the young generation of
theologians who had come under the spell of Fichte's elo-
quence at Jena, and who were blatant with somewhat vague
ideas about liberty and the supremacy of reason. One can
hardly wonder that the soul of the General Superintendent
should have been excited to wrath by the appearance of
youthful candidates for clerical appointments who thought
to conceal by loose talk of this sort the depth of their igno-
rance on all theological matters, candidates of whom one
even had the audacity to write an essay against marriage.
" So it came to pass that Herder's spirit was inflamed
against Kant, and delivered itself of a solemn denunciation.
In the year 1799-1800, there appeared from his pen two
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 155
works which were intended to give the coup de grace to
Kant's influence. These were the ' Metakritik,' which was
directed against the 'Critic of the Pure Reason/ and the
' Kalligone,' which was to be a refutation of the theory of
taste and art put forth in the ' Critic of the Practical Reason.'
The mode of attack may be seen by a reference to the intro-
duction to the ' Metakritik.' It is an appeal from chair phi-
losophers to the sensible laity. He dwells on the mischief
wrought by the Kantian teaching. * For twelve years the
critical philosophy has been playing its part, and we see its
fruits. What father (let him ask himself) wishes his son to
become an autonomous being of the critical sort, a metaphy-
sician of nature and virtue, a dialectical or revolutionary
pettifogger, according to the critical stamp? Now look
round and read ! What recent book, what science is not
covered with flaws of this kind, and how many noble talents
are (we hope for a time only) ruined ! Foreign nations
scorn us : " Are you there, you Germans, you who were so
far on in many things? Are you speculating about the
question how it is possible for your understanding to have
come into existence ? * * * Unformed nation ! how differ-
ent the things you ought to be thinking about ! "
" The remedy for the evil lies in the hands of every intel-
ligent reader. Ordinary men are fully capable of destroying
the ' misty woof of words.' Everybody has a mind which
he can interrogate in order to know whether it behaves in
the fashion set forth in the ' Critic.' ' Ask thyself, thy senses,
thy understanding, thy reason ; they have imprescriptible
rights. Are the senses willing to be transubstantiated into
empty forms, the understanding into a senseless process of
spelling, and the reason into a chaos ? ' '
But this brave attack and timely warning fell to the earth ;
it passed unheeded. And thus Herder, " the humanizer of
theology, the reviver of pristine life in literature, injured
himself only by his rash venture into the thorny enclosure
of metaphysics. He called into existence a whole army of
enemies only too ready to enlist under the banner of the
156 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
Konigsberg philosopher, and he alienated some of his best
friends."
The mind of Germany has indeed been put back a hundred
years in its growth by the Kantian philosophy. Idealism
hangs like a fog over her intellectual life ; her art, her litera-
ture, and even her science, are dwarfed by it. In Germany
the religious world is either superstitious or materialistic;
thought being separated from morality or real life, the
religion of philosophy does not exist ; even her political life
seems to be retarded by this unnatural divorce. The warm-
est friends, the ablest critics of this great nation compare
her to a mind without a body. From this can it not be in-
ferred that her body in the highest sense is without a mind ?
The fluent and methodical manner in which Kant pro-
ceeds to analyze perception is calculated to throw one off
his guard. The propositions which embrace his description
of mental phenomena are stated with such precision and ap-
parent candor that one is apt to take their logical integrity
for granted. For instance, at the outset he affirms that
" sensibility alone supplies us with intuitions (Anschauungen).
These intuitions become thought through the understanding
(Verstand), and hence arise conceptions (Begriffe). All
thought, therefore, must, directly or indirectly, go back to
intuitions (Anschauungen), i. e. to our sensibility, because in
no other way can objects be given to us."1 Thus we have
sensation and thought duly recognized as different aspects,
of mental phenomena, their separation being purely artificial.
Then follows the very fair assertion: " The effect produced
by an object upon the faculty of representation (Vorstel-
lungsfdhigkeif), so far as we are affected by it, is called
sensation (Einpfindung). An intuition [Anschauung] of an
object, by means of sensation, is called empirical. The un-
defined object of such empirical intuition is called phenome-
non (Erscheinung)" But suddenly we have a leap into
obscurity which is amazing, and which of course we cannot
follow. Witness these words : " I call all representations
1 Kant's "Critique," p. 17.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 157
in which there is nothing that belongs to sensation, pure (in
a transcendental sense). The pure form, therefore, of all
sensuous intuitions, that form in which the manifold elements
of the phenomena are seen in a certain order, must be found
in the mind a priori. And this pure form of sensibility may
be called the pure intuition (Anschauung)"
A moment ago we were told that " sensibility alone sup-
plies us with intuitions"; that "all thought must, directly
or indirectly, go back to intuitions, i. e. sensations " ; that
" sensation is the effect produced upon the faculty of repre-
sentation by an object " ; thus completing the chain of cause
and effect between the many forms of mental activity which
Kant names as sensuous apprehensions, representations, in-
tuitions, and thoughts. In the face of this we are told that
he " calls all representations in which there is nothing that
belongs to sensation,/#r^ (in a transcendental sense)." Truly
this transcendental sense seems to be the source of Kant's
lasting error ; lasting because, as we shall see, he has artic-
ulated his system so ingeniously and covered up its logical
defects so dexterously with such a wealth of tautology, that
nothing but the most persistent vigilance can disclose the
unconscious deceit which permeates the whole "Critique
of Pure Reason."
Speaking of space, Kant says : " No determinations of ob-
jects, whether belonging to them absolutely or in relation to
others, can enter into our intuition before the actual exist-
ence of the objects themselves ; that is to say, they can
never be intuitions a priori. * * * Space is nothing but
the form of the phenomena of all external senses ; it is a
subjective condition of our sensibility, without which no ex-
ternal intuition is possible for us." Such language as this
is simply an outrage upon good sense. If it came from a
less illustrious pen than that of Kant, we might well pass
it by with contempt. It involves a mass of contradictions
and is loose and incoherent, logically, to the last degree.
The determinations of objects, or the properties by which
1 Kant's " Critique," p. 23.
158 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
objects are perceived, imply a relation between the perceiv-
ing subject and the object ; the determinations of objects,
therefore, cannot belong to them absolutely, for they imply
a relation. When Kant says that the " determinations of
objects cannot enter into our intuition before the existence of
the objects themselves," it is to be remembered that, as the
determinations are qualities or functions of the objects, they
imply or presuppose the existence of the object, and hence
there can be no question of priority. As for the determina-
tions never becoming " intuitions a priori" we have been dis-
tinctly told that intuitions come alone through sensibility.
We therefore deny that there is any meaning in the term
"intuitions a priori." The difference between sensuous in-
tuitions and intuitions a priori is based upon an arbitrary
separation, by Kant, of the matter and form of phenomena ; 1
a distinction which has no foundation in fact, for the form of
objects is clearly the expression of certain statical or space
aspects ; and the word matter is merely a generalization of
the statical aspects of all phenomena. When Kant says,
therefore, that space is a subjective condition of our sensi-
bility without which no intuition of externals (objects) is
possible, it is clear that he does violence to facts, first by
insisting that space means form and does not mean matter,
and then that form is absolutely distinct from matter or
external phenomena. In a word, Kant abstracts from that
aspect of motion or general existence, which we call space,
a so-called transcendental principle which he calls form, and
leaves behind a mutilated conception which he calls matter.
Form, he says, belongs to the mind and transcends all sensi-
bility or experience ; but matter does not belong to the
mind, and cannot get into it, because it is not form. Surely
1 " The matter only of all phenomena is given us a posteriori ; but their form
must be ready for them in the mind (Gemuth] a priori, and must therefore be
capable of being considered as separate from all sensations. * * * The pure
form, therefore, of all sensuous intuitions, — that form in which the mani-
fold elements of the phenomena are seen in a certain order, — must be found in
the mind a priori. And this pure form of sensibility may be called the pure
intuition (Anschauung)" — "Critique of Pure Reason," p. 18.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 159
the difficulty begins and ends with what Kant says, for he
offers no proof whatever that form is transcendental, or that
it is separable from the statical aspect of phenomena.
The reader will no doubt be edified by the following defini-
tion of time and space offered by Kant : " Time is the formal
condition, a priori, of all phenomena whatsoever. Space, as,
the pure form of all external intuition, is a condition, a pri-
ori, of external phenomena only. But as all representations,,
whether they have for their objects external things or not,
belong by themselves, as determinations of the mind, to our
inner state ; and as this inner state falls under the formal
conditions of internal intuition, and therefore of time, time
is a condition, a priori, of all phenomena whatsoever, and is.
so directly as a condition of internal phenomena (of our
mind), and thereby indirectly of external phenomena also."1
As a specimen of a priori or transcendental reasoning, this
is a masterpiece; but it would not be in keeping with the
spirit of the " Critique " to try and reduce these conceptions
to " sense," or to assimilate them with " experiences." We
suppose that " the formal condition, a priori, of all phe-
nomena whatsoever " means the idea of all phenomena ; there-
fore we have the assertion that time is the idea of all
phenomena ; but we are told that space is a condition, a
priori, of external phenomena. Now, by external, Kant
means external to the mind, or phenomenal, so that exter-
nal phenomena means all phenomena. Hence the differ-
ence between these definitions of space and time results in
nothing, and we have the simple statement, — if a simple state-
ment can be drawn from such language, — that time and
space are the ideas of all phenomena. " But," Kant con-
tends, " as all representations, whether they have for their
objects external things or not, belong by themselves, as de-
terminations of the mind, to our inner state; and as this
inner state falls under the formal conditions of the internal
intuition, and therefore of time, time is a condition, a priori,
of all phenomena whatsoever, and is so directly as a condition
1 Kant's " Critique," pp. 29, 30.
l6o THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of internal phenomena (of our mind), and thereby indirectly
of external phenomena also." Is not this simply an asser-
tion, that time is the idea of external phenomena, and also
that it is the condition of internal phenomena (or mind)?
In a word, Kant tries to occupy both sides of an imaginary
boundary line, which he would draw between two aspects of
a single fact of existence, and thereby, without perceiving it,
obliterates the line.
It will be remembered that phenomena are rigidly ex-
cluded by Kant from the subjective or a priori world ; that
man is not a natural but a supernatural being, using natural
and phenomenal as convertible terms. But sensibility is of
course natural and must belong to the world of phenomena.
This difficulty he avoids by creating for himself an a priori
man (in a transcendental sense), who is put into an a priori
world ; and if by any chance the a priori man manifests any
thing phenomenal, or natural, or sensible, he is ordered
by the irate philosopher of Konigsberg to resume his apriori
character. Then the good Kant looks about him and per-
ceives that space is an inconveniently real and universal
principle, and also that his a priori man has space relation-
ships which cannot be destroyed ; so he avoids the difficulty
by saying that all space is a priori and is in the a priori
man. Whatever of space is not in the a priori man, is only
matter and has no reality, for all reality is in the a priori
man. This beautiful truth he expresses in the following
familiar language: " Space, as the pure form of all external
intuition, is a condition, a priori, of external phenomena
only. But all representations, whether they have for their
objects external things or not, belong by themselves, as de-
terminations of the mind to our inner state." This defini-
tion brings him in collision with time, which he finds to be
also an inconveniently absolute principle that had not
been well considered in the first creation of the a priori
man. So he boldly attempts to make time a priori;
but all his efforts prove fruitless ; he struggles hard, but
time resists. Kant, however, would not have been the
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. l6l
greatest of German philosophers had he allowed himself to
be vanquished by time, so after a long and labored argu-
ment1 which attempts to prove the ideality of time, he
makes the unprecedented point that time has an empirical
existence, but that empirical not being a priori is not really
any existence at all. The following argument is added
under the head of an
EXPLANATION.
" Against this theory, which claims empirical but denies
absolute and transcendental reality to time, even intelligent
men have protested so unanimously, that I suppose that every
reader who is unaccustomed to these considerations may
naturally be of the same opinion. What they object to is
this: Changes, they say, are real (this is proved by the
change of our own representations, even if all external phe-
nomena and their changes be denied). Changes, however,
are possible in time only, and therefore time must be some-
thing real. The answer is easy enough. I grant the whole
argument. Time certainly is something real, namely, the
real form of our internal intuition. Time, therefore, has
subjective reality with regard to internal experience ; that is,
I really have representation of time and of my determina-
tions in it. Time, therefore, is really to be considered, not
as an object, but as the representation of myself as an object.
If either I myself or any other being could see me without
this condition of sensibility, then these self-same determina-
tions which we now represent to ourselves as changes would
give us a kind of knowledge in which the representation of
1 " Time is therefore simply a subjective condition of our (human) intuition
(which is always sensuous, that is, so far as we are affected by objects), but
by itself, apart from the subject, nothing. Nevertheless, with respect to all
phenomena, that is, all things which can come within our experience, time is
necessarily objective. We cannot say that all things are in time, because, if we
speak of things in general, nothing is said about the manner of intuition,
which is the real condition under which time enters into our representation
of things. If, therefore, this condition is added to the concept, and if we say
that all things as phenomena (as objects of sensuous intuition) are in time, then
such a proposition has its full objective validity and a priori universality."
— " Critique of Pure Reason," pp. 30, 31.
1 62 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
time, and therefore of change also, would have no place.
There remains, therefore, the empirical reality of time only,
as the condition of all our experience, while absolute reality
cannot, according to what has just been shown, be conceded
to it. Time is nothing but the form of our own internal
intuition.1
" Take away the peculiar condition of our sensibility, and
the idea of time vanishes, because it is not inherent in the
objects, but in the subject only that perceives them/' a
Take away the a priori man, and time is annihilated.
I do not give these quotations for the purpose of proving
any thing concerning time or space, but to show how in-
coherent and contradictory were Kant's explanations of
these ultimates. It is impossible to read the above quota-
tions without seeing that both the objective and subjective
existence of space and time are admitted in one breath,,
and that the effort to limit the aspects of motion to an im-
aginary subjective world absolutely separated from the
world of sense, was as futile as it is, in the light of our dayr
absurd.
After laying such a foundation of error, one can imagine
the dreary waste of reasoning which follows in the subse-
quent chapters of the " Critique." The a priori man is
driven from pillar to post in the storm of facts which trans-
cendental reasoning stirs up, and the extraordinary vitality
which he displays is a lasting proof of the power of organiza-
tion, whether it be for good or for evil ; for this a priori man
is wonderfully articulated with facts where they are to be
had, and an abundant supply of words where facts are
wanting.
We have reason to be grateful that philosophy is not so-
rare a thing in the world that one is obliged to delve among
the intricacies of " Kant's Transcendental Dialectics " for
I 1 can say, indeed, that my representations follow one another, but this
means no more than that we are conscious of them as in a temporal succession,
that is, according to the form of our own internal sense. Time, therefore, i&
nothing by itself, nor is it a determination inherent objectively in things.
9 Kant's " Critique," pp. 32, 33.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 163
the facts of consciousness. There is no denying that a great
many of these facts are given by Kant, and that one can
glean from his writings much that is valuable concerning the
procedure of the mind ; but it is the opinion of all competent
authorities that the fundamental principles of Kant's philos-
ophy declare against the possibility of a unification of
knowledge.
Strange as it may seem, the philosophy of Kant strongly
resembles the Skepticism of Hume. Hume openly declared
philosophy to be impossible, upon the grounds that the
operations of the mind are transcendental, or unknowable,
while Kant acknowledged reality only in the subjective
sphere, placing limits upon the intellect which are fatal to an
understanding of the divine unity of nature ; or, to that con-
ception of God which can alone harmonize life and mind.
Kant's theory of the limitations of knowledge is thor-
oughly anthropomorphic. It finds in knowledge certain
principles of certitude which appear to him to be universal ;
but because he discovers these principles through the agency
of his own thought, he concludes that at all events they can-
not extend beyond the range of human consciousness. The
inevitable relations of consciousness to sentiency, and of sen-
tiency to the general activities of nature, never seem to
break upon his mind. But having measured the human
understanding and described its absolute (?) limits, he is
obliged to admit that it is only an island in a sea of mystery.
This is the very position of the ancient skeptics, who saw
no real harmony or identity of procedure between mind and
the general activities of nature.
Thus we find that the old theories of Skepticism, which
were so highly developed by the Greeks in the New
Academy, are reproduced in the Kantian dialectics with
scarcely a variation ; while the novelty of their appearance
in the German language under the elaborate forms of the
" Critique of Pure Reason " was enough in itself to account
for the reputation they at once achieved. The Skepticism
of Kant is thus but a reproduction of ancient Skepticism,
164 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE*
which held that we cannot know things per se — absolutely —
or as they really are in themselves. This can hardly be a
correct theory of perception, since human knowledge is the
relation between a sentient organism and its surroundings,
and must be the expression of conditions, whereas absolute
means independent of conditions. Absolute or a priori
knowledge, therefore, is a contradiction in terms. Hence a
system which rests its fundamental principles upon the
assumption of an absolute knowledge becomes an absurdity.
Lewes, who made a profound study of Kant, says : " In
his ' Critique ' we are only to look for the exposition of a
priori principles. He does not trouble himself with investi-
gating the nature of perception ; he contents himself with
the fact that we have sensations, and with the fact that
we have ideas whose origin is not sensuous. * * * He did
not deny the existence of an external world ; on the con-
trary, he affirmed it, but he denied that we can know it ; he
affirmed that it was essentially unknowable."
The corner-stone of Kant's philosophy, as expressed in
the " Critique of Pure Reason," is that there is no reality
exactly corresponding to the notions of men, and that what
constitutes reality for us is simply our own mental represen-
tations. Let us examine this proposition. In perception
there are two factors, the subject and the object ; or of the
phenomenon of perception there are two aspects, the sub-
jective and the objective. Kant says that there is no exter-
nal reality corresponding to the subjective side of percep-
tion, and that, therefore, as there is no disputing the reality
of the subjective side or thought, all reality must be thought.
This logical snarl is wholly due to a false limitation of the
meaning of words. All those forms of mental activity
known as notions, mental representations, or thoughts, im-
ply an object as well as a subject. The separation of sub-
ject from object in the consideration of thought is purely
artificial. When we look upon thought as the activity of a
sentient being, we cannot exclude from view the infinite
conditions of this activity which relate it to universal life ;
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 165
we cannot isolate the subjective phenomenon of thought by
appropriating to it all reality. Thought is distinctly a rela-
tion, the function of subjective and objective conditions.
Kant's assertion, therefore, that all reality is subjective, is
a one-sided view of the fact of thought. If the many names
for mental or psychical activity, such as perception, thought,
mental representation, etc., were recognized as relatively
equivalent terms, and if mental phenomena were acknowl-
edged as the activity of an organism, whether that organism
be an individual or a race, there would be no difficulty in
accounting for the subjective and objective sides of thought.
It is our failure to identify these contrasted sides as aspects
of a single fact which alone impels us to attribute exclusive
reality to either the one or the other. To this latter asser-
tion all Kantians would at once demur, for they are contin-
ually speaking of absolute mind, or intelligence. The term
absolute simply means time, or the unconditioned, and
therefore cannot be applied to any individual phenomenon,
such as thought or mind. This explanation might dispose
of all the difficulties of the Kantian system, if there were not
a distinct contradiction of this theory of the absolute nature
of mind developed in Kant's psychology : for there is no de-
nying that he also teaches that there is no absolute dividing
line between subject and object in the act of perception —
that the mind does not think in itself, but is acted upon and
reacts upon its surroundings in producing thought. His
creation, however, of an a priori sphere of thought, which is
absolutely separated from sensibility and external phenom-
ena, so confuses the theory of the union of subject and ob-
ject, that it is difficult to understand how he could have
retained two such conflicting opinions at once.
The teacher of philosophy is bound to express himself
with simplicity and clearness ; and when he does not, it is
fair to conclude that he himself is not clear upon the subject.
The serious contradictions which occur in the two edi-
tions of the " Critique of Pure Reason " are admitted by
the most pronounced Kantians. In speaking of these two
1 66 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
editions, Prof. Miiller says : " That the unity of thought
which pervades the first edition is broken now and then in
the second edition, no attentive reader can fail to see. That
Kant shows rather too much anxiety to prove the harmless-
ness of his * Critique ' is equally true, and it would have
been better if, while refuting what he calls Empirical
Idealism, he had declared more strongly his unchanged ad-
herence to the principles of Transcendental Idealism. * * *
I must confess that I have always used myself the first
edition of Kant's ' Critique,' and that when I came to read
the second edition, I never could feel so at home in it as in
the first. The first edition seems to me cut out of one block,
the second always leaves on my mind the impression of
patch-work." 1 These contradictions are slight, however, when
compared with those already pointed out in the main argu-
ment of the " Critique " with regard to the nature of per-
ception.
Hence, since it is well known that the Nature of Perception
is the foundation of every philosophy, we think we are justified
in accepting what, outside of Germany, is becoming a very
general opinion that Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason " is a
monument of logical subtlety and at the same time an incor-
rect and hopelessly confused analysis of Mind. That this
view is not generally shared by those who have studied in
Germany under the influence of the Kantian system is
only too manifest. Professor Noire, in the introductory
review to Max Miiller' s translation of the " Critique," after
giving evidence of a very high order of philosophic culture,
closes his examination of the pre-Kantian systems as follows:
" Kant alone succeeded in solving all the contradictions and
paradoxes in which the reason was entangled, and in ex-
plaining them completely in accordance with their own
nature, as he dropped the sounding-line into depths which as
yet no mortal mind had dared to fathom, and brought up
from thence to the light of day news of the primary condi-
tions and eternal postulates of reason. It is therefore not
1 Kant's " Critique," Translator's Preface.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 1 67
too much to say that Kant is the greatest philosophical
genius that has ever dwelt upon earth, and the ' Critique of
Pure Reason ' the highest achievement of human wisdom." 1
And Max Miiller makes more conspicuous this flagrant ex-
ample of ethnic conceit by declaring that the thought of Kant
fills up the entire logical perspectives of humanity. The only
exception to be taken to this view of Professor Miiller is,
that he has manifestly confused his own logical perspectives
with those of humanity.
The " Critique of Practical Reason," which appeared in
1790, is generally admitted to be a retraction of the prin-
ciples of the first edition of the " Critique of Pure Reason."
But Kantians of the present day, for the most part, deny
to their master the privilege of changing his mind, for they
are almost unanimously of the opinion that the first edition
of the " Critique of Pure Reason " really represents the teach-
ings of Kant, while the second edition and the " Critique of
Practical Reason " they seem to entirely ignore.
We will not, however, be influenced by these eccentrici-
ties of the followers of Kant ; for the least we can accord
to the great master is, that his mental development was con-
tinuous, and suffered no serious mishap during the heyday
of his literary activity.
The " Critique of Practical Reason " deals with the sub-
ject of Morality. Its estimation of human duty is exalted,
but its effort to trace duty to an ultimate principle has
been widely criticised. Kant's original theory of justice
was, that it is an entity, an innate principle of the human
mind, present alike in all races and individuals, and indepen-
dent of social progress. This theory he afterward modified,
but still held to the belief that justice was universal.
The strongest objection made to this belief was, that
certain tribes of savages killed their old men when they
became feeble. The mode of determining the degree of
feebleness which merited death was, to require the most
venerable men of the tribe to cling to the branch of a tree,
1 Kant's " Critique," vol. I., p. 359.
1 68 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
which was violently shaken, and those who failed to retain
their hold were put to death. Kant's reply to this argu-
ment was, that the fact that these old men were allowed
a chance for life proved the presence of the idea of justice
in the tribe. Was there ever an injustice which did not
prove as much?
In our day, it is well known that the conception of jus-
tice (which, it is to be remembered, is a purely relative term)
has grown up from the simplest mechanical experiences ;
such, for instance, as the balancing of weights. The idea of
justice or duty becomes clearer and more general with social
advancement. Kant's theory, therefore, that justice is a
priori, a mysterious presence in the mind which cannot be
explained by natural experience, reduces the source of mo-
rality to the level of a superstition which is the opposite of
philosophical.
Morality is rightly reasoned conduct ; but all reasoning
cannot be represented in abstract symbols. There is a logic
of feeling as well as of signs, an unspoken movement of
the emotions which enters into every human determination.
Since morality is the highest exercise of the judgment, the
most complete harmony between practical and intellectual
life, false methods of philosophizing, erroneous explanations
of the procedures of the mind, are demoralizing in their
effects upon society. The direct influence of idealism upon
morality is seen in the tendency toward the idealization of
human attributes, such as love, virtue, or reason. The en-
thronement of these qualities as a priori or absolute princi-
ples in life leads directly to the greatest extravagances of
conduct. The theory that love is a God-inspired feeling,
and that when a feeling can be clearly demonstrated to be
love it becomes holy, or justifies itself, is a natural conse-
quence of idealism ; and it is one of the most pernicious
beliefs that it is possible to entertain. What rivers of blood
have been shed, what homes destroyed, what hearts broken,
in learning the nature of love ! Although love expresses the
deepest feelings of which we are capable, it is but the func-
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 169
tion of a vast plexus of conditions, and depends upon these
conditions for its justification. However exalted and pure
we may imagine a passion to be, whether life and happiness
depend upon its gratification or not, the question whether the
feeling is right or wrong is governed by the conditions which
surround it, and has nothing whatever to do with its intensity
or imagined purity. Again : the idealization of virtue, or self-
abnegation — the theory that virtue is an absolute principle
moving in a foreign universe of sin — an a priori, God-inspired
intuition — instead of the natural development of a well-or-
dered life, the result of pure examples and good habits,
leads to all those extravagances of conduct which vary from
asceticism and other forms of moral austerity to the more
general and lower grades of hypocrisy. Lastly : the ideali-
zation of the faculty of reasoning (mind) gives rise to the
greatest logical extravagances, from the Dialectics of Plato
and the absolute Skepticism of the Academicians to those
forms of Idealism known as the a priori philosophy of Kant
and his followers, the influence of which still remains in
modern agnosticism. Thus the success of morality, the ad-
vancement of the chief science of life, depends directly upon
a just appreciation of the limits of language and the nature
of perception, which alone can make possible the Unification
of Knowledge.
All recognized German philosophy subsequent to Kant is
but a development of either the practical or the ethical side
of the Kantian system, with a more or less marked subser-
vience to the Idealism with which Kant so deeply imbued
the German mind. The cast of thought, therefore, which
we find in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Herbart,
and the other post-Kantian writers, seems predetermined
to an extent which it would be difficult to understand
without first becoming acquainted with what may be called
the solidarity of German philosophic culture, — the almost
servile imitation which marks the development of the German
conception of Mind.
There are instances, however, in the writings of all the
above-named authors where they have risen above the arbi-
170 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
.trary influence of their great predecessor, and delight us
with their originality and genius. This was especially the
.case with Fichte, who seems to have had the faculty of
making all who came within his influence respect and love
him. An example of the highest type of German character,
he was a moral and intellectual enthusiast.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born at Rammenau, a village
.in Upper Lusatia, in May, 1762. His first serious effort in
philosophy was the study of Kant's " Critique of Practical
Reason," in which he tells us that he discovered, for the first
time, the absolute freedom of the will. The theological
training which he received in preparation for the ministry had
given him the belief in a supernatural source of morality ; and
as ethics was the subject nearest to his heart, a deep and
natural sentiment, he was both surprised and overjoyed to
find what he regarded as a successful attempt to trace the
inspiration of virtue to the natural operations of the mind.
He prepared a hurried treatise called " A Critique of Every
Possible Revelation," and making a pilgrimage to Konigs-
berg, presented it to Kant, who, recognizing in it a high
order of ability, was instrumental in securing its publication.
By an accident, the author's preface, in which he acknowl-
edged himself a beginner in philosophy, was omitted from
the first edition, nor did his name appear on the title-page.
Some of the German newspapers jumped at the conclusion
that it was a production of Kant, especially as it seemed to
be a development of the ethical teaching of that writer, and
accorded to it unbounded praise. When the mistake came
to light, Fichte's reputation was instantaneously made, and
the result was an invitation to fill the chair of Philosophy
at Jena (1793). Here, according to one of the favorite criti-
cal methods of his age, he was assailed for atheism, and re-
fusing to make any retractions he resigned (1799). After
many changes of place he was made professor of philosophy
in the New University at Berlin, where his career was short
but dramatic. His eloquence and ability secured him im-
mediate and wide attention ; — his lectures on Ethics were
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 1 71
stirring, and made a visible impression upon his times ; but
the national enthusiasm which marked the opening of the
memorable campaign of 1813 carried him from the close of
one of his lectures into the ranks of the assembling army,
and within a year he was taken with a fever and died.
The Fichtean philosophy was elaborated during the few
years of stormy activity which its author passed at the Uni-
versity of Jena. He endeavored to develop the practical or
ethical side of Kant's philosophy ; for it was to expound the
Kantian system that he had been invited to the chair. But a
revolution in Kant's own views had taken place ; his " Critique
of Pure Reason" had been virtually retracted by his " Cri-
tique of Practical Reason"; and as these works appeared but
six years apart, the latter shortly before Fichte began lectur-
ing at Jena, it will readily be seen that the first great disciple
of Kant had a somewhat difficult and confusing task in ex-
pounding the views of his master. The object in reciting
these details is to show how closely woven all that is known
as German philosophy is, and how much it consists in the
arbitrary creations of a few men, all living at about the same
time, and most of them having personal intercourse and
sympathy ; Kant being the senior of the group and the in-
stigator of the whole movement.
We can find no fault with Germany, therefore, when she,
even at this time, looks to Kant as her greatest philosopher,
for all German philosophy is acknowledged to be but branches
or side developments of the Kantian theories. But when
Germany says that Kant is her greatest mind, she under-
estimates the value of her other geniuses, such as Herder,
Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing, who have contributed so
much to the knowledge of the world. Kant's philosophy,
with all its branches, has, it is true, been written in German,
but not in the universal language of good sense.
Fichte exaggerated the idealism of Kant, which we have
already described, by advocating what is known as Subjective
Idealism. This means that objects of thought or percep-
tion do not exist externally, but only subjectively, or in the
172 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
mind. This belief, absurd as it seems, we are bound to
believe was sincere, although it commits the fatal error of
confusing thoughts with things : the very thing that Plato
and the Skeptics did, but in a less grotesque manner. The
reasoning by which this belief is brought about has been
analyzed in our description of Greek thought. The fallacy
which this reasoning so successfully conceals arises entirely
from giving certain words different meanings, and afterward
employing these words as having the same meaning. For
instance, Fichte tries to establish the identity of being and
thought, or general existence and personal existence. If
we allow him to do this in the beginning, of course he can
make whatever use he pleases of facts ; for if we admit that
facts exist only in the mind, and if the mind is expressed
only through language, he can form any hypothesis he
wishes and we are powerless to resist ; for with an intel-
lectual appetite which is hardly conceivable he devours fact
itself, and consequently has on his own side all the facts in
any argument he chooses to moot. But Fichte was too
moral a man to make any dishonest use of the great logical
advantage thus claimed. He amused himself in building
up theories, which in turn served to amuse others. These
theories have been called by his commentators " Theoretical
Philosophy," to distinguish them from practical philosophy
— a not unsuggestive distinction. We must not forget,
however, that Fichte's incomparable character, his enthusi-
asm for intellectual and moral reform, his brilliant talents
and scholarship, won for him vast numbers of admirers.
Shortly after he began his lectures at Jena, Forberg writes :
" Fichte is believed as Rheinhold never was. The students
understand him even less than his predecessor, but they be-
lieve all the more earnestly on that account."
Leaving the metaphysics of Fichte to their fate, we turn
with pleasure to his Moral Philosophy, which has a freshness
and reality about it that enable it to survive the mystifying
influences of his logic. What, he asks, is the revelation
which consciousness gives ? It consists in the fact that
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 173
41 1 am free ; and it is not merely my action, but the free de-
termination of my will to obey the voice of conscience, that
decides all my worth. More brightly does the everlasting
world now rise before me ; and the fundamental laws of its
order are more clearly revealed to my mental sight. My
will alone, lying hid in the obscure depths of my soul, is the
first link in a chain of consequences stretching through the
invisible realms of spirit, as in this terrestrial world the ac-
tion itself, a certain movement communicated to matter, is
the first link in a material chain of cause and effect, en-
circling the whole system. The will is the efficient cause,
the living principle of the world of spirit, as motion is of the
world of sense. I stand between two worlds, the one visible,
in which the act alone avails, and the intention matters not
at all ; the other invisible and incomprehensible, acted on
only by the will. In both these worlds I am an effective
force. The Divine life, as alone the finite mind can conceive
it, is self-forming, self-representing will, clothed, to the mor-
tal eye, with multitudinous sensuous forms, flowing through
me and through the whole immeasurable universe, here
streaming through my veins and muscles, — there pouring
its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. The dead,
heavy mass of inert matter, which did but fill up nature, has
disappeared, and, in its stead, there rushes by the bright,
everlasting flood of life and power from its Infinite Source."
This kind of eloquence, which was a new thing in the
German language, must have moved the hearts, excited the
minds, and transcended the understanding of Fichte's stu-
dents. When it is carefully analyzed, however, it is found
to be a sort of summer-night's dream in philosophy, which is
fascinating though enervating to the mind.
Frederick William Joseph Schelling was born in Wiirtem-
berg, January, 1775, and was therefore thirteen years younger
than Fichte. He afterward became Fichte's pupil and chief
expositor, succeeding to his chair at Jena. Schelling made
the acquaintance of Hegel at the University of Tubingen,
where a warm and lasting friendship was formed between
174 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
them. He remained in Bavaria until 1842 (where he was
"honored, rewarded, and ennobled," when the King of
Prussia persuaded him to come to Berlin to fill the chair
once held by Hegel. Lewes tells us that in 1845 ^e " had
the gratification not only of hearing him lecture on Mythol-
ogy to large audiences, but also of hearing him, in the ex-
pansiveness of private conversation, pour forth his stores of
varied knowledge." He continued an active, intellectual
life to the last, and died August 20, 1854.
Schelling taught that the Reason was incapable of solv-
ing the problems of philosophy, — a very old doubt, but
certainly an inconsistent one ; for does not philosophy,
which is an effort to solve the problem of existence, pre-
suppose a belief in our ability to succeed? But this incon-
sistency was a mere trifle to some of the difficulties which
Schelling attempted to overcome. He saw that it was
necessary to have some faculty which he could believe was
able to solve the problem of life, so he decided to call this
faculty the " Intellectual Intuition," — a name so apt and
pleasing that it has continued in use ever since, and is de-
voutly believed in as a mental principle distinct from the
natural coordinations of reason, even by advanced psycho-
logical writers, who are supposed to belong to an opposite
school.
Schelling inaugurated what may be called an aristocracy
of intuition, to which only a privileged few could gain ad-
mittance. The line which circumscribed this elite, however,
seems to have been drawn against all those who could not
understand Schelling's philosophy. " Really," he exclaims,
" one sees not wherefore Philosophy should pay any atten-
tion whatever to Incapacity. It is better rather that we
should isolate Philosophy from all the ordinary routes, and
keep it so separate from ordinary knowledge that none
of these routes should lead to it. Philosophy commences
where ordinary knowledge terminates." Here we see some
of the first fruits of that unnatural transcendentalism
which Kant so successfully established in Germany.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 175
The foundation of Schelling's philosophy was the lumi-
nous principle that " Nature is Spirit visible ; Spirit is invis-
ible Nature: the absolute Ideal is, at the same time, the
absolute Real." If this proposition were as harmless as it
is meaningless, we could well afford to pass it by without
further comment. Let us, however, examine this saying,
which depends so largely upon the meaning of the word
absolute.
The salient points in Schelling's philosophy are best
brought out by comparing his system with that of Fichte.
Fichte said that the Non-Ego was created by the Ego;
Schelling said that the two were equally real, and that both
were identified in the Absolute. " In what, then, does
Schelling differ from Fichte, since both assert that the pro-
duct (Object) is but the arrested activity of the Ego ? In
this: the Ego in Fichte's system is a finite Ego, — it is the
human soul. The Ego in Schelling's system is the Abso-
lute— the Infinite — the All, which Spinoza called Substance \
and this Absolute manifests itself in two forms — in the
form of the Ego, and in the form of the Non-Ego — as Na-
ture and as Mind." 1 When we remember that the word'
absolute has no deeper meaning than Time, and that Time is
not an ultimate but a relative fact — an aspect of Motion ;
when we think that the Ego means nothing but the indi-
vidual ; that the Infinite means that other aspect of Motion
which we call Space ; and that Substance, also, when used
in its widest sense, means Space ; we can see how all these
efforts to transcend the limits of language, to place words
before things, ideas before facts in the order of reality,
serve but to emphasize the great truth that a true con-
ception of knowledge can be obtained alone by reducing
the number of the categorical terms until the meaning
of all possible combinations of words converges in that
of a single term or universal principle. How long will
the higher ingenuities of man be exerted to resist this
all-powerful truth, and, by so doing, postpone the success
1 Lewes: "Hist, of Phil.," p. 709.
176 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
of philosophy, which is simply an ultimate analysis bringing
the mind, or individual life, into harmony with general ex-
istence ?
But notwithstanding its intricacies and absurdities, there
is an underlying strength in Schelling's thought which makes
it evident that if Germany could only throw off this curse of
Idealism, her genius would again assert itself and accomplish
great things in the world of speculation. Schelling's writings
display great knowledge and research, fine intuitions, but so
many changes of opinion occur that, although some posi-
tions are adhered to throughout, it is impossible to construct
from them any coherent method.
In this particular Hegel differs from Schelling ; for in
Hegel we have a new and coherent method of dealing with
the problems of philosophy.
George Frederick William Hegel was born at Stuttgart
.in 1770, and studied philosophy and theology at Tubingen.
He was a private tutor in Switzerland and Frankfort until
the death of his father in 1801, when a small inheritance
enabled him to remove to Jena and to publish his first
work, a dissertation directed against the Newtonian sys-
tem of Astronomy, in which he pitted the transcendental
theories of Schelling against the scientific method of in-
duction. In any other country this proceeding would have
helped the fame of Newton ; but in Germany it obtained for
Hegel the reputation of an original thinker. Soon after this
he joined Schelling in editing the " Critical Journal of Phi-
losophy/' in which appeared his celebrated essay entitled
" Faith and Knowledge," a criticism on Kant, Jacobi, and
Fichte. It was at Jena also that he wrote his " Phanom-
enologie des Geistes," the writing of which was not even
interrupted by the battle which gave that place into the
hands of the French. On the nigfyt of this battle he is said
to have finished the work, oblivious of the pain and terror
with which he was surrounded. We shall not be disap-
pointed in the production of a mind capable of withdrawing
itself so completely from the world. In 1816 he was called
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 177
to the chair in Heidelberg, and two years later to that of
Berlin, the first in Germany. Here he formed a school which
included many illustrious members, — and lectured until his
death in 1831.
What has made the fame of Hegel is the invention of his
new method of philosophy. The world hitherto had been
unable to discover the procedures of the mind ; Hegel
fixed upon a mental procedure of his own and discovered
it to the world. This method was none other than the fa-
mous identity of contraries, which teaches that objects or
ideas which are different are, in a sense, not different ; that
contradiction implies an innate identity ; that subject and
object are one, or that internal and external are equivalent
terms in a transcendental sense. This, of course, was a great
discovery, because, at least in the form in which Hegel ex-
pressed it, it had never been made before ; and Hegel at once
became a German prophet. Some hardy critics pronounced
the principle absurd, because it led to contradictions, but
Hegel replied that this was the very reason why it was true ;
for, he said, the conditions of all truth consist in the identity
of contraries or contradictions. This, it cannot be denied,
was logical, providing his first assertion be admitted. The
ground for this assertion, it is true, is a question of fact, but
Hegel held himself superior to facts, and the intellectual
portion of Germany applauded his brave position.
Hegel established "Absolute Idealism." Kant was con-
tent with plain idealism, Fichte with subjective, and Schell-
ing with objective idealism. Hegel wanted absolute ideal-
ism, and he therefore established it.
" It may be thus illustrated : I see a tree. Psychologists
tell me that there are three things implied in this one fact
of vision, namely, a tree, an image of that tree, and a mind
which apprehends that image. Fichte tells me that it is I
alone who exist ; the tree and the image of the tree are but
one thing, and that is a modification of my mind. This is
Subjective Idealism. Schelling tells me that both the tree and
my Ego are existences equally real or ideal, but they are
1 78 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
nothing less than manifestations of the Absolute. This is
Objective Idealism. But according to Hegel, all these expla-
nations are false. The only thing really existing (in this
one fact of vision) is the Idea — the relation. The Ego and
the Tree are but two terms of the relation, and owe their
reality to it. This is Absolute Idealism."
Some say that this idealism of Hegel is but the skepticism
of Hume in a dogmatic form ; others, that it is a refinement
of the Spinozistic notion of Substance. It is, in my opinion,
a great truth badly expressed.
The twelve octavo volumes of Hegel's Philosophy and
Logic were not written in vain ; they constitute the most
tortuous and fantastical expression that the world has ever
produced of the simple truth that the ultimate fact or re-
lation is Motion, and that Time and Space are its subjective
and objective aspects. The harmonies of this truth can be
traced throughout his dexterous paradoxes and his ingenious
word-puzzles, but with an effort that is out of all proportion
to the benefit derived. In fact Hegel, instead of helping the
world to find the ultimate reality, seems to have done all he
could to render it forever incomprehensible. And had we no
other means of studying philosophy than Germany thus af-
fords us, it is a question whether our civilization would last
long enough to bring this truth to light. The difficulty,
therefore, is not in understanding German thought, but in
establishing, by any reasonable mental effort, an agreement
between its assertions and the facts of consciousness and life.
The warning of Herder against the idealism of Kant and
his followers, however, was not entirely lost. There has been
a distinct opposition in Germany, which has, in a measure,
represented Herder and repeated his protests, but with little
or no effect. Chief among this opposition we find the name
of Schleiermacher (1768-1834), preceded by Christian Gottlieb
Selle, Adam Weishaupt, Feder, Tittel, and Tiedemann.
These men have defended the doctrine of the objective and
real validity of knowledge, but their voices have been practi-
cally unheeded by both philosophic and scientific Germany.
1 Lewes : " Hist, of Phil.," pp. 723, 724.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 179
Again: Schopenhauer, the pessimist (1788-1860), tried to
reconcile idealism and realism, and postulated the Will (used
in a wider sense than as a human faculty) as the ultimate
reality. The success of these efforts can be best judged of
from the writings of such prominent modern scientists as
Du Bois-Reymond, and his pupil Professor Rosenthal, who
distinguished themselves by brilliant discoveries in nervous
phenomena, the very citadel of thought, and yet regard the
mind with superstition, plainly showing the influence of the
a priori philosophy. We also have the recent assertion of
Karl Hillebrand, that " almost all the really great men of
science in Germany are neither materialists nor spiritualists,
nor skeptics, but critics of the Kantian school." 1
But again it is to be remembered that Germany has prac-
tically repudiated, little by little, all the post-Kantian phil-
osophy of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, whom Schopenhauer
courteously calls the three great impostors, and rests her case
upon what Kant himself lived to refute and recall, the anal-
ysis of mind to be found in the " Critique of Pure Reason."
We are told that Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel endeavored
to be true Kantians, but by resting one foot on the " Cri-
tique of Pure Reason," and the other on the " Critique of
Practical Reason," they were obliged to perform all sorts
of logical contortions to preserve their equilibrium.
When all these things are considered are we not, upon the
whole, entitled to say that the transcendental production
known as German philosophy assumes, to the disinterested
student, the appearance of a huge family quarrel rather than
a worthy attempt to solve the problems of life ; and that,
as far as the progress of thought is concerned, the world can
well afford to dispense with it ?
Hence it is with a feeling of unfeigned relief that we
turn to the more mature and gradually developed culture
of France and England, in which soil the idiosyncrasies of
thought that achieved such rank development in Germany,
although frequently making their appearance, have never
been able to gain a substantial hold.
1 " German Thought," p. 203.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ECLECTICISM AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY OF FRANCE
AND THE SCOTCH SCHOOL.
Gassendi — Malebranche — Condillac — Cabanis — Gall — Royer-Collard — Cousin
— Comte — Reid — Hamilton.
AFTER the religious fervor of Europe had expended itself
in the Crusades, there remained the three famous orders of
chivalry known as the Teutonic Knights, the Templars, and
the Knights of St. John. The latter maintained their or-
ganization by a long and valiant defence of Southern Europe
against the Turks. The Templars were disbanded about
fifty years after the last Crusade, while the Teutonic Knights
turned their attention to Christianizing what was then known
as pagan Prussia. This they did by almost exterminating a
brave and hardy people, who loved their rude mythology
and bitterly opposed the forms of Christian worship and the
rule of the Empire. While this was going on, Paris had
become the first great seat of learning in Christendom ; its
University was then a congeries of schools connected with
monasteries and churches, but without that corporate unity
which afterward made it the model of almost all the Uni-
versities of Europe.
As an example of its early importance, Henry II. of Eng-
land, in 1196, offered to refer his dispute with Becket to the
arbitration of the Peers of France, the Gallican Church, or
-the Nations of the University of Paris. Toward the end of
the thirteenth century Pope Nicholas IV. conferred privi-
leges upon the doctors and students which virtually gave
the University a government of its own ; and in the middle
vof the fifteenth century it was attended by over twenty-five
1 80
THE ECLECTICISM OF FRANCE. i8l
thousand students, which at that time was nearly half the
population of Paris. It was in Paris that the chief battles
of Scholasticism were fought. William de Champeaux,
Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, all lectured
there. When the great Luther sounded the alarm of inde-
pendent thought, which resulted in the emancipation of
learned Europe from the papal authority of Plato and Aris-
totle, Loyola opposed the movement by establishing the
Society of Jesus, with its invincible organization and re-
nowned culture. His object was to preserve the Catholic
faith in its entirety, including its ancient philosophy. But
it was the favorite pupil of the Jesuits, Descartes, who soon
afterward dealt the death-blow to Scholasticism, emanci-
pating thought from the tyranny of the church.
Thus it was in the turmoil of the theological war which
raged throughout England, France and Germany, and culmi-
nated in the establishment of Protestantism, that modern
philosophy was born. It was born in the writings of Des-
cartes and Spinoza, and was therefore an avowed attempt
to define, not motion, but the nature of God. Thus in
severing its connection with theology philosophy exalted
its religious character, instead of debasing it. It proceeded,
untrammelled by obsolete faiths, to form a true conception
of the unity of God, — to bring all thought into harmony
with this highest of thoughts, — to establish an ultimate gen-
eralization.
But what great influence has been urging the claim of
Motion to its position as the highest or most general con-
ception ? Is it not the voice of Science, trying to persuade
us that God is a principle, not a person ? Its method is
patiently to classify and arrange all experience into one vast
organon of truth. As Science progresses, it becomes more
and more conscious that there is but one fact or principle, in
which all analysis ends and all synthesis begins.
Bacon, in England, took the sure path of science, feeling
that although he might not reach a complete analysis of
knowledge, such progress as he made would be in the right
1 82 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
direction. There was but feeble resistance offered to this
reform in France ; the age felt the need of throwing off the
delusions of arbitrary dialectics and reaching out for actual
facts. Such, however, is the fascination in seeking the ulti-
mate analysis of life, that the superb scientific achievements
of Descartes were neglected for his complicated and unsatis-
factory metaphysics, which led to a dual principle, and there-
fore did not even pretend to unify knowledge.
To the philosophy of Descartes was opposed that of Gas-
sendi, who inaugurated the eclectic philosophy, — a school
which subsequently attained to such eminence in France
through Royer-Collard, Jouffroy, and Cousin.
Pierre Gassendi was born in Provence, France, in 1592,
and became a distinguished astronomer and mathematician,
as well as a theologian. At the age of twenty-four he was
appointed Professor of Theology at Aix, where he had
studied. His first work was a polemic entitled " Paradox-
ical Essay Against Aristotle " (1624), in which he opposed
the Aristotelian Astronomy, but announced his fidelity to
the church, maintaining that Christianity was in nowise
dependent upon the then Christian philosophy. In 1647,
through the influence of the Archbishop of Lyons, brother
of Cardinal Richelieu, he was appointed Professor of Math-
ematics in the College-Royal of France, where his lectures
attracted great attention, and were attended by the Mite of
Paris.
"A System of Epicurean Philosophy " and " The Philo-
sophical System of Gassendi " were his principal works.
The latter was a combination of the various systems of
antiquity, with a view to showing by their juxtaposition the
correct method ; which is the plan of Eclecticism.
Gassendi also wrote a criticism of the " Meditations " of
Descartes, opposing the innovations of that writer in meta-
physics. But his chief power was in the field of scientific
investigation, where he had such friends as Kepler, Galileo,
and Descartes. His reasonings with regard to the atomic
theory are especially interesting and show a great boldness
of thought.
THE ECLECTICISM OF FRANCE. 183
Gassendi combined the idea of material substance as
taught by Descartes, with the idea of atoms. The weight
of the atom he identified with its motion or energy ; thus
refuting the theory of the imponderability of atoms which
we find current among some physicists even of the present
day. Motion, which is the fundamental fact in all phenom-
ena, was selected by Gassendi in lieu of Descartes' erroneous
theory of an ultimate substance or matter. " The atoms
(created and set in motion by God) are the seed of all things :
from them, by generation and destruction, every thing has
been formed, and fashioned, and still continues so to be."
It is also interesting to observe that Gassendi explained
the fall of bodies by the earth's attraction, and yet, like
Newton himself, held action at a distance to be impos-
sible.
A reference to the teachings of Democritus and Epicurus
will distinctly show the source of Gassendi's speculations, as
both these men offer a very refined and, considering their
time, a wonderfully advanced theory of the universe, in
which all phenomena are reduced to the principle of the
related activities of atoms, or the finest imaginable subdi-
vision of matter, — the first step in the direction of an ulti-
mate analysis.
Gassendi also wrote a history of the science of Astronomy,
including an account of the lives of Copernicus and other
great astronomers, — an excellent description of the state of
that science in his day.
The seventeenth century in France was as conspicuous for
its theological activity as the eighteenth century was for its
general and absorbing interest in philosophy.
Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715) was the last and great-
est of those Oratorian priests and writers who contributed so
largely to the religious literature of France.
The philosophy of Malebranche was entirely subservient
to the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and developed the
ideal or mystical side of Descartes' teachings. It is so full of
beauty and high moral purpose, however, that no philosophic
1 84 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
writer has been more read and admired in France, not
even Descartes. His chief work, " Recherche de la Ve-
rit£ " (1674), was immediately recognized for its literary
and philosophic merit. As a metaphysician, Malebranche
interests us but little, for his reasonings are so mystical, or
ideal, that he has been called the Kant of his country. He
was essentially a Christian philosopher, and deduced his theory
of knowledge from communication with a personal Deity, —
something after the method of St. Augustine or Moses, but
with a less concrete conception of God.
Malebranche taught that the soul and the body are enti-
ties, absolutely distinct, and, as a natural consequence, that
the senses cannot supply us with truth. As God embodies
all truth, the soul must receive this truth directly from God,
and endeavor to preserve it untainted by the sinful body. All
of this sounds more like theology than philosophy. Male-
branche was nevertheless far too good a writer and thinker
to be neglected in a review of philosophy. He had an intu-
ition of divine unity, and endeavored to express it by har-
monizing the philosophy of Descartes with Christian beliefs.
This gives us a succession of essays on duty which nothing
but a most delicate and profound understanding of life could
produce. These thoughts on ethics are interspersed with
Platonic metaphysics, rendered in the terminology of Des-
cartes.
Next in the history of French thought, and really the di-
rect logical successor of Gassendi and Descartes, we have
Etienne De Condillac, who was born at Grenoble in 1/15.
The attention which Locke's philosophy had attracted
in France was signalized by this writer. Locke had en-
deavored to prove that all thought springs from sensation
and reflection. Condillac offered a simplification of this
theory by saying that thought and sensation are but different
views of the same thing, that sensation presupposes a sen-
sorium, and that every activity of a sensorium is in some
degree a thought. This opinion is vehemently opposed by
modern psychologists, upon the ground that thought is
THE ECLECTICISM OF FRANCE. 185
exclusively the function of a special thinking organ called the
brain ; and that the fact that some animals evince highly
complex sensations after the brain has been removed proves
that sensation is independent of thought.
Condillac and his pupils gave to the word thought a wider
meaning than perhaps properly belongs to it, but this is ex-
cusable when we remember that it is only by calling atten-
tion to the elasticity of the meaning of words that their
hidden interdependencies are brought to view. The aphorism
" to think is to feel " (pensercest sentir) is called an absurdity
of the Sensational school, to which Condillac belonged ; but
there is no denying that this dictum has a logical value, for
the simple reason that no psychologist is able to point
out exactly where sensation ceases and thought begins,
although these faculties are distinct enough when viewed
separately.
Thought is a coordination, an activity, which takes place
in the nervous system. That its operation is not entirely
confined to the brain there are many means of proving. The
effects upon thought which disturbances in the system,
remote from the brain, occasion, to say nothing of the
organic diseases which wholly incapacitate the mind, are
familiar instances of the obscure cooperation of the whole
sensorium in the act of thinking. The muscle .and the nerve
are nowhere absolutely disjoined. But there is no need of
confusing their functions. Condillac had no difficulty in
distinguishing between thought and sensation, as the words
are commonly used ; he simply wished to point out the fact
that there is no absolute dividing line between thought and
sensation ; and in so doing he rendered a service to philos-
ophy ; although it is easy, from the better understanding
which we now have of the subject, to find fault with his
phraseology.
Condillac, in his criticism of Locke, says : " Locke dis-
tinguishes two sources of ideas, — sense and reflection. It
would be more exact to recognize but one ; first, because
reflection is, in its principle, nothing but sensation itself;
1 86 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
secondly, because it is less a source of ideas than a canal
through which they flow from sense. This inexactitude,
slight as it may seem, has thrown much obscurity over his
system. He contents himself with recognizing that the soul
perceives, thinks, doubts, believes, reasons, wills, reflects ;
that we are convinced of the existence of these operations,
because we find them in ourselves, and they contribute
to the progress of our knowledge ; but he did not perceive
the necessity of discovering their origin and the principle of
their generation, — he did not suspect that they might
only be acquired habits ; he seems to have regarded them as
innate, and he says only that they may be perfected by ex-
ercise." x This seems unjust to Locke, when we remember
how he strove to prove that we have no innate idea ; and
yet Condillac's exception is well taken, for Locke does speak
of many faculties as belonging to the mind, without offering
any clear explanation of their origin.
Condillac's psychology can hardly be called scientific,
if we compare it with such recent works as those of Bain,
Spencer, and Lewes. At the age of thirty-one he published
his first work, an " Essay on the Origin of Human Knowl-
edge " (1746). This was followed, in 1754, by his "Treatise
on Sensation," which spread his reputation throughout
Europe : soon after this he was appointed preceptor to the
Prince of Parma, for whose use he wrote his "Cours
d'Etudes." Among his literary friends we find the names
of J. J. Rousseau, Grimm, and Diderot. In 1768 he was
elected a member of the French Academy, but never after-
ward attended any of its sittings.
The chief merit of Condillac was his discovery of the im-
portance of language as a factor in intelligence. He taught
that we owe the development of our faculties to the use
of signs, and that the power of thinking is directly depend-
ent upon the exercise of speech. When we think how
important these inductions are, and how little progress
1 " Extrait raisonne du Traite des Sensations." — " CEuvres de Condillac"
-(1803), IV., 13.
;
THE ECLECTICISM OF FRANCE.
has since been made beyond them, we realize the signal im-
portance of Condillac's services to thought.
As Comparative Physiology originated with Goethe, so did
•Comparative Psychology, notwithstanding its present un-
developed state, originate with Cabanis, a French physician
and philosopher, born at Conac, in 1/57. Cabanis admitted
that all mental phenomena were reducible to activities akin
with sensation, but he asked, What, after all, is sensation ?
Is it feeling — the name we give to sensations of which we are
conscious ; and if so, what degree of consciousness does the
word sensation imply ? What are we to call those myriad
changes constantly going on within us of which we are
entirely unconscious ? Is it not clearly only those activities
which are sufficiently obtrusive to attract attention that we
call feeling ; and are not all internal activities, in the broad-
est sense, sensations ? These inquiries of Cabanis fairly
opened the problems of Comparative Psychology, for they
cited, as the field of psychological research, the whole vast
empire of organic life in which the psychical states are
but the evidences of a higher complexity of action. In the
ascending complexity of organisms we have more and more
sensitiveness to remote influences, more and more perfect
coordinations of these impressions ; and as function and
.structure are but different views of a single fact of develop-
ment, we have potentialities which we severally call instincts,
faculties, and innate ideas, awakened into activity, not created,
by the experiences of life. Without certain inherited
structures certain degrees of development are impossible,
but the structure is not wholly in the individual, it resides
also in the physical and intellectual environment, i. e. in
civilization and language. Thus Cabanis not only demar-
cated the scope of psychology, but he actually began the
science by "connecting the operations of intelligence and
volition with the origin of all vital movements." Auguste
Comte later built upon this great plan, and in the systems
of Herbert Spencer and George H. Lewes we shall find it
.further developed. In 1802 Cabanis produced his principal
1 88 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
work, " Relations Between the Physical System and the
Mental Faculties of Man." He warns his readers that they
will find no discussions of ultimate principles in his works.
He contented himself with studying mind as the function
of an organism ; and although some of his conclusions were
crude, such as that " the brain secretes thought as the liver
secretes bile," the worst that can be said of them is, that
they are unhappy metaphors imperfectly expressing impor-
tant truths.
Cabanis was a personal and political friend of Mirabeau,
the undisciplined genius of the French Revolution, whom he
assisted with his pen during the great struggle. Diderot,,
Condorcet, and Franklin are also numbered among the
friends of Cabanis, who seems to have been in full sympathy
with the great political and social movement of his time, —
a period in which a calm and complete philosophy was
surely not to be thought of.
We have now to note the appearance of an innovation in
the study of the mind which was principally due to the Ger-
man physician Francis Joseph Gall (1757-1828), the founder
of the system of Phrenology. He graduated at Vienna, and
practised medicine there for many years. He made a spe-
cial study of the brain, and formed elaborate theories
concerning the external signs connected with the different
faculties of the mind. About 1805, with his coadjutor, Dr.
Spurzheim, he began to propagate his views on Phrenology
by lecturing in Paris, Berlin, and other cities. In 1808:
he presented to the French Institute his " Researches into
the Nervous System in General and the Brain in Particular,"
which was reported upon adversely by the committee to
which it was given. Soon after this he began the publication
of his principal work, " The Anatomy and Physiology of the
Nervous System in General and the Brain in Particular."
During the last twenty years of his life he was a resident of
Paris.
The bold theory that certain portions of the brain corre-
sponded with certain mental faculties stimulated a more
THE ECLECTICISM OF FRANCE. 189
thorough research into nervous phenomena. The chief ob-
jection made to the generalizations of phrenologists is, that
the exceptions to their rules are so many and serious that
the rules are virtually destroyed by them, leaving but iso-
lated observations which give little prospect of ever becom-
ing a science. The correspondence, for instance, between
certain cranial shapes and certain mental peculiarities is
scarcely ever to be relied upon. Who would be willing,
upon seeing the shape of the skull, without hearing the voice,
observing the actions, or weighing the words of a person, to
make even a guess at his mental capacity or characteristics ?
We must remember that the cranioscopist has the advantage
of all these other means of judging before making his guess.
Even the simplest of all phrenological generalizations — " the
size of the brain is a measure of power, other things being
equal/' — has so many exceptions that it is practically value-
less. Of this rule, Lewes, who is so much at home on the
subject, says : " Phrenologists forget that here the * other
things ' never are equal ; and consequently their dictum,
' Size is a measure of power,' is without application. There"
never is equality in the things compared, because two brains
exactly similar in size and external configuration will never-
theless differ in elementary composition. * * * Nerve tis-
sue, for example, contains both phosphorus and water as
constituent elements, but the quantity of these elements
varies within certain limits : some nerve-tissues have more
phosphorus, some more water ; and according to these
variations in the composition will be the variations in the
nervous force evolved. This is the reason why brains differ
so enormously even when their volumes are equal. The
brain differs at different ages, and in different individuals.
Sometimes water constitutes three fourths of the whole
weight, sometimes four fifths, and sometimes even seven
eighths. The phosphorus varies from 0.80 to 1.65, and 1.80;
the cerebral fat varies from 3.45 to 5.30, and even 6.10.
These facts will help to explain many of the striking excep-
tions to phrenological observations (such, for example, as the
THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
manifest superiority of some small brains over some large
brains)."
As far as Gall's efforts tended to place psychology on
a physiological basis, they were in the right direction ; but it
is to be observed that his chief followers have neglected the
physiological side of phrenology for what is called cranios-
copy, which on account of the uncertainty of its conclusions
cannot be ranked as a science.
Philosophy did not escape the reactions which followed
the French Revolution. The reign of terror extended into
thought. The horrors resulting from the brief and unnatural
rule of ignorance and passion made the people return to the old
belief that true intelligence is superhuman, so that the mys-
tic philosophy of Christianity regained its ascendancy in the
mind of the nation. The mistake made was that of suppos-
ing the highest intelligence to be a mystery with which the
church is in some way entrusted.
Theories of life which attempt to do away with the
element of mystery, which would make our highest concep-
tions the natural or logical development of our most famil-
iar experiences, have come in conflict with organized religion,
and are therefore supposed to neglect the higher aspects of
life. Until it is understood that the highest aspect of life
means the most general or intelligent view of existence, un-
til the idea of mystery is discovered to be but some degree
of delusion, the endless recriminations which occur between
the adherents of those schools of thought known respectively
as the " natural " and the " supernatural " will continue to
postpone the advent of a true religion, or the Unification of
Knowledge.
The effect of the Revolution upon the thought of France
was to make it dread every thing anti-religious or anti-
spiritual, and to bring the old-fashioned mystic philosophy
again into favor. The best minds which France has since
produced show an almost pathetic reverence for the spiritual.
Had any one been bold enough to affirm that there is no fun-
damental mystery in life, he would have been at once classed
THE ECLECTICISM OF FRANCE. 191
with the demons of the Revolution. Not French Philosophy
alone, but even French criticism, has been warped by this
reactionary tendency ; and we find the most superb intellects
cringing before this spectre of the mind, variously denomi-
nated as the unknowable, the infinite, or the absolute, or,
worse than all, the spiritual.
Even in the recent speech of Renan, before the French
Academy, we find him burning incense to this ancient God by
numerous mysterious references to the " Infinite " ; while in
all the eclectic philosophers, such as Royer-Collard, Cousin,
and Jouffroy, this mystical element is clearly present.
When the University of France was established by the
Imperial Government, centralizing the whole educational
system of the nation, Royer-Collard was called to the chair
of philosophy (1809), but only accepted the invitation after
long hesitation, and then immediately began a course of
study to fit himself for the position. He had studied at the
College of Saint-Omer, which was under the management of
his uncle, the Abb£ Collard, had adopted the legal pro-
fession, and taken an active interest in the stormy politics
succeeding the Revolution. At the time of his appointment
to the chair of philosophy he was regarded as a man of wide
culture and fine abilities, but he had not identified himself
with any particular school of philosophy. Our interest
in him comes from the fact that he founded what is known
as the Eclectic System of Philosophy, which afterward
gained such a reputation in France. It was at first simply a
comparative study of the chief systems of thought, but un-
der Victor Cousin it assumed the character of a distinctive
method, which we will duly examine.
The attempt of Royer-Collard was to effect a compromise
between what he regarded as the opposite extremes, Sensa-
tionalism and Idealism. He rejected Condillac's analysis of
consciousness, and endeavored to introduce the mystical ele-
ment of Idealism in the modified form in which it occurs
in the writings of Reid and Stewart. The influence which
he exerted on the thought of France has been chiefly
THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
through his pupils, among whom were Guizot, Ampere de
Remusat, and Cousin.
Victor Cousin is one of the chief philosophic writers of
modern times. He was the king-maker of the French phi-
losophy during the first half of this century, for he first
crowned Reid and Stewart, making the Scotch school popu-
lar in France ; then studying Kant, he imposed upon his
obedient countrymen the autocracy of Konigsberg. Weary-
ing of this, he raised to power Proclus of Alexandria, editing
his works and advocating his cause ; and after this he gave
his inconstant allegiance to the transcendental Hegel, weav-
ing his theories into the celebrated doctrine of Eclecticism.
To the prodigious amount of study which such changes
of heart must have cost, Cousin added the arduous task
of editing the complete works of Descartes in eleven octavo
volumes, and producing his works on Abelard and Pascal,
the celebrated translation of Plato in thirteen volumes, his
" History of Philosophy," well known in this country, and
several original treatises, besides contributing largely to the
literary and philosophic reviews of France.
It would be difficult to find a more agreeable and eloquent
writer than Cousin. In him we have a striking instance of
the difference between the highest order of erudition and real
logical acumen. His style is clear and graceful, his pages are
laden with interesting references and pleasing generaliza-
tions ; but one looks in vain for the development of any
great theme or deep-laid philosophic purpose. There is
every thing to beguile, but nothing to establish, the mind.
His method, briefly described, is, that "All systems are in-
complete views of the reality, set up for complete images of
the reality. All systems containing a mixture of truth and
error have only to be brought together, and then the error
would be eliminated by the mere juxtaposition of system
with system. The truth, or portion of the truth, which is in
one system would be assimilated with the portions of the
truth which are in other systems ; and thus the work would
•be easy enough."
AUGUSTE COMTE. 193
The extraordinary success which attended the lectures of
Cousin in Paris from the year 1828 can only be accounted
for by the beauty and lucidity of his expositions, and his en-
thusiasm and eloquence. The interest which his lectures
aroused has not been equalled since the days of William de
Champeaux and Abelard.
At the same time that Cousin and Jouffroy lived and
taught, a mind of singular force and originality appeared in
France as the founder of the so-called Positive philosophy.
The name of Auguste Comte is familiar to the reading world,
but the name of his philosophy is even more widely known.
There is, however, nothing in his teachings which gives them
an exclusive right to the name Positive, for we are unable to
find that the author had a firmer grasp of the principles of
certitude than many another philosopher.
As the basis of his theory of knowledge, Comte postulates
an unknowable existence, which he says we can never know.
This mysterious existence, using the language of Plato and
the Greek skeptics, he calls noumena. It is to be observed
that he gives us no hint as to what the term noumena means,
excepting that it is utterly unknowable. The reason which
Comte gives for filling in the perspectives of human knowl-
edge with noumena is, that our knowledge is only relative but
noumena are absolute. Now, as absolute means without con-
ditions, is it conscientious in Comte to impose upon noumena
the condition of existence ? As for our knowledge being
relative, it could hardly be any thing else, as relative means
related, and we are certainly intimately related to the rest
of the universe. The principles of certitude, therefore, which
Comte fondly hoped to centre in his Positive philosophy are
transgressed at the outset of his exposition of knowledge by
intruding upon our perceptions the presence of an inde-
finable mystery. After creating for himself these difficulties,
Comte displays wonderful resources in avoiding them. His
grasp of scientific facts is marvellous ; he marshals in review
his battalions of data until one is overcome with the extent
of his learning ; but as the succeeding columns disappear in
194 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
the distance he offers no explanation as to whence this vast
army comes or whither it is going. In a word, with regard
to those ultimate problems of knowledge, such as the limits
of language, and the nature of perception, Comte is incom-
plete and unsatisfactory.
The influence of Comte's writings in England was almost
immediate. The English mind leans toward the positive,
and was tempted by the name of the system to investigate
it. Dr. Thomas Brown, J. S. Mill, Spencer, Lewes, and
Harriet Martineau, all expound the Cours de Philosophic
Positive. Comte had but a limited number of disciples in
France ; the nation was too well entertained by the brilliant
Cousin to give him their attention. The example of England,
however, and the writings of Littre, the most eminent of
Comte's disciples, at last brought the Positive school into
such prominence in France that it is now commonly re-
garded as the philosophic faith of the nation.
The manner in which Comte abandons, in the outset of
his system, the great problem of perception is thus aptly
described by Mill : " The fundamental doctrine of a true
philosophy, according to M. Comte, and the character by
which he defines Positive Philosophy, is the following : We
have no knowledge of any thing but phenomena ; and our
knowledge of phenomena is relative, not absolute. We
know not the essence, nor the real mode of production, of
any fact, but only its relations to other facts in the way of
succession or of similitude. These relations are constant —
that is, always the same in the same circumstances. The
constant resemblances which link phenomena together, and
the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and
consequent, are termed their laws. The laws of phenomena
are all we know respecting them. Their essential nature
and their ultimate causes, either efficient or final, are un-
known and inscrutable to us."
The metaphysical errors in this analysis of knowledge are
now too familiar to need comment. They are the old, old
errors of agnosticism, of skepticism, of the belief in an un-
AUGUSTE COMTE. 195
knowable. These errors give us but another instance of the
perverse habit in introspective analysis of creating a mystery
and then worshipping it as a " final cause." The assump-
tion made is that there is an absolute knowledge (which is
an absurdity), that this absolute knowledge is beyond our
knowledge, for " we have no knowledge of any thing but phe-
nomena," and yet this absolute knowledge is defined as the
" essence," the " real mode of production," the " final causes
of phenomena." " The essential nature, the ultimate causes
of phenomena are unknown and inscrutable to us," and yet
it is insisted that we know of these things which are un-
knowable. How much more simple would it be to deny the
existence of these precious mysteries. Would we run any
serious risk in denying the existence of things which have
never troubled any one excepting those who affirm over and
over again that they know nothing of them? If the com-
pensation for the risk is to be a rational theory of knowledge,
let us at least try it. Let some other race of philosophers
take up and cherish these mysteries ; we have nursed them
long enough.
The chief merit of Comte's system is to be found in his
sociological inductions, by which he indicates the organic
nature of all human development, thus opposing the theory
advanced by Rousseau and others, that society with all its
complex processes is an artificial structure, a divergence from
nature. Notwithstanding the contradictions above enumer-
ated, Comte suggested, through his classification of the
sciences, principles of mental evolution which have contrib-
uted greatly to our conception of knowledge. Perhaps no
writer ever aimed so high, ever attempted to do more. His
propositions are splendid. "A social doctrine," he says, " is
the aim of Positivism, a scientific doctrine its means." "The
aim of Positivism is to create a philosophy of the sciences
as a basis for a new social faith," hence his celebrated
"Organon of the Sciences" and his "Religion of Hu-
manity " ; add to this " the predominance of the moral point
of view," "the rigorous subordination of the intellect to the
196 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
heart," and we have the figure of the great emotional sys-
tem of Comte.
There is scarcely an idea which the most advanced biology,
psychology, and even sociology establish which cannot be
found latent in the writings of Comte, ideas of course derived
in part from such writers as Cabanis, Gall, Condillac, and their
predecessors. But criticism has no right to give to imper-
fectly elaborated theories the more perfect form of later and
higher developments. Thought, like science, must pass for
what it is, not for what it could be, or might have been.
The idea that law rules in the moral and social as well as the
physical world is clearly emphasized by Comte, but the fur-
ther development of this idea, which we find in Spencer and
Lewes, constitutes the distinction of these latter writers from
Comte. Hence, to say that Spencer owes all his philosophy
to Comte, an assertion which has attracted some attention
in England recently, is as untrue as it is ungenerous. It is
a significant fact that the profundities of Comte's system were
but poorly appreciated until Spencer actually established
great inductions which are scarcely more than germinal
thoughts in the positive philosophy. No one can doubt this
who will carefully compare Comte's scheme of the sciences
with Spencer's synthetic philosophy; and yet Comte's
scheme of the sciences is his best work, that which has
challenged the widest admiration. The theory of knowledge
which runs thoughout this scheme, however, as already
pointed out, cannot bear close analysis.
Comte taught that all true methods of investigation are
fundamentally alike ; that philosophy is but the union of all
positive knowledge into a harmonious whole. These are
good generalizations ; but the moment he particularizes he
becomes arbitrary, and contradicts himself. He says that
the progress of humanity has three stages, — the theological,
the metaphysical, and the positive ; for speculation always
begins with supernatural, advances to metaphysical, and
finally reposes in positive, explanations ; which is equivalent
to saying that all conceptions of God, or all efforts to arrive
AUGUSTE COMTE. 197
at an ultimate fact or principle, which, in all cultures, have
taken the form of metaphysical and theological speculations,
are to be cast aside as primitive methods tending but to un-
certainty, and that positive philosophy alone complies with
the canons of a true investigation. When we consider how
faulty is the analysis of knowledge which this "positive
philosophy " offers, and how true are the theological and
metaphysical intuitions of the race when viewed as a whole,
we fail to perceive that positivism has risen to the higher
plane of thought and feeling which its author claims for it.
This assumption of Comte is all the more strange when we
remember how liberally he acknowledges the debt of human-
ity to all who have contributed to the sum of knowledge
either through religion or thought. The explanation is to be
found in the fact that he was influenced by the belief in a
fundamental mystery, and hence stigmatizes all efforts to
find God, or an ultimate principle, as not only hopeless, but
as belonging to stages of human development which are
primitive in comparison to the unerring procedures of Posi-
tivism.
When we think that philosophy can only succeed by
harmonizing religion with the search for divine unity known
as metaphysics, and that the classifications of science can be
but subsidiary to this achievement, we are unable to accept
Comte's analysis of human progress or his definition of
philosophy. And yet it is easy to see that notwithstanding
his imperfect conception of the true nature of theology and
metaphysics, he was keenly alive to the fact of a divine unity
in life and mind ; for in describing the stages of human
development he says that the highest condition of the theo-
logical stage is " when one being is substituted for many, as
the cause of all phenomena " ; of the metaphysical stage,
"when all forces are brought under one general force called
nature" ; and of the Positive stage, "when all phenomena
are represented as particulars of one general view." This is
certainly good evidence that notwithstanding his arbitrary
subdivisions of progress he was conscious that the search for
198 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
the Ultimate Fact, the First Cause, or God, first system-
atically attempted in ancient Greece, still unremittingly
prosecuted in our times, and which has been more or less
distinctly voiced in all the concerted thought and feeling of
the world, is the true philosophy, and that it must pursue
the same methods to the end. Thus it is that in reviewing
the writings of Comte we are forced into alternate con-
demnation and praise, for with the highest merit the
gravest inconsistencies are found.
The subdivisions of philosophic thought have been largely
determined by the ethnic sentiment, the ties of country and
race. In ancient philosophy this is not so apparent, as
Greece had little or no competition in the thought of other
nations. In the Christian civilization, however, we not only
find a rendering of philosophy in each of its languages, but
there are further subdivisions corresponding with the geo-
graphical boundaries of different peoples speaking the same
language. It is natural enough that each different language
of Europe should have a philosophy of its own, though these
systems may much resemble each other. But when Scot-
land and England are accredited each with a different school
of thought, the merely geographical or national element in
the division becomes obtrusive ; the classification lacks the
dignity which should belong to the highest order of thought.
As Auguste Comte taught a Positive philosophy, so did
Thomas Reid promulgate a system of Common-Sense ; and as
the qualities designated by these names are essential to every
well-regulated mind, whether its surroundings be those of
Athens, Paris, or Edinburgh, we must not be disappointed
if we fail to find any very distinct logical characteristics in
these systems corresponding with their names.
The chief writers of what is called the Scotch School were,
first, Thomas Reid (1710-1796), then Dugald Stewart,
Thomas Brown, and Sir William Hamilton. They all lectured
in Scotland. Stewart wrote upon the system of Reid, Brown
lectured and wrote of both his predecessors, and Hamilton
published complete editions of the works of Reid and
THE SCOTCH SCHOOL. 199
Stewart ; so we have in the thought of these four men an
organon of truth which, whatever may be its other excel-
lencies, can at all events be clearly identified with Scotland.
Bishop Berkeley was the first to formulate in English the
doctrine of Absolute Idealism. Hume deduced from Berke-
ley's arguments a skepticism which, as we have already
pointed out, is virtually the same thing as Idealism. Thomas
Reid rejected the skepticism of Hume. But by admitting
the possibility of an unknowable existence, he really agreed
with Hume in all essential particulars. Dr. Thomas Brown,
upon being asked whether the difference between Reid and
Hume was not chiefly one of words, replied: "Yes, Reid
bawled out we must believe in an outward world ; but added,
in a whisper, we can give no reason for our belief. Hume
cries out, we can give no reason for such a notion ; and
whispers, I own we cannot get rid of it." Thus we have a
confession from one of the chief Scotch metaphysicians that
Reid, although he claimed to have refuted both idealism and
skepticism, was really an agnostic, which is the most popular
name for the modern skeptic.
Dugald Stewart comes very near the truth when he says
that the belief in the external world, or space, is one of the
" Fundamental Laws of Human Belief," or, as we would ex-
press it, one of the conditions of perception.
Reid sought to prove that our instincts account for our be-
lief in an external world, but he insisted that it is impossible
to account for our instincts ; which is hardly an acceptable
solution of the problem of perception.
" To talk of Dr. Reid," said the Quarterly, in its review of
Stewart's Second Dissertation, " as if his writings had op-
posed a barrier to the prevalence of Skeptical Philosophy, is
an evident mistake. Dr. Reid successfully refuted the prin-
ciples by which Berkeley and Hume endeavored to establish
their conclusions ; but the conclusions themselves he himself
adopted as the very premises from which he reasons. The
impossibility of proving the existence of a material world
from ' reason, or experience, or instruction, or habit, or any
2OO THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
other principle hitherto known to philosophers/ is the argu-
ment, and the only argument, by which he endeavors to force
upon us his theory of instinctive principles."
Sir William Hamilton was one of the clearest and most
advanced writers upon metaphysics, of modern times. His
philosophy is principally devoted to the consideration of
three questions, — (i) the perception of the external world ; (2)
the nature of necessary truths, or the principles of certitude ;
and (3) the law of causation. The discussion of such ques-
tions as these can lead to no definite results unless we first
agree upon the signification of those general terms known as
the Ultimate Realities, or the categories of thought. Such
words as the Infinite and the Absolute, called by Hamilton
the " two inconceivables," are employed so often that we feel
convinced they stood for very important facts in his mind.
Again : Space, Time, Matter, Force, and Motion, are con-
tinually employed in conflicting senses. For instance,
Hamilton affirms that Space and Extension mean the
same thing, but, if there is any difference at all in them,
Space is a priori and Extension a posteriori ; or, the idea of
Space is given in the fact of mind and the idea of Extension
grows up with experience. He also distinctly teaches that,
whereas mind and matter both appear in Time, matter alone
appears in Space : From which it is fair to conclude that space
appears in mind, but mind does not appear in space. Now,
as no mind has ever yet appeared out of space, we are unable
to appreciate this distinction, however clear it may be to the
admirers of the Scotch School. Again : Hamilton, it is well
known, employs the word Matter frequently in the Kantian
sense of Force, as a necessary element of consciousness,
which makes it all the more difficult to understand how an
element of consciousness, called matter, which we are told
never appears out of space, can be an element of conscious-
ness, if consciousness, or mind, appears only in Time and not
in Space. It is generally admitted that matter always occu-
pies space, but if mind cannot appear in space, the question
arises, what becomes of the space which matter ought to oc-
THE SCOTCH SCHOOL. 2OI
cupy when it appears as an element of mind in Time alone ?
It is evident from this that the Scotch School places matter
in a very unfair position, for we are left to conclude that the
matter which appears as an element of mind does not occupy
the space that it should.
Hamilton, as we have said, is one of the clearest and best
writers upon metaphysics, of modern times ; but it cannot be
denied that there are occasional infelicities in his manipula-
tion of the Ultimate Realities, or the categories of thought,
which none but the most indulgent readers of his system
could overlook.
How can we hope to determine such general questions as
the " Perceptions of externals," " Necessary truths," " The
law of causation," while such confusion reigns with regard
to the meaning of the most general terms employed ?
To Bacon can be traced the English love of the real as
distinguished from the ideal in thought. The great work of
Newton was a natural consequence of Bacon's scientific
method, but Newton avoided all metaphysical discussions,
not because he was not able to reason as well as any of his
contemporaries, but because he was conscious of the need
of a common understanding of the significance of general
terms. The mind that could affirm that " all philosophy
consists in the study of Motion " was incapable of enter-
taining such a belief as the absolute separation of mind and
matter : the mind that saw the impossibility of " action at
a distance," or unrelated phenomena, could not consent to
an absolute distinction between matter and space, or be-
tween force and time.
Science, in England, has steadily progressed upon the
plan suggested and developed by Newton. In the mean-
time the scientific study of mind as the function of an organ-
ism, founded by Hobbes and Locke, and developed by Dr.
Hartley, the elder Darwin, and the elder Mill, has led to
such works as J. S. Mill's " System of Logic," the psycho-
logical studies of Professor Bain, and the complete philo-
sophic systems of Herbert Spencer and George H. Lewes.
202 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
As these latter systems embody the highest results of
English, and in fact of modern, science and thought, our
argument can best be furthered by a careful review of them,
especially as they constitute the most thorough study in ex-
istence of that aspect of knowledge which we call perception.
In closing this portion of the work, which has been in
large part devoted to the explanation of the scope of lan-
guage, let us bear in mind that language can only represent
motion, that it is impossible to frame a sentence or express
an idea which does not imply as a fundamental fact some
movement or activity. The most abstract mathematical sym-
bols, such as numbers, letters, a dot, a straight line, or a curve,
represent respectively the operation of counting, the grouping
of the results of counting, the separation of wholes into parts,
the shortest movement between two points, or the movement
of a point around a centre. It is well known that the most
abstract metaphysical symbols, such as space and time, can
only be represented by motions, and are but aspects of the
universal fact of Motion. But there are few who are willing
to acknowledge the full significance of this truth, that
motion is the universal fact ; for it means that all compre-
hension, perception, mind, will, are functions or consequences
of this fact. This great truth, which is the simplest state-
ment of the scope of language, can only be apprehended by
studying the genesis of language ; and although this study
is scarcely begun in the world, our argument would be in-
complete if we were not to give some idea of it.
The fundamental form of communication is by gesture.
Gesture-language, therefore, is the genetic beginning of all
language. Even in these days of developed and apparently
arbitrary speech it constitutes a universal medium of ex-
pression. Animals comprehend movements or gestures more
easily than sounds ; but when we think that sound, or any
other activity which appeals to the senses, is but movement,
we begin to appreciate how utterly dependent the mind is
upon activity or motion. It is a well-authenticated fact that
deaf-mutes and savages converse readily through gestures,
CLOSE OF THE ARGUMENT. 203
"because in the former, speech, or communication by words,
is wholly undeveloped, and in the latter but imperfectly.
Even when speech is highly developed, gestures are used as
a further emphasis of meaning. The interaction of expres-
sion and ideas, or language and thought, the fact that they
develop each other, is aptly illustrated by the description
which Kruse (himself a deaf-mute and a well-known teacher
of deaf-mutes) offers of the formation of gesture-language :
" Thus the deaf and dumb must have a language, without
which no thought can be brought to pass. But here nature
soon comes to his help. What strikes him most, or what
makes a distinction to him between one thing and another,
such distinctive signs of objects are at once signs by which
he knows these objects, and knows them again ; they become
tokens of things. And whilst he silently elaborates the signs
he has found for single objects — that is, whilst he describes
their forms for himself in the air, or imitates them in thought
with hands, fingers, and gestures, he develops for himself
suitable signs to represent ideas, which serve him as a means
of fixing ideas of different kinds in his mind and recalling them
to his memory. And thus he makes himself a language, the
so-called gesture-language ; and with these few scanty and
imperfect signs a way for thought is already broken, and,
with his thought as it now opens out, the language cultivates
and forms itself further and further." It is well understood
among those who have studied gesture-language that deaf-
mutes and savages are far better able to master it and ex-
press themselves than educated people who enjoy the full
use of their faculties. Said the director of an Institute :
" None of my teachers here who can speak are very strong
in the gesture-language. It is difficult for an educated,
speaking man to get the proficiency in it which a deaf-and-
dumb child attains to almost without an effort."
It is evident that all language not only springs from ges-
ture-language, but is essentially of the same nature. Not
only the means of expression, but the objects of expression,
are found upon analysis to be motion. All sentences de-
204 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
pend upon some verb (expressed action or being) for their
meaning. Now, when being or existence is identified with
life or universal activity through the aid of a metaphysical
analysis, we see how from the grammatical side of language
also we are irresistibly led to this ultimate fact. All parts
of speech are but modifications or inflections of motion.
Thus " the deaf-mute borrows the signs of space, as we do
similar words, to express notions of time : * * * the present
tense [of the verb can be expressed] by indicating ' here '
with the two hands held out, palm downward ; the past
tense, by the hand thrown back over the shoulder, * behind ' ;
the future, by putting the hand out, ' forward.' But when
he takes on his conjugation to such tenses as ' I should have
carried,' he is merely translating words into more or less
appropriate signs." 1
Quoting from Quintilian, Mr. Tylor says : " As for the
hands indeed, without which action would be maimed and
feeble, one can hardly say how many movements they have,
when they almost follow the whole stock of words ; for the
other members help the speaker, but they, I may almost
say, themselves speak. * * * Do they not, in pointing out
places and persons, fulfil the purpose of adverbs and pro-
nouns ? So that in so great a diversity of tongues among
all people and nations this seems to me the common language
of all mankind."
" The best evidence," continues Mr. Tylor, " of the unity
of the gesture-language is the ease and certainty with which
any savage from any country can understand and be under-
stood in a deaf-and-dumb school. A native of Hawaii is
taken to an American Institution, and begins at once to talk
in signs with the children, and to tell about his voyage and
the country he came from. A Chinese, who had fallen into
a state of melancholy from long want of society, is quite
revived by being taken to the same place, where he can talk
in gestures to his heart's content. * * * Macrobius says it was
a well-known fact that Cicero used to try with Roscius, the
1 E. B. Tylor : " Early Hist, of Man."
CLOSE OF THE ARGUMENT. 2O5
actor, which of them could express a sentiment in the greater
variety of ways, the player by mimicry or the orator by
speech, and that these experiments gave Roscius such con-
fidence in his art, that he wrote a book comparing oratory
with acting. Lucian tells a story of a certain barbarian
prince of Pontus, who was at Nero's court, and saw a panto-
mime perform so well, that though he could not understand
the songs which the player was accompanying with his
gestures, he could follow the performance from the acting
alone. * * * Religious service is performed in signs in many
deaf-and-dumb schools. In the Berlin Institution, the simple
Lutheran service — a prayer, the gospel for the day, and a
sermon — is acted every Sunday morning for the children in
the school and the deaf-and-dumb inhabitants of the city,
and it is a very remarkable sight. No one could see the
parable of the man who left the ninety and nine sheep in the
wilderness, and went after that which was lost, or of the
woman who lost the one piece of silver, performed in ex-
pressive pantomime by a master in the art, without ac-
knowledging that for telling a simple story, and making
simple comments on it, spoken language stands far behind
acting. The spoken narrative must lose the sudden anxiety
of the shepherd when he counts his flock and finds a sheep
wanting, his hurried penning up of the rest, his running up
hill and down dale, and spying backwards and forwards, his
face lighting up when he catches sight of the missing sheep
in the distance, his carrying it home in his arms, hugging it
as he goes. We hear these stories read as though they were
lists of generations of antediluvian patriarchs. The deaf-and-
dumb pantomime calls to mind the ' action, action, action ! '
of Demosthenes."
The connection between thought and language constitutes
the best possible lesson in psychology. In ancient Greece,
deaf-mutes were thought to be speechless on account of a
deficiency of intellect : we, who take the opposite view,
namely, that their deficiency of intellect is due to inability
to speak and thus to develop the mind, are still apt to
2O6 THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE.
neglect the fact that there are all degrees of intellectual inca-
pacity expressed in imperfections of speech. Thought and
the power of uttering thoughts are not only interdependent
activities, but they are different views of the same activity.
" Thinking is talking to one's self" ; " Language shapes itself
in mind, and mind in language."
In the gesture-language, we are told, it is impossible to dis-
tinguish between the verb and the noun, or the adjective and
the adverb. This is because a noun represents the activity
or appearance produced by an object, and this appearance is
represented by actions or gestures corresponding to it, which
really makes every noun a certain kind of action or a verb.
" To say, for instance, * The pear is green,' the deaf-and-
dumb child first eats an imaginary pear, and then, using the
back of the flat left hand as a ground, he makes the fingers
of the right hand grow up on the edge of it like blades
of grass. We might translate the signs as ' pear-grass,' but
they have quite as good a right to be classed as verbs,
for they are signs of eating in a peculiar way, and growing."
Again : since substantives and verbs are thus indistinguish-
able, the adjectives and adverbs which qualify them are
equally so ; for gestures bear the same relation to phonetic
symbols or spoken words that picture-writing bears to alpha-
betical writing. In gestures or pictures, the action expressed
is conveyed to the mind directly, in its original or concrete
form ; in spoken or written words, it passes through a meta-
morphosis of sound and form, a sort of digestion, or reduc-
tion to its simpler elements, which adjusts the action to the
special senses, or the conditions of perception.
Developed language is susceptible of a vastly greater ex-
tension and definiteness, because what might be called the
atoms of thought are so much more subdivided, and there-
fore capable of higher complexities in their redistribution.
We cannot make a mould with gravel ; we must use the finest
clay, so that every detail of the model may be reproduced
by the particles employed. To reproduce our thoughts, we
must dissolve them into minute particles of sound and form,
CLOSE OF THE ARGUMENT.
called letters ; and with this simple medium we reconstruct
the most delicate mental delineations. Behind this picture
we can clearly see the irreducible fact of Motion, which in a
complex form constitutes both the object and subject of
thought, approached in its simpler conditions of form and
sound through the medium of language.
Hence language is an activity which extends the range of
sentiency, relating for us the particular and the general, the
complex and the simple, or the human and the divine.
PART II.
THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
209
PART II.
THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
CHAPTER IX.
HERBERT SPENCER.
The Relation of Perception to Universal Activity — The Definitions of Evolu-
tion and of Life — The " Unknowable."
HUMAN knowledge consists of the elaboration of per-
ceptions, the organization of facts. The principle of per-
ception, therefore, underlies and must explain the whole
fabric of ontological science. Notwithstanding the vast pro-
portions to which the writings upon this science have grown,
there is probably no department of knowledge which, in the
future, will require less space to record its truths than the
science of Metaphysics.
The imposing number of works upon ontology have not,
however, appeared in vain. It was necessary that every pos-
sible construction of the questions involved should be made
before the mind could choose between them. Hence bodies
of co-ordinated beliefs have sprung up in all directions ; these
have coalesced into orders or schools named after the char-
acteristics of each, such as ideal, spiritual, rational, natural,
and positive. These schools have been subdivided into
varieties which bear the names of their principal advocates,
forming a long list and representing practically every possible
shade of opinion. This is not only the history of metaphysi-
cal science, but of all sciences ; it is, in fact, the only way in
which opinion grows into settled belief. The test of truth
in the majority of the sciences, although precisely the same
211
212 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
in nature, is much simpler than in philosophy, because the
means of verification are so much nearer at hand. There is
a horizon, however, to every science which eludes the special
methods of each, and requires the combined logic of all to
survey it. It is this outlying region of experience which
constitutes the field of philosophy. Zeller tells us that " the
term Philosophy, as in use among the Greeks, varied greatly
in its meaning. Originally it denoted all mental culture, and
all effort in the direction of culture. The word aocpia from
which it is derived was applied to every art and every kind
of knowledge. A more restricted significance seems first to
have been given to it in the time of the Sophists, when it
became usual to seek after a wider knowledge by means of
more special and adequate instruction than ordinary educa-
tion and the unmethodical routine of practical life could of
themselves afford." Since the time of Plato this word has
assumed a more and more special meaning, until to-day it is
widely understood to designate not merely a development of
knowledge, but a different kind of knowledge from that to
which the particular sciences belong. The term mental
science, again, has had, if any thing, a more restricted mean-
ing than the more general term philosophy. The activities
of the mind have been regarded as of another source and
kind than other activities. This idea has grown until the
different mental faculties, such as memory, will, reason, and
perception, have come to be considered as separate princi-
ples, the interdependencies of which are inscrutable. The
confusion which these superstitions have engendered is only
just beginning to give way before the new science of psy-
chology, which studies the mind as an organ and its activity
as part of organic life.
Perception has always been conceded to be the chief men-
tal faculty, partaking in its nature of all the others. The
-theories concerning the nature of this faculty, which we find
in the different systems of mental science, form the truest
index to their comparative logical merit. A careful analysis,
therefore, of the theory of perception which is presented in
HERBERT SPENCER.
213
any system of philosophy, will serve to bring us by the
shortest route to a comprehension of its scope, and the
position it holds in the great hierarchy of Knowledge.
The philosophy of Herbert Spencer has made an impres-
sion in America : it is a system which has especially com-
mended itself to the inquiring minds of our people. The
Americans resemble the Greeks in their intellectual economy ;
they have not buried themselves in the karning of the past,
and are therefore keenly alive to the progress, and propor-
tionately less attentive to the history, of thought. This
fact has given Spencer's system, as a whole, an importance
which it could not have attained in an older country. In
England, and on the continent, Spencer's writings are esti-
mated according to their individual merit, philosophical
culture there being too general to admit of the concrete
conception which we have formed of them.
In reviewing a great and new system, such as the Syn-
thetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, it is a certain dis-
advantage to have studied it only at first hand. The
enormous reach of its investigations, and the vast co-ordinat-
ing power which has made this system one of the greatest
achievements of modern thought, are such as to place all
who study it, deeply in the author's debt. A new system,
scarcely completed, has no subsequent expository l to illu-
minate it, to help us to distinguish between what is really
original with the author and what is imbibed from contem-
poraneous thought. In a mind like Spencer's the rays of
contemporaneous thought converge, and it is necessary to
view it from a distance in time, in order to separate the re-
flected from the individual light. Mr. Fiske says: " When
Von Baer discovered that the evolution of a living organism
from the germ-cell is a progressive change from homogeneity
of structure to heterogeneity of structure, he discovered a
scientific truth. But when Herbert Spencer applied Von
Baer's formula to the evolution of the solar system, of the
1 1 am not unmindful of the excellent works of John Fiske and Malcolm
Guthrie.
214 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
earth, of the totality of life upon its surface, of society, of
conscious intelligence, and the products of conscious intelli-
gence, then he discovered a truth in philosophy, — a truth
applicable not merely to one order of phenomena, but to all
orders." * If this claim for originality in Mr. Spencer's be-
half could be sustained, we should indeed have in him a
Columbus of philosophy, for this vast discovery could be
compared to a new continent of thought. That this new
continent of thought, known as evolution, has been dis-
covered, no one will deny ; but we should hesitate to give
the credit to any individual, or even to any century. While
we plume ourselves upon the discoveries of our century, we
are continually forgetting that we are, in the strictest sense,
but a consequence of the past ; that by reason of this ines-
timable debt knowledge is, for the most part, but erudition,
and philosophy but Eclecticism. In distributing the honors,
therefore, to the originators of this great theory of Evo-
lution, which our race is but beginning to appreciate, our
encomiums become a hymn of praise to the thinkers of
all ages.
Spencer's philosophic system is an application of the
principle of evolution to every conceivable aspect of life
and of the universe. It begins with a work entitled " First
Principles," which is in effect an epitome of the whole. The
immediate purpose of this volume is to demonstrate the
interdependence of all phenomena, and thereby to define
the term evolution.
Little by little as his argument progresses Mr. Spencer
adds to the meaning of this word evolution, or rather he re-
moves one restriction after another to its meaning until its
generality alarms the metaphysician, and the inquiry arises,
Is it not a universal term ? The position here taken with
regard to the meaning of ultimate terms is already familiar
to the reader. There can be but one ultimate fact, give it
what name or names we please ; for ultimate means final,
and a final fact is only distinguished from other facts by its
1 John Fiske : " Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," vol. I., p. 40.
HERBERT SPENCER. 21$
simplicity. If it were complex, it could be separated into
more general facts. If it is simple, resisting all further analy-
sis, if it is a common property of every fact, if it remains
after every analysis has been pushed to its farthest limits,
and if it is the foundation of every inference or synthesis, —
it is unity itself. That Mr. Spencer employs the term evolu-
tion as an ultimate fact will be manifest to any one who will
patiently examine his treatment of the subject in " First
Principles."
In closing the second chapter on the Law of Evolution,
Spencer says : " As we now understand it, Evolution is de-
finable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a co-
herent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion
and integration of matter." * In a chapter entitled " The
Interpretation of Evolution," and referring to the above
described law of evolution, we find the following : "Is this
law ultimate or derivative ? Must we rest satisfied with the
conclusion that throughout all classes of concrete phenomena
such is the course of transformation ? Or is it possible for us
to ascertain why such is the course of transformation ? May
we seek for some all-pervading principle that underlies this
all-pervading process ? * * * It may be that this mode of
manifestation is reducible to a simpler mode, from which
these many complex effects follow. * * * Unless we suc-
ceed in finding a rationale of this universal metamorphosis,
we obviously fall short of that completely unified knowledge
constituting Philosophy. As they at present stand, the
several conclusions we have lately reached appear to be
independent, — there is no demonstrated connection between
increasing definiteness and increasing heterogeneity, or be-
tween both and increasing integration. Still less evidence is
there that these laws of the redistribution of matter and
motion are necessarily correlated with those laws of the direc-
tion of motion and the rhythm of motion previously set forth.
But until we see these now separate truths to be implications of
one truth, our knowledge remains imperfectly 2 coherent. * * *
1 Spencer's " First Principles," p. 360. The italics are the author's.
1 The italics are the author's.
2l6 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
It has to be shown that the redistribution of matter and motion
must everywhere take place in those ways, and produce
those traits, which celestial bodies, organisms, societies, alike
display. And it has to be shown that this universality of pro-
cess results from the same necessity which determines eacJi sim-
plest movement around us, down to the accelerated fall of
a stone or the recurrent beat of a harp-string. In other
words, the phenomena of Evolution have to be deduced
from the Persistence of Force. As before said, f to this an
ultimate analysis brings us down, and on this a rational syn-
thesis must build up.' This being the ultimate truth which
transcends experience by underlying it, so furnishing a com-
mon basis on which the widest generalizations stand, these
widest generalizations are to be unified by referring them
to this common basis."
If the widest generalizations result in the conception
of evolution, and if the only common basis for these
generalizations, as is admitted by Mr. Spencer, is the
universal principle which he calls the " persistence of force,"
surely evolution in its widest sense is a universal principle.
Nothing could simplify philosophy more than this identifi-
cation of evolution as a universal principle.
So serious are the consequences, however, so grand are the
results, and withal so simple is the explanation, that the
conventional thinker, entrenched behind his dogmatic dis-
tinctions without differences, will make many objections.
From this conventional reasoner the first objection would
be that evolution is a process, not a principle. But a prin-
ciple is merely a prominent or general fact, and it is clear
that the fact or process of evolution is the most general
in life. Where under the new light of biology and organic
chemistry are we to find the limits of life? Is not the
most prominent fact in " all phenomena " a universal fact ?
Again it will be objected that the correlative or anti-
thetical term of evolution is dissolution, and that all phe-
nomena have these contrasted aspects, which remands the
1 " First Principles," pp. 397, 398.
HERBERT SPENCER. 21 J
term evolution to a more subordinate position in the scale of
generality than "the persistence of force." This is an objec-
tion which needs careful scrutiny, as it seems to mean more
than it does. It is impossible to conceive of evolution
in the philosophical sense in which the word is used without
including the idea of dissolution, in the same way that it is
impossible to conceive of the universal principle which we
call life without including the idea of death.
Again, the senses in which the word evolution is employed
in mathematics and dynamics are entirely distinct from the
broad philosophical sense, where it is the equivalent of the
serial development of all things, " the evolution of ages."
To say that evolution is not used by Spencer as a universal
principle because its reverse process is involution, would be
as sensible as to make the same assertion because dissolution,
in a certain restricted sense, is the antithesis or correlative of
evolution.
Mr. Spencer may not be conscious of the fact that he has
defined evolution as a universal principle, but when he builds
up a system of philosophy in order to apply the process to
all phenomena, that it is in its widest sense a universal fact
is an irresistible inference from his words; and the distinc-
tion between process and principle when both are facts of
universal application becomes invidious. If, as Mr. Spencer
says, " evolution is the redistribution of matter and motion,"
what event in time and space is independent of this cause ?
A candid study of the manner in which Mr. Spencer em-
ploys and defines the word will convince us that it stands in
his mind for the highest generalization of life or existence,
and that, as there are no absolute demarcations to life in the
universe, evolution is a universal generalization or principle.
And here we come to the theory of perception, which we
hold to be the chief feature of every system of philosophy,
determining its merit as an original production, its impor-
tance as a contribution to knowledge ; for it is in the respect
of learning the true nature of perception that real progress
in philosophy has been made. We see from the above that
218 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
the formula of Evolution suggested by Mr. Spencer, which
in its simplest expression is " the redistribution of matter and
motion" is acknowledged by him to be but a derived law, or,
in other words, a complex expression of a simple law or ulti-
mate fact, which he denominates " the persistence of force"
and which we submit can find a still more simple expression
in the word Motion. Motion is the ultimate term in all the
sciences, as well as in philosophy.
When we remember the great principle that facts express
themselves, it is apparent that the attempts to form such ab-
stract generalizations as "concentration of matter" and "dis-
sipation of motion" or " Evolution is an integration of matter
and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter
passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite,
coherent heterogeneity ; and during which the retained motion
undergoes a parallel transformation" 1 are useless, for the
ultimate fact of motion is so obtrusive throughout that
nothing is gained by the definition.
As will be evident to any one who follows out Spencer's
whole system, these involved formulas of the ultimate pro-
cess of evolution are, for the most part, but vain attempts to
define motion. These definitions depend for the terms in
which they are expressed upon the aspects of the ultimate
fact, Motion, or upon different names for the fact itself;
such as co-existence and sequence, the equivalent terms
space and time, or the frequently recurring motion and
matter, which is the fact itself and one of its aspects (matter,
the equivalent of space). To speak, therefore, of the redis-
tribution of matter and motion as an ultimate law is simply
to define motion in terms of its aspects, for the word motion
gives us at once the idea of redistribution. I submit that it
leads to no advance in knowledge to say that motion redis-
tributes itself and one of its aspects.
To familiarize ourselves with the procedures of nature is
the province of science, but scientific analysis, so far as it is
successful, stops with the ultimate fact, or divine unity.
1 " First Principles," p. 396.
HERBERT SPENCER.
In so far as Mathematics has tried to analyze this ultimate
principle, it has failed, for there are no laws of motion which
are not expressed by the term itself.1
Where Physics has tried to analyze motion, it has failed.
The cabalistics, which purport to convey a deeper knowledge
of this fact than is given in the simple conception itself, are
vanities and deceptions. All knowledge is expressed in
terms of the 'aspects of motion, i. e. places and times. All
knowledge consists in expressions of motion. The only way
in which we can enlarge our horizon of facts is by assimilating
new experiences with old ones ; the only way in which we
can reveal to others these newly discovered facts is by ex-
pressing them in terms of more familiar ones.
This Spencer has done throughout his system. We are
indebted to his powerful and effective method for some of
the clearest and most commanding views of the interde-
pendences of phenomena which the age affords ; but this very
power which he has exerted so happily in revealing hidden
truths has carried him to the excess, not of attempting
impossibilities, for we admit no impossibilities to knowledge,
but of creating impossibilities where none exist. This is
1 Solidity, in the sense in which it is attributed to the atom, is not a fact, but
the hypostasis of an abstraction. As M. Cournot observes, an absolutely solid
body is unknown to experience. The consistency of the bodies which present
themselves to the experimental physicist depends upon the preponderance or bal-
ance of forces, such as the forces of cohesion, crystallization, and heat ; and the
assumption of the absolute solidity of matter results from that superficial and
imperfect apprehension of the data of sense (in conjunction with the disregard
of the essential relativity of all the properties of things; which is reflected in all
the early notions of mankind. * * * Euler states that without the assumption
of absolute space and motion there could be no laws of motion, so that all the
phenomena of physical action would become uncertain and indeterminable. If
this argument were well founded, the same consequence would follow a fortiori,
from his repeated admissions in the first chapter of his book, to the effect that
we have no actual knowledge of rest and motion, except that derived from bodies
at rest or in motion in reference to other bodies. Euler's proposition can have
no other meaning than this, that the laws of motion cannot be established or
verified unless we know its absolute direction and its absolute rate. But such
knowledge is by his own showing unattainable. It follows, therefore, that the
establishment and verification of the laws of motion are impossible.— Stallo :
"Modern Physics," pp. 180, 202.
220 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
what all thinkers do who divide when they should multiply,
who subtract when they should add, who, having found
unity, are not content with it, but turn in quest of other uni-
ties, or seek in unity itself variety. These futile attempts,
which will never cease until the world at large learns to
recognize them as useless, are the outgrowth of a misappre-
hension of the nature of perception. This we hope duly to
demonstrate.
The celebrated definition of life which Spencer offers is
without doubt a masterpiece of classification, but by reason
of its unnecessary complexity it accomplishes less than
it purports to do. It is as follows : " Life is the definite
combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and
successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and
sequences''
Now if the terms employed in this definition are examined,
it will be found that the equation which it constitutes can be
greatly simplified. To express the conditions of life is to
tell the story of the universe ; to study different kinds of life
is to pursue certain branches of science. The principle of
life is activity. All definitions of life, therefore, other than
the mere citing of its principle, must be more or less special
or limited ; they must denote the principle and connote cer-
tain manifestations. The above definition denotes the prin-
ciple of activity, or universal life, and connotes the char-
acteristics of organic life. But the terms in which the
connotations are made, when viewed in their full signifi-
cance, amount to the assertion that organic life consists of
motions or activities within an organism, co-ordinated with
or adjusted to, or still better, acting and reacting with mo-
tions without. The only inference, therefore, in this defini-
tion, which has so imposing a sound, is that of an organism.
If this inference is dropped, the sense of the definition is lost
among the echoes and re-echoes of universal change.
Although it is true that Mr. Spencer traces, practically, all
phenomena to an ultimate cause or principle, he fails to es-
tablish that harmony in the significance of ultimate terms
HERBERT SPENCER. 221
which should be the aim of a true philosophy. With the
means now at hand, is it not evident that in dealing with the
great principles, such as Space, Time, Matter, Motion, and
Force, and the " Persistence of Force " (a term made up of
one of these principles and a word meaning virtually the
same thing), we should be able to point out their correlation,
interdependence, or relative significance ? In Chapter III.,
of the same work,1 entitled " Space, Time, Matter, Motion,
and Force," and in Chapters XIV., XV., and XVI., of the sec-
ond volume of " Psychology," Spencer vigorously deals with
this metaphysical problem. Indeed, so dependent upon this
problem is the theory of perception, that it is scarcely pos-
sible to discuss the two subjects separately. Thus, in
Chapter III., of " First Principles," and in the chapters on
Psychology above referred to, treating respectively of the Per-
ception of Space, Time, and Motion, we find the same argu-
ments, and the same failure to seize what we conceive to be
the simplest solution of the two great allied questions of the
nature of perception and the unification of the categories
of thought. This solution, as I conceive it, is as follows:
If a weight falls to the ground a fact is expressed, for the
reason that facts express themselves ; wherever a fact is ex-
pressed, there is a perception. Perception and expression,
using these words in their widest possible sense, are obverse
aspects of every fact. Every given change is a response to
other changes, and in seeking the ultimate nature of percep-
tion we are obliged to recognize this response as equivalent
to a perception of the external change. This reduction of the
meaning of the word perception to that of change, or motion,
is the greatest achievement of psychology. To those who
have not familiarized themselves with psychological analysis
this proposition, that the deepest meaning in the idea of per-
ception is found in the universal fact of motion, will hardly
prove intelligible. This is because perception is generally
considered to be exclusively a mental faculty. Many persons
are incapable of following the meaning of perception beyond
1 "First Principles."
222 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
its anthropomorphic limits ; few have ever followed it be-
yond its sentient limits. No psychological work known to
me, not even that of Lewes, has attempted to follow the
principle of perception beyond the limits of organic life;
and yet I affirm that this principle is plainly to be seen
in every phenomenon or change. Every activity is a response
to other activities ; there is no final difference between the
response of the simplest object to its simplest conditions, and
the response of the highest mind to the farthest influences.
The manner in which Mr. Spencer deals with these ques-
tions can be readily seen by glancing at Chapters IV., V.,
and VI., of " First Principles." The indestructibility of matter
and the continuity of motion are said to be necessary infer-
ences from the Persistence of Force, which he declares to be
" the sole truth which transcends experience by underlying
it, * * * the cause which transcends our knowledge and
conception, * * * that unknowable which is the neces-
sary correlative of the knowable." l These are Spencer's
explanations of the persistence of force, and from them we
must derive his explanation of perception. They postulate
a fact which is supposed to be the most general of all facts,
the source of reality for both the mind and the universe ; a
fact to which all physical phenomena can be reduced, the
fact with which consciousness itself begins ; and yet he says
that it is unknowable, that it transcends consciousness.
It will not do to call this language loose or vague. It is
Mr. Spencer who employs it. We must content ourselves
with trying to glean from it the truth which is intended to be
expressed. If by any chance we could suggest definitions of
the categories of thought which would do away with the
absurdities involved in " an unknowable fact, * * * a principle
of consciousness which transcends both conception and experience,
* * * an unknowable which is the necessary correlative of the
knowable" we must perforce suppress them, because there
are many very estimable persons who "cannot understand
the universe without an unknowable." Their understanding
1 " First Principles," p. 192.
HERBERT SPENCER. 22$.
must be exceedingly delicate to be affected by that of which
they know nothing. But perhaps they do know something
of the unknowable.
If the nature of perception were not involved in this ulti-
mate fact, the contradiction in declaring the fundamental
principle of life and mind unknowable might be less glaring.
The philosopher could then baffle his readers by expanding
upon a latent consciousness which is anterior to perception.
An a priori mmd that employs the unknowable as a principle,
but which does not know it — this and other extravagances of
expression might be employed to cover up the preposterous
assertion that an apprehended fact, the most prominent of all
facts, is unknowable. But when the issue of the nature of
perception is forced, all subterfuges must be laid aside, and
we may confront one another upon the simple and honest
meaning of words. The believer in the unknowable, for
instance, will hardly venture to say that we can perceive the
unknowable, or that the unknowable is a factor in perception,
and yet Mr. Spencer would deduce perception itself from
this mystery.
The indestructibility of matter is now generally admitted
to be an axiom, or necessary truth. Of this truth Mr.
Spencer says : " Our inability to conceive matter becoming
non-existent is immediately consequent on the nature of
thought. Thought consists in the establishment of rela-
tions. There can be no relation established, and therefore
no thought framed, when one of the related terms is absent
from consciousness. * * * It most concerns us to observe the
nature of the perceptions by which the permanence of Mat-
ter is perpetually illustrated to us. These perceptions, un-
der all their forms, amount simply to this — that the force
which a given quantity of matter exercises remains always
the same. This is the proof upon which common-sense and
exact science alike rely. * * * Thus we see that force is our
ultimate measure of Matter ; * * * by the indestructibility of
matter, we really mean the indestructibility of the force with
which matter affects us. * * * This truth is made manifest
224 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
not only by analysis of the a posteriori cognition, but equally
so by analysis of the a priori one.1 And yet before and after
these words, the truth, the principle, the fact, which is made
manifest to us in so many ways, is declared to be unknow-
able.
Respecting this same truth we are told in the chapter
following, entitled the " Continuity of Motion," that " This
existence may cease to display itself as translation ; but it
can do so only by displaying itself as strain. And the prin-
ciple of activity, now shown by translation, now by strain,
and often by the two together, is alone that which in Motion
we can call continuous. * * * Hence the principle of activity
as known by sight is inferential ; visible translation suggests
by association the presence of a principle of activity which
would be appreciable by our skin and muscles, did we lay
hold of the body. Evidently, then, this principle of activ-
ity which Motion shows us, is the objective correlate of our
subjective sense of effort. By pushing and pulling we get
feelings which, generalized and abstracted, yield our ideas of
resistance and tension. Now displayed by changing posi-
tion and now by unchanging strain, this principle of activity
is ultimately conceived by us under the single form of its
equivalent muscular effort. So that the continuity of
Motion, as well as the indestructibility of Matter, is really
known to us in terms of Force." '
And yet these terms of Force which are so clearly affiliated
with all our physical and psychical perceptions, which terms,
to use Mr. Spencer's language, are " displayed" and "shown "
to us, which are " inferential" " appreciable" and "conceiv-
able" are still unknowable. This principle of activity from
which, Spencer tells us, our perceptions are built up, which
discloses itself to us by the most general and familiar facts
of life, is unknown to us. Or perhaps this is saying too
much, it may be termed the unknowable and still be known
to us. The term unknowable may have nothing to do with
1 " First Principles," pp. 177, 178. a Ibid., pp. 187, 188.
HERBERT SPENCER. 22$
our perception, or knowledge, or appreciation of the prin-
ciple. It may be simply a name which the old-school phi-
losophers insist upon giving this principle in order to conform
to the ancient canons of skepticism, or the modern rules of
agnosticism, which systems of belief would be completely
subverted were there no unknowable.
It will be my purpose as we proceed to show that this
term unknowable cannot be made to harmonize with a true
psychology. All will agree that the analysis of every pos-
sible perception discloses what are known as the ultimate
realities, or the commonly conceded elements of thought.
If the elements of thought are also the elements of all
reality, is it not clear that the principle which these ele-
ments disclose, namely, Motion, must explain all thought
and all perception ?
In analyzing any phenomenon or change, such as a weight
falling to the ground, the conventional result, found in all
current systems of philosophy, is to discover in the change
these elements, Space, Time, Matter, Force, and Motion.
Thus far philosophy has gone, and no farther ; and we find
Spencer no exception to the general rule, for how are we to
deduce from his definitions of these categories the one fact
which he calls the Persistence of Force, and to show how the
phenomenon of perception arises from this one fact ? What
are the definitions which Mr. Spencer offers of these elements,
and what is the relation which he establishes between them
and the central fact in the phenomenon of perception?
"Our conception of Matter," says Mr. Spencer, "reduced to
its simplest shape, is that of co-existent positions that offer
resistance ; as contrasted with our conception of Space,
in which the co-existent positions offer no resistance. * * *
Hence the necessity we are under of representing to our-
selves the ultimate elements of Matter as being at once
extended and resistent : this, being the universal form of
our sensible experiences of Matter, becomes the form which
our conception of it cannot transcend, however minute the
fragments which imaginary subdivisions produce. Of these
226 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
two inseparable elements the resistance l is primary, and the
extension secondary. Occupied extension, or Body, being*
distinguished in consciousness from unoccupied extension,
or Space, by its resistance, this attribute must clearly have
precedence in the genesis of the idea. Such a conclusion is,
indeed, an qbvious corollary from that at which we arrived
in the foregoing section. If, as was there contended, our
consciousness of Space is a product of accumulated expe-
riences, partly our own but chiefly ancestral, — if, as was
pointed out, the experience from which our consciousness of
Space is abstracted can be received only through impres-
sions of resistance made upon the organism, the necessary
inference is, that experiences of resistance being those from
which the conception of Space is generated, the resistance-
attribute of Matter must be regarded as primordial and the
space-attribute as derivative. Whence it becomes manifest
that our experience of force is that out of which the idea of
Matter is built. Matter as opposing our muscular energies,
being immediately present to consciousness in terms of force ;
and its occupancy of Space being known by an abstract of
experiences originally given in terms of force, it follows that
forces, standing in certain correlations, form the whole content
of our idea of Matter." a
Space is admitted to be but an inference from Matter, or
an aspect of it ; Force is admitted to be the source of our
idea of Matter, which means the same thing as that Matter
is an inference from Force, or an aspect of it. Now substi-
tute the word motion for force and we have our definition of
Space — an aspect of Motion ; and our definition of Matter,
i. e. that Matter and Space are the same thing.
To get at Spencer's definition of Time and Space we quote
from a previous part of the same work :
" That relation is the universal form of thought, is a truth which all kinds of
demonstration unite in proving. * * * Now, relations are of two orders — rela-
tions of sequence and relations of co-existence, of which the one is original and.
'The italics are the author's. a " First Principles," pp. 166, 167.
HERBERT SPENCER. 22?
the other derivative. The relation of sequence is given in every change of con-
sciousness. The relation of co-existence, which cannot be originally given in a
consciousness of which the states are serial, becomes distinguished only when it
is found that certain relations of sequence have their terms presented in con-
sciousness in either order with equal facility ; while the others are presented only
in one order. Relations of which the terms are not reversible become recognized
as sequences proper, while relations of which the terms occur indifferently in
both directions become recognized as co-existences. Endless experiences, which
from moment to moment present both orders of these relations, render the dis-
tinction between them perfectly definite, and at the same time generate an ab-
stract conception of each. The abstract of all sequences is Time ; the abstract
of all co-existences is Space. From the fact that in thought Time is inseparable
from sequence, and Space from co-existence, we do not here infer that Time
and Space are original conditions of consciousness under which sequences and
co-existences are known ; but we infer that our conceptions of Time and Space
are generated, as other abstracts are generated from other concretes ; the only
difference being that the organization of experiences has, in these cases, been,
going on throughout the entire evolution of Intelligence. * * * It remains only
to point out, as a thing which we must not forget, that the experiences from which
the consciousness of Space arises, are experiences of force. A certain correla-
tion of the muscular forces which we ourselves exercise is the index of each posi-
tion as originally disclosed to us ; and the resistance which makes us aware of
something existing in that position is an equivalent of the pressure which
we consciously exert. Thus experiences of forces variously correlated are those
from which our consciousness of Space is abstracted. " l
In reading the above, it is difficult to believe that Spencer
was not fully aware of the existence of an ultimate Reality,
of which all other facts are but more or less remote aspects.
It is hard to understand how so penetrating a mind could
declare that Force is the origin of all ideas and all facts :
"that Relation is the universal form of thought," — "that
Relations are of two orders, relations of sequence and rela-
tions of co-existence," — without seeing that the ultimate
relation is the universal fact of motion, having for its terms,
or aspects, the primordial inferences known as Space and
Time.
A little farther on we find the following, which is a very
clear portrayal of the difference between the simple solution
of the metaphysical problem which we offer and that offered
by Mr. Spencer : — " Is Space in itself a form or condition of
1 •• First Principles," pp. 163, 165.
228 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION".
absolute existence,1 producing in our minds a corresponding
form or condition of relative existence ? This is an unan-
swerable question. Our conception of Space is produced by
some mode of the Unknowable ; and the complete unchange-
ableness of our conception of it simply implies a complete uni-
formity in the effects wrought by this mode of the Unknowable
upon us? But therefore to call it a necessary mode of the
Unknowable is illegitimate. All we can assert is, that
Space is a relative reality ; that our consciousness of this
unchanging relative reality implies an absolute reality
equally unchanging, in so far as we are concerned; and
that the relative reality may be unhesitatingly accepted
in thought as a valid basis for our reasonings ; which, when
rightly carried on, will bring us to truths that have a like
relative reality, — the only truths which concern us or can
possibly be known to us. Concerning Time, relative and
absolute, a parallel argument leads to parallel conclusions.
These are too obvious to need specifying in detail." 5
Again, in contrast with the above notion of Space, as an
" unchangeable," " fixed form," mark the following, taken
from the chapter on the Perception of Space, in which it is
distinctly denied that Space is a fixed form or unchangeable
conception : — " And now mark that while these several
peculiarities in our space-perceptions harmonize with, and
receive their interpretations from, the experience-hypothesis,
taken in that expanded form implied by the doctrine of
Evolution, they are not interpretable by, and are quite in-
congruous with, the Kantian hypothesis. Without insisting
on the fact that our sensations of sound and odor do not
originally carry with them the consciousness of space at all,
there is the fact that, along with those sensations of taste,
touch, and sight, which do carry this consciousness with
them, it is carried in extremely different degrees, — a fact
quite unaccountable if space is given before all experience
as a form of intuition. That our consciousness of adjacent
1 The term Absolute Existence is a contradiction in terms.
a The italics are the author's. 8 " First Principles," p. 165.
HERBERT SPENCER. 22g
space is far more complete than our consciousness of remote
space, is also at variance with the hypothesis ; which, for
aught that appears to the contrary, implies homogeneity.
Similarly with that variation in the distinctness of surround-
ing parts of space which occurs as we turn our eyes now to
one point and now to another : were space a subjective form
not derived from experience, there should be no such varia-
tion. Again: the contrast between the spontaneous con-
sciousness of space within a room and the consciousness of
the space beyond its walls, which does not come spon-
taneously, is a contrast for which there seems no reason
if space is a fixed form." 1 This hardly harmonizes with
" the complete unchangeableness of our conception of Space
produced by some mode of the unknowable upon us," but
if we remove the theory of the unknowable the incongruity
between the two conceptions of Space at once disappears.
In making these close comparisons of passages occurring
widely apart in a great system, and written at considerable
intervals of time and study, every allowance should be made.
I would especially disclaim any intent of captious criticism.
It is my desire only to show the futility of all attempts to
account for Space and Time in any other way than as as-
pects of Motion ; to show how the greatest minds become
lost in the labyrinth of error which lies outside of this simple
and direct solution. The above contrasted passages also
help to show the intimate connection between the metaphy-
sical problem and the problem of perception which we are
studying.
To return to the first of the above quotations, we would
simply repeat that the term unknowable is self-contradictory ;
nothing can be unknowable. If we know the universal
principle, we could know any form of it, were it presented to
us. In its nature, at least, the field of knowledge is infinite.
Our knowledge is limited by our lives — that is to say, there
is, and always will be, to limited beings, a vast unknown;
but the antithesis of known is unknown, not unknowable.
1 " Psychology," vol. II., pp. 200, 2OI.
23O THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
Life is a universal principle with which knowledge in its
widest sense can be identified, therefore knowable has no
meaning, and unknowable has none. If life is a universal
principle, what sense would there be in the word livable ?
If knowledge is a universal principle, what sense is there in
the word knowable ? There are no unanswerable questions,
there are only unanswered questions.
In the note 1 below will be found a transcript of the best
1 SPENCER'S ANALYSIS OF THE PERCEPTION OF SPACE AND TIME.
" Whether visual or tactual, every perception of the space-attributes of body is
decomposable into perceptions of relative position ; that all perceptions of relative
position are decomposable into perceptions of the relative position of subject and
object ; and that these relations of position are knowable only through motion.
Such being now our data, the first question that arises is, How, through experi-
ences of occupied extension, or body, can we ever gain the notion of unoccu-
pied extension, or space ? How, from the perception of a relation between
resistant positions, do we progress to the perception of a relation between non-
resistant positions ? If all the space-attributes of a body are resolvable into
relations of position between subject and object, disclosed in the act of touch —
if originally, relative position is only thus knowable — if, therefore, position is,
to the nascent intelligence, incognizable except as the position of something
that produces an impression on the organism, — how is it possible for the idea of
position ever to be dissociated from that of body ?
" This problem, difficult of solution as it appears, is really a very easy one.
If, after some particular motion of a limb, there invariably came a sensation
of softness ; after some other, one of roughness ; after some other, one of
hardness — or if, after those movements of the eye needed for some special act
of vision, there always came a sensation of redness ; after some others, a sen-
sation of blueness ; and so on ; — it is manifest that, in conformity with the
laws of association, there would be established constant relations between such
motions and such sensations. If positions were conceived at all, they would be
conceived as invariably occupied by things producing special impressions ; and
it would be impossible to dissociate the positions from the things. But as we
find that a certain movement of the hand, which once brought it in contact with
something hot, now brings it in contact with something sharp, and now with
nothing at all ; and as we find that a certain movement of the eye, which once
was followed by the sight of a black object, is now followed by the sight of a
white object, and now by the sight of no object ; it results that the idea of the
particular position accompanying each one of these movements is, by accumu-
lated experiences, dissociated from objects and impressions. It results, too,
that as there are endless such movements, there come to be endless such posi-
tions conceived as existing apart from body. And it results, further, that as in
the first and in every subsequent act of perception, each position is known as
HERBERT SPENCER.
analysis of the perception of Space and Time which occurs
in the work of Mr. Spencer. This analysis is given to
show that his study of the perception of these categories
from the physical or organic side has been most successful.
It is the manner in which he deals with the relations be-
tween the categories themselves that we find so confusing
and unsatisfactory. To the habitual student of these subjects
this analysis will be a pleasant and profitable review, and to
co-existent with the subject, there arises a consciousness of countless such co-
existent positions ; that is — of Space. This is not offered as an ultimate inter-
pretation ; for, as before admitted, the difficulty is to account for our notion of
relative position. All that is here attempted is, partially to explain how, from
that primitive notion, our consciousness of Space in its totality is built up.
" Carrying with us this idea, calling to mind the structure of the retina, and
remembering the mode in which the relations among its elements are estab-
lished, it will, I think, become possible to conceive how that wonderful percep-
tion we have of visible space is generated. It is a peculiarity of sight that
makes us partially conscious of many things at once. On now raising my
head, I take in at a glance, desk, papers, table, books, chairs, walls, carpet,
window, and sundry objects outside : all of them simultaneously impressing me
with various details of color, suggesting surface and structure. True, I am not
equally conscious of all these things at the same time. I find that some one
object at which I am looking is more distinctly present to my mind than any
other, and that the one point in this object on which the visual axes converge is
more vividly perceived than the rest. In fact, I have a perfect perception of
scarcely more than an infinitesimal portion of the whole visual area. Neverthe-
less, even while concentrating my attention on this infinitesimal portion, I am
in some degree aware of the whole. My complete consciousness of a particu-
lar letter on the back of a book does not exclude a consciousness that there are
accompanying letters — does not exclude a consciousness of the book — does not
exclude a consciousness of the table on which the book lies, — nay, does not
occlude even a consciousness of the wall against which the table stands. All
these things are present to me in different degrees of intensity — degrees that
become less, partly in proportion as the things are unobtrusive in color and
size, and partly in proportion as they recede from the centre of the visual field.
Not that these many surrounding things are definitely known as such or such ;
for, while keeping my eyes fixed on one object, I cannot make that assertory
judgment respecting any adjacent object which a real cognition of it implies,
without becoming, for the moment, imperfectly conscious of the object on
which my eyes are fixed. But notwithstanding all this, it remains true that these
various objects are in some sense present to my mind — are incipiently perceived
— are* severally tending to fill the consciousness — are each of them partially
•exciting the mental states that would arise were it to be distinctly perceived.
232 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
those to whom it may be new we recommend it as a
specimen of Spencer's best work, — an example of that care-
ful and exhaustive study of obscure phenomena which has
given to his writings so high a place in the estimation of
scholars.
In this analysis is illustrated our complete dependence
upon the primordial fact of Motion for our ideas of Space
and Time ; for it is the same thing to say that we derive our
" This peculiarity in the faculty of sight (to which there is nothing analogous
in the faculties of taste and smell ; which, in the faculty of hearing, is vaguely
represented by our appreciation of harmony ; and which is but very imperfectly
paralleled in the tactual faculty by the ability we have to discern irregularities
in a surface on which the hand is laid) is clearly due to the structure of the
retina. Consisting of multitudinous sensitive elements, each capable of inde-
pendent stimulation, it results that when an image is received by the retina, each
of those sensitive elements on which the variously-modified rays of light fall, is
thrown into a state of greater or less excitement. Each of them as it were
totiches some particular part of the image, and sends inwards to the central
nervous system the impressions produced by the touch. But now observe that,
as before explained, each retinal element has come to have a known relation to
every one of those around it — a relation such that their synchronous excitation
serves to represent their serial excitation. Lest this symbolism should not have
been fully understood, I will endeavor further to elucidate it. Suppose a
minute dot to be looked at — a dot so small that its image, cast on the retina,
covers only one of the sensitive elements, A. Now suppose the eye to be so
slightly moved that the image of this dot falls on the adjacent element B.
What results ? Two slight changes of consciousness : the one proceeding from
the new retinal element affected ; the other, from the muscles producing the
motion. Let there be another motion, such as will transfer the image of the
dot to the next element,' C. Two other changes of consciousness result. And
so on continuously ; the consequence being that the relative positions in con-
sciousness of A and B, A and C, A and D, A and E, etc., are known by the
number of intervening states. Imagine now that, instead of these small mo-
tions separately made, the eye is moved with ordinary rapidity ; so that the
image of the dot sweeps over the whole series A to Z in an extremely short
time. What results ? It is a familiar fact that all impressions on the senses,
and visual ones among the number, continue for a certain brief period after
they are made. Hence, when the retinal elements forming the series A to Z
are excited in rapid succession, the excitation of Z commences before that of A
has ceased ; and for a moment the whole series A to Z remains in a state of
excitement together. This being understood, suppose the eye is turned upon
a line of such length that its image covers the whole series A to Z. What
results ? There is a simultaneous excitation of the series A to Z, differing from
HERBERT SPENCER. 233
ideas of Space and Time from Motion as to say that Space
and Time are inferences from, or aspects of, this fact. The
analysis of sensible perception given below also illustrates
how far beyond us, whatever may be our penetration into
the intricacies of phenomena, is this principle of activity,
and how it eludes all efforts at division or classification.
Now that we have followed out Mr. Spencer's analysis of
our conception of Space and Time, it will be interesting to
the last in this — that it is persistent, and that it is unaccompanied by sensations
of motion. But does it not follow from the known laws of association, that as
the simultaneous excitation is common to both cases, it will, in the last case,
tend to arouse in consciousness that series of states which accompanied it in the
first ? Will it not tend to consolidate the entire series of such states into one
state ? And will it not thus come to be taken as the equivalent of such series ?
There cannot, I think, be a doubt of it. And if not, then we may see how an
excitement of consciousness, by the coexistent positions constituting a line,
serves as the representative of that serial excitement of it which accompanies
motion along that line. Let us return now to the above-described state of the
retina as occupied by an image or by a cluster of images. Relations of coexist-
ent position, like those we have here considered in respect to a particular linear
series, are established throughout countless such series in all directions over
the retina ; so putting each element in relation with every other. Further, by
a process analogous to that described, the state of consciousness produced by
the focal adjustment and convergence of the eyes to each particular point, has
been made a symbol of the series of coexistent positions between the eyes and
that point. After dwelling awhile on these facts, the genesis of our visual per-
ception of space will begin to be comprehensible. Every one of the retinal
elements simultaneously thrown into a state of partial excitement, arousing as
it does not only a partial consciousness of the sensation answering to its own
excitement, but also a partial consciousness of the many relations of coexistent
position established between it and the rest, which are all of them similarly ex-
cited and similarly suggestive, there results a consciousness of a whole area of
coexistent positions. Meanwhile the particular consciousness that accompanies
adjustment of the eyes, calling up as it does the line of coexistent positions
lying between the subject and the object specially contemplated ; and each of
the things, and parts of things, not in the centre of the field, exciting by its
more or less definite image an incipient consciousness of its distance, that is, of
the coexistent positions lying between the eye and it ; there is awakened a con-
sciousness of a whole volume of coexistent positions — of Space in three dimen-
sions. Along with a complete consciousness of the one position to which the
visual axes converge, arises a nascent consciousness of an infinity of other posi-
tions— a consciousness that is nascent in the same sense that our conscious-
ness of the various objects out of the centre of the visual field is nascent. One
234 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
note the propositions in regard to the " ultimate realities "
with which he originally sets out. These propositions de-
•clare him to be an agnostic or, in better language, a skep-
tic, or a disbeliever in the integrity of human knowledge.
For what faith can we have in a knowledge which has its
-deepest foundations in impenetrable mysteries? If we can-
not understand the first principles of knowledge, how are we
'really to know any thing ? If we cannot grasp the deepest
-addition must be made. As the innumerable relations subsisting among these
coexistent positions were originally established by motion ; as each of these rela-
tions came by habit to stand for the series of mental states accompanying the
•motion which measured IT ; as every one of such relations must, when presented
to consciousness ', still tend to call up in an indistinct way that train of feelings
•accompanying motion, which it represents y and as the simultaneous presentation
of an infinity of such relations will tend to suggest an infinity of such experi-
ences of motion, which, as being in all directions, must so neutralize one another
as to prevent any particular motion from being thought of ; there will arise, as
their common resultant, that sense of ability to move, that sense of freedom for
MOTION, which forms the remaining constituent in our notion of Space.
1 ' Any one who finds it difficult to conceive how, by so elaborate a pro-
cess as this, there should be reached a notion apparently so simple, so homo-
geneous, as that which we have of Space, will feel the difficulty diminished on
recalling these several facts : — First, that the experiences out of which the no-
tion is framed and consolidated are in their essentials the same for ourselves and
for the ancestral races of creatures from which we inherit our organizations, and
that these uniform ancestral experiences, potentially present in the nervous
structures bequeathed to us, constitute a partially-innate preparedness for the
•notion ; second, that the individual experiences which repeat these ancestral
••experiences commence at birth, and serve to aid the development of the cor-
relative structures while they give them their ultimate definiteness ; third, that
every day throughout our lives, and throughout the whole of each day, we are
repeating our experiences of these innumerable coexistences of position and
their several equivalences to the serial states of feeling accompanying motions ;
and fourth, that after development is complete these experiences invariably
agree — that these relations of coexistent positions are unchangeable — are ever
the same toward each other and the subject — are ever equivalent to the same
motions. On bearing in mind this inheritance of latent experiences, this early
commencement of the experiences that verify and complete them, this infinite
repetition of them, and their absolute uniformity ; and on further remembering
the power which, in virtue of its structure, the eye possesses of partially suggest-
ing to the mind countless such experiences at the same moment ; it will become
possible to conceive how we acquire that consolidated idea of Space in its totality,
which at first seems so inexplicable."
HERBERT SPENCER. 235
meaning of life, how are we really to live ? We would not be
understood to infer that this demoralizing skepticism, known
as the belief in the unknowable, is not thrown off in the bet-
ter portions of Mr. Spencer's teachings. No one who care-
fully examines his analysis of our conceptions of Space and
Time given below can fail to see that Mr. Spencer at times
Upon the Perception of Time. — " The reciprocity between our cognitions of
Space and Time, alike in their primitive and most developed forms, being un-
derstood ; and the consequent impossibility of considering either of them
-entirely alone, being inferred ; let us go on to deal more particularly with Time.
As the notions of Space and Coexistence are inseparable, so are the notions of
Time and Sequence. It is impossible to think of Time without thinking of
some succession ; and it is equally impossible to think of any succession without
thinking of Time. * * * The doctrine that Time is knowable only by the suc-
cession of our mental states calls for little exposition, it is so well established a
doctrine. All that seems here necessary is to restate it in a way which will
bring out its harmony with the foregoing doctrine. * * * As any relation of co-
existent positions — any portion of space — is conceived by us as such or such,
-according to the number of other positions that intervene ; so any relation of
sequent positions — any portion of time — is conceived by us as such or such, ac-
cording to the number of other positions that intervene. Thus, a particular
time is a relation of position between some two states in the series of states
of consciousness. And Time in general, as known to us, is the abstract of
all relations of position among successive states of consciousness. Or, using
other words, we may say that it is the blank form in which these successive
states are presented and represented; and which, serving alike for each, is not
dependent on any. * * * The consciousness of Time must vary with size, with
structure, and with functional activity ; since the scale of time proper to each
•creature is composed primarily of the marks made in its consciousness by the
rhythms of its vital functions, and secondarily of the marks made in its con-
sciousness by the rhythms of its locomotive functions : both which sets of
rhythms are immensely different in different species. Consequently the consti-
tution derived from ancestry settles the general character of the consciousness
within approximate limits. In our own case, for example, it is clear that there
are certain extremes within which our units of measure for time must fall.
The heart-beats and respiratory actions, serving as primitive measures, can
have their rates varied within moderate ranges only. The alternating move-
ments of the legs have a certain degree of slowness below which we cannot be
conscious of them, and a certain degree of rapidity beyond which we cannot
push them. Similarly with measures of time furnished by sensible motions
outside of us. There are motions too rapid for our perceptions, as well as
motions too slow for our perceptions ; and such consciousness of Time as
we get from watching objective motions must fall between these extremes." —
"Psychology," vol. II., ch. xv.
236 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
completely rises above the level of agnosticism. But this
fact only renders more confusing the system as a whole.
For instance, when we find such plain declarations of our
utter inability to understand the principles of knowledge as
occur in Spencer's opening volume we naturally look with
distrust upon all subsequent attempts to explain these prin-
ciples. In a word, why should Mr. Spencer expect us to
put faith in his analysis of those facts which in the very
outset of his work he tells us it is impossible to understand ?
Thus in the Chapter on Ultimate Scientific Ideas we have
the following declarations :
" It results, therefore, that Space and Time are wholly
incomprehensible. The immediate knowledge which we
seem to have of them proves, when examined, to be total
ignorance. While our belief in their objective reality is in-
surmountable, we are unable to give any rational account of
it. And to posit the alternative belief (possible to state but
impossible to realize) is merely to multiply irrationalities."
" Matter, then, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely in-
comprehensible as Space and Time. Frame what supposi-
tions we may, we find, on tracing out their implications,
that they leave us nothing but a choice between opposite
absurdities."
" Thus neither when considered in connection with Space,
nor when considered in connection with Matter, nor when
considered in connection with Rest, do we find that Motion
is truly cognizable. All efforts to understand its essential
nature do but bring us to alternative impossibilities of
thought."
" While, then, it is impossible to form any idea of Force
in itself, it is equally impossible to comprehend its mode of
exercise."
And lastly : " Hence, while we are unable either to be-
lieve or to conceive that the duration of consciousness is in-
finite, we are equally unable either to know it as finite, or to
conceive it as finite."
1 " First Principles," ch. iii.
HERBERT SPENCER. 237
Here is, indeed, a cheerful prospect at the beginning of a
study of perception ! All those principles which are ac-
knowledged by writers upon metaphysics to be " ultimate
realities," or fundamental ideas, are declared to be utterly
incomprehensible ; and, in way of reassurance, we are told
that to try to understand consciousness itself can but lead
to " absurdities." If agnosticism is an aggravated form of
skepticism, surely this is a high type of agnosticism !
The first requisite in forming a true conception of Knowl-
edge is to understand that the word, in its widest applica-
tion, means the same thing as life ; and that life is coexten-
sive in fact, and therefore in meaning, with the universal
principle, Motion. All activities are expressions of this
principle, whether they display the structure and function
of consciousness (the subjective world) or the statical and
dynamical aspects of nature (the objective world). Structure
and function are but the obverse aspects of every activity ;
they correspond to the more abstract or general terms Mat-
ter and Force, using the word force, as is so often done, to
signify motion considered apart from its space-aspect. The
more acceptable terms Space and Time are also the equiva-
lents of structure and function. Bearing these truths in
mind, the difficulty of forming a rational theory of percep-
tion, or thought, disappears.
If thought is an activity, to comprehend it we have but to
state its conditions. The theory that thought is the expres-
sion of an absolute or unconditioned principle has but to be
reduced to its simplest terms in order to expose its ab-
surdity. The word absolute, or unconditioned, is a much-
abused term in metaphysical writings ; it is an outgrowth of
our conception of Time, which, when regarded as a prin-
ciple in itself, certainly seems to move, independently of
any imaginable conditions. If whenever the word absolute
occurs its equivalent Time is understood, we cannot be
misled. To call thought an entity, or an absolute principle
in itself, is but to block the progress of analysis by clinging
to one of the aspects of the phenomenon and disregarding
238 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
the other. If thought is an activity, it must have struc-
ture as well as function ; it must have a space-aspect as
well as a time-aspect ; it must be an expression of the
universal principle, Motion. If there are two great oppo-
site spheres of existence, known as the subjective and the
objective, the ego and the non-ego, the conscious and the
unconscious, they are not absolutely different spheres, but
are interdependent, or related ; they act and react upon
each other, and are expressions of a fundamental fact which
underlies them both. What becomes of the charge that
such a theory as this is materialistic, when we remember
that the attributes of this principle are those which are
universally ascribed to God? This, however, is but an
ultimate analysis, it is not the living synthesis, of life.
The theory of Evolution is, that every phenomenon or
change is the product, or function, of its conditions. Every
phenomenon is a relation, or the joint expression of its terms.
The ultimate relation is Motion, and its terms are Space and
Time. The relation or fact called consciousness has for its
terms the objective and the subjective worlds. The study
of consciousness or perception (they are, in their widest
sense, equivalent terms) is the study of the conditions of
mental life, which are only relatively separable from the
conditions, of general life, or the universe. If we would
single out from this plexus of relations an ultimate relation,
or from this vast array of conditions ultimate conditions, we
have for result the ultimate relation, Motion ; the ultimate
conditions, Space and Time.
CHAPTER X.
HERBERT SPENCER (CONTINUED).
An Independent Study of the Relation of Perception to Organic Life — The
Interdependence of Thought, Feeling, and Action.
THE study of psychology is fast becoming a definite
science. Little by little its ontological superstitions are
giving way to the more rational method of approaching the
mind through the medium of its functions and structures.
The old system of taking for granted the existence of a
psychical principle as the only means of explaining thought,
is yielding to the belief in a universal principle in which all
lines of cause and effect converge, whether they describe
physical, mental, or moral phenomena. Speaking on this
subject, Lewes says : " Psychology investigates the Human
Mind, not an individual's thoughts and feelings ; and has to
consider it as the product of the Human Organism, not only
in relation to the Cosmos, but also in relation to Society.
For man is distinctively a social being ; his animal impulses
are profoundly modified by social influences, and his higher
faculties are evolved through social needs. By this recogni-
tion of the social factor as the complement to the biological
factor, this recognition of the Mind as an expression of
organic and social conditions, the first step is taken toward
the constitution of our science. * * * An organism when in
action is only to be understood by understanding both it and
the medium from which it draws its materials, and on which
it reacts. Its conditions of existence are, first, the structural
mechanism, and, secondly, the medium in which it is placed.
When we know the part played by the mechanism, and the-
part played by the medium, we have gone as far as analysis
239
240 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
can help us ; we have scientifically explained the actions of
the organism. This, which is so obvious in reference to vital
-actions that it is a physiological commonplace, is so little
understood in reference to the mental class of vital actions
that it may appear a psychological paradox, and a paradox
which no explanation can make acceptable so long as the Mind
is thought to be an entity inhabiting the organism, using
it as an instrument ; and so long as Society is thought to be
an artificial product of man's mind, — in which case it cannot
be one of the conditions of mental evolution." 1
What is known, then, as the social factor in the study of
psychology is that feature of the science which is by far the
most difficult to comprehend. A theory of perception which
•neglects the influence of this factor is thereby apparently sim-
plified, but it is incomplete ; for it is from the relations of man
to society that the bewildering complexities of mental phe-
nomena arise. The rudimentary communications of sentient
beings gave birth to intelligence, or the representative faculty,
and by the continued development of this faculty language
came into existence. Language, which is the condensing or
grouping of thoughts into symbols, has attained to such
perfection that a climax in its development has been reached
in the creation of a single word to express the interdepen-
dencies of the universe. In studying mental phenomena, in
tracing the connections of cause and effect throughout the
labyrinths of sentiency, we have to view human intelligence,
as a whole, in the light of an achievement or superstructure
of organic evolution. This is what is meant by taking into
account the social factor, the combined influences of life upon
life, of mind upon mind. The simplest definition of organic life
is the adjustment of the organism to its environment. Society,
as a whole, is an important part of the environment of each
human organism, for the response of each organism to
humanity marks the degree of development — the quality of
life. The counterpart of this view of the social factor is
what might be called the individual factor, the other term of
1 Lewes : " The Study of Psychology," ch. i.
HERBERT SPENCER. 241
the relation known as psychical life. In every perception,
however simple, the perceiving individual, as a whole, has a
determining influence. This view of the individual factor of
psychical life, the part played by the whole personality of
the perceiving individual in the phenomena of perception, is
if any thing more obscure than the influence of the social
factor. Perhaps the most direct way of explaining it is to
recite a passage, quoted in the foregoing chapter, from
Spencer's explanation of the genesis of our idea of time.
Time is a fundamental element of perception. If the indi-
vidual, as a whole, is shown to be a prominent factor in the
formation of our conception of time, it will follow that the
individual, as a whole, is an important factor in perception.
" The consciousness of Time must vary with size, with
structure, and with functional activity ; since the scale of
time proper to each creature is composed primarily of the
marks made in its consciousness by the rhythms of its vital
functions, and secondarily of the marks made in its con-
sciousness by the rhythms of its locomotive functions, both
which sets of rhythms are immensely different in different
species. Consequently, the constitution derived from an-
cestry settles the general character of the consciousness
within approximate limits. In our own case, for example,
it is clea»r that there are certain extremes within which our
units of measure for time must fall. The heart-beats and
respiratory actions, serving as primitive measures, can have
their rates varied within moderate ranges only. The alter-
nating movements of the legs have a certain degree of slow-
ness below which we cannot be conscious of them, and a
certain degree of rapidity beyond which we cannot push
them. Similarly with measures of time furnished by sensible
motions outside of us. There are motions too rapid for our
perceptions, as well as motions too slow for our perceptions ;
and such consciousness of time as we get from watching ob-
jective motions must fall between these extremes."
It is clear that the same argument applies to the genesis
1 lt Psychology," vol. II., pp. 213, 214.
242 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
of our idea of space, namely, that consciousness of space is
generated by the experiences of the perceiving organism,
and is plainly governed by its size. Our ideas of the large
and the small, the infinite and the infinitesimal, the near and
the distant, have our individual space relationships as ever-
present factors. In a word, we have no absolute unit of
space or time, but depend upon the space and time aspects
of our own organisms for our estimates and conceptions of
these elements of all existence. Now, if we remember that
the word element is used in the sense of phase or appear-
ance, and that the indivisible fact which presents to us these
phases, both of our own existence and of external existence,
is motion, we shall perceive the significance of the familiar
dictum that life, both mental and physical, is an adjustment
of inner to outer relations.
These primordial inferences of existence called space and
time, which are so fundamental in their nature as to have
beguiled many into supposing them inscrutable, are plainly
functions or products of our individuality. Our ideas of
these two elements of thought are fashioned by our experi-
ences ; our estimates of quantity or size, and of durations, are
measured by ourselves; and we can never escape from these
personal units, as they are factors in the conceptions them-
selves. Thus we have in the study of psychology what
might be called a personal relation, the two terms of which
are the individual and humanity ; and it is in the elabora-
tions of this relation that we have all those perceptions
known as the world of thought. To get at the true mean-
ing of perception, however, it will be necessary to dis-
pense, for a time, with the use of this word thought. If
it be admitted that to think is to act, the difficulty is at
once removed ; but the manifest difference between what are
known as actions and thoughts must be explained before we
can hope to make clear the community of meaning between
these two words, which is the chief aim of modern psy-
chology.
In the restricted sense in which the word feeling- is used
HERBERT SPENCER. 243
we have another difficulty. There are no absolute demarca-
tions between the meanings of the words feelings, thoughts,
and actions. Let us examine the first and last of these
terms, with a view to discovering the true meaning of the
word thought.
Feelings and thoughts are what we know of our own lives ;
actions are what we know of the lives of others. For the sake
of convenience, let the word feeling represent all the changes
that take place within us, which are, of course, without num-
ber ; they include all thoughts and dreams, all emotions of
every degree of intensity — to say nothing of that vast com-
plexity of internal changes making up the sum of our physi-
cal existence, of which we are for the most part unconscious.
Only a very small proportion of the changes which take place
within us ever occupy the attention. Our bodies and minds
are teeming with energies which we do not even suspect,
and which never cease from the beginning to the end of our
lives.1 Whenever we move a muscle or experience a thought,
there are disturbances which disperse throughout the whole
system. These disturbances or changes, which have their
expressions in heat and sound, and other forms of motion,
only attract the attention when they are sufficiently abrupt
to shock us in some degree ; thus every form of feeling or
consciousness is an excitement. In fact, attention consists of
the ebb and flow of these internal changes. Attention or
consciousness is itself a disturbance or change, but it is an
aggregate or co-ordination of changes, a moving equilibrium
with certain well-defined conditions, as is illustrated by the
severe limits to which consciousness is subjected by the
laws of health, and the degrees of activity and inactivity of
the sensorium.
Thus we see that the word feeling has a much wider
meaning than is generally given to it, and it is only by a
recent feat of science that we are enabled to classify feel-
ings, thoughts, and actions under the one great heading of
1 This incessant internal activity is said, by a great physiologist, to produce a
tone of which we are unconscious.
244 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
internal or subjective changes of the same fundamental na-
ture but differing widely in their processes. Perception,
therefore, does not necessitate a belief in a psychical prin-
ciple or any ultimate fact, other than that which is disclosed
through the study of the structures and the functions of
the human organism, and the faculties which arise from the
actions and reactions ever going on between the individual
and its physical and social environment.
Now that we have agreed upon a word to stand for that
great class of changes called internal or subjective, what
shall we call those changes which occur around us, or exter-
nally to us, known as objective? It is understood that the
word feeling shall represent all subjective changes or phe-
nomena, and that these changes viewed from without, or by
others, are actions. It will not do to separate feelings from
actions, excepting in a logical sense, as they are only names
respectively for the internal and external aspects of the same
thing. This fact becomes clearer when we remember that in
trying to find a name for all changes external to us we are
obliged to include in objective or external phenomena the ac-
tions of others ; for these actions are a very important part of
our surroundings. Using the word feeling in its broadest
sense (as signifying all those changes which take place within
us), it is clear that what are feelings to us are viewed as actions
by others, or what are feelings subjectively are actions ob-
jectively. In a word, we are compelled to classify the feel-
ings of humanity, or society, among the activities which
constitute the environment of each individual.
When light strikes the eye and produces within us the
phenomenon called sight, the sensorium, or the most active
part of our organism, is said to react in response to the
stimulus. The same term is used with regard to all the re-
sponses which we make to stimulations from without ; such
as in the cases of hearing to sound, sensitiveness to tempera-
ture, and resistance to strains. Again : when a bar of iron
is struck with force sufficient to produce perceptible heat,
the heat is said to be a reaction of the iron to the blow.
HERBERT SPENCER. 24$
When we place certain chemical substances, in definite pro-
portions and temperatures, in juxtaposition, the changes we
observe are called reactions ; and in a wider but not less exact
sense all the changes which we observe around us, from the
subtle relations called electric and magnetic to cosmical evo-
lutions; from the energy which we call vegetable and animal
life to the great panorama of social and moral phenomena
known as human history ; from the convulsions which are
registered in the physical structure of our planet, and which
are repeated upon so much grander scales in the sun and in
distant stars, to the comparatively gentle changes of the
seasons and daily variations in temperature ; — all are expres-
sions of the fundamental law or fact of action and reaction.
This law has many names : it is known in philosophy as evo-
lution ; physicists write about it as the conservation and
correlation, or the equivalence, of forces ; mathematicians
portray it as motion ; but of one thing we may be sure, that
the word action brings its essential nature truly before us,
and what we know as actions constitute its universal expres-
sion. This law means that every change is the exact result
of its circumstances ; otherwise expressed, that every phe-
nomenon is the function of its conditions. Cause and effect
are simply the opposite appearances of each event, changes
viewed from different standpoints in their succession ; and
these two factors, cause and effect, can never be more than
logically separated from each other ; they are merely phases
of the event. This law means that the universe is a plenum
of interdependent changes; each change we perceive being
the consequence of other changes, and that the great pro-
cession of events in which our lives appear and disappear is
the expression of one universal principle, law, or relation.
Is it not apparent, therefore, that it is alone in viewing
humanity as an active aggregate that its influence upon the
individual can be distinguished from that of nature in gen-
eral ? For if the actions of men and of nature are funda-
mentally the same, if the one is the product of the other,
and they are both the expression of one fact, is not the en-
246 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
vironment of each individual both cosmical and social, an
empire of interdependent activities united in allegiance to a
single power ?
But we have said that psychical life or thought is a relation
having for its terms the individual, on the one hand, and the
"social factor" otherwise known as the aggregate intelli-
gence of the race, on the other. What, then, is it that
separates mind from nature, — that gives human intelligence
an existence of its own, distinguished from general exist-
ence ? What forms intelligence into a whole, demarcating
the conscious from the unconscious world ? Is it not Lan-
guage ? Each human organism, by slow progressions of
development, — actions and reactions between itself and its
surroundings, beginning with the rude comparisons of a rude
life, and growing into the complex relations which we call
social life, — has slowly developed that vast organon of tran-
scribed thought which we call language or literature. The
individual organism has become gradually modified until we
find ourselves in possession of the faculty of responding to
the meaning of words. Through this delicate medium of
intelligence the comprehensive adjustments of human life
are made possible. The structural aspect of this intelli-
gence is language ; its functional aspect is thought. View-
ing thought from within, we classify it as internal change (or
feeling used in its widest sense) ; viewing it from without, it
is action ; and its community of nature with universal
change thus becomes apparent.
And now we are confronted with the profoundest question
of philosophy, the initial inquiry of psychology, the stum-
bling block of metaphysics. This is the vexed question of
subject and object ; this is where the idealist and the nomi-
nalist disagree, where the spiritualist and the materialist part
company. Upon the solution of this question depends the
success of psychology, the understanding of the true nature
of thought. If motion is the universal principle, having for
its aspects space and time, it is important to know what
constitutes this ever-present difference between space and
HERBERT SPENCER. 247
time ? Why are we powerless to merge these ideas in one ?
Why are we compelled to oscillate between these two terms
of the deepest of all differences, in order to form the con-
ception of motion or universality ?
The reply is this : that as our existence is individual, all
our knowledge is the function or consequence of this indi-
viduality. The difference, or relation, between ourselves and
our surroundings, between subject and object, self and not-
self, viewed in all its phases, gives us the sum of our exist-
ence. Time is the most abstract view possible of general
existence ; it is the consciousness of existence separated
from the events which fill it ; it is the subjective view of life.
Space is the objective or external view of general life,
separated from all particulars. Thus the aspects of motion,
space and time, are merely the natural products of the dif-
ference between subject and object ; and in this fundamen-
tal difference we have the explanation of psychical life, or
thought traced to the relatively simple adjustments of primi-
tive organisms to their environment.
Now it may be objected that this fundamental difference,
or relation, between self and not-self, between the creature
and its environment, is precisely the mystery of life and
thought, and that it is none the less a mystery because of
the simplification of its terms.
The reply to this is, that if by the term mystery is meant
a point or principle which defies analysis, I cordially
consent that life is a mystery ; but I deny that life is one
mystery and that thought is another, or that human life
presents us with a different mystery from that of universal
life, or that organic changes are either more or less mys-
terious than cosmical or inorganic changes.
If that unity in all things can be established which cul-
minates in the conception of God, — a universal principle
whose aspects or attributes are the infinite and the absolute,
or space and time, — philosophy will be fully satisfied. No
theory of providence which is built upon so commanding a
view of nature as this will shock the finest logical sensibilities.
248 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
No teleology which can spring from such a conception as
this will appear narrow or anthropomorphic, or suffer by
comparison with the most dignified and resplendent achieve-
ments of thought.
To recapitulate, we have the following important results.
The first or primordial difference, or relation,1 from which
the great phenomenon called thought is evolved, is the dif-
ference between subject and object, self and not-self. This
difference is the same as that which exists between time and
space.
Thinking is relationing, multiplying, or grouping differ-
ences. Every thought is expressed in terms of time and
space, and declares an action of which these are the aspects.
When we compare two existences, or become conscious of
external coexistences, we contrast the objective terms of two
distinct relations by dropping, or not attending to, the sub-
jective terms. When we estimate durations, or become con-
scious of abstract sequences or time, we contrast the subjec-
tive terms of two or more distinct relations by dropping, or
not attending to, the objective terms. Hence we have space
or coexistences considered as objective conceptions, relatively
1 In case any objection should be raised to the use of the words relation and
difference as synonyms, we quote the following as one of many authorities for the
statement that these words are practically identical in meaning : " Suppose an
incipient intelligence to receive two equal impressions of the color red. No
other experiences having been received, the relation between these two impres-
sions cannot be thought of in any way ; because there exists no other relation
with which it can be classed, or from which it can be distinguished. Suppose
two other equal impressions of red are received. There can still exist no idea
of the relation between them. For though there is a repetition of the pre-
viously-experienced relation, yet since no thing can be cognized save as of some
kind ; and since, by its very nature, kind implies the establishment of difference ;
there cannot, while only one order of relation has been experienced, be any
knowledge of it — any thought about it. Now suppose that two unequal impres-
sions of red are received. There is experienced a second species of relation.
And if there are afterward presented many such pairs of impressions, the mem-
bers of which are severally equal and unequal, it becomes possible for the
constituents of each new pair to be vaguely thought of as like or unlike,
and as standing in relations like or unlike previous ones." — Spencer's " Psy-
chology," vol. II., p. 212.
HERBERT SPENCER. 249
distinguished from time or abstract sequences considered as
subjective conceptions. From these personal relations, or
differences, the great organon of thought is constructed.
From the primordial adjustments of an organism to its en-
vironment are evolved the adjustments of the organism of
humanity to the universe, through the co-ordinations of lan-
guage which give to the individual the social factor, or its
intellectual environment, enlarging the terms of this relation
by insensible progressions from those of an individual and
its species to those of a species and its cosmical surround-
ings. From this simple theory of perception we are enabled
to deduce the inestimable truth that morality, which is
simply the vastly extended sympathy of an individual for
its race, is made possible by intelligence, and that it is the
natural result of human progress.
The chief point of divergence between this theory of per-
ception and that taught by such writers as Lewes and Spen-
cer, is, that it stigmatizes the unknowable as involving a
contradiction in terms. Since knowledge is the product or
expression of a universal principle, from which perception is
seen to spring, to postulate an unknowable is to deny the
source of knowledge. But there is a deeper incongruity in
this term unknowable than can be deduced by comparing it
with any group of facts. As has already been explained,
every possible conception is an elaboration of the difference
between subject and object, self and not-self ; to postulate a
deeper existence than that of which life and knowledge are
the expression is to say that a relation is not the expression
of its terms, that thought is possible in the absence of its
factors.
In the light of the preceding argument, it is unnecessary
to say that metaphysical discussions are merely comparisons
of the meanings of words ; once in possession of the funda-
mental fact of the universe, or the ultimate analysis, no pos-
sible combination of terms can disturb us. Amid the fiercest
conflicts of opinion this truth remains secure. It is in the
possession of a multitude of minds who feel its power and
250 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
express its meaning in their lives. Its language is action ;
its law is morality ; its sentiment is the sympathy which we
call humanity. Far from being an innovation, its light has
burned through the long ages of the beginnings of our race ;
no human life has been without its influence. The bright-
est promise which the future offers is, that this truth shall
gain universal sway ; that the actions of men shall express
that principle of harmony which the mind naturally imbibes
from nature.
In the widest meaning of the word thought, therefore, we
find a reconciliation between the contrasted terms feeling
and action, — a contrast which springs from the first condition
of organic life, the difference between self and not-self, the
subjective and the objective, the creature and its environ-
ment. These are the factors of the phenomenon which
we call thought. This reconciliation gives us a complete
psychology without a psychical principle, a religion without
a revelation, a philosophy without an unknowable.
Let us now consider the advantages which accrue from an
understanding of the nature of Perception.
In the opening of the chapter entitled " Function," in
the first volume of Mr. Spencer's work on " Biology," we
find this extraordinary problem : " Does Structure originate
Function, or does Function originate Structure ? is a ques-
tion about which there has been disagreement. Using the
word Function in its widest signification, as the totality of
all vital actions, the question amounts to this : Does Life
produce Organization, or does Organization produce Life ? "
And Mr. Spencer seriously applies himself to solving this
problem. The fundamental error of Mr. Spencer's system
of philosophy, as we have before pointed out, is in the in-
completeness of its ultimate analysis. An ultimate analysis
leads us to a single fact. This fact we do not find clearly
stated : the relationships between its many names and
the many names of its aspects are not explained, and
the student is left in doubt as to what this fact really
fs. Spencer's philosophy is termed by its author syn-
HERBERT SPENCER. 2$i
thetic. It purports to give us a synthesis of life, a com-
manding view of reality. This word synthesis springs
from a fact of perception. The physical or objective side
of the phenomenon of perception, it will be remembered,
is in itself a vast synthesis, or building up of parts into a
whole. The outposts of the understanding, known as the
senses, are merely channels of agitation leading to the great
central structure of the nervous system, called the brain.
Light, heat, the effluences known as odors, the relative
rigidities called resistances, are simply different kinds of agi-
tations of the nervous system centring in the brain. Mr.
Du Bois-Reymond tells us that the chief distinction between
the two substances known as the muscles and the nerves,
and hence between body and mind, lies in the amount of
activity of which each is capable. Again Lewes, in a
study of the relations of physiology to psychology, and
the incidental examination of the nervous system, has re-
moved many of the superstitions which have crept into
these sciences under the guise of the arbitrary localiza-
tion of functions, and has demonstrated the inseparable
nature of the two aspects of physiological phenomena
known as structure and function. From the simple organic
substance known as protoplasm, which, under analysis, dis-
closes a very high molecular multiplicity, to the synthesis of
organic life instanced in the individual of our own species,
structure and function are shown to be but obverse aspects
of each group of facts, which again are merged in the larger
fact of organic life. Hence the co-ordination of activities is
another name for organic life. When we use the word life
in a wider sense than that indicated by this co-ordination or
organization, it becomes applicable to that wider range of
activities known as mechanical or chemical, usually regarded
as distinct from vital.
Again : the science of organic chemistry, which is yet in
its infancy, has placed beyond dispute the great fact that the
distinction between vital and chemical activities is but super-
ficial. This discovery points to the conclusion, illustrated
THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
by Lewes, that the structures or substances of the human
organism, as of all organisms, are directly accountable for
the type of activity which each organism displays. This
gives us the startling fact that the four organic elements,
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, simply assert their
natures in all the phenomena of organic life ; jn other words,
that the affinities or activities of these and allied elements
account for all vital functions, from the primordial assimila-
tion, growth, and reproduction observed in the structureless
speck of protoplasm to the moral sentiments and the most
extended perceptions of man.
It is in the light of this fact that I object to Spencer's
definition of Life. For if organic life is accounted for by
those activities which outside of the vital sphere we call
chemical and mechanical, then the word life, in its broadest
sense, means activity ; organic life means organized activity ;
and no definition of organization, however extended, can
illuminate the meaning of the general principle which we call
Life. To say, therefore, that " Life is the definite combina-
tion of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and suc-
cessive, in correspondence with external coexistences and
sequences," is to say that an organism is an instance of the
adjustment of its internal activities to its external related
activities, and that organic life is organic life. Again : to
ask the question, Does life produce organization, or does
organization produce life ? is equivalent to asking whether
cause produces effect, or whether effect produces cause.
The only answer that can be given is to be found in the
nature of perception, which proceeds inevitably from sim-
plicity to complexity, from unity to variety, from the one
to the many, from cause to effect, from the principle of
activity, or motion, to the facts or realities of life.
That this metaphysical incompleteness of Spencer's phi-
losophy vitiates his whole system, is true only in a limited
sense. When so vast a body of data is organized into a
picture of life and its surroundings, the failure to strike
the key-note of the nature of perception is certainly pro-
HERBERT SPENCER. 253
ductive of minor discords, of unnecessarily involved expla-
nations which lead to no useful results. But these lesser
defects are overwhelmed by the comprehensive plan, the
consummate skill, the tireless research, and the earnestness
and noble purpose, of the work. Spencer's philosophy con-
stitutes an education in itself. No one can really study it
without feeling its elevating influence, and being benefited
by the splendid intellectual discipline which it imparts. But
it is further to be remarked : The tenor of Spencer's system
is sociological ; his illustrations are continually rising to the
level of social phenomena, and his originality is to be found
almost exclusively in this field.
Before looking on this bright side, however, it is incum-
bent upon us to examine the psychological department of his
work, which, we are compelled to admit, has the disadvan-
tage of demanding the most study and yielding the least
in return of any of his writings. The scope of this subject
of psychology has been outlined, from an independent stand-
point, in the preceding part of this chapter, and in the one
which follows we propose to examine carefully the method
of treatment which it receives at the hands of our author.
CHAPTER XI.
HERBERT SPENCER (CONTINUED).
The Analysis of Reason — The Fundamental Intuition — The Contrasted
Theories of Perception.
IN the second volume of Spencer's " Principles of Psychol-
ogy," the author apologizes for the abstruseness of the opening
portions of the work, and explains that the method which
he adopts, namely, that of a systematic analysis, requires
that it should begin with the most complex and special
forms of intellectual activity, and progress in stages to the
simplest or most general. He further says that this method
will tax the powers of even the habitual student ; and to
those who are unaccustomed to introspection (or the study
of the operations of the mind) he recommends patience, and
holds out the reward of an ultimate comprehension of the
subject if they will but persevere.
The first words of the second chapter are these : " Of
intellectual acts, the highest are those which constitute
Conscious Reasoning — [or] called conscious to distinguish it
from the unconscious or automatic reasoning that forms so
large an element in ordinary perception. Of conscious
reasoning, the kind containing the greatest number of compo-
nents definitely combined is Quantitative Reasoning. And
of this, again, there is a division, more highly involved than
the rest, which we may class apart as Compound Quantitative
Reasoning. * * * Even in Compound Quantitative Reasoning
itself there are degrees of composition, and to initiate our
analysis rightly we must take first the most composite type.
Let us contemplate an example."
The example given is the method of reasoning pursued
254
HERBERT SPENCER. 2$ $
by an engineer in estimating the comparative strength of
bridges of different sizes. The vast amount of experience,
or special knowledge, concerning the comparative strength
of different materials, which the ability to solve such a prob-
lem would pre-suppose, is reduced to a minimum by taking,
for example, an iron bridge, and the problems of strain are
simplified by limiting the example to the tubular class of
bridges. By these means the whole bearing of the example,
which is made to represent, as the foregoing quotation shows,
the most complex form of " Compound Quantitative Reason-
ing"'. is the joint application of two problems in mechanics
to the building of bridges. The first of the propositions can
be stated as follows : The bulks of similar masses of matter
are to each other as the cubes of their linear dimensions, and
consequently when the masses are of the same material
their weights are also to each other as the cubes of their
linear dimensions. This proposition, stated and explained
in language familiar to all, is this : to determine the differ-
ences between masses, agree upon a unit of mass, the most
convenient form of which has been found to be a cube, or a
solid of equal linear dimensions. Since the length, breadth,
and thickness of this unit of mass are equal, its edges or lines
are equal, so that a comparison between the total number of
the cubic-shaped units in each mass can be made by compar-
ing the linear dimensions, providing the number of linear
units in the linear dimensions is first made to agree with the
number of cubic units in the respective masses. The prob-
lem states that the number of linear units in the three
dimensions multiplied together (or cubed in case the dimen-
sions are equal) will equal the number of cubic units in the
respective masses, or that the masses are to each other as
the cubes of the linear dimensions. The stages, therefore,
in this first of the two problems, the joint use of which is
cited as furnishing an example of the most complex order of
" Compound Quantitative Reasoning," are progressions of
equations, or equalities. All mathematical progressions are
steps from one equality to another, beginning always with
.256 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
those simple equalities which are evident to the senses, or
sensible equations. Some savages who are unable to count,
form very good ideas of the comparative bulks of masses ; but
until they learn to count and measure they cannot understand
that numbers can be made to represent bulk. It requires no
mathematical mind, however, to see that they can ; and the
foregoing problem, stated in terms which the unmathematical
reader can at once understand, would be simply this : By mul-
tiplying together the length, breadth, and thickness of a mass,
we get a number which expresses the volume of the mass in
any desired units. This is the extent of the question ; for it
goes without saying, that if numbers are made to express the
exact volumes of masses, variations in volume imply varia-
tions in numbers, and comparisons of numbers are compari-
sons of masses.
The second problem is not so easy to reduce to its steps
of equivalence, or the equations by which its conclusions are
reached. It is stated as follows : In similar masses of mat-
ter which are subject to compression or tension, or, as in
this case, to the transverse strain, the power of resistance
varies as the squares of the (like) linear dimensions. Here
we have two things made to represent each other, or equal-
ized, or brought to an equation, which are widely different
in nature, namely, the power of resistance in a mass and a
superficial measurement. For if things vary with other
things, they must represent them, or be equal to them, at
least in the property which forms the base of the compari-
son. In this case, the squares of the linear dimensions of
two masses are said to vary with the power of resistance of
the masses. Therefore the squares of the linear dimensions
must in some way be made equal to the power of resistance
of the respective masses. How is this done ? There is a
law in mechanics, called the law of least resistance, which
locates the greatest strain in a structure in a plane. This law
or rule reduced to its simplest form is, that if a tube of iron of
uniform size and strength be subjected to the transverse
strain of (say) its own weight, the place at which it would
HERBERT SPENCER.
break, if the strain exceeded its strength, would be a trans-
verse section of the tube, or the plane of fracture. This
transverse section, or plane of fracture, is naturally two of
the linear dimensions of the tube, or mass, multiplied to-
gether, and in the case of transverse strains it would be
the two transverse linear dimensions which would be multi-
plied together to represent this transverse section in units
of squares. Here, then, the equality of nature is established
between the results of the two problems. In the first a
number was made to represent the bulk and also the weight
of compared masses. Since every mass has three linear di-
mensions, if it is desired to express these masses in com-
mon multiples, or divisions of their masses, of course these
divisions of mass, or units, must have three linear dimensions ;
and if we would compare the aggregates of units in each
mass, the calculations, or process by which these aggregates
are arrived at, must be compared. Now the calculations
in cases of solids or masses are cubic, or three lines multi-
plied together, and in cases of surfaces they are squares,
or two lines multiplied together. The power of resistance
of a structure to a transverse strain has been simulated
in the foregoing problem by a surface, and the weight
of masses by solids, so that the final comparison between the
results of the two problems is simply a comparison between
the methods of estimating the number of superficial units
in a surface and the number of solid units in a solid : one
is done by multiplying together the linear units contained
in two straight lines, and the other is done by multiplying
together the linear units contained in three straight lines.
Now if a certain operation is performed twice to accomplish
a certain purpose, and the same operation is performed three
times to accomplish another purpose, it is plain that the
result of the operation in the latter case will be larger than
that in the former, in proportion to the size of the original
operation. In other words, three times a given quantity will
be more than twice the same quantity, and the difference
between the results will increase in exact proportion to the
258 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
size or power of the unit employed. This is equivalent to*
saying that the difference between three feet and two feet is
greater than the difference between three inches and two
inches, or simpler still, that three is greater than two. From
this simple difference, the perception of which is not an in-
tuition, because it is a sensible fact which can be demonstrated
mechanically, we can build up, by retracing the steps of the
above analysis, the complex problems that homogeneous
masses, and therefore their weights, are to each other as
the cubes of their linear dimensions, and that the power
of homogeneous masses of like proportional dimensions to
resist transverse strains varies as the square of the like linear
dimensions. The whole comparison grows out of the fact
that the operation by which the weight is estimated is per-
formed three times, and in the case of estimating the power
it is performed but twice ; and this gives us the startling
result that three is greater than two !
Speaking of the above problems, Mr. Spencer says :
" But now, leaving out of sight the various acts by which
the premises are reached and the final inference is drawn,
let us consider the nature of the cognition that the ratio
between the sustaining forces in the two tubes must differ
from the ratio between the destroying forces ; for this cog-
nition it is which here concerns us, as exemplifying the
most complex ratiocination. There is, be it observed, no
direct comparison between these two ratios. How, then,
are they known to be unlike ? Their unlikeness is known,
through the intermediation of two other ratios to which they
are severally equal.
" The ratio between the sustaining forces equals the ratio
I2 : 22. The ratio between the destroying forces equals the
ratio i3 : 23. And, as it is seen that the ratio I2 : 2s is un-
equal to the ratio I3 : 2s, it is by implication seen that the
ratio between the sustaining forces is unequal to the ratio
between the destroying forces. What is the nature of this
implication ? or, rather, What is the mental act by which this
implication is perceived? It is manifestly not decomposable
HERBERT SPENCER. 259
into steps. Though involving many elements, it is a single
intuition,1 and, if expressed in an abstract form, amounts to
the axiom : Ratios which are severally equal to certain
other ratios that are unequal to each other are themselves
unequal."5
We submit that there is a direct comparison between two
simple quantities to which the compared ratios are reduced
by analysis. This perception of difference, which is so simple
and mechanical in its nature that it can be viewed as a sensa-
tion, is the fundamental activity of every perception, and to it
every mathematical problem can be reduced. Its origin can
be shown to be in the difference between self and not-self,
between the consciousness of a single serial existence, or
time, and of many existences, — coexistences, or space. The
statement that this final difference is only relative, ex-
pressing the obverse terms of the ultimate relation which
we call motion, is merely the completion of the conception,
the illumination of the principle, of perception.
That this principle is not taught by Mr. Spencer, those
who will carefully study the first ten chapters of the second
volume of " Psychology " will have good reason to believe ;
and yet a deep study of these chapters reveals abundant
materials from which this principle can be drawn.
Following the problems of weight and resistance, Propo-
sition XI. of the fifth book of Euclid is cited. After the
demonstration of this problem, the following remarks
occur:
" What are here the premises and inference ? It is
argued that the first relation being like the second in a.
certain particular (the superiority of its first magnitude) ;
and the third relation being also like the second in this,
particular; the first relation must be like the third in this,
particular. The same argument is applicable to any other
particular, and therefore to all particulars. Whence the
implication is, that relations that are like the same rela-
1 Intuition according to Spencer is an undecomposable cognition.
* " Principles of Psychology," vol. II., ch. ii.
260 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
tion in all particulars, or are equal to it, are like each other
in all particulars, or are equal.
" Thus the general truth that relations which are equal to
the same relation are equal to each other — a truth of which
the foregoing proposition concerning ratios is simply one of
the more concrete forms — must be regarded as an axiom.
Like its analogue — things that are equal to the same thing
•are equal to each other — it is incapable of proof. Seeing
how closely, indeed, the two are allied, some may contend
that the one is but a particular form of the other, and should
be included under it. They may say that a relation consid-
ered quantitatively is a species of thing ; and that what is
true of all things is, by implication, true of relations. Even
were this satisfactorily shown, however, it would be needful,
as will presently be seen, to enunciate this general law in
respect to relations. * * *
" The truth, relations that are equal to the same relation
are equal to each other — which we thus find is known by
an intuition (an undecomposable mental act), and can only
so be known, — underlies important parts of geometry. An
examination of the first proposition in the sixth book of
Euclid, and of the deductions made from it in succeeding
propositions, will show that many theorems have this axiom
for their basis. But on this axiom are built far wider and
far more important conclusions. It is the foundation of
all mathematical analysis. * Alike in working out the sim-
plest algebraical question and in performing those higher
analytical processes of which algebra is the root, it is the
•one thing taken for granted at every step. The successive
transformations of an equation are linked together by acts
of thought of which this axiom expresses the most general
form" '
This citation is given for the purpose of showing the great
importance which Spencer attaches to this complex rule or
axiom that " Relations which are equal to the same relation
are equal to each other" ; also, how he clings to the word
1 " Principles of Psychology," vol. II., ch. II.
HERBERT SPENCER. 26 1
relation as preferable to thing or fact ; although it is the
more abstruse term, and how decided he is in saying that this
rule is an intuition, a word which he interprets as " cognition
reached by an undecomposable mental act." : It is manifestly
a part of our theory of perception to deny the existence of
intuitions when the term is used in the above sense ; for that
sense presupposes an unknowable. " Intuition " is a very
useful word in describing mental procedures, but it can
never have a deeper meaning than that of a rapid percep-
tion, so rapid as to appear to be undecomposable. But the
principle of perception explains every possible intuition.
Notwithstanding that the mental organism of man has
reached such perfection that thought is able to cover vast
areas as by a flash of light, the operation is composite, and
can be traced step by step to the primordial difference
between subject and object, the primeval inference from
which all thought is elaborated. Far from this rule, "that
relations which are equal to the same relation are equal to
each other," being an undecomposable intuition, it is a
manifest complexity of the perception of difference which
is involved in every mathematical equation.
The reason for using the word relations instead of things
in the so-called axiomatic intuition is thus given by Mr.
Spencer : " It should be noted that the relations thus far
dealt with are relations of magnitudes, and, properly speak-
ing, relations of homogeneous magnitudes ; or in other
words, ratios. In the geometrical reasoning quoted from
the fifth book of Euclid this fact is definitely expressed. In
the algebraical reasoning, homogeneity of the magnitudes
dealt with seems, at first, not implied ; since the same equa-
tion often includes at once magnitudes of space, time, force,
value. But on remembering that these magnitudes can be
treated algebraically only by reducing them to the common
denomination of number, and considering them as abstract
magnitudes of the same order, we see that the relations
dealt with are really those between homogeneous magni-
1 " Psychology," vol. II, p. 12, foot-note.
262 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
tudes — are really ratios. The motive for constantly speak-
ing of them under the general name relations, of which ratios
are but one species, is that only when they are so classed can
the intellectual processes by which they are co-ordinated be
brought under the same category with other acts of reason-
ing." ' The word ratio means proportion, the comparison
of numbers or quantities. The terms of the comparison
may be things, or other ratios, or relations indifferently, for
things are merely complexities of numbers and quantities.
The fact that all acts of reasoning spring from or can be
explained by a perception, or sensation, of difference, is
opposed to the statement that it is necessary to speak of the
terms of an equation as Relations, in order to bring the in-
tellectual process represented " under the same category
with other acts of reasoning " ; for equations are merely
comparisons. The sign of equality does not mean identity,
but equivalence. There is always a difference implied in
every statement of equality. The primordial difference,
which is to be found between the conceptions of time and
space, or between the facts known as subject and object, the
self and the not-self, the creature and its surroundings,
accounts for this difference, which is implied in the most
complete possible equations. If "quantitative reasoning"
is the most exact, quantitative equalities express the finest
possible shade of difference ; and this difference is that of
position or space, which means the same thing as quantity,
for the word quantity never signifies more than an aspect of
any phenomenon. To equalize homogeneous things in their
quantitative aspect is to reduce their difference to that of
position, or only space ; but this difference of position re-
mains so long as comparison is possible.
Straight lines are generated by points in motion. The
most abstract terms of comparison possible are two straight
lines, because their difference can be expressed in the sim-
plest imaginable motion. Two equal straight lines give us the
ideal equation. If these straight lines are merged in one,
1 " Psychology," vol. II., ch. ii.
HERBERT SPENCER. 263
equality disappears in identity, and we have remaining the
fact known as the simplest possible motion — a straight line.
But, it will be asked, if the primordial or simplest differ-
ence is that between object and subject (the function of
individuality), if this simplest difference has its source in the
contracted aspects of motion, known as time and space, why
is it said that the faintest possible shade of difference, which
is detected at the bottom of every equation, is that of
position, or space? Why does not the other factor of the
ultimate relation, known as time, stand for an equally fine
shade of difference ? Why does not the factor of time also
appear in the ultimate analysis of equations? It has been
said above that the ideal equation was to be found in two
equal straight lines : " Two equal mathematical lines placed
one upon the other merge into identity, and alone exhibit
that species of coexistence which can lapse into single exist-
ence." A straight line is generated by a point in motion.
Two equal straight lines compared exhibit the simplest of
all possible relations, excepting the ultimate relation, which
is motion. A glance at the genesis of the conception of an
equation of two equal straight lines shows how absolutely
dependent we are, for every step of reasoning composing it,
upon the fundamental fact of motion. But in this fact of
motion is not the element of time always implied ? Can we
generate a straight line without employing the factor time ?
Can we form an equation without acknowledging the pres-
ence of time in the synthesis?
The first coexistence of which the mind becomes con-
scious, namely, the ego and the non-ego, employs the con-
sciousness of self as a factor. The conception of time is the
subjective aspect of that synthesis of motion known to us as
personal existence, and springs from the consciousness of
serial life considered apart from all conditions. The con.
sciousness of self, therefore, gives rise to our conception of
time ; and as the subjective is a factor in every coexistence,
no equation can be formed without employing time. But
we are continually forgetting, or dropping, the subjective
264 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
factor of every coexistence. When we observe objects in
space, we form the idea of objective coexistence ; but it is
done by recognizing the relation, or fact, of coexistence
between ourselves and each object, and then forgetting, or
dropping, the subjective term. In this sense, and only in
this sense, is the axiom that things which are equal to the
same thing are equal to each other a primordial form of
inference. It is the method of all comparisons, but it is
manifestly composite and is the union of two distinct com-
parisons, the establishment of two distinct relations, or facts
of equality. In comparisons, or equations which rise above
the simple relation of coexistence, the presence of the sub-
jective factor becomes more and more obscure. If, for
instance, we would establish equality of magnitude between
three objects, we measure them all by one and declare that
each of the remaining two, being equal to the one first
measured, or selected as a measure, is equal to each other.
If the objects were increased to four instead of three, the
process would only be repeated, and the axiom would read,
All things which are equal to the same thing are equal to
one another, or the relation of equality is constant between
like terms.
Among homogeneous objects this relation of equality
amounts to a declaration that the compared objects are
alike excepting in position ; or, in other words, the primor-
dial difference of space lasts as long as comparison remains
possible, and is the last to give way before identity. In all
this, however, the element of time is present, for the very
act of reasoning, or comparing, or ratiocination, implies the
lapse of time, and the first step beyond the conception of
time implies space, or not-self.
But it may be objected, if the faintest possible shade of
difference between facts is to be found in the comparison of
two equal straight lines, and the source of difference itself,
or the primordial or simplest of all differences, is to be found
in the comparison of time and space, or subject and object,
what is the difference between these differences ? The reply
HERBERT SPENCER. 26$
is, that when we compare two straight lines we compare two
motions, or two separate facts ; and in comparing time and
space, we have that contrast between the aspects of motion,
as an indivisible fact, which is the function of our individu-
ality, the germ of intelligence, the beginning of life and of
perception. Thus we see our utter inability to escape from
the primordial fact of motion, which gives birth to every
conception, for in the contrasted aspects of this fact we
have the source of every inference.
In the sixth and seventh chapters of the same work we
find a labored argument, the purpose of which is to review
the subject of " perfect " and " imperfect quantitative reason-
ing," thereby bringing the subject down to the subsequent
chapter entitled " Reasoning in General." All through this
argument a persistent effort is made to prove that the propo-
sition, " Relations which are equal to the same relation are
equal to each other," is what might be termed an irreducible
axiom, the initial act of reasoning.
In the chapter entitled " The Final Question," second
division of the same volume, Mr. Spencer endeavors to prove
that a complete theory of knowledge is impossible at the
present stage of human culture. By a complete theory of
knowledge he seems to mean a comprehension of the princi-
ples of life and mind, the determination of which is the aim
of all philosophy. This assertion is thus set forth : " But
while a true theory of knowledge is impossible without a
true theory of the thing knowing and a theory of the thing
known, which is true as far as it goes; and while it follows
that advance toward a true theory of any one depends on
advances toward true theories of the others ; it is, I think,
manifest that, since a true theory of knowledge implies a
true co-ordination of that which knows with that which is
known, the ultimate form of such a theory can be reached
only after the theories of that which knows and of that which
is known have reached their ultimate forms. * * * That the
theories of the known and of the knowing have assumed
their finished shapes, and that a finished theory of Knowledge
266 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
is now possible, would, of course, be an absurd assumption."
Here we have two distinct assertions ; the first is, that a true
theory of Knowledge can be formed, providing we can form
-a " true theory of the thing knowing and a theory of the
thing known, which is true as far as it goes." The second
is, that a true theory of knowledge is impossible as yet, be-
cause " the ultimate form of such a theory can be reached
only after the theories of that which knows and of that which
is known have reached their ultimate forms "; and the
assumption that this ultimate form of theory has been
reached is declared to be an absurdity. This, of course, is
equivalent to saying that a true theory of Knowledge (using
the word in its true sense, to include the knowing and the
known) has not been arrived at, and cannot be arrived at
in the present state of human culture.
The theory of Knowledge, therefore, which Mr. Spencer
offers is admitted by himself to be imperfect, incomplete,
less than true. Is not this a rather discouraging admission,
when we consider the vast amount of introspective study
which his system contains ? The degree of this necessary
incompleteness of our conception of knowledge is not de-
fined, but it seems to be measured by the incompleteness of
our understanding of the principles of knowledge, or the
categories of thought. Thus we are told that " Developed
intelligence is framed upon certain organized and consoli-
dated conceptions of which it cannot divest itself ; and which
it can no more stir without using than the body can stir
without help of its limbs." 1 This asserts that these " organ-
ized and consolidated conceptions " are absolutely essential
to the activity of the intelligence. We are not told what
kind of activity it is which organizes and consolidates these
conceptions, without which the mind is said to be incapable
of procedure of any kind. It will be remembered that these
conceptions are five in number ; they are enumerated in the
chapter on " Ultimate Scientific Ideas," in " First Principles,"
as follows : Space, Time, Matter, Motion, and Force. These
1 " Principles of Psychology," vol. II., p. 309.
HERBERT SPENCER. 267
conceptions were declared to be utterly incomprehensible ;
any attempt to understand them was said to lead to absurd-
ities. Again : they were aggravated in a sixth conception,
called consciousness. This combination of incomprehensi-
bles was also declared to be utterly incomprehensible, which,
it must be admitted, was but a fair inference. Now is it
surprising, with this combination of inconceivable concep-
tions aggregated into an incomprehensible consciousness, all
being manifestations of the unknowable, to set out with,
that we should have a theory of knowledge in some degree
incomplete ? As a further illustration of the incompleteness
of Mr. Spencer's theory of knowledge, we would call atten-
tion to his belief in the existence of " organized and consoli-
dated conceptions," which are absolutely essential to intel-
lectual activity.
Conceptions are surely the fruit of intellectual activity,
and to postulate conceptions already " organized and con-
solidated," as a primary condition to intellectual procedures,
is correct only in a very limited sense ; in a broad sense it is
equivalent to saying that the mind can act without acting.
Here we have the vital fault of Mr. Spencer's psychology.
It teaches distinctly that " reason is absolutely incapable of
justifying its assumption. An assumption it is at the outset.
An assumption it must remain to the last." From a less
careful writer than Spencer these words might be passed
over as an inadvertence, but they are too consistent with the
rest of his psychological reasoning, and too prominent in
themselves, to fail to impress us. It is clearly admitted that
all intellectual activity is included under the broadest mean-
ing of the word reasoning.
By following out Mr. Spencer's idea of reasoning, there-
fore, in which it is said that the activity of reasoning extends
in an unbroken chain from those automatic procedures
known as reflex action to the highest efforts of the mind, we
shall perceive that it is hardly consistent with that theory of
knowledge which declares that the activities of the mind
1 " Principles of Psychology," vol. II., p. 317.
268 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
depend absolutely upon organized consolidated conceptions
which are utterly incomprehensible. " Reasoning, however,"
says Mr. Spencer, " is nothing more than re-coordinating
states of consciousness already co-ordinated in certain simpler
ways. * * * Men of science, now as in all past times, subor-
dinate the deliverances of consciousness reached through
mediate processes to the deliverances of consciousness
reached through immediate processes ; or, to speak strictly,
they subordinate those deliverances reached through pro-
longed and conscious reasoning to those deliverances reached
through reasoning that has become so nearly automatic as
no longer to be called reasoning." ] In a word, the highest
achievements of the mind are submitted to the arbitration
of the senses, or those automatic co-ordinations which may
be regarded as the natural activities of the physical organ-
ism, because so simple that they cannot be classed as mental.
If reasoning is thus traced from the simplest organic co-or-
dinations or activities to those involved efforts of the mind
commonly classed as reasoning, and if it is admitted that the
re-coordinations (or higher reasonings) cannot give to the
results reached a validity independent of that possessed by
the previously co-ordinated states, where is the break in a
chain of reasoning reaching from the simplest organic fact to
the most complex, or from the first co-ordinations to the
most involved co-ordinations ? Deductions when correct
are but natural effects of certain causes given in the
premises from which the deductions are made. Logical de-
ductions are the natural consequences of the meaning of
words, the symbolic representations of organic activities.
When Spencer teaches, therefore, that all the activities of
the mind can be included under the broadest meaning of the
word reasoning, and in the same chapter asserts that
" Reasoning is absolutely incapable of justifying its assump-
tion,— an assumption it is at the outset, — an assumption it
must remain to the last," — the contradiction is evident ; for
after identifying reasoning with all organic activity, it would
1 " Principles of Psychology," vol. II., p. 315.
HERBERT SPENCER. 269
be just as sensible to say that cause and effect, which are the
obverse appearances of every fact, are arbitrary appear-
ances, assumptions which cannot justify themselves, as to say
that reasoning cannot justify itself. Facts express and jus-
tify themselves, and the 'deepest fact is the end of analysis
and the beginning of synthesis, the principle of perception,
or life.
If it is possible to find a rank superstition involved in a
flagrant contradiction in terms, it is this theory which as-
sumes that reason is an unjustifiable assumption, that the
elements of thought are impenetrable mysteries, that knowl-
edge springs from the unknowable, that perception is the
function of the imperceptible, that conceptions are mani-
festations of the inconceivable, and that they spring armed
cap-a-pie into the world of consciousness, the manifest fruits
of thought, but denying their origin. Intellectual activity
is akin to universal activity, a form of motion. Conscious-
ness, thought, reason, perception, knowledge, are but differ-
ent names for different aspects of this activity. The prime
factors in this activity are the subject and the object, the
creature and its environment ; and in this dual aspect of the
phenomenon of knowledge (for knowledge we hold to be its
most comprehensive term) we have that contrast, comparison,
expression of difference, or primordial relation, from which
the great structure of mind is built up, to which contrast
we trace the origin of all thought, and by which we explain
Perception. The very word unknowable involves an absurd-
ity. To name a thing is to recognize its existence, to
classify it, and therefore to reason about it, and hence,
in some degree, to know it. In what degree do we know
the " unknowable " ? Hear wrhat Mr. Spencer says, in
another part of the same volume, in support of this
position : " The general community of nature, thus shown
in mental acts, called by different names, may be cited
as so much confirmation of the several analyses. * * * All
orders of Reasoning — Deductive and Inductive, Necessary
and Contingent, Quantitative and Qualitative, Axiomatic
270 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
and Analogical — come under one general form. Here we
see both that classification, naming, and recognition are
nearly allied to one another, and that they, too, are sev-
erally modifications of that same fundamental intuition out
of which all orders of reasoning arise. Nor are classifica-
tion and naming allied only as being both of inferential
nature ; for they are otherwise allied as different sides of the
same thing. Naming presupposes classification ; and classi-
fication cannot be carried to any extent without naming.
Similarly with recognition and classification, which are also
otherwise allied than through their common kinship to ratio-
cination. They often merge into each other, either from the
extreme likeness of different objects, or the changed aspect
of the same object ; and while recognition is a classing of a
present impression with] past impressions, classification is a
recognition of a particular object as one of a special group
of objects. This weakening of conventional distinctions,
this reduction of these several operations of the mind, in
common with all those hitherto considered, to variations of
one operation, is to be expected as the result of analysis."1
This analysis shows all the operations of mind to be of the
same order, from the simplest to the highest co-ordinations,
and yet all orders of reasoning are said to be but modifications
of that fundamental intuition which is elsewhere referred to
as the function of the " unknowable," a group of " concrete
organized conceptions," which are in themselves incompre-
hensible, a group of intellectual " entities," " manifestations
of the unknowable." In case the reader should suspect that
Mr. Spencer makes a difference between the operations of
the mind in general and those operations which we call
reasoning, we have but to revert to the chapter on " Reason-
ing in General," where we find it admitted that knowledge
gained through the senses, or, as Mr. Spencer terms it, by per-
ception, differs from that gained by the reasoning faculties,
not in nature, but only in the directness of the apprehen-
sion. If the cognitions gained through sensuous percep-
1 " Principles of Psychology," vol. II., p. 129.
HERBERT SPENCER. 2? I
tions are the same in nature as the cognitions gained through
the reasoning faculties, at what stage in the development of
mind does the " irreducible intuition " make its appearance?
" Let us consider," says Mr. Spencer, " what is the more
specific definition of Reasoning. Not only does the kind of
proposition called an inference assert a relation ; but every
proposition, whether expressing mediate or immediate
knowledge, asserts a relation. How, then, does knowing
a relation by Reason differ from knowing it by Perception ?
It differs by its indirectness. A cognition is distinguishable
as of one or the other kind, according as the relation it em-
bodies is disclosed to the mind directly or indirectly. If its
terms are so presented that the relation between them is im-
mediately cognized — if their coexistence, or succession, or
juxtaposition, is knowable through the senses, we have a per-
ception. If their coexistence, or sequence, or juxtaposition,
is not knowable through the senses, — if the relation between
them is mediately cognized, we have a ratiocinative act. Rea-
soning, then, is the indirect establishment of a definite relation
between two things. But now the question arises, By what
process can the indirect establishment of a definite relation
be effected ? There is one process, and only one. If a re-
lation between two things is not directly knowable, it can be
disclosed only through the intermediation of relations that
are directly knowable, or are already known."
Reasoning, then, which is admitted to signify, in its
widest sense, all intellectual activity, is declared to be the
indirect establishment of a definite relation between two
things. " If this relation between two things is not directly
knowable, it can be disclosed only through the intermediation
of relations that are directly knowable ', or are already known."
Does not the above show conclusively that the genesis of
thought is from facts to facts, from definite known relations
to definite known relations, and that, in this admission,
there is no room for the unknowable ? Does it not appear
as though, in the analysis above quoted, our author had
1 "Principles of Psychology," vol. II., p. 115.
272 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
penetrated so near the truth as to forget that error which,
in other parts of his system, is shown to be at the bottom of
his theory of perception? Is it not clear, from the position
we now hold in this attempt at a Synthesis of Knowledge,
that the departure from the true course of reasoning in Mr.
Spencer's psychology is caused by the difficulty of account-
ing, not for the general procedures of the mind, but for our
conceptions of those principles known as space, time, matter,
force, and motion, and his consequent failure to perform an
analysis of perception?
Involved as are the operations of the mind in tracing them
out, we encounter no mysteries, no irreducible intuitions, no
facts which are not fully comprehensible or which do not
justify themselves. If reasoning is an institution of compari-
sons varying in complexity from the primordial comparison of
the subjective and the objective, which gives us the conscious-
ness of personal existence, to the vaguest and most remote
analogies, it is manifest that the process is constant in nature,
and varies in complexity with the terms compared. In estimat-
ing the likeness between homogeneous objects, we establish
equality of quantity by a comparison of measurements, or by
measuring all by one. We unconsciously employ the subjec-
tive factor in each relation of equality established, for we
virtually affirm that each object impresses us as the same in
all respects excepting position. When quantitative com-
parisons cease and more complex attributes or qualities are
compared, the use of the subjective factor becomes more
and more obscured, and we imagine that we are comparing
purely objective facts directly together, whereas we are al-
ways comparing the impressions which the facts make upon
us together ; or, in other words, we are comparing relations ;
but what are these relations between ourselves and objects
but facts themselves ? They are facts of consciousness hav-
ing for their terms objective and subjective activities. If
mind, then, is made up of these simple comparisons, perfectly
simple in nature but becoming more and more intricate as
-they ascend in thought, what becomes of that involved intui-
HERBERT SPENCER. 273
tion which we are told is so fundamental that it cannot be
reduced to any simpler terms ? But here we come upon the
difference between sensation and thought, between facts of
consciousness which have objective factors, and facts of con-
sciousness which are purely subjective. A train of thought
is set going within us, and the great machinery of the mind
continues to work out its comparisons with apparent inde-
pendence of the environment. These trains of thought some-
times occupy years in their course, and are silently progressing
during waking and sleeping, during all sorts of distracting
occupations, and at last complete themselves, in some cases,
with scarcely any conscious effort on the part of the thinker.
This is certainly a conspicuous instance of the difference be-
tween sensation and thought. Sensation has one factor with-
out, thought proceeds within. This distinction, however, is
only relative. The sensorium responds to impressions from
without, and each impression produces its modification of the
sensorium, its memory : impressions repeated become deeper,
the modifications become more and more marked. Each
modification of structure implies a modification of function.
The physical adjustments which correspond to those compari-
sons constituting thought are thus far inscrutable, but we have
the results in the clearer perceptions which accrue from
thinking, or, in other words, the more ready adjustment of
the organism to its environment. The difference, therefore,
between sensation and thought is, that sensation is the ac-
tivity of the sensorium which is the more nearly connected
with the external causes of excitement, and thought is the
activity of the sensorium which is farthest removed from
external causes of excitement ; and between these two ex-
tremes there are all degrees of combinations, varying from
what is known as reflex action to the most abstract and
involved achievements of reason. The subjective factor
in each comparison is ever present throughout all these
progressions, and the intuition by which Mr. Spencer places
so much store is simply a logical formula in which the
repetition of the subjective term in perception, although per-
2/4 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
fectly discernible, is elided or neglected. In fact, in the
light of the above analysis, it is far more difficult to see how
the objective factor remains present in abstract thought, for
it is clear that in those mental activities which have no direct
connection with the environment, which, in other words, draw
the terms of their comparisons from the memory, the objec-
tive factor is only present through such representation as it
has secured by modifications of the sensorium.
Thinking or calculating, therefore, without the aid of di-
rect verification, or practical demonstration, is an intellectual
activity which is carried on by a sort of proxy communica-
tion with the outer world ; and keen indeed must be the
memory, deep the impressions made by facts upon the mind,
to secure the reliability of the results.
We see, then, that there is an excuse, but not a justifica-
tion, for the assertion of Mr. Spencer that the simplest type
of mental activity is the complex axiom declaring equality
between relations having one term in common and the other
terms equal (relations which are equal to the same relation
are equal to each other) ; for although it is impossible to
compare objects without employing the subjective factor, or
without comparing the impressions of the object on ourselves,
or the relations between ourselves and each object, the com-
parisons, or relations, are distinct and complete in them-
selves, and the presence of a common term is only an
abridged way of expressing the repetition of the same term.
If the presence of the subjective factor is not the ground on
which Mr. Spencer insists upon the above form of axiom, the
futility of the argument is the more manifest ; for to say that
two things are equal because they are each equal to a third
is exactly the same as saying that three things are equal be-
cause there is no distinguishable difference between them,
which repeats the subjective factor in each comparison and
makes three distinct assertions of equality.
Should refutation appear unnecessarily elaborate, the ex-
tent and intricacy of the argument of which it is a summary
should be remembered.
HERBERT SPENCER. 275
The theory of Knowledge offered in this work, contrasted
with that offered by Mr. Spencer, may be set forth as fol-
lows : Knowledge is an activity coextensive with organic
life ; life is an activity which is universal. The activity
which we recognize as life in the monad is ultimately indis-
tinguishable in its nature from those expressions of the
physical forces known as chemical reactions or affinities
acknowledged to be but forms of motion. The activities of
organic life become more and more complex or special in
their development toward the highest type, which we find in
our own species. These co-ordinations still progress through
what is known as superorganic, or social, phenomena, through
the interactions of the individual and society expressed in
language and intelligence, culminating in that most perfect
activity known as morality.
In the march of progress, which is the most complete view
we can take of the universe, we are not passive spectators,
but co-operants. Our perceptions are limited only by our-
selves ; these limits are the expression of individuality. Now
this individuality is so conspicuous an attribute, that even
such minds as Descartes and Kant have mistaken it for the
most general fact, the one immovable truth. But if we think
a moment, we shall see that this truth is not absolute or im-
movable, that it is moving with the current of events ; that
it is a part of universal change.
Viewed in their higher developments, thought and action
appear entirely distinct ; but when we reduce the scale of
development to its lowest point, their community of nature
readily appears. There is nothing in the life of the monad,
in its affinity or attraction for proximately like substances,,
its consequent increase in size, and falling into pieces, which
could suggest such names as assimilation, growth, and repro-
duction ; but the fundamental activities of higher organic
life, to which these names are applied, are traced in insen-
sible gradations to this simple origin, and thus the differ-
ence between universal activities and the special activities
of organic life disappear. So the mental procedures, known
276 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION'.
as perception, or thought, are only higher developments
of these organic activities, and are plainly traceable through
natural sequences to the same simple source. Every
movement of the microscopic speck of protoplasm is the
direct function of its chemical constitution and its mechanical
adjustment to the environment ; and these names, chemical
and mechanical, are acknowledged to represent merely special
aspects or forms of motion. When the monad acts, how-
ever simply, that action expresses a law, or a truth, and con-
stitutes the simplest imaginable form of perception. There
is no structure to co-ordinate the action so that it can be re-
produced in memory, adjusted in thought, and readjusted in
action. The tiny cycle of change set up in this little being
is too simple to receive any such classification ; but from its
motions are built up the activities of the highest life, without
the intervention of any new principle. Science having
familiarized the mind with all these particulars of develop-
ment, the seeker after incomprehensibles is forced into the nar-
row limits of metaphysical terms. Space, time, matter, force,
and motion, are found in consciousness, and they are
found out of consciousness. One class of thinkers are
puzzled with the question how they got into the mind ;
the other, how they managed to get out of it. The
former class reason that as they are unknowables they
cannot get into the mind as they really are, so they must
run the gantlet in the guise of " organized consolidated con-
ceptions " ; and it is well understood after they do get in
in this guise, they are to be utterly incomprehensible. The
other class argue that these mystic principles are absolute
entities, independent originals, that are found in the mind;
and as they cannot in any way get out, they practically take
every thing in with them. These two great classes of thinkers
have, of course, displayed all degrees of ingenuity in expound-
ing their theories. Some of them, in order to protect these
precious fallacies, have built up intellectual fortifications
which bid fair to last, at least as imposing ruins, throughout
the existence of our race. No amount of subtility on the
HERBERT SPENCER. 277
part of these metaphysicians, however, seems to prevent the
above simple classification of their systems, although, in the
course of their arguments they have sounded the key-note of
thought over and over again. The ultimate analysis declares
these so-called incomprehensible principles to be but phases
of a fact which is in the highest degree comprehensible ; for
to this fact perception and thought are directly traceable.
This is the distinguishing feature of the theory of Knowl-
edge which I would here offer, and this it is which marks
its contrast with all theories postulating an unknowable as
taking part in any form, or through any manifestation, in the
constitution of Knowledge. With regard to perception, the
present theory teaches that the direction of perception is
the direction of organic life, that its source and procedures
are organic, and that the moving limits of individuality
are its only circumscriptions. Thus mind has no proscrip-
tions in nature. The vistas of consciousness are unlimited ;
the universe holds nothing back from thought. Through-
out the receding simplifications of analysis, or the advancing
constructions of synthesis, we meet with no fact or prin-
ciple, however general, which the individual cannot assimi-
late, and which is not in itself an advancement and en-
largement of our existence.
CHAPTER XII.
HERBERT SPENCER (CONCLUDED).
Sociology an Instrument in Determining Ultimate Beliefs.
WE have now before us the more grateful task of describ-
ing the merits of Spencer's system of philosophy. In " First
Principles," which is an epitome of the whole, and in the
succeeding four volumes, two of " Biology " and two of " Psy-
chology," we find a masterly picture of the related stages of
progression from the simplest to the most complex type of
organic life. In the first book of the above series, the changes
expressed in this progressive organic development are more or
less clearly affiliated to those changes broadly described as
inorganic. In the last book we find an attempt to explain
the organic side of mental life, and to apply to the highest
of all phenomena the formula of evolution. The march
from the simple to the complex is shown to be the direction
of universal activity. This idea is further elaborated in a
definition of life, to which we demurred because it merely
adds to the conception of universal activity the characteris-
tics of the activity of individual or organic life, and should,
therefore, be called a definition, not of life in general, but of
organic life. The principle so laboriously expounded, that
"Function makes Structure," which has a fuller expression
in the theory of " the direct adaptation of the creature to its
environment," — a prominent feature of Spencer's biological
studies, — was objected to on the ground that function and
structure are but obverse sides of every phenomenon, and
neither, therefore, can have precedence over the other as a
cause.
In constructing this system of thought, Mr. Spencer has
278
HERBERT SPENCER. 2?g
presented to the world a philosophy admirably articulated
and constituting an organon of scientific truth of inestimable
value. His best original work does not appear, however, in
the first five books of the system. Beneath the imposing
array of scientific knowledge we find an undercurrent of
ontological speculation, a persistent effort at an ultimate
analysis, which produces as its result, from crisis to crisis
throughout the work, the conception of the so-called " deepest
knowable truth," denominated The Persistence of Force. It
is true that at times this "deepest knowable truth " is de-
clared to be unknowable, but for the most part, with remark-
able consistency of purpose, he avoids placing this conception
among the weird group of ultimates fully described in the
last chapter, which are declared to be inconceivables ; but
the logical difficulty which this omission might be supposed
to avoid is only thereby enhanced, for Force, according to
Mr. Spencer, is a prominent name among the "unknowobles"
and how it is made to serve as the basis of " the deepest know-
able truth " is not explained. We are left to infer, perhaps,
that the depth attributed to this conception is solely a property
of the attribute persistence ; since we are certainly safe in
assuming that whatever property an unknowable conception
may have, it can lay no claim to a third dimension.
After this deep study of individual or organic life, which
forms the principal theme of the first five books above
mentioned, we come to the study of what Mr. Spencer de-
nominates super-organic phenomena. This is the science
of Sociology, for which he is so justly renowned. Its field is
human life ; its plan is to view humanity as a great organ-
ism, and to study the adjustments of this organism, as an
aggregate, to its surroundings ; tracing, through the changes
of history, the sequences of its existence.
The purpose of this study, as can readily be seen, is to
examine the different phases of conduct from the primitive
family or tribe to the race viewed as a confederation of
nations ; the object being to create a science of morality.
Too much cannot be said in praise of such a work ; its
280 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
very inception is an inspiration. The first volume of " Soci-
ology " is one of the most interesting literary productions
of our century. It is the romance of human life viewed
from the most commanding position which thought affords.
The subject of the Primitive Man is minutely studied ; his
probable surroundings, and the influence of these surround-
ings as the external factors of his existence, are estimated.
The physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects of his
nature are respectively considered, as the internal factors of
his development, and this development is shown to be the
establishment of those permanent relationships between
individuals known as social organization. The different
questions which the enormous periods of man's prehistoric
existence give rise to are considered with the characteristic
depth and thoroughness of the author ; and in his treatment
of them we have a graphic picture of the long and painful
struggle for existence which preceded the primitive forms of
civilization. The great impetus which co-operation among
men has given to human life is depicted, and it is shown that
social progress and the perfection of conduct are but obverse
aspects of the same development.
In this book we have Mr. Spencer at his best. Sure of his
subject and conclusions, his style is clear and comprehensive,
his thought deep almost to the emotional. Persuaded by his
earnestness, criticism gives way to conviction, and one is
content to read and learn. An idea of the method can be
gained from the following, which occurs in the chapter on
" The Factors of Social Phenomena " :
' ' There remains in the group of derived factors one more, the potency of
which can scarcely be over-estimated. I mean that accumulation of super-
organic products which we commonly distinguish as artificial, but which, philo-
sophically considered, are no less natural than all others resulting from evolution.
There are several orders of these.
' ' First come the material appliances, which, beginning with roughly-chipped
flints, end in the complex automatic tools of an engine-factory driven by steam ;
which from boomerangs rise to thirty-five-ton guns ; which from huts of branches
and grass grow to cities with their palaces and cathedrals. Then we have lan-
guage, able at first only to eke out gestures in communicating simple ideas, but
HERBERT SPENCER. 28 1
eventually becoming capable of expressing highly- complex conceptions with
precision. While from that stage in which it conveys thoughts only by sounds
to one or a few other persons, we pass through picture-writing up to steam-
printing : multiplying indefinitely the numbers communicated with, and making
accessible in voluminous literatures the ideas and feelings of innumerable men
in various places and times. Concomitantly there goes on the development of
knowledge, ending in science. Counting on the fingers grows into far-reaching
mathematics ; observation of the moon's changes leads at length to a theory of
the solar system ; and at successive stages there arise sciences of which not
even the germs can at first be detected. Meanwhile the once few and simple
customs, becoming more numerous, definite, and fixed, end in systems of laws.
From a few rude superstitions there grow up elaborate mythologies, theologies,
cosmogonies. Opinion getting embodied in creeds, gets embodied, too, in
accepted codes of propriety, good conduct, ceremony, and in established social
sentiments. And then there gradually evolve also the products we call aesthetic ;
which of themselves form a highly-complex group. From necklaces of fish-
bones we advance to dresses, elaborate, gorgeous, and infinitely varied ; out of
discordant war-chants come symphonies and operas ; cairns develop into mag-
nificent temples ; in place of caves with rude markings there arise at length
galleries of paintings ; and the recital of a chief's deeds with mimetic accom-
paniment gives origin to epics, dramas, lyrics, and the vast mass of poetry, fic-
tion, biography, and history.
" All these various orders of super-organic products, each evolving within itself
new genera and species while daily growing into a larger whole, and each acting
upon the other orders while being reacted upon by them, form together an im-
mensely voluminous, immensely complicated, and immensely powerful set of
influences. During social evolution these influences are ever modifying indi-
viduals and modifying society, while being modified by both. They gradually
form what we may consider either as a non-vital part of the society itself, or else
as an additional environment, which eventually becomes even more important
than the original environments, — so much more important that there arises the
possibility of carrying on a high type of social life under inorganic and organic
conditions which originally would have prevented it. * * * The influences which
the society exerts on the natures of its units, and those which the units exert on
the nature of the society, incessantly co-operate in creating new elements."1
To these immediate influences are added others more
remote. The physical surroundings of the primitive man are
all but impossible to imagine, so meagre are our means of
estimating them. " Now that geologists and archaeologists
are uniting to prove that human existence goes back to a date
so remote that ' prehistoric ' scarcely expresses it — now that
imbedded traces of human handiwork show us that, not only
J<< Sociology," vol. I., p. 14.
282 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
sedimentary deposits of considerable depths and subsequent
extensive denudations, but also immense changes in the dis-
tribution of land and sea, have occurred since the rudest
social groups were formed ; it is clear that the effects of
external conditions on social evolution cannot be fully
traced." '
In the second volume of "Biology" we find a series of
studies on morphology, which trace the special forms of
plants and animals to natural causes, and find in them an
expression of that general law of activity revealed as well in
the complex forces displayed in crystallization as in the sim-
ple and omnipresent power of gravitation. As a sequel to the
results of these studies, the theory of natural social develop-
ment is unfolded. The origin of the physical contrasts
giving rise to the classification of races is pointed out. The
ebony skin of certain tribes of Central Africa and the
blanched cheek of the Caucasian are made to tell their tales
of slowly operating causes. The Yakut child seen to devour
at one meal " three candles, several pounds of sour frozen
butter, and a large piece of yellow soap," the adult of the same
race who comfortably disposed of " forty pounds of meat in
a day," and the brain-worker of our zone and civilization who
subsists upon a modicum of highly concentrated nourish-
ment, are made to depict contrasted habitats and types of
social development. The theory that the life of an indi-
vidual from childhood to maturity simulates the develop-
ment of man from the savage to a higher social state, is
explained, and some telling comparisons are drawn between
the civilized baby and the primitive man. This theory is
made to precede the more general one, that all social as well
as individual development is an advance in the number, com-
plexity, and delicacy of the adjustments of the creature
to its environment, progressing toward the intellectual
through the physical and the emotional. The complete
dependence of mental upon social development is then
•dwelt upon. The remoteness of the higher orders of mental
1 " Sociology," vol I., p. 17.
HERBERT SPENCER. 283
action from the relatively simple and automatic reflex action
of organisms is explained. No stinted citations can give a
just idea of the power and faithfulness of these analyses,
or of the sweep of the thought which they describe.
" The environment of the primitive man being such that
his converse with things is relatively restricted in Space and
Time, as well as in variety, it happens that the associations
of ideas he forms are little liable to be changed. As experi-
ences (multiplying in number, gathered from a wider area,
added to by those which other men record) become more
heterogeneous, the narrow notions first framed, fixed in the
absence of conflicting experiences, are shaken and made
more plastic — there comes greater modifiability of belief. In
the relative rigidity of belief characterizing undeveloped
intelligence, we see less of that representativeness which
simultaneously grasps and averages much evidence ; and we
see a smaller divergence from those lowest mental actions in
which impressions cause, irresistibly, the appropriate motions.
While the experiences are few and but slightly varied, the
concreteness of the corresponding ideas is but little qualified
by the growth of abstract ideas. An abstract idea, being one
drawn from many concrete ideas, becomes detachable from
these concrete ideas only as fast as their multiplicity and
variety lead to mutual cancellings of their differences, and
leave outstanding that which they have in common. Obvi-
ously an abstract idea so generated implies an increase of
the correspondence in range and heterogeneity ; it implies
increased representativeness in the consciousness of the
many concretes whence the idea is abstracted ; and it implies
greater remoteness from reflex action. It must be added
that such abstract ideas as those of property and cause pre-
suppose a still higher stage in this knowledge of objects and
actions. For only after many special properties and many
special causes have been thus abstracted can there arise
the re-abstracted ideas of property in general and cause in
general. The conception of uniformity in the order of phe-
nomena develops along with this progress in generalization
284 THE MATURE OF PERCEPTION.
and abstraction. Not uniformity but multiformity is the
dominant trait in the course of things as the primitive man
witnesses it. No two places are alike, no two men, no two
trees, rivers, stones, days, storms, quarrels. Only along with
the use of measures, when social advance initiates it, does
there grow up the means of ascertaining uniformity ; and
only after a great accumulation of measured results does the
idea of law become possible. In proportion as the mental
development is low, the mind merely receives and repeats —
cannot initiate, has no originality. An imagination which
invents shows us an extension of the correspondence from
the region of the actual into that of the potential ; it shows
us a representativeness not limited to combinations which
have been or are in the environment, but including non-
existing combinations thereafter made to exist ; and it ex-
hibits the extremest remoteness from reflex action, since the
stimulus issuing in movement is unlike any that ever before
acted." '
No one can read this part of Spencer's philosophy without
perceiving the great power of these sociological illustrations.
Facts which it is practically impossible to discern in individ-
ual life become clear when viewed through the vastly ex-
tended scale of aggregated social life. This question there-
fore naturally suggests itself : Cannot we employ sociology
as an instrument for the discovery of the nature of percep-
tion ? Cannot the growth of consciousness of the race,
viewed as a whole, explain to us the genesis of consciousness
in the individual ?
Religion in its rudest forms, superstitious reasoning with
regard to the causes of events, seems to have occupied the
larger place among the ideas of primitive men. The study
of sociology brings these beginnings of the social conscious-
ness prominently into view. Primitive Ideas — Ideas of the
Animate and Inanimate — of Death and Resurrection— of
Souls, Ghosts, Spirits, and Demons — of Another Life — of
Another World — of Supernatural Agents — Sacred Places,
1 "Principles of Sociology," vol. I., pp. 84-86.
HERBERT SPENCER. 28$
Temples, Altars — Praise — Prayer — Ancestor-Worship — Idol-
and Fetich-Worship — Animal-, Plant-, and Nature-Worship—
Deities — these are the titles of the principal chapters of the
" Data of Sociology " ; they recite a long and interesting
story of the development of the mind of primitive men.
With no definite language or records of the observations
and experiences of others, the primitive man groped in utter
darkness. Hence, with regard to the natural order of
things, as far as they were not appreciable in his simplest
sensations he was without a guide. Thought had no mate-
rials to work with and produced but vagaries and phantasms.
Ideas of supernatural beings came into existence, and as a
result we find the ruder forms of ancestor-worship the type
of all the early religious beliefs.
Thus the belief in a surviving duplicate, a soul separate
from the body, is universal among savages, and was the be-
ginning of our ideas of the supernatural. Those who are
interested in the genesis of this belief can trace it step by
step through the course of the chapters above referred to.
Instead of this savage belief in a surviving duplicate being
an authority for our belief in the immortality of the soul ; that
higher understanding of life, which is the natural product of
a developed language, discloses to us the ghost as the primi-
tive type of supernatural being, and the belief in any form of
ghostly existence as a primitive superstition. To the savage,
who found his most powerful foe in his own species, it is easy
to understand how the ghost-chief became the ideal of supreme
power. Of course the ideal of supreme power is always the
object of worship. The savage and the civilized man alike
bow before what they conceive to be the greatest force.
The point which we would here emphasize is, that the mind,
or sentiency and language, is the instrument by which this
power is invariably appreciated, and the degree of apprecia-
tion depends entirely upon the quality of the mind. It may
be said that all power must be appreciated by the mind, but
this is only relatively true. In lower organisms the power
which accounts for the life of the individual is only appreci-
286 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
ated in the ebb and flow of physical existence. It is not
co-ordinated into an ideal or conception which co-ordinates
conduct. The apprehension of food, and the escape from
danger, are certainly appreciations, and therefore percep-
tions, of external powers or existences ; but there is a vast
difference of degree between these humble reactions and the
conception, for instance, of a personal God as the cause of all
things. The conception of Motion, however, as the ultimate
reality, or universal principle, is an effort of sentiency and
language which is so much higher than that of a personal
God, a militant ancestor, or a fetich, that the comparison
can only be one of remote analogy.
By viewing the human race, therefore, as a whole, or by
employing the inductions of sociology, which show the de-
pendence of human development upon its farthest surround-
ings, we are enabled to trace the principles of perception
from the simplest organic activities to the highest phases of
life ; and we are enabled to recognize in the gradual growth
of language and intellect the dawning of the moral nature
of man. Social life increases the harmony and definiteness
of ideas and actions, establishing language and conduct, and
we perceive, by studying this phase of life, that mind and
morality are concomitant developments.
To harmonize conduct with a true conception of God, to
perform an ultimate analysis of life or existence, and to
rebuild a synthesis which shall include and explain morality,
is the task of sociology. But how, then, can a sociology suc-
ceed which does not begin with an understanding of ultimate
terms? What have we to hope for from a treatment of this
science which regards consciousness or perception as a mys-
tery and the deepest principles of knowledge as unknowable?
Turning from these philosophical inconsistencies to the
same order of inconsistency in religious belief it will not do
for us to conclude that by the type of ultimate beliefs the
type of character or morality is declared. Categorical beliefs
depend almost entirely upon the education, and education
depends more upon fortuitous circumstances than upon char-
HERBERT SPENCER. 287
acter. But this argument is balanced by the fact that there
is a kind of ultimate belief, an appreciation of divine unity,
which is a true expression of character ; its language is that
of actions more than of words ; it is the genius for truth, the
natural integrity of life, which we call instinctive morality.
But instinctive or unenlightened morality has a limited
range ; it is too contracted, too feeble for a great social life.
The horizon of the unenlightened mind, like that of the
primitive man, is full of mysteries and portents ; it cannot
respond to the more delicate influences of life. On the
other hand, the mind which is sensitive to differences and
likenesses, which is active in reasoning, naturally revolts
against a narrow definition of God. This freedom of thought,
however, often asserts itself without seriously interfering
with settled religious beliefs, although these beliefs can be
clearly identified with primitive superstitions. This is the
latitude of belief which results from the vagueness of our
conceptions of ultimate terms. Thus we find many seem-
ingly educated persons, who would scorn to believe in a
ghost, clinging with pathetic reverence to the archetype of
ghosts — the belief in a personal god. These same minds are
in possession of scientific truths, classes of facts, which if co-
ordinated, if followed out to their logical consequences,
would utterly destroy this superstition ; still they not only
cherish it but they regard it as in some way connected with
the moral integrity of their lives. Hence, although we are
able to trace our belief in a personal god to the savage faith
in the existence of ancestral ghosts, and our belief in the im-
mortality of the soul to the primitive belief in a surviving
duplicate, we are confronted with the strange argument that
to surrender these heirlooms of the unenlightened mind
would be to endanger the moral order of society. Thus phi-
losophy, whose aim it is to illuminate conduct, has to meet
the serious charge that by teaching the true meaning of ulti-
mate terms it attacks morality.
Morality is generally conceded to be the consequence of
pure conceptions of life. How, may it be asked, can pure
conceptions of life perpetuate primitive belief ?
288 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
To the student of sociology it is clear that our religious
beliefs have been slowly evolved from the grossest supersti-
tions. If we would form pure religious conceptions, these
superstitions must be subjugated ; they must be recognized
as methods of the primitive mind.
The question, then, between philosophy and the represen-
tatives among us of these earliest beliefs of man, concerns
the degree of purification of which our religious beliefs are
susceptible.
A critic of undoubted ability, to whom these pages were sub-
mitted, objects to the use of the word God for the universal
principle Motion. He says that to the truly philosophic
mind, to the mind deeply learned in the history of human
culture, or the evolution of religious and philosophic be-
liefs, the word God is an obsolete term ; that the divine
unity of life and mind is symbolized by the principle Motion,
and that the word God is too closely connected with
idolatry to be used in the same sense. To this argument I
would enter the most decided protest, for the reason that
philosophy cannot afford to surrender the moral discipline
which is the natural inheritance of long ages of religious life,
however imperfect that life may have been. Religion, to the
savage as to the civilized man, is the type of his most general
ideas expressed in the best language that he commands.
Through the aid of that synthesis of facts which we call
the science of sociology, we recognize in our ideas of God
the lineal descendants of the childish notions of deity to be
found in the unformed mind. But on the other hand we see
in this development the natural progression of general ideas,
the development of the impersonal in thought and feeling,
which culminates in an ultimate generalization.
Philosophy would merely develop or purify our conception
of God, and our interest in a future life, making the one a di-
vine principle, the other an unselfish solicitude for others.
During this transformation of spirit, this amalgamation of
one culture with another, we cannot afford to surrender the
word which has served in all languages and all ages as the
symbol of an ultimate generalization.
HERBERT SPENCER. 289
In arguing that all worship springs from ancestor-worship,
Mr. Spencer reminds us that Negroes, when suffering, go
to the woods and cry for help to the spirits of their dead
relatives, just as the Iranians in the Khorda-Avesta call upon
the souls of their forefathers in prayer ; that the sacrifices
of the ancient Egyptians, which were commemorated in
the three festivals of the seasons, the twelve festivals of
the month, and the twelve festivals of the half month,
all in honor and propitiation of their dead, have their
counterpart in the offerings which the Romans made to
their Lares, on the calends, nones, and ides of every
month ; that the Indian or Veddah asks the ghosts of his
relatives for aid when he goes hunting, just as the Roman
prayed to his Lares for a happy termination to a projected
voyage ; and that the sanguinary Mexicans, Peruvians,
Chibchas, Dahomans, Ashantis, and others who immolate
victims at funerals, are but imitators of the Romans who
offered up human sacrifices at tombs. It can be imagined
with what terrible effect comparisons which bring such re-
volting customs down to the immediate progenitors of our
language and culture are used against us.
By this study of religious evolution, beliefs which appear
to us innocent, and even refined, on account of their famili-
arity and associations, are unmasked and stand out in the
hideous forms of savage life. Our very language is shown to
be primitive, full of metaphors which lead inevitably to
low orders of intelligence. Our puny generalizations, which
appear so gorgeous to us dressed in the livery of heaven and
hell and spiritual beings, are found to be but efforts of
a childish imagination. This incompetence of thought and
word naturally extends from the religious to the metaphysical
sphere. A theology which is revolting for its inconsist-
encies is given us for a philosophy, and the jargon of priests
and rhapsodists is taken for the highest forms of human
thought. The purity and simplicity of truth are profaned by
these mummeries, these emotional drivellings, these ecstatic
fantasies of the unformed life and mind, which are made to
2QO THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
assume among us the functions of divine light. So long as
we look to dealers in mysteries and portents and revelations
for our highest generalizations, we shall indeed live in a savage
age.
Language is the mind of society, and in its accuracy and
integrity are involved the amenities and possibilities of
life. The philosophic student of the future will look upon
our age as one of insuperable logical difficulties ; he will
read, with mingled pity and disdain, of men who applied
the word God indifferently to a vague idea of human form
and feelings possessed of universal power, to a trinity of still
more human characteristics, or again, to a universal prin-
ciple. He will not wonder at the misgovernment, the un-
necessary suffering, the general immorality of our age, when
he examines the indefiniteness of our ideas, the natural
accompaniment of our chaotic speech.
We look upon ages which had no differential calculus, no
algebra, no developed arithmetic, as unable to obtain any
definite ideas of obscure or involved phenomena. The stu-
dent of the future will regard the speculative thought of
our age in the same light. He will find, in this indefiniteness
in the use of ultimate terms, implied immorality, as well as
ignorance. What will even the children of the future think
of the way we employ such terms as Infinite and Absolute,
Space and Time, Matter and Force ? I read in the confes-
sion of faith of an eminent American divine, recently, these
words : " We believe in Christ as infinite within infinite
limits"; which, being translated, means, We believe in
unlimited limits, or in limits that are not limits ! This is
like those learned theologians of the middle ages who
reasoned about the ultimate difference between material
and spiritual substances, or, still worse, of existences which
transcend Space and Time. What can be more immoral in
its influence than such confusion of ideas as this?
The philosophy of Herbert Spencer can be charged with a
full share of these untruths. The theory of perception
which it promulgates is but a modern form of mysticism.
HERBERT SPENCER.
And yet in its errors it is fathered by men who hold the
highest position in English thought. Not only in it3 gene-
ral form but in the minutest particulars can Spencer's theory
of perception be traced to the philosophy of John Stuart
Mill, and this in turn to the long line of mysticism and skep-
ticism that gave it birth.
In the introduction to John Stuart Mill's " System of
Logic" we find a frank statement of the difficulties of the
problem of perception. Such candor in a writer inspires a
wish to agree with him. In this spirit let us consider Mill's
assertion that there are certain ideas in the mind which be-
long to it, and are of a different nature from those ideas
which are known as inferences. The first class of ideas Mill
calls intuitive, and says the inferential ideas are drawn from
this original stock of the mind, and without this primordial
store of (intuitive) truth we could build up no inferences,
and could have no knowledge.
" With the original data, or ultimate premises of our
knowledge," says Mill, "with their number or nature, the
mode in which they are obtained, or the tests by which they
may be distinguished, logic, in a direct way at least, has, in
the sense in which I conceive the science, nothing to do.
These questions are partly not a subject of science at all,
partly that of a very different science. * * * Of the science,
therefore, which expounds the operations of the human un-
derstanding in the pursuit of truth, one essential part is the
inquiry, What are the facts which are the objects of in-
tuition or consciousness, and what are those which we merely
infer? But this inquiry has never been considered a portion
of logic. Its place is in another and a perfectly distinct de-
partment of science, to which the name metaphysics more
particularly belongs : that portion of mental philosophy
which attempts to determine what part of the furniture of
the mind belongs to it originally, and what part is constructed
out of materials furnished to it from without. To this
science appertain the great and much debated questions of
the existence of matter ; the existence of spirit, and of a
THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
distinction between it and matter; the reality of time and
space, as things without the mind, and distinguishable from
the objects which are said to exist in them. For in the
present state of the discussion on these topics, it is almost
universally allowed that the existence of matter or of spirit,
of space or of time, is, in its nature, unsusceptible of being
proved ; and that if any thing is known of them, it must be
by immediate intuition. To the same science belong the
inquiries into the nature of Conception, Perception, Memory,
and Belief ; all of which are operations of the understanding
in the pursuit of truth ; but with which, as phenomena of the
mind or with the possibility which may or may not exist of
analyzing any of them into simpler phenomena, the logician
as such has no concern." 3
From the above it is clear that Mill thinks that there are
certain principles of truth in the mind which are not suscep-
tible of being examined by the reason ; that by some mys-
terious and unknowable combination these principles are
co-ordinated into certain primordial truths (called intuitive),
and that these truths, which, be it observed, are independent
of reason, form the major premise of every conclusion, the
source of every fact.
The theory of perception which we advocate as distin-
guished from that of Mill and Spencer is simply that the
ultimate fact is Motion ; that its aspects are Space and Time.
It will be seen at a glance that the fact of Motion is ultimate,
and that its aspects Space and Time are inferences drawn
from this fact. To follow out the process of thought from
these first inferences to the combinations of which all
knowledge is built up, is to establish the nature of perception.
The great simplicity of this undertaking is its greatest
difficulty.
Mill tells us that " to define is to select from among the
properties of a thing those which shall be understood to
be declared and designated by its name." A name is an
abridged definition ; a definition is an enlarged name. The
1 Mill's " System of Logic," vol. I., pp. 6, 7.
HERBERT SPENCER. 293
description, name, or definition, therefore, of any thing
depends upon the functions, properties, or activities of the
thing named. When we would define mind, we describe its
properties, functions, or activities. The definition of the
retentive part, or aspect, of mental action is condensed or
abridged in the word memory ; the persistent and spontane-
ous aspect of mind is called the will ; that aspect of the
mental procedure which is a view of its reception of im-
pressions is designated perception ; but there are no demar-
cations in the activity of the mind which correspond to this
classification of its different aspects — that is to say, this
enumeration of faculties is a superficial analysis or separation
into parts of the fact of mind. To imagine that these intel-
lectual faculties represent separate functional principles is
the same order of belief as that there are certain primal
intuitions, unknowable in their origin and nature, from which
knowledge is made up ; for if the principles of thought are
shrouded in impenetrable mysteries, what wonder that the
faculties of the mind should assume the character of appa-
ritions ? Apart from the limited and human sense in which
the word knowledge is employed in this mysterious doctrine
of the mind, there is an evident contradiction in saying that
intelligence springs from the unintelligible, which is the
initial error in the theory of perception offered alike by Mill
and Spencer. This theory builds the whole fabric of knowl-
edge upon principles which are said to be intuitional or
subconscious, and at the same time unknowable.
Every system of philosophy must offer an analysis of
the nature of perception as the foundation of a Religious
Synthesis.
The. claims which Mr. Spencer can make to success in this
particular have been carefully considered, his metaphysical
beliefs have been followed out, and we are enabled to judge
of the completeness of his ultimate analysis.
We would now turn to the culminations of his philosophy.
From the beginning of Spencer's system the promise is
made to establish a scientific basis for morality, but before
294 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
the realization of this promise, which has been partially
fulfilled in the " Data of Ethics," our author builds up a
gigantic theory of society.
The plan of this sociology is to show the interdepend-
encies of organic and superorganic phenomena and to trace
their combined effects to the common principle which he
denominates the persistence of force. The subject of Ethics
is then introduced, the object still being to show that mo-
rality is relative, and that its laws are to be found in the hu-
man faculties, the submission of the individual to the general
mind. Nothing can be more profound than this theory.
In the persistency with which Mr. Spencer has labored to
establish it, from the articles he wrote when a young man,
now republished under the title of " Social Statics," a con-
tinuous thread of reasoning can be traced, a single purpose
recognized.
We have seen that the intellectual faculties are merely
names for the different phases of intellectual activity. A
great memory, a great reason, or a great perception, means
a mind that has acquired special powers by special cir-
cumstances. Balanced circumstances lead to balanced
faculties ; special circumstances, to special faculties. The
needs of war produce heroes; the needs of society pro-
duce special casts of mind. The decay of Greek manhood
produced Socrates ; the irreligion of the Jews and the suf-
ferings of humanity produced the prophets and Christ. The
anarchy of European thought in the sixteenth century pro-
duced Bacon and Descartes, and the popular longing to
unite pure reason with the love of God produced Spinoza.
The need of vindicating reason against skepticism produced
Kant and the German idealists, and the reaction of sentiment
and common-sense produced the French and English psy-
chologists. What, then, are faculties but the leaven of
human character working out social developments ?
As no deeper incentive to morality can be found than the
symmetrical activity of our whole natures,1 the balancing of
1 See argument on Morality, ch. xxiii.
HERBERT SPENCER. 29$
human faculties which have their sources deep down in
organic life, the principle of activity added to the fact of in-
dividual life comes to us as the result of the most careful
analysis of our existence. Every synthesis begins with this
principle of universal activity and brings us to the facts of
social life. What limit does this suggest to perception but
the moving limits of personal existence ?
Sociology teaches us that there is an aggregate human
life and mind which springs from and is determined by the
lives of individuals ; that the atmosphere of this life is lan-
guage. The quality of language determines the quality of
the general mind, and reflects its influences upon every
individual. Thus the world at large has a direct interest in
the meaning of words, and this interest is proportionate to
the range of their significance. Metaphysics, therefore, is
closely associated with the science of Sociology ; its object
Is to familiarize the general mind with the meaning of
ultimate terms. In the success of this science over the
errors of agnosticism and idealism, morality is deeply con-
cerned, and the future will wonder at our slowness in reach-
ing so important a result.
CHAPTER XIII.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES.
Belief in the Unknowable — Its Influence upon the Study of Psychology.
THE philosophic system of George Henry Lewes has the
general title of " Problems of Life and Mind." The first
two volumes are entitled " Foundations of a Creed "; the
third deals with the problem of " Mind as a Function of the
Organism "; and the last two are posthumous publications,
— one being a comprehensive treatise on the " Physical
Basis of Mind," and the other a comparatively short review
of the author's favorite subject, " The Study of Psychol-
ogy." In the preface to the opening volume Lewes says :
" In 1862 I began the investigation of the physiological
mechanism of Feeling and Thought, and from that time
forward have sought assistance in a wide range of research.
Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Insanity, and the Science
of Language, have supplied facts and suggestions to enlarge
and direct my own meditations, and to confirm and correct
the many valuable indications furnished by previous psy-
chological investigators. * * * When I began to organize
these materials into a book, I intended it to be only a series
of essays treating certain problems of Life and Mind ; but
out of this arose two results little contemplated. The first
result was such a mutual illumination from the various prin-
ciples arrived at separately, that I began to feel confident of
having something like a clear vision of the fundamental
inductions necessary to the constitution of Psychology ;
hence, although I do not propose to write a complete trea-
tise, I hope to establish a firm groundwork for future labors.
The second result, which was independent of the first, arose
296
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 297
thus : Finding the exposition obstructed by the existence of
unsolved metaphysical problems, and by the too frequent
employment of the metaphysical method, and knowing that
there was no chance of general recognition of the scientific
method and its inductions while the rival method was toler-
ated, and the conceptions of Force, Cause, Matter, Mind,
were vacillating and contradictory, I imagined that it would
be practicable in an introductory chapter, not indeed to clear
the path of these obstacles, but at least to give such precise
indications of the principles adopted throughout the exposi-
tion as would enable the reader to follow it untroubled by
metaphysical difficulties." 1 Here, then, is the great meta-
physical problem confronted at the very outset.
In the beginning of the first chapter, we have this signifi-
cant quotation from Mill : " England's thinkers are again
beginning to see, what they had only temporarily forgotten,
that the difficulties of Metaphysics lie at the root of all Sci-
ence ; that those difficulties can be quieted only by being re-
solved, and that until they are resolved, positively whenever
possible, but at any rate negatively, we are never assured
that any knowledge, even physical, stands on solid foun-
dations."
By this we are given in advance an idea of the direction
of Lewes' thought : he is going to offer a negative, not
a positive, solution of the Metaphysical problem ; he is going
to acknowledge the " existence of an unknowable " (which,
be it remembered, is a distinct contradiction in terms ; for
to acknowledge an existence is to know it in some degree,
and to know the unknowable in any degree is an absurdity).
Notwithstanding this he is going to extend the known, the
scope of definite knowledge, by means of a masterly physi-
ological and psychological analysis, until it embraces the be-
ginnings of organic life and shows a perfect interdependence
between what are known as the physical and vital activities.
His mind, however, is too sensitive to feel perfectly con-
tented with this achievement ; he is still haunted with the
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., Preface.
298 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
idea that there is something yet to be done to complete an
ultimate analysis, to establish the divine unity ; and he
expresses his unrest in these words :
" Science itself is also in travail. Assuredly some mighty
new birth is at hand. Solid as the ground appears, and fixed
as are our present landmarks, we cannot but feel the strange
tremors of subterranean agitation which must erelong be
followed by upheavals disturbing those landmarks. Not only
do we see Physics on the eve of a reconstruction through
Molecular Dynamics, we also see Metaphysics strangely
agitated, and showing symptoms of a reawakened life.
After a long period of neglect and contempt, its problems
are once more reasserting their claims. And whatever we
may think of those claims, we have only to reflect on the
important part played by Metaphysics in sustaining and
developing religious conceptions, no less than in thwarting
and misdirecting scientific conceptions, to feel assured that
before Religion and Science can be reconciled by the reduc-
tion of their principles to a common method, it will be
necessary to transform Metaphysics or to stamp it out of
existence. There is but this alternative. At present Meta-
physics is an obstacle in our path : it must be crushed
into dust and our chariot-wheels must pass over it ; or its
forces of resistance must be converted into motive powers,
and what is an obstacle become an impulse."
This promised conversion of Metaphysics, as will afterward
appear, is but partially effected ; the question is, whether,
even as far as it goes, anything is accomplished by it. Lewes
adopts the ingenious method of inventing another name for
the science to which he attempts to attach all but the vital
and reasonable part of Metaphysics, and thus effects for the
old word Metaphysics a regeneration by freeing it from the
superstitions which have so long been attached to it.2 This
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 4.
a " By way of preliminary, I will ask permission to coin a term that will
clearly designate the aspect of Metaphysics which renders the inquiry objection-
able to scientific thinkers, no less than to ordinary minds, because it implies a
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 299
new name suggested by Lewes is Metempirics — or beyond
experience. That this term means identically the same thing
as metaphysics — or beyond the physical — is manifest. For
what is the physical world to us but the world of sensible
experiences ? And what is beyond the world of sensible*
experiences but the world of logical, mental, ideal, or spiritual
experiences ? Spiritual or ideal can mean nothing more than
logical or mental, and this is precisely the field of meta-
physics. The merit of Lewes' philosophy is therefore to be
found in his physiological and psychological studies. He
does not solve the metaphysical problem, but he furnishes us
with many valuable materials to be employed in its solution.
He leaves undefined the great ultimate terms which haunt
the pages of every philosophy and hover in the background
of every religion ; but he has performed the great work of
eliminating from this group of ultimates one term which all
writers up to him, not even excepting Herbert Spencer, have
included among them, namely, consciousness. Those who
study Lewes' system carefully will have no difficulty in un-
derstanding the genesis of mind, and will never have occa-
sion to refer its origin to the unknowable. They will also
find abundant reason to drop the term Cause from the
list of ultimate realities, as that term is clearly shown to be
but one face of every fact or phenomenon, the other or
opposite face being Effect. By this achievement Lewes be-
queaths to us a clearly defined list of ultimate realities,
namely, Space, Time, Matter, Force, and Motion. He
removes all confusion between these ultimates and such
other terms as Consciousness and Cause, which we find in-
disregard of experience ; by isolating this aspect in a technical term we may
rescue the other aspect which is acceptable to all. The word Metaphysics is a
very old one, and in the course of its history has indicated many very different
things. To the vulgar it now stands for whatever is speculative, subtle, ab-
stract, remote from ordinary apprehension ; and the pursuit of its inquiries
is secretly regarded as an eccentricity, or even a mild form of insanity. To
the cultivated it sometimes means Scholastic Ontology, sometimes Psychology,
pursued independently of Biology, and sometimes, though more rarely, the
highest generalizations of Physics." — "Problems of Life and Mind, "vol. I.,
p. 14.
300 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
eluded among the irreducible principles cited by other
writers. The terms Consciousness and Cause, therefore, are
affiliated with Knowledge, and the five ultimates supposed
by Lewes to be irreducible principles, or " manifestations of
'the unknowable" are boldly and clearly isolated from all
other terms. Of Matter and Force, however, we are told
over and over again that the one is utterly indistinguishable
from Space, and that the other must mean Motion, or, if it
mean any thing less, it is Motion considered apart from its
material or space aspect ; or simply Time.
These assertions are far from being made in distinct terms,
but that they are fair inferences from his reasonings upon these
subjects the reader will have a full opportunity of judging.
An idea of the persistent longing which Lewes evinces all
through his work for the repose of a successful ultimate
analysis can be gained from these words : " Speculative
minds cannot resist the fascination of Metaphysics, even
when forced to admit that its inquiries are hopeless. * * *
No array of argument, no accumulation of contempt, no his-
torical exhibition of the fruitlessness of its effort, has sufficed
to extirpate the tendency toward metaphysical speculation.
Although its doctrines have become a scoff (except among
the valiant few), its method still survives, still prompts to
renewed research, and still misleads some men of science. In
vain history points to the unequivocal failure of twenty cen-
turies : the metaphysician admits the fact, but appeals to his-
tory in proof of the persistent passion which no failure can
dismay ; and hence draws confidence in ultimate success. A
cause which is vigorous after centuries of defeat is a cause
baffled but not hopeless, beaten but not subdued. * * * Few
researches can be conducted in any one line of inquiry with-
out sooner or later abutting on some metaphysical problem,
were it only that of Force, Matter, or Cause ; and since Sci-
ence will not and Metaphysics can not solve it, the result is a
patchwork of demonstration and speculation very pitiable to
contemplate. Look where we will, unless we choose to over-
look all that we do not understand, we are mostly confronted
'£»
WNJ TY
^
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 3OI
with a meshwork of fact and fiction, observation curiously
precise beside traditions painfully absurd, a compound of
sunlight and mist." '
The insistence of Lewes upon the necessity of a double
name for Metaphysics is clearly traceable to his belief in an
unknowable. The fault in this is, that it confuses the idea of
unexplored phenomena, or the unknown, with the fiction
called the unknowable.
Bearing in mind that he employs the word Metempirical
to signify the unknowable, let us carefully examine the
following : *' Every physical problem involves metempirical
elements beside those which are empirical ; but Physics sets
them aside, and, dealing only with the empirical, reaches con-
clusions which are exact, within that sphere. No disturbance
in the accuracy of calculation follows from the existence, out-
side the calculation, of elements which are incalculable. The
law of gravitation, for example, is exact, although its tran-
scendental aspect — namely, what gravitation is in itself,
whether Attraction, Undulation, or Pressure — is not merely
left undetermined, but by the majority of physicists is not
even sought. The law of Association of Ideas is equally ex-
act, although not quantitatively expressible. The depend-
ence of Sensation upon Stimulus is not less so, and has
received a quantitative expression.3 The laws of Causation
may be formulated with equal precision. And exact knowl-
edge of Force, Cause, Matter, ought to be attainable, in spite
of their transcendental elements, by the one procedure of
eliminating these, and operating solely on the empirical.
Hence the conclusion : The scientific canon of excluding
from calculation all incalculable data places Metaphysics on
the same level with Physics." ;
What are these metempirical elements which are said to be
involved in every problem ? A problem is simply a compari-
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., pp. 6-8.
2 The ratio of the increase of a sensation to the increase of its stimulus is that
of a logarithm to its number. (Fechner, " Psychophysik," Bd. II., p. II, 1860.)
* *' Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 54.
302 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
son of facts. A comparison of facts must be made with a
view to arriving at other more obscure or involved facts.
Now the ultimate fact is Motion, the last arrived at in every
analysis, the first adopted in every synthesis. If by the in-
calculable elements in every problem is meant Motion, or its
aspects Space and Time, or Matter and Force, it is certainly
incorrect to denominate them unknowable, for they are
merely appearances of a principle of which knowledge is
a consequence. It may be said that this word "metem-
pirical " is used to denote an erroneous method of investiga-
tion which has for its object impossibilities of perception. If
so, why are metempirical elements said to be present in every
proposition, or that there exist, outside of every calculation,
elements which are " incalculable " ? The words incalculable
and metempirical are used as equivalents, and here it is that
the error slips in and appears plausible. Gravitation is said
to have a " transcendental aspect " which is incalculable or
unknowable ; but surely gravitation is simply a relation, a
form of the ultimate relation, Motion. Here incalculable
refers plainly to Motion, and as Lewes has not declared
Motion to be the ultimate reality, in so many words, it is
easy to see how he felt the need of a word to express this
ultimate reality, and its unrecognized aspects, which form
the burden of every metaphysical problem.
He was therefore, in a measure, justified in trying to
remove what he supposed to be the incalculable elements
from metaphysics by consigning them to " met empirics"
But what are we to say of the second illustration in our
quotation, which declares that the quantitative expression
of the law of Association of Ideas is incalculable ; and of the
third, that the quantitative expression of the dependence of
sensation on stimulus is incalculable? Is it not manifest
that " incalculable " is here used in a different sense from
" unknowable " ? For the association of ideas, and the relation
between sensation and stimulus, are phenomena which are
quite comprehensible, but not quantitatively expressible,
because sufficiently exact explorations of mental phenomena
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 303
have not yet been made to enable us to express these
subtle changes in units of space and time. The whole
course of Lewes' subsequent reasoning is against a belief in
any transcendental aspect of physiological or psychological
phenomena. If, on the other hand, it is claimed that the
transcendental aspect of gravitation spoken of simply means
the unexplored remainder in problems of celestial dynamics,
which are quite possible to know, but are as yet undiscov-
ered ; then the metempirical element in each of the three
illustrations would be of the same nature, namely, the un-
known quantity which is the occasion of every problem, and
can be identified with the fact of individual existence. For
individual life is simply the movement of an organism, the
assimilation of the unknown by the known. If metaphysics
is an exalted name for an exalted aspect of this assimilation,
what kind of assimilation is designated by the term metem-
pirics? Is it the assimilation of the inassimilable, the per-
ception of the imperceptible, or the thinking of the unthink-
able?
If Lewes' object in bringing into the world this new term
was to caricature the idea of such a science, and thereby to
eliminate the superstitious element from metaphysics, it
would be an involved way of accomplishing a good result ;
but when he says that every physical problem involves
metempirical elements, — in other words, when he uses the
word metempirical to denote something in which he be-
lieves,— it throws the question into hopeless confusion, from
which it can only be extricated by removing the direct cause,
which is this very term metempirics.
The above shows what insuperable difficulties attend any
form of belief in the unknowable, whether it be called the
"metempirical," the " transcendental," the "essence," or the
" thing-in-itself." To illustrate this, we will select a passage
from Lewes in which he completely frees himself from this
superstition, and consequently, for the moment, becomes per-
fectly clear and rational. In trying to show that the same
methods of investigation should be pursued in both physical
304 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
science and metaphysics, he says: "The reproach, if it be a
reproach, conveyed in the term ' ontological,' when applied
to Metaphysics, is shared by Science. In both the search is
after abstract Being, not after concrete individual fact.
Rightly understood, there is truth in saying that a meta-
physician may have a knowledge of Being as certain as
the mathematician's knowledge of Magnitude, as the chem-
ist's knowledge of Affinity, as the biologist's knowledge of
Life, as the sociologist's knowledge of Society ; and this
knowledge may be gained in the same way." 1
Again : in pointing out the irrationality of that species of
ontology which seeks entities or absolute essences, he says :
" A traditional perversion makes the essence of a thing to
consist in the relations of that thing to something unknown,
unknowable, rather than in its relations to a known or
knowable — i. e. assumes that the thing cannot be what it is
to us and other known things, but must be something ' in
itself,' unrelated, or having quite other relations to other un-
knowable things. In this contempt of the actual in favor of
the vaguely imagined possible, this neglect of reality in favor
of a supposed deeper reality, this disregard of light in the
search for a light behind the light, metaphysicians have been
led to seek the ' thing-in-itself ' beyond the region of Experi-
ence. * * * But if such questions can receive no answer, be-
cause not put in answerable terms, how much more so the
questions which avowedly travel quite beyond all range of
experience, and ask, What is the thing in its relations to
something unknown? To know a thing is to know its rela-
tions ; it is its relations." a And yet, after making these clear
and unmistakable distinctions between a rational and an
irrational ontology, between a common-sense method of
thought and a foolish one, after taking the trouble to invent
a special name (metempirics) for the irrational method, in
order to purify the conception of metaphysics, he deliber-
ately returns to his idols by avowing that every physical
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 60.
• " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., pp. 58, 59.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 305
problem involves metempirical elements besides those which
are empirical. If he were to say that every physical prob-
lem contained metaphysical elements as well as empirical
ones, he would carry out the fine distinction he is endeavor-
ing to make. Then the proposition would simply mean that
there are involved in every possible question elements which
are beyond the sphere of sensible experience, but are within
the sphere of logical experience or perception. In other
words, nothing can be unnatural to perception, as the prin-
ciple of perception has for its aspects the Infinite and the
Absolute, or Space and Time. But this would be far too
much for Lewes to admit. Although he made a noble
effort to throw off the contamination of the unknowable, the
conception was too deeply rooted in his vocabulary and in
his thought for the feat to be possible. For a man in the
closing years of an active literary and scientific career, which
had been largely employed in establishing the unknowable as
a great philosophic tenet, — a man who had formed the
habit of reasoning continually in this direction, making the
conception of the unknowable an accompaniment of every
analysis, — for such a man to throw off this habit would
be equivalent to reforming his whole logical constitution.
Had he begun earlier in life, or had he been less active
in his reasoning by the old method, reform might have
been possible. But he wrote the " Biographical History
of Philosophy" in the interest of the unknowable; he de-
voted an enormous amount of study to interpreting every
known system of philosophy in this particular way ; and his
very language, which, be it remembered, is a constitutional
structure of the mind, was cast too firmly to be remodelled.
Thus we find this accomplished and powerful thinker in-
volved in the toils of a mistaken belief, and struggling vainly
to free himself from the old entanglements. In the more
tangible media of science, however, he rises superior to all
difficulties and develops truths of the greatest importance.
To further illustrate the belief of Lewes in the unknow-
able, we quote from the chapter on the " Scientific Method
in Metaphysics " :
.306 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
" Kant asks : ' If Metaphysics is a science, how comes it
that she cannot boast of the general and enduring approba-
tion bestowed on other sciences ? If she is no science, how
comes it that she wears this imposing aspect, and fascinates
the human understanding with hopes inextinguishable yet
never gratified ? We must either demonstrate the com-
petency or incompetency ; for we cannot longer continue in
our present uncertainty.'
"The answers to these questions which Kant gave not
having been satisfactory, a new attempt, under more favor-
able conditions, is made in these pages. To render this at-
tempt satisfactory, we must first clearly understand the con-
ditions of metaphysical inquiry. The initial condition — that
of separating the insoluble from the soluble aspects of each
problem — would be accepted by all. But the question would
everywhere arise : What is insoluble ? How is this ascertain-
able ? There are problems which are recognized as insoluble
because of their conditions. For example, it is impossible
to extract the square root of a number which is not made by
multiplication of any whole number or fraction by itself. To
all eternity this must be impossible. Yet an approximation
is possible which may be made near enough for any practical
purpose. There are other problems, again, which do not
admit of even approximative solutions. No one really tries
to solve what he is already convinced is an insoluble prob-
lem. But one man thinks the problem soluble which another
pronounces not to be soluble. What, then, is our criterion?
We say the metempirical elements must be thrown out of
the construction. But what are the metempirical elements?
" Here we find ourselves fronting the great psychological
problems of the Limitations of Knowledge, and the Prin-
ciples of Certitude. To settle these it will be necessary to
examine the pretensions of the a priori school. Our first
labor, then, will be to examine the principles of positive and
speculative research, and then to show that the principles of
metempirical research must either be unconditionally re-
jected, or, if accepted, must be isolated from all depart-
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 30?
ments of Knowledge and restricted solely to the Unknow-
able." '
With regard to the impossibility of extracting the square
root of a number that is not made by multiplying any whole
number or fraction by itself, which is cited as an insoluble
problem, I would submit that this is an impossibility only by
definition ; numbers are entirely arbitrary constructions, and
therefore their manipulations are matters of arbitrary defini-
tion. The square root of a given number is simply another
name for a number which, being added to itself as many
times as it contains the units of which it is composed, will
equal the given number. The half of four, the third of nine,
the fourth of sixteen, meet these requirements, because the
process which determines the square root of four, nine, and
sixteen can be abbreviated by these divisions ; but it is
clearly to be seen that the success of the process itself is the
cause of the selection of these numbers as examples ; and
the impossibility of the process is the cause of selecting num-
bers which will not yield to it, as examples of the impos-
sibility of extracting the square root of certain numbers. If
an object weighs one hundred pounds, the impossibility of
its weighing two hundred pounds is a matter of definitions ;
it is the function of its weight. No question can be ration-
ally stated that is insoluble, for every question implies con-
ditions or relations of which its solubility is the result or
function ; but by changing these conditions and holding on
to the result it is very easy to create an imaginary incon-
gruity which may, to a predisposed mind, suggest an unknow-
able. We would most emphatically assert, however, that an
incalculable calculation, an insoluble problem, imply a forced
juxtaposition of symbols, an incongruity of relations ; and
the impossibility which they suggest is the direct function of
an initial error. The conception of such problems is of the
same order as the inconceivable conceptions, the impercep-
tible perceptions, the unknowable objects of thought, super-
stitions which have grown out of the incorrect use of words;
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 79.
308 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
mythical conceptions which men have endeavored to clothe
in the language of sense, producing the opposite of sense.
This is the unknowable.
If Lewes had not affirmed that there are metempirical
elements in every problem, we should be encouraged to
think that, by his assertion, " these elements must be thrown
out of the construction " of problems, he was about to de-
clare the unknowable a vain fiction, a self-destructive term.
But we have only to read a few lines farther on to find that
he is still dominated, in spite of all he can do, by this great
infelicity. As he promises to deal further with the sub-
ject in the realm of psychology, let us continue to watch the
struggle he makes with facts.
Following the foregoing metaphysical treatise, we find in
the volume under consideration a set of so-called Rules of
Philosophizing. These rules are fifteen in number, and form
a sort of logical code full of 'merit. They are excellent
suggestions, but the amount of training that would be needed
to enable one to apply them could hardly be obtained with-
out actually acquiring the knowledge to which they are
intended to be a guide. Metaphysics, for instance, is the
science of ultimate terms ; it deals with the meaning of
those words which have the widest possible significance.
To tell a student that "Any contradiction of fundamental
experiences of sense or intuition is to be taken as evidence
of some flaw either in the data or the calculation," * which is
rule second, would be to give him excellent advice ; but to
teach him how to apply this rule to the interpretation of
(say) the word Matter, would necessitate his taking a course
of study which would make him an expert judge of " flaws
either in the data or the calculation " of any philosophical
problem. To be more explicit, the surpassing difficulty in
the application of the above rule would be to know in what
a " contradiction of fundamental experiences of sense or
intuition " consists. In our opinion, for instance, it is clear
that the author of this rule fails to follow it in the interpre-
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 82.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 309
tation of Matter and Space ; for is it not a " contradiction of
fundamental experiences of sense or intuition " to say that
Matter and Space are separately ultimate or irreducible facts;
or, again, to postulate an unknowable object of thought.
The author himself admits, somewhat naively, that " the ap-
plication of this rule requires great tact and accurate knowl-
edge " ; and the question very naturally arises whether the
possession of this " tact and accurate knowledge " would not
include that of the " rule for philosophizing." We doubt
whether Lewes, if teaching philosophy, would begin with
abstract rules. ' Considered as feats of abstract reasoning,
these fifteen rules cannot but be admired ; but as it would
be difficult to find two persons who would agree on the sig-
nificance of the terms employed in them, they can hardly be
considered as aids to the study of philosophy.
In the treatise on Psychological Principles, which follows
the Rules of Philosophizing, Lewes tells us that it would be
premature to attempt a systematic treatise on Psychology,
as there are important metaphysical and biological questions
still open which it is essential first to have settled. In a
word, Lewes, who at the time of this writing was perhaps
one of the best-prepared men, if not the best, to deal with
the science of Psychology, frankly admits that he lacks some
of the most important materials for the undertaking. This
is in contrast with some writers who have built up imposing
and complicated systems of psychology in apparent inno-
cence of the fundamental difficulty of the subject.
It is, therefore, with renewed confidence and interest that
we approach what Lewes calls a " sketch of the programme
of Psychology." He begins with the now familiar assertion
that Man is not simply an Animal Organism, he is also a
unit in a Social Organism. Then comes a citation of the
starting-point of psychology, namely, Consciousness. Psy-
chology, we are told, occupies itself with the study of the
1 " The supreme importance of an education is directed toward the develop-
ment of aptitudes by their effective exercise rather than by the inculcation of
rules." — Lewes, " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 109.
310 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
factors of Consciousness. Consciousness is a fact beyond
which the psychologist is not obliged to look. It is the fact
from which he elaborates his science and for which he is not
obliged to account.
As the biologist accepts Life as an ultimate fact, or the
physicist builds his science on the principle of Force, neither
being required to explain what these initial facts of their
respective sciences are ; as the mathematician does not con-
cern himself with what " Quantity, Space, and Time are " ;
so the psychologist is not obliged to tell us what Conscious-
ness is. Here in the very beginning is that metaphysical
question the settlement of which Lewes so keenly felt the
need of ; and here we must disagree with him in his assertion
that the psychologist is not called upon to explain what
Consciousness really is. We can easily imagine a mathema-
tician content to follow the relations of numbers and quan-
tities without being able to explain whence these' principles
spring ; we can imagine a physicist dealing with problems
of the correlations of forces without feeling the necessity of
knowing the universal principle which these forces declare ;
we can even understand a biologist spending a lifetime in
the study of the interdependencies of organic life without
being able to tell how these activities which he witnesses in
every organism are affiliated with the same activities which he
sees in other directions relatively unorganized ; but we cannot
imagine a psychologist prosecuting the study of the functions
and structure of the mind without feeling the necessity of
knowing what Consciousness is, without feeling powerless to
proceed in the absence of a knowledge of the nature of
Perception. I do not mean to infer that great progress in
psychology is not possible without this knowledge, for great
progress in this science has already been made ; but I deny
that any psychologist can make himself clearly understood
in the principles of his science without first comprehending
the relation of mental to universal activity, — without being
able to affiliate the principle involved in intelligence with
other known principles, the relation of knowledge to organic
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 311
life, and organic to universal life ; in a word, without solving,
at the very outset of his exposition, the metaphysical prob-
lem. How can a psychology be clearly understood which
teaches that mind is a function of an organism, that the or-
ganism is material, and still that matter is an ultimate fact ?
If matter is an ultimate fact, what is the activity of matter
which is called mind ? There can be but one ultimate fact,
and it must be universal. If, on the contrary, activity, life, or
motion, is acknowledged to be the ultimate fact, and matter
subordinate to it, a phase or aspect of it, materialism van-
ishes and life and mind become a living reality, an under-
stood fact. With this simple theory the vexed question of
Object and Subject is resolved. The relation called gravita-
tion, suggesting activities which are infinite, those subtle
chemical energies, the signatures of the still uncombined
elements, the adjustments of the primitive organism to
its environment, the evolution of sensibility, feeling, and
thought, from these lower orders of activity, rises before us,
an unbroken interdependence of cause and effect. Human
intelligence, which is taxed to its utmost to comprehend the
proportions of this truth, is recognized as an expression of
individuality, of the moving limits of personal existence ;
and a glimpse of the difference between the human and the
divine, the anthropomorphic and the universal, is obtained.
It will be interesting, therefore, to follow Lewes through
his programme of Psychology, and to observe how he
manages to meet the difficulties of his subject without the
aid of that ultimate analysis so essential to an understanding
of Mind.
CHAPTER XIV.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES (CONTINUED).
The Principles of Psychology.
WE now enter upon the most original and instructive
portions of Lewes' philosophy. His deep study of the sen-
sorium of animals and of man has enabled him to carry us
dry-shod through that dismal swamp, the analysis of mind
from its physical side. Timid and conventional thinkers
have systematically avoided this route in their journeyings,
— they have looked at the map, heard of the difficulties and
dangers of the way, and turned aside. On the whole, they
are to be congratulated for their prudence ; although it can-
not be denied that this prudence has led them to miss some
of the deepest and most stirring truths of life.
To explain the wonders of the intellect by a supernatural
principle is convenient, but it is not, in the best sense, philo-
sophical. This method may appear satisfying to our ideal
nature, but it partakes more of sentiment than of thought;
yet like many a sentiment, it has held in view exalted truths
until the slow methods of science have reached and verified
them. *
The intellectual and moral life of man cannot be ex-
plained by a biological analysis. The operations of the mind
cannot be successfully described as simply the activities
of a personal organism, for the meaning of the word organ-
ism has to be vastly extended before it can account for
the immeasurable difference between mere sentiency, and
thought. The wonders of organic development, as the
phrase is scientifically used, are utterly incapable of explain-
ing a moral intuition, an intellectual conception, or a reli-
312
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 313
gious sentiment. To fill in this break, however, in the chain
of cause and effect by the interposition of a " supernatural
principle " is only a makeshift ; it lacks all the dignity that
belongs to careful thought.
Although analysis is the instrument by which this logical
discrepancy has been removed, it has also been the indirect
cause of the delay in arriving at a rational solution of the
problem of Mind. Impressions, or simple perceptions, are
by their nature composite. In ascending a mountain, we
measure the distance into steps, but we are at the same
time building up a synthesis which we will call an ascension.
When we have reached the summit, we view the journey as
a single fact ; but it was effected by an analysis, and the
synthesis was accomplished as the analysis progressed.
Thus analysis and synthesis are interdependent processes.
The analyst or scientist, disdainfully refusing to be beguiled
with the synthetic splendors of the mind, has steadfastly
devoted himself to the physical procedures which have made
these splendors possible. He has surveyed the route while
others have enjoyed the scenery. The scientist has known
all along that these intellectual wonders have been reached
through sequences with which, in less extended vistas, he is
perfectly familiar. He has known all along that sentiency
is the activity of an organism, and that thought has depended
absolutely upon this foundation for all its achievements. But
in his laudable endeavors to extend definite knowledge so
that it might encompass the ideal, he has neglected an obscure
and involved factor in mental or spiritual development. It
is this factor which explains the difference between human
and merely animal life. As we accomplish distances by
measuring off progressions which are determined by our pow-
ers of locomotion, so we apprehend situations by combining
partial views, which are determined by our perceptive
faculties. The more thorough the analysis, the more truth-
ful is the conception formed, providing we are careful to
replace in the synthetic view all the products of the analysis.
In proportion to the number of neglected factors our concep-
314 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
tions are imperfect. We are no better off, therefore, in
trusting those who insist upon viewing things in their
entirety without studying the parts, than in trusting the
analyst who clings to certain prominent factors and neglects
others. The former class may supply us with more sym-
metrical ideas, but they are largely only ideas instead of reali-
ties. Life is not a dream-voyage. Our charts must be the
result of actual soundings and observations ; and where they
describe unexplored regions, they should be distinctly so
marked.
When we listen, therefore, to the panegyrics of idealists
about such theories as " the miraculous inception of divine
thought," we should remember that they are merely filling in
the interstices in their education with generalities which they
are unable to define. These generalities, beautiful as they
may sound to the untrained ear, can never be made to take-the
place of those substantial and hard-earned conceptions which
can be obtained only by careful and patient investigation. To
this class of careful thinkers Lewes pre-eminently belongs, and
we may well listen to him when he insists upon a resolution
of the great fact of consciousness into its factors or condi-
tions, and upon the reunion of the isolated views thus ob-
tained into a symmetrical whole. The biological factors of
consciousness, we are reminded, afford but an incomplete
explanation of Mind ; they supply us, however, with the
fundamental conditions of its theory. These substructures
of the intellect Lewes thus describes : " Theoretically taking
the organism to pieces to understand its separate parts,
we fall into the error of supposing that the organism is a
mere assemblage of organs, like a machine which is put
together by juxtaposition of different parts. But this is
radically to misunderstand its essential nature and the uni-
versal solidarity of its parts. The organism is not made,
not put together, but evolved ; its parts are not juxtaposed,
but differentiated ; its organs are groups of minor organ-
isms, all sharing in a common life, i. e. all sharing in a com-
mon substance constructed through a common process of
GEORGE HENR Y LEWES. 315
simultaneous and continuous molecular composition and
decomposition ; precisely as the great Social Organism is a
group of societies, each of which is a group of families, all
sharing in a common life, — every family having at once its
individual independence and its social dependence through
connection with every other. In a machine, the parts are
all different, and have mechanical significance only in relation
to the whole. In an organism, the parts are all identical in
fundamental characters and diverse only in their superadded
differentiations : each has its independence, although all co-
operate. The synthetical point of view, which should never
drop out of sight, however the necessities of investigation
may throw us upon analysis, is well expressed by Aristotle
somewhere to the effect that all collective life depends on
the separation of offices and the concurrence of efforts. In
a vital organism, every force is the resultant of #//the forces ;
it is a disturbance of equilibrium, and equilibrium is the
equivalence of convergent forces. When we speak of Intel-
ligence as a force which determines actions, we ought always
to bear in mind that the efficacy of Intelligence depends on
the organs which co-operate and are determined : it is not
pure Thought which moves a muscle, neither is it the ab-
straction Contractility, but the muscle which moves a limb." 1
This luminous exposition of the difference between
mechanism and organism (a most important distinction in
the study of the physiological basis of mind) is supplemented
by an explanation of the metamorphosis which precedes
physical assimilation, as a preparation to the understanding
of the assimilation of ideas.2
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., pp. 103-105.
* ' ' Between the reception of external materials and the assimilation of them by
the tissues (plant or animal) there is always an intermediate stage passed
through, the inorganic, unvitalized material becoming there transformed into
organizable, vitalized material. * * * Until this special change has taken place,
the inorganic material is not assimilable ; it must enter as a constituent of the
bioplasm to form part of what Claude Bernard calls the Physiological Medium
before it can become a constituent of the tissues. The supposition that plants
are nourished directly by inorganic substances drawn from the soil and atmos-
phere is now proved to be erroneous : the nutrition of plants takes place
316 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
The crisis of the argument then comes in these words:
" That Life is Change, and that Consciousness is Change,
has always been affirmed. We have only to add that the
changes are serial, and convergent through a consensus deter-
mined by essential community of structure, and we have char-
acterized the speciality of organic change, demarcated Life
and Mind from all inorganic change." 1 Movements not
combined are /^organic. Serial and combined movements
or activities are organic or vital.
Now, rising above the difference between the most general
or inorganic activities, and the special or organic activities
known as vital, let us contemplate the difference between or-
ganic and suflerorganic activities. Biology is the study of
through processes similar to those in animals. The inorganic has in both to-
pass through the organizable stage, and form proximate principles, before it
can become organized into elements of tissue. * * *
" Let us now pass from Life to Mind. The vital organism is evolved from
the bioplasm, and we may now see how the psychical organism is evolved from
what may be analogically called the psychoplasm. The bioplasm is character-
ized by a continuous and simultaneous movement of molecular composition and
decomposition ; and out of these arises the whole mechanism, which is also sus-
tained and differentiated by them. If, instead of considering the whole vital
organism, we consider solely its sensitive aspects, and confine ourselves to the
Nervous System, we may represent the molecular movements of the bioplasm
by the neural tremors of the psychoplasm ; these tremors are what I term
neural units — the raw material of Consciousness ; the several neural groups
formed by these units represent the organized elements of tissues, the tissues,
and the combination of tissues into organs, and of organs into apparatus. The
movements of the bioplasm constitute Vitality ; the movements of the psycho-
plasm constitute Sensibility. The forces of the cosmical medium which are
transformed in the physiological build up the organic structure, which in the
various stages of its evolution reacts according to its statical conditions, them-
selves the results of preceding reactions. It is the same with what may be
called the mental organism. Here also every phenomenon is the product of
two factors, external and internal, impersonal and personal, objective and sub-
jective. Viewing the internal factor solely in the light of Feeling, we may say
that the sentient material out of which all the forms of Consciousness are
evolved is the psychoplasm, incessantly fluctuating, incessantly renewed.
Viewing this on the physiological side, it is the succession of neural tremors,
variously combining into neural groups." — " Problems of Life and Mind," voL
I., pp. 107-109.
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. in.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 317
the history of organic life ; it analyzes the organism, both as
a fact and as a gradual development ; it follows the sequences
of growth from primitive organisms to man, and from the
germ to the adult in each type. Its field, however, is the
organism and its physical environment. The spiritual me-
dium or surrounding of each organism is beyond the sphere
of biology. Psychology is the science which investigates
this higher or mental environment. The distinction between
these two sciences, therefore, can be broadly expressed as
follows : Biology studies the relations between the organism
and its physical medium ; Psychology studies the relations
between the organism and its mental medium, or the rela-
tions between subject and object. The primary law of
biology is : " Every vital phenomenon is the product of the
two factors, the Organism and its Medium." And the
primary law of psychology is, that " Every psychical (mental
or spiritual) phenomenon is the product of the two factors,
the Subject and the Object."
These two sciences, therefore, are clearly but studies of
different aspects of the single fact of personal existence.
Lewes tells us that this law of psychology " replaces the old
Dualism, in which Subject and Object were two independent
and unallied existences, by a Monism, in which only one
existence, under different forms, is conceived. The old con-
ception was of Life in conflict with the external ; the new
conception recognizes their identity, and founds this recogni-
tion on the demonstrable fact that, far from the external
forces tending to destroy Life (according to Bichat's view),
they are the very materials out of which Life emerges, and
by which it is sustained and developed."
It would be impossible in so short a sketch to give any
thing like an adequate idea of the factors of psychical life
(or mind), for such an undertaking would constitute a com-
plete psychology. It will not do, however, to shirk the
responsibility of the metaphysical position which this work
has assumed. Lewes declares a true or complete psychology
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 113.
31 8 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
" premature until there is something like a general agree-
ment on many questions of fundamental importance, these
being partly metaphysical and partly biological."
Since we assume to have solved the metaphysical prob-
lem, we should be able to clear up some of the psychologi-
cal ambiguities of which Lewes complains. Does not the
difference between the fundamental facts of physical and
mental life, referred to above, give us the first opportunity to
employ the ultimate analysis which constitutes the solution
of the metaphysical problem ? When we consider that all
psychical phenomena spring from a primary contrast, and the
terms of that contrast are self and not-self, is not the fun-
damental nature of Mind revealed by this initial contrast?
When the banks of the southern Mississippi overflow,
any object which remains above the water may become the
common refuge of animals that are never found together
under less trying circumstances. The timid hare or equally
defenceless game, the dangerous snake and other reptiles,
cling together to some stray raft, dismayed into peaceful and
respectful behavior toward one another, and the traveller
finds it difficult to realize that any thing could have devel-
oped a dominant common nature in such opposite beings.
Apparently the principles which are combined in the fact of
personal existence, or perception, springing from the con-
trast of subject and object, are as strange to one another as
these frightened animals, and yet their unity of nature, the
fact that they represent but one fact, is forced upon us
when we view them in the plane of their widest significance.
Under no provocation, short of an intellectual deluge, will the
old-school metaphysician admit that Matter and Space are
synonymous, and that they form but one term of a funda-
mental contrast, of which Time is the other term ; or that,
considered in an impersonal light, or objectively, this con-
trast disappears in a single fact or principle. The ultimate
difference between self and not-self, or subject and object,
can only be found in the aspects of this single fact.
If we persist in the analysis, even this difference disap-
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 319
pears, and we are obliged to confess that there is no ultimate
or absolute difference between subject and object ; that they
are but phases or aspects of the indivisible fact of universal
existence, or Motion.
Intelligence, or perception, however, demands an explana-
tion : it insists upon knowing and understanding itself.
This intelligence or consciousness is not the ultimate fact,
but simply a relative fact; it is the function of individu-
ality, and therefore springs from the contrast of one life
with all life, or of subject with object. The difficult part of
this theory to understand is, how we identify Time with
subject and Space with object. The subject occupies space,
and therefore has space-relationships ; and the object occu-
pies time, and therefore has time-relationships. The idea of
space is generated by marking, or attending to, abstract
existences, or other existences, considered simultaneously
(or apart from time). The idea of time is generated by con-
sidering abstract serial existence, or existence apart from
other existences (space). Now it is clear that the only
existence that we can consider apart from other existences
is our own. Thus we get an idea of how these primordial
ideas of Time and Space, or Subject and Object, are formed.
But it is only an idea. To form a distinct conception, we
shall have to make a complete analysis of the phenomena
of thought. In trying to form this idea, we have been
employing symbols, or language, and this is the very factor
the bearings of which are so involved that it presents us
with the most complex problem of psychology.
Language springs from our attempts to communicate
images of the mind. The attempts of the child to speak, or
still better, of the savage, point to this fact. Upon this
subject Lewes says : " It is in Imagination that must be
sought the first impulse toward Explanation ; and therefore
all primitive explanations are so markedly imaginative.
Images being the ideal forms of Sensation, the Logic of
Images is the first stage of intellectual activity ; and is
therefore predominant in the early history of individual-
320 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
and of nations. The first attempts to explain a phenomenon
must be to combine the images of past sensations with the
sensations now felt, so as to form a series. In the next
stage, words, representative of abstractions, take the places
both of images and objects. Thus the Logic of Signs (or
language) replaces the Logic of Images, as the Logic of
Images replaced the Logic of Sensation."
If the first stages of intellectual activity are to be found
in the " Logic of Images," and Language is the vehicle of
these images, it is clear that thought and language are inter-
dependent, and develop, or become more definite, together.
But if this is the case, why is it that language has to reach
an exceedingly high type of development before the cate-
gories of thought, or the metaphysical problem, can be stated,
as in Greece by Aristotle ; and a still higher development,
before the ultimate reality can be announced or the problem
solved ? And yet the aspects of this ultimate reality, name-
ly, Space and Time, are said to be the primordial inference,
the first comparison, from which all comparison, or thought,
springs. The calculations and thoughts of a mind utterly
ignorant of psychology or metaphysics are just as clearly
traceable to this same beginning as those of a Spencer or
a Lewes ; the difference being simply that the untrained
mind is unconscious of the great unity or simplicity of
thought. It is not necessary that we should understand the
fundamental principles of a subject in order to act correctly
in its sphere ; it is not necessary that we should perform a
complete analysis of the mind in order to reason correctly
within certain limits. The bank officer may know little or
nothing of economics, and still pass upon credits successfully ;
the priest or minister may know nothing of abstract ethics,
and still judge matters of conduct correctly.
In both of these cases intuitions or unconscious mental
co-ordinations supply the place of the elaborate synthetic
conceptions which result from much special study. The
truths which analysis reveals, and which synthesis unites
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 155.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. $21
into a whole, are abridged and vaguely represented in the
mind by intuitions. For instance, the whole science of
economics consists in the study of the production and dis-
tribution of wealth. The bank officer may be unable to
trace the generality, wealth, to its original factors, land,
labor, and capital ; but he knows the most enduring forms
of wealth, and the kinds of men and institutions to entrust
it to, and therefore arrives at the practice of economics
without performing an analysis of its principles. The hori-
zon of this practical knowledge is occupied by uninvestigated
truths, which would easily yield to analysis and assimilate
with the truths already possessed ; but in the absence of
this investigation, intuitions, or vague ideas, take the place
of definite conceptions. Again : the priest or minister may
not be able to reduce morality to its prime factors, indi-
vidual, social, and general existence ; but pure habits of
mind have endowed him with excellent moral intuitions,
enabling him to decide correctly in delicate questions of
conduct. His mind may be as far from grasping the funda-
mental principles of conduct as the magnetic needle is from
being conscious of the currents of energy which determine
its movements ; but the needle, in responding to these rela-
tions in the simplest possible sense, perceives them, and its
tiny adjustments, viewed from another standpoint, are ex-
pressions of certain relations or truths.. So the pure-minded
ecclesiast allows a healthful moral nature to perceive for him
the most obscure moral truths. These unconscious percep-
tions, called intuitions, are the natural or spontaneous induc-
tions, the irresistible, unwilled activities of our nature from
which Consciousness itself springs. Would the needle make
a better compass if it were conscious ; would the clergyman
be better fitted for his duties were he more profound ? Un-
questionably, yes. Given the natural truths which each
possesses, higher complexity would insure wider and more
delicate adjustments ; more knowledge would insure more
influence for good. Could we complicate the structure of a
mariner's compass so that it would not be deflected by the
322 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
proximity of masses of metals, it would be more useful,
more reliable, for the purposes of navigation. If we could
convince the priest or minister that God is a principle, not a
person, he would be made still purer by the conception of
this divine unity ; his influence would be widened by giving
to his teachings the power which comes from a greater
command of facts.
Thus we have gradually reviewed the whole field of psy-
chology, the scope of language, and the nature of perception ;
the difference between the real and the ideal, and the affilia-
tion of the factors of mental with those of physical life, by
the discovery of the social factor in psychical development.
What is more manifest (if Time and Space are the first in-
ferences, and at the same time the representatives of Subject
and Object) than that the universal principle is only divisible
into aspects, and that these aspects, or appearances, are dis-
covered, or given, by the fact of individual life, — the natural
consequence of that isolation, or separation, from general ex-
istence which is implied in a relative or personal existence ?
What is more manifest than that thought is the complex
activity of a sensorium which is a development of an organ-
ism, and that language is the structural process of the social
mind surrounding the individual mind ; the psychoplasm
which bathes the tissues of the intellect and carries to
them the common fund of ideas in an assimilable condi-
tion? What is more manifest than that, as this intellec-
tual medium called language is rendered more soluble,
more interdependent in meaning, better co-ordinated by
the perfection of higher generalities, it will bring a larger
and larger number of minds into communication, and a
greater and greater expanse of outlying truth within reach of
each individual?
When the highest generalization, the most powerful intel-
lectual solvent, shall have permeated language and thought,
the physical, mental, and moral development of the race will
be simply a question of vitality, not of method, for the ways
and means of this development will be universally under-
stood.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 323
It may be said that thus to bring the activities of a magnet
and those of a man under the same category, to call the adjust-
ments of the former to external influences a kind of percep-
tion, and to view the manifestations of this adjustment as
the expression of a fact or truth, is to give to the terms per-
ception and expression a breadth of meaning which has
no warrant in fact, and therefore proves nothing. This,
however, is precisely the question in point. We name a
fact of sentiency perception. Until we analyze perception
we see no resemblance between it and facts immeasurably
less complex, although of the same nature. The most
successful and widely accepted analysis of psychical life
discloses it to be the adjustments of an organism to its
environment, or the adjustment of inner to outer activi-
ties, which is also the best definition of physical life. The
deepest biological studies teach us that the first principle,
or condition, of the organism is a limiting membrane, some-
thing to define, separate, or contrast it with the surroundings.
The deepest psychological studies teach us that the first
principle of psychical life, or perception, is a contrast, differ-
ence, or demarcation, between two terms, the organism or
subject, and its surroundings or object.
" When it is said that animals, however intelligent, have
no intellect, the meaning is that they have perceptions and
judgments, but no conceptions, no general ideas, no sym-
bols for logical operations. They are intelligent, for we
see them guided to action by judgment; they adapt their
actions by means of guiding sensations, and adapt things
to their ends. Their mechanism is a sentient, intelligent
mechanism. But they have not conception, or what we
specially designate as Thought, — i. e. that logical function
which deals with generalities, ratios, symbols, as feeling
deals with particulars and objects, — a function sustained by
and subservient to impersonal, social ends. Taking intelli-
gence in general as the discrimination of means to ends, —
the guidance of the organism toward the satisfaction of its
impulses, — we particularize intelligence as a highly differen-
324 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
tiated mode of this function, namely, as the discrimination
of symbols. * * * Intellect is impossible until animal devel-
opment has reached the human social stage ; and it is at all
periods the index of that development ; its operations are
likewise carried on by means of symbols (Language) which
represent real objects, and can at any time be translated into
feelings.
" It is obvious that the biological data can only resolve
one half of the psychological problem, only present one of
the foci of the ellipse, since by no derivation from the
purely statical considerations of man's animal organism can
we reach the higher dynamical products. Isolate man from
the social state, and we have an animal ; set going his
organism simply in relation to the Cosmos, without involv-
ing any relations to other men, and we can get no intellect,
no conscience. * * * The language of symbols [is] at once the
cause and effect of civilization." '
Thus we see that mind cannot be explained without a
constant recognition of the relations of organism and social
medium. So important is the operation of the social
medium in the fact of mind, that the state of education to
which the race has attained at any given time is a determi-
nant of the individual mind. The subject must be adjusted
to this medium in order to act and to be reacted upon by it.
The absurdity of supposing that any ape, for instance,
could, under any normal circumstances, " construct a scien-
tific theory, analyze a fact into its component factors, frame
to himself a picture of the life led by his ancestors, or con-
sciously regulate his conduct with a view to the welfare of
remote descendants, is so glaring that we need not wonder
at profoundly meditative minds having been led to reject
with scorn the hypothesis which seeks for an explanation
of human intelligence in the functions of the bodily organ-
ism common to man and animals, and having had recourse
to the hypothesis of a spiritual agent superadded to the
organism."
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., pp. 142, 143.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 325
This spiritual hypothesis, however, is unscientific. It
offers a name for a fact without explaining it — without con-
necting it with what we know. In a word, instead of solving
the question of life and mind, it simply reiterates the old
assertion that both of these facts are mysteries, giving us
no clue to their hidden relations.
It is these relations, however, that we are seeking, and in
this reach of comparisons, — the response of a magnetic
needle to physical energies, the adjustment of a monad to
its environment, the slow growth of sentiency in ascending
organic types, the interposition of a social medium in the
surroundings of the highest type, the development of this
medium into a world of symbols radiating from a single
fact, — we have a serial development which expresses the
interdependence, or mutual activity, of the subject and
object, the organism and its environment.
Mark, however, the vast difference between the signifi-
cance of these two pairs of antithetical terms, subject and
object, organism and environment. One is an expansion
of the meaning of self and not-self into the two great aspects
of the universe, Time and Space, the Eternal and the In-
finite ; the other is the contrast of individual and general
physical life. The distinction between the ideal and the
real, or the mental and the physical, therefore, is seen to be
but relative. The organism is great, not in itself, but in its
connection, or joint existence, with the external world ; the
subject derives its magnificent perspectives, not by drawing
absolute boundary-lines between itself and the objective uni-
verse, not by affirming that we are immaterial or spiritual,
but from the fact that we are an expression of a universal
principle.
CHAPTER XV.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES (CONTINUED).
The Unity of the Whole Organism as a Factor of Mind — Lewes' Definitions of
Experience and Feeling.
IN following Lewes' explanation of the difference between
the metaphysical and the metempirical we have well-nigh
exhausted the question of the categories of thought. By
applying the solution of this problem to the principles of psy-
chology as set forth by our author, we have obtained still
more light upon the subject, and yet this metaphysical prob-
lem continues to confront us with unabated vigor through-
out the whole of the remaining portions of Lewes' philoso-
phy, and the same power and skill continue to be fruitlessly
exerted toward its determination. Such is the curse of
agnosticism. Following psychological principles, we have in
the same volume a long treatment of the " Limitations of
Knowledge." One might naturally suppose that this subject
would have been disposed of in a treatise on the Principles of
Psychology ; for if the word knowledge is used in the limited
sense of the product of mental activity (and it is in this
sense alone that Lewes and Spencer employ the word),
surely its limitations should be a part of the study of Psy-
chology ; and the principle of the " Limitations of Knowl-
edge " should be clearly laid down among psychological prin-
ciples. But, on the contrary, the subject is begun with as
much freshness as if nothing had been said in regard to it,
or at least as if the problems which it suggests were entirely
unsolved.
In the light of the principle which this work would estab-
lish, the question, What are the limitations of knowledge ?
326
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 327
can hardly be considered as rational ; for Knowledge to us
means the same thing as Life or Progress ; it is universal.
The absence of limits (the infinite) is one of the appearances
of this principle by which we apprehend it. The " Limita-
tions of Knowledge," therefore, is an impossible subject to
us. The solution of the metaphysical problem enables us
to regard human knowledge as a phase of human life.
We admit no limits to human life excepting individual
limits, which are purely relative. The limits of human
knowledge are to be found in the functions and structures
of the human and the social organism. We do not admit,
therefore, to the discussion of the " Limitations of Knowl-
edge " such questions as the contradistinctions of Mind and
Matter, or the meanings of Cause, Force, and Motion.
The solution of these questions depends upon an under-
standing of the meaning of ultimate principles, — the knowl-
edge that they express but a single fact and certain clearly
denned aspects of this fact. Hence the best that Lewes can
do with these questions is to push them aside with vague
generalities whenever they interfere with his explanations, —
this he is compelled to do throughout the whole course of
his philosophy.
We have before us a closely reasoned essay, forming the
greater part of the first volume of " Problems of Life and
Mind." Containing as it certainly does more advanced and
more clearly expressed views on the subject of human knowl-
edge than perhaps any other work of the kind, this essay
nevertheless bears a title which implies a contradiction in
terms, and so creates the difficulty which it is the purpose
of the author to remove.
One of the best sentences to be found in this essay is,
" The certainty of knowledge is not affected by its circum-
scription." It is immediately followed by one still more
suggestive, — " The principle of relativity furnishes a crite-
rion which is coextensive with the domain of intelligence."
In these two sentences we have what is in effect the chal-
lenge and the defeat of agnosticism, — the utter discomfi-
328 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
ture of " The Unknowable "; but the author passes on, ap-
parently unconscious of the significance of his own words; he
passes on to endless repetitions of the same questions and
the replies to them. In these sentences the question of Cer-
titude, or ultimate Proof, is answered ; and yet the first
hundred pages of the following volume of the same series
(" Problems of Life and Mind ") are devoted to the discussion
of the " Principles of Certitude " ; and even then the ques-
tion is left undecided.
In the above sentences we have two distinct assertions :
the first is, that the circumscriptions of knowledge do not
render knowledge itself less certain ; and the second, that the
principle of relativity is coextensive with intelligence. The
first simply affirms that human knowledge is subject to human
conditions, and that this fact does not affect its integrity, or
that knowledge, as we find it, is knowledge, and not illusion.
The second assertion means that knowledge, or intelligence,
has no absolute limits. For if the principle of relativity, or
the ultimate relation, is coextensive with intelligence, and
motion is the ultimate relation, the principle of intelligence
is universal ; or, which is the same thing, there is no absolute
distinction between Knowledge, Life, and Motion — that is to
say, the ideas which these words represent can be produced
to a single logical focus. It follows from this that the prin-
ciple of Relativity, or Motion, is the criterion of knowledge ;
for a criterion is a fact by which other facts are measured,
or compared. The ultimate fact must be the measure of all
things, the criterion of knowledge.
It may be objected that every generalization can be thus
dissipated by reduction to the ultimate fact of motion. It
is, however, this very admission which it is the aim of phi-
losophy to obtain. As long as ultimate proofs are sought,
they must be sought in the ultimate fact, for in the universal
principle the proof and the fact merge in one. The prin-
ciples of certitude, therefore, are to be found in the basis, or
source, of all truth, the primordial fact ; and the principle of
individual certitude, or, as Spencer denominates it, the Uni-
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 329
versal Postulate, is to be found in the rule that facts express
themselves ; which is the simplest way of saying that we be-
lieve things when we are unable to disbelieve them ; — ultimate
proof, or " the universal postulate, consists in the inconceiva-
bleness of the negation of a proposition."
Human perception is not a condition of ultimate truth,
but a product of it. We appreciate the universe through its
motions, or activities ; the principle of intelligence is there-
fore indistinguishable from universal activity. Isolated or
individual facts are but the function of individual existence.
The quality, or certitude, of an individual fact is but another
name for the existence of which the fact is an expression.
The idea of quality can be traced directly to the fact of
personal existence, disclosing the source of all ethical concep-
tions ; and the companion idea of quantity can be identified
with the fact of general existence ; thus giving us the remote
counterparts of subject and object, i. e. time and space, the
two great aspects of life.
Lewes, as will be seen from the following, freely acknowl-
edged the disadvantage he was under in not having deter-
mined the relation of subject and object. This occurs in
the essay on the " Limitations of Knowledge " :
" Metaphysics, in addition to its own obscurities, is over-
shadowed by the uncertainties hovering around its data. We
cannot, for instance, accept Force as the cause of Motion
unless Cause and Motion have already been clearly defined ;
and they are as obscure as the Force they are employed to
render intelligible. We cannot stir a step in the exposition
of the relation of Object and Subject without presupposing
to be already settled fundamental points of Psychology
which are still under discussion. No explanation can be
given of Matter which does not involve a conception of
Force. Thus the interconnections which are potent aids in
physical inquiry are so many obstacles in metaphysical re-
search."
In passing on to the further consideration of this essay,
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., p. 188.
330 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
it would be well to mark the clear explanation of the word
Experience which Lewes offers, as it is so important in
discussions concerning the nature of mind :
" The main question must remain nebulous so long as
we are without a precise definition of Experience. The
term is very variously and very laxly used. I have defined
it * the Registration of Feeling/ And what is Feeling ?
It is the reaction of the sentient Organism under stimulus.
Observe, it is not the reaction of an organ, but of the Organ-
ism,— a most important distinction, and rarely recognized.
This reaction is a resultant of two factors, — one factor being
the Organism and the other being the Stimulus. We are
not to accept every response of an organ as a feeling; nor
every feeling as an experience. The secretion of a gland is
a response physiologically similar to the response of the eye
or ear ; but it is not a feeling, although entering as an ele-
ment into the mass of Systemic Sensation. Nor will the
response of a sensory organ, even when a feeling (through
its combination with other sentient responses), be an experi-
ence, unless it be registered in a modification of structure,
and thus be revivable, because a statical condition is requisite
for a dynamical manifestation. Rigorously speaking, of
course there is no body that can be acted on without being
modified : every sunbeam that beats against the wall alters
the structure of that wall ; every breath of air that cools the
brow alters the state of the organism. But such minute
alterations are inappreciable for the most part by any means
in our possession, and are not here taken into account, be-
cause, being annulled by subsequent alterations, they do not
become registered in the structure. We see many sights,
read many books, hear many wise remarks ; but, although
each of these has insensibly affected us, changed our mental
structures, so that 'we are a part of all that we have met/
yet the registered result, the residuum, has perhaps been
very small. While, therefore, no excitation of Feeling is
really without some corresponding modification of Structure,
it is only the excitations which produce permanent modifi-
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 331
cations that can be included under Experience. A feeling
passed away, and incapable of revival, would never be called
an experience by any strict writer. But the feelings regis-
tered are psycho-statical elements, so that henceforward
when the Organism is stimulated it must react along these
lines, and the product will be a feeling more or less resem-
bling the feeling formerly excited." l * * *
The value of Lewes' study of Mind is not to be lightly
estimated. His command of the minutest details of the re-
sults of introspection is wonderful. He seems to have sum-
moned all his resources to the solution of the problem of
Mind, and to have fairly overridden the enormous obstacle
of an entangled metaphysical vocabulary. Thus throughout
the succeeding " Problems," although great space is given to
unsuccessful discussions of metaphysics, the theme of Life
and Mind is developed with an accuracy and thoroughness
which places the science of psychology upon a firm footing.
The carelessness observed in the use of the word mind,
even among the ostensibly learned, is thus dwelt upon :
" Mind is commonly spoken of in oblivion of the fact that
it is an abstract term expressing the sum of mental phe-
nomena (with or without an unexplored remainder, according
to the point of view) ; as an abstraction, it comes to be re-
garded in the light of an entity, or separate source of the
phenomena which constitute it. A thought, which as a prod-
uct is simply an embodied process, comes to be regarded in
the light of something distinct from the process ; and thus
two aspects of one and the same phenomenon are held to be
two distinct phenomena. Because we abstract the material
of an object from its form, considering each apart, we get
into the habit of treating form as if it were in reality sepa-
rable from material. By a similar illusion we come to regard
the process (of thinking) apart from the product (thought),
and, generalizing the process, we call it Mind, or Intellect,
which then means no longer the mental phenomena con-
densed into a term, but the source of these phenomena. * * *
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., pp. 193, 195.
332 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
It is reflection and experiment which convince us that the
air is a material object capable of being weighed and meas-
ured. It is reflection and experiment which convince us
that Thought is an embodied process, which has its con-
ditions in the history of the race no less than in that of the
individual." '
With this clear definition of Mind, let us revert to the
question of Experience.
The following lines by George Eliot are a poetical expres-
sion of the great psychological truth, that the experiences of
the race as well as those of the individual become embodied
in modifying the mental structure :
" What ! shall the trick of nostrils and of lips
Descend through generations, and the soul,
That moves within our frame like God in worlds,
Imprint no record, leave no documents
Of her great history ? Shall men bequeath
The fancies of their palates to their sons,
And shall the shudder of restraining awe,
The slow-wept tears of contrite memory,
Faith's prayerful labor, and the food divine
Of fasts ecstatic, — shall these pass away
Like wind upon the waters tracklessly ? "
Shall the physical propensities be faithfully recorded and
transmitted in the physical structure, and shall all the
emotions and thoughts of life fail to modify and shape the
mental or nervous structure?
Nothing can be more radically opposed to generally ac-
cepted teachings than Lewes' explanation of the interde-
pendence of physical and mental activities. In the analysis
of the terms feelings, thoughts, and actions given in the
previous review, the artificial nature of the distinctions
between the different orders of subjective activity was
pointed out. So fixed, however, has become the idea that
mind means something wholly separate from body, that too
much emphasis cannot be laid upon facts which explain
this error. In modern methods of teaching, every thing is
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. I., pp. 199, 202.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 333
prepared for the student of physiology so that he will have
no difficulty in becoming acquainted with the wonders and
obscurities of the sensorium. The study of the physical
activities is carefully demarcated from that of the mind ;
this division is more than analytical, for the distinctions
are made to appear ultimate ; they are never removed so
as to afford a synthetic view of the whole subject.
The cerebral hemispheres are believed to be the seat of
combination for all the senses. In them sensations are said
to be transformed into thoughts, emotions into sentiments.
Lewes severely criticises this assumption of exclusive func-
tions of the brain :
" The cerebral hemispheres," he says, " considered as
organs, are similar in structure and properties to the other
nerve-centres ; the laws of sensibility are common to both ;
[and] the processes are alike in both ; in a word, the Brain is
only one organ [a supremely important organ !] in a complex
of organs, whose united activities are necessary for the phe-
nomena called mental. * * * The assignment of even Think-
ing to the cerebral hemispheres is purely hypothetical.
Whatever may be the evidence on which it rests, it must
still be acknowledged to be an hypothesis awaiting verifica-
tion. This may seem incredible to some readers, accustomed
to expositions which do not suggest a doubt, — expositions
where the course of an impression is described from the sen-
sitive surface along the sensory nerve to its ganglion, from
thence to a particular spot in the Optic Thalamus [where the
impression is said to become a sensation], from that spot to
cells in the upper layer of the cerebral convolutions [where
the sensation becomes an idea], from thence downward to a
lower layer of cells [where the idea is changed into a volitional
impulse], and from thence to the motor-ganglia in the
spinal cord, where it is reflected on the motor-nerves and
muscles.
" Nothing is wanting to the precision of this description.
Every thing is wanting to its proof. The reader might sup-
pose that the course had been followed step by step, at least,
334 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
as the trajectory of a cannon-ball or the path of a planet is
followed ; and that where actual observation is at fault, cal-
culation is ready to fill up the gap. Yet what is the fact ? It
is that not a single step of this involved process has ever
been observed ; the description is imaginary from beginning
to end." l
Lewes goes on to explain that although the imagination
has had inductions to work on in constructing these theories,
all that the evidence vouches for is, that the integrity of the
nervous system is necessary for the manifestation of its mental
phenomena.
In the volume entitled " The Physical Basis of Mind " it is
abundantly shown that sensations, emotions, volitions, and
even instincts, may be manifested after the brain of an animal
has been removed. Hence the assertion made by so many
physiologists, that the brain is the exclusive organ of the
mind, or intelligence, or the Sensorium, or place of feeling,
cannot be sustained.
Now when we reflect on the great disturbance to the gen-
eral mechanism which must result from such an operation as
removing the brain, and how easily a comparatively slight
disturbance of a mechanism will abolish many of its manifes-
tations, we see decisive proof that the brain can only be one
factor — however important — in the production of mental
manifestations.
Thus, notwithstanding the endless proofs that Mind means
nothing more than an ideal separation of a certain view of in-
dividual life from the sum of individual existence, the analysis
by which our conceptions of physical and mental phenomena
are built up is made of itself an immovable fact, whereas it
is but a method of mental procedure, and should be borne
in mind as such. The great fact that unconscious states play
by far the greater part in mental life forces the conviction that
every activity of the body is a more or less remote factor in
consciousness. The familiar instances of mental aberration
directly traceable to physical disturbances, the frequent occur-
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," 3d series, p. 65.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 335
rence of different degrees of moral degeneration resulting
from different kinds of disease, are only prominent instances
among the great mass of personal experiences which teach us
that the operations of the mind are dependent from moment
to moment upon physical conditions.
Nothing, however, short of a close study of the sensoriunv
from the most intelligent standpoint, can reveal the fact that
thought, although the function of vastly more complex con-
ditions than those of feeling, contains no ultimate principle
which is not expressed in the simplest forms of life, and that
there is no organ or tissue in the human body which has
not a voice — a direct influence — in its mental and moral
determinations.
The brain therefore is not the sole organ of the mind, but
only a very important part of the sensorium, and it is need-
less to say that notwithstanding its vast importance in intel-
lectual phenomena the co-operation of the rest of the nervous
system, and indeed of the whole physical system, is at least
equally essential to the activity known as thought. Hence
we must no longer " isolate the cerebrum from the rest
of the nervous system, assigning it as the exclusive seat of
sensation, nor suppose that it has laws of grouping which.
are not at work in the other centres. * * * The soul is a
history, and its activities the products of that history. Each
mental state is a state of the whole Sensorium ; one stroke
sets the whole vibrating." '
The Sensorium, in the broadest sense, is the whole living
organism. All attempts to localize the part of the organism
which reacts upon a stimulus are vain, so interdependent are
all parts of all organisms. Although nerve fibrils, fibres, and
cells, forming in different combinations, nerves, and ganglia,,
are easily distinguished, the nervous system has no exact
demarcations from the other tissues. It is impossible to say
exactly where the nerve ceases and the muscle begins, so-
insensible are the structural gradations in the connection.
The functions of the nervous system are even less sus-
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," 3d series, pp. 69, 71, 102.
336 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
ceptible of a positive separation from those of the rest of
the organism.
" The method of composition remains the same through-
out the entire fabric of Mind, from the formation of its
simplest feelings up to the formation of those immense and
complex aggregates of feelings which characterize its highest
developments."
The Sensorium, from a functional point of view, can be
described in general terms as that part of the organism
which is capable of the greatest molecular activity. This
idea becomes irresistible when we study the development of
nervous systems from their rudimentary forms in the sim-
plest types of animal life to higher grades of complexity.
Reflex action, or the isolation of the nervous arc from the
nervous system, considering the reflex act apart from its
preceding and succeeding states, is, therefore, but an ana-
lytical distinction of organic activity. The discovery that
the co-ordination of movements in the extremities and other
parts of the body can take place after the removal of the
brain, in certain animals, does not prove that were the brain
present it would not take part in some degree in the move-
ments. The central fact that " no single organ has a func-
tion at all when isolated from the organism," differently
expressed, is, that no activity can be separated (otherwise
than ideally) from the complex of activities known as indi-
vidual life.
" The brain is simply one element in a complex mechan-
ism, each element of which is a component of the Senso-
rium, or Sentient Ego. We may consider the several
elements as forming a plexus of sensibilities, the solidarity
of which is such that while each may separately be stimu-
lated in a particular way, no one of them can be active with-
out involving the activity of all the others. * * * When,
therefore, we reduce the abstract term Mind to its concretes,
namely, states of the sentient mechanism, the ' power of the
Mind ' simply means the stimulative and regulative processes
which ensue on sentient excitation.
1 Herbert Spencer : " Principles of Psychology," vol. I., p. 184.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 337
" We may now formulate a conclusion : Sensibility is the
special property of the nervous tissue. Every bit of that
tissue is sensitive in so far that it is capable of entering as
a sensible component into a group, the resultant of which is a
feeling — i. e. a change in the state of the sentient organism.
The Sensorium is the wtwle which reacts on the stimulation of
any particular portion of that whole"
There is no doubt, therefore, that the aversion so generally
manifested toward the proposition, that all intellectual or
spiritual activities have mechanical principles, is simply the
result of a cramped and inadequate idea of the scope of
those laws or influences known as mechanical.
The most devout person would not object to the assertion
that all the activities of nature, from the evolutions of the
heavenly bodies to the life of microscopic plants and ani-
mals, are guided by the hand of God, and that this same
guidance is manifested in every human thought and feeling.
And yet these words, translated into more exact terms,
simply mean that the universal principle known as Motion
is the ultimate fact in all objective and subjective life,
uniting, in a single system of interdependent activities, the
body and the mind, or nature and consciousness.
If any other point or principle than that of general exist-
ence, and through it personal existence, be selected as the
focus of thought, our logical perspectives become confused,
and no effort can readjust them. It is in the failure to make
this adjustment of the perspectives of Knowledge, and to
thereby harmonize the principles which we call Knowledge,
Life, and Progress, that we have the failures of philosophy.
Thus it is easy to see how Lewes fixed upon feeling as the
ultimate fact of our existence, for each individual can only
appreciate general existence through the medium of the
activities of his own life.
We have already seen, in one of the psychological analyses
of the preceding review, that feeling is a name which, in its
broadest meaning, represents all internal changes ; or, what
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," 3d series, pp. 77, 82.
338 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
is the same thing, the subjective side of life. To sensible
experience is traced the origin of every thought ; thus the
fact of personal existence is naturally in the line of our view
of general existence. The fact that Lewes did not perform
an ultimate analysis must explain to us the repetitions which
we find in his works. But this we find in all philosophy. It
is these repetitions which make philosophy so dull and un-
interesting to the majority of readers. . In Lewes, however,
the repetitions are merely repeated efforts, instituted from
different starting-points, to reach a common goal of thought,
and the union of these lines of investigation in a single point
can only be made by a bold and independent inference from
what he has written.
The whole purpose of his Problems entitled the " Limita-
tions of Knowledge," the " Principles of Certitude," and
" From the Known to the Unknown," is to establish Feeling
as the ultimate fact of life.
Thus the scope of language and the nature of perception
are revealed by the genesis of metaphor. Language and
perception are purely synthetic. If we would retrace the
course of their development to a first cause or ultimate prin-
ciple, both become dissipated by the ideal analysis (for all
analysis is an art, or an ideal procedure), and we come upon
the logical or potential source of all things in God, Motion,
or Life. Is it not clear that every perception and every
thought must be less than this great fact, — must be but a
limited expression of it, the natural function of our indi-
viduality ?
When Lewes, therefore, affirms that Feeling is all in all
to us, he simply assigns to humanity the middle term be-
tween thought and the lowest forms of sentiency, and ex-
tends its meaning in both directions to include all phases of
life, from the simplest organic to the highest psychical ex-
istence. From the objective side of feeling, which is action,
he might have carried on the generalization until it became
universal.
That Lewes expresses the above ideas as clearly as it is
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 339
possible to express them without employing the instrument
of an ultimate analysis, can be seen from his argument on
the " Principles of Certitude," where we have the unknow-
able practically rejected in favor of the unknown.
' ' I have repeatedly insisted on the memorable fact that Science is no transcript
of Reality, but an ideal construction framed out of the analysis of the complex
phenomena given synthetically in Feeling, and expressed in abstractions. In
all analysis there is abstraction, which rejects much more than is expressed ;
this rejected remainder may in turn be analyzed, but at each step there is an
unexplored remainder. As, in the speculation of Laplace, there are dark stars
scattered through space, but hidden from observation because they are dark ; so
in every phenomenon there are numberless factors at work which are hidden
from observation, and only speculatively postulated. Sometimes these specu-
lative inferences, which always have some basis in observation or analogy, sug-
gest the means of objective verification. Thus Newton inferred that bodies at
the earth's surface gravitated toward each other ; it was an inference from
analogy, but was then beyond experimental proof.1 It has since been experi-
mentally verified, and thus exhibited, not only as an ideal truth, but one having
real application.
" It is requisite to bear in mind that no general statement can be real, no
ideal truth be a transcript of the actual order in its real complexity. ' Until we
know thoroughly the nature of matter, and the forces which produce its motions,
it will be utterly impossible to submit to mathematical reasoning the exact con-
ditions of any physical question,' and even then it will only be mathematical
relations which will be formulated. The approximate solutions which are
reached ' are obtained by a species of abstraction, or rather limitation of the
data,' and thus ' the infinite series of forces really acting may be left out of con-
sideration ; so that the mathematical investigation deals with a finite (and gen-
erally small) number of forces, instead of a practically infinite number.' a
" If, then, Science is, in its nature, an ideal construction, and its truths are
only symbols which approximate to realities, there is an internal necessity of
movement in scientific thought which transforms existing theories according to
ever-widening experience. We can never reach the finality of Existence, for
we are always having fresh experiences, and fresh theories to express them.
"We also need hypotheses to supplement the deficiencies of observation ; and
that hypothesis is the best which introduces most congruity among our ascer-
tained truths. Yet throughout this shifting of the limits there is a constant
principle of Certitude, and the truth of yesterday is not proved false because it
is included in the wider truth of to-day : the two truths express two limits of
Experience.
" In conclusion, we may say that various theories are ideal representations of
the External Order, and are severally true, in so far as the import of their terms.
1 Newton : " Principia," III., Prop. VII.. Corol. I.
* Thomson and Tait : " Natural Philosophy," vol. I., p. 337.
340 , THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
includes no more than has been verified by the reduction of Inference to Intui-
tion or Sensation ; severally false, in so far as their terms include what is in-
consistent with such verified import ; and severally dotibtful, in so far as the
terms include what has not been thus verified. To express it in a more abstract
phrase : Truth is the equivalence of the terms of a proposition ; and the equiva-
lence is tested by the reduction of the terms to an identical proposition" J
An identical proposition is only another name for the
merging of difference in identity, the aspects of motion in
the fact of motion, the subjective and the objective in the
principle of life. Thus we see that the vexed question of
the principles of certitude can alone be solved by an
ultimate analysis, that nothing short of the reduction
of the categories of thought to a single principle will
remove its difficulties. Mr. Spencer says, the deepest test
of truth is negative, i. e. ultimate proof to us is our ina-
bility to believe a proposition untrue, or our inability to
disbelieve the truth of a proposition. What does this mean
but that truth itself is relative, and that our apprecia-
tions of relative truths are but adjustments, more or less ex-
tended, of individual to general existence ? The criterion or
measure of these adjustments is the fact of equality, the
balancing of forces, the establishment of equivalences ;
doubt disappears when this balance is reached. Thus our
test of truth is negative only in the sense that it is not
absolute, for conviction is the result of conditions, the ad-
justment of internal and external forces. Truth, then, is the
equivalence of the terms of a proposition, the meeting of
the individual with the general mind through the medium
of language. What room is there in this definition of certi-
tude for the unknowable ? Of what terms, of what proposi-
tion, is the unknowable the equivalence ? The unknowable
is not the unexplored remainder, for that is merely the out-
lying region of experience, the background of fact, from
which each apprehended truth stands out in relief. The
unexplored remainder is the unknown, the unassimilated
field of truth. The. unknown, therefore, is related to the
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. II., p. 77.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 341
known, its influence is felt in the equilibrium, the balance of
forces, which we call conviction.
The unknowable has no influence in truth ; it has no voice
in any proposition ; it is a term in no equivalence ; it has no
existence in fact.
Who can doubt that Lewes repudiates the unknowable
after reading his criticism of Spencer's theory of certitude ?
" I do not," says he, " quite go along with Mr. Spencer when
he argues for the necessity of some unproved truth, as a
fundamental postulate ; on the contrary, it seems to me that
every proved truth is ultimate, requires no foundation,
admits of none, though it may receive a logical justification
by being thrown into the form of an identical proposition.
The finality is Feeling, and a truth of Feeling needs no
external support. The same is to be said when the truth of
Feeling is expressed in Signs. Mr. Spencer's demand for
some unattainable depth to be postulated, but not plumb-
lined, may be compared with Hegel's position that Truth is
always infinite, and cannot be expressed in finite terms.
But leaving this and one or two minor points out of consid-
eration, I think his arguments are conclusive, and only prefer
the proposed formula of Equivalence because it is positive
and unambiguous." Hence Lewes sees a resemblance be-
tween Mr. Spencer's belief in the unknowable and the skep-
ticism of Hegel, the want of faith in the integrity of human
knowledge. To say that truth is infinite and cannot be
expressed in finite terms, is the same thing as saying that
knowledge springs from the unknowable, that truth or certi-
tude springs from an unattainable fact, or as arguing that
mathematical infinity cannot be expressed or discussed in
finite terms. This introduces, unnecessarily, the element of
mystery into our theory of consciousness, rendering vague
and uncertain what should be the simplest and most definite
of all solutions.
Lewes says that " all knowledge begins with the discern-
ment of resemblances and differences, — it is necessarily polar,
resemblance being impossible except on a background of
342 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
difference, and difference also impossible except on a back-
ground of resemblance. While knowledge begins here, it
ends with equations. What are equations ? The resem-
blances abstracted from all accompanying differences, and
reduced to the identity of equivalence."1
What is this postulate of Nature's uniformity but the
conception of Motion as the ultimate reality ? All the
scholastic principles of logic, the logical principles expounded
by Mill and Bain (i. e. the Uniformity of Nature), the Uni-
versal Postulate of Spencer, the principles of Identity and
Equivalence of Lewes, lead us to the same fact, compel the
same conclusion. Our lives consist of the difference between
subject and object, and their quality and extent are
elaborations of this difference.
Now we enter upon the great question of the nature of
Matter. The philosophic literature of our age teems with
discussions on this subject, as though it were our chief logical
duty to come to an agreement about the nature of the
statical aspect of the universe. Why the dynamical aspect
should receive less attention is not clear, unless it is that
men have given up trying to define Force and have taken
up Matter for a change. The dynamical aspect of the
universe can best be symbolized by the conception of Time.
The moment we add the statical aspect, or space, to time,
motion springs into thought.
The chief wonder concerning Lewes' philosophy is, that
he could have been so explicit with regard to the nature of
matter and force, declaring them to be but phases or aspects
of motion, and yet that he should never have hit upon the
idea of identifying space with matter, and time with force,
thus bringing all these disputed terms into interdependence
and harmony. This wonder increases as we read such lumi-
nous definitions of Motion as this :
" Here arises a complication which will beset the whole
discussion unless we form distinct ideas of the separation of
Matter and Force as a purely analytical artifice. The two
1 *' Problems of Life and Mind," vol. II., pp. 79, 81, 83.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 343
abstractions are but two aspects of the same thing ; a separa-
tion rendered inevitable by the polarity of Experience, which
everywhere presents Existence under passive and active as-
pects. Force is not something superadded to Matter, it is
Reals viewed in their dynamic aspect ; Matter is not some-
thing different from Force, but Reals viewed in their statical
or passive aspect : either is unthinkable without the other.
Force is immanent in Matter, and Matter is immanent in
Force. The schoolmen called Matter potentia passiva, and
Force virtus activa. Logically distinguished, they require to
be considered apart ; and throughout the present problem
we shall strive to keep up this separation ; it cannot be thor-
oughly accomplished, but we shall endeavor to eliminate
Force, as the geometer eliminates every thing but Exten-
sion." *
Here Lewes clearly recognizes the ultimate fact of Motion,
the union of the dynamical and the statical aspects of the uni-
verse, the one fact of which time and space are respectively the
subjective and objective aspects. Our most advanced physi-
cists recognize this principle, but are far from rendering it in
simple and concise terms. Thus we read in the well-known
work of Thomson and Tait : " We cannot, of course, give a
definition of matter which will satisfy the metaphysician, but
the naturalist may be content to know matter as that which
can be perceived by the senses, or as tliat which can be acted upon
by, or can exert, force. The latter, and indeed the former
also, of these definitions involves the idea of Force." a
In the treatise of Lewes on the Nature of Matter, in Prob-
lem IV., we have an illustration of the lengths to which these
discussions are brought. Here the extension, impenetra-
bility, infinite divisibility, indestructibility, gravity, and inertia
of matter are considered without coming to any definite re-
sult.
A comprehension of the nature of perception, an apprecia-
tion of the ultimate analysis, shows the futility of treating Mat-
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. II., p. 206.
* Thomson and Tait : " Natural Philosophy," vol. I., p. 161.
344 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
ter as an ultimate fact. Lewes, without treating Matter as an
ultimate fact, however, fails to identify it in explicit terms
with Space ; and yet he considers it the symbol of all objec-
tivity, which is equivalent to its identification with motion ;
thus giving it alternately too little and too much meaning.
The logical consolation which results from a knowledge of
the merely relative significance of these terms, Matter and
Force, can hardly be overestimated.
Problems V. and VI. are respectively " Force and Cause/'
and " The Absolute in the Correlations of Feeling and Mo-
tion." The former explains conclusively that Cause and
Effect are simply the different points of view from which
we regard every phenomenon or event, and can therefore
never be more than ideally separated from the events of
which they are the expression. The question — dear to so
many, — What is Cause in itself ? is shown to be an absurd-
ity, and the enormous quantity of literature which has the
solution of this question for its object is rendered useless.
In closing Problem VI., we find Lewes again victorious
over all disadvantages. He strikes the key-note of universal
truth with a precision which enables us to forget the labored
explanations of the preceding chapters concerning discon-
nected ultimates. His deep knowledge of psychological
principles triumphs, and, independently of metaphysics, he
performs an ultimate analysis by a comparison of the fact of
consciousness with general existence. But his long service
in the unsettled disputes of metaphysics has made him the
slave of a certain vocabulary, has rendered him powerless to
rise above certain habits of expression and to restore order
to this chaos of ultimate terms. By another route, however,
namely, a scientific analysis of mind and nature, he reaches
the coveted result. Witness the closing words of Problem
VI.:
" Existence — the Absolute — is known to us in Feeling,
which in its most abstract expression is Change, external and
internal. The external changes are symbolized as Motion,
because that is the mode of Feeling into which all others are
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 345
translated when objectively considered : objective considera-
tion being the attitude of looking at the phenomena, whereas
subjective consideration is the attitude of any other sensible
response, so that the phenomena are different to the different
senses. There is no real break in the continuity of Existence ;
all its modes are but differentiations. We cannot suppose the
physical organism and its functions to be other than integrant
parts of the Cosmos from which it is formally differentiated ;
nor can we suppose the psychical organism and its functions
to be other than integrant parts of this physical organism
from. which it is ideally separated. Out of the infinite modes
of Existence a group is segregated, and a planet assumes
individual form ; out of the infinite modes of this planetary
existence smaller groups are segregated in crystals, organ-
isms, societies, nations. Each group is a special system,
having forces peculiar to it, although in unbroken continuity
with the forces of all other systems. Out of the forces of
the animal organism a special group is segregated in the
nervous mechanism, which has its own laws. If ideally we
contrast any two of these groups, — a planet with an organ-
ism, or an organism with a nervous mechanism, — their great
unlikeness seems to forbid identification. They are indeed
different, but only because they have been differentiated.
Yet they are identical, under a more general aspect. In
like manner, if we contrast the world of Sensation and
Appetites with the world of Conscience and its Moral Ideals,
the unlikeness is striking. Yet we have every ground for
believing that Conscience is evolved from Sensation, and
that Moral Ideals are evolved from Appetites ; and thus we
connect the highest mental phenomena with vital Sensibility,
Sensibility with molecular changes in the organism, and
these with changes in the Cosmos.
"This unification of all the modes of Existence by no
means obliterates the distinction of modes, nor the necessity
of understanding the special characters of each. Mind
remains Mind, and is essentially opposed to Matter, in spite
of their identity in the Absolute ; just as Pain is not Pleas-
346 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
ure, nor Color either Heat or Taste, in spite of their identity
• in Feeling. The logical distinctions represent real differen-
tiations, but not distinct existents. If we recognize the One
in the Many, we do not thereby refuse to admit the Many
in the One." '
Here the term absolute (or time) is used in the place of
motion or the ultimate reality, but the great unity of the
argument rises above these verbal defects. It is evident that
the idea which Lewes seeks to convey is that the most gen-
eral terms of life and mind point to a single fact and bear a
definite relation to it.
For those who may feel inclined to examine deeply into
the proposition that Matter and Space mean the same thing,
or that the meanings of these two terms converge in a
logical point, I insert an essay by Lewes entitled, "Action
at a Distance," which is by far the most learned and com-
pact treatment of the question which it has been my good
fortune to meet. It occurs as an appendix to the volume
under discussion.
ACTION AT A DISTANCE.
In spite of Newton's emphatic disclaimer, his opponents in old days, and
many of his followers in our own, have been unable to banish the idea that the
relation between bodies called Attraction is a mysterious something inherent in
Matter, seated among the molecules, so to speak, and stretching forth its grasp
to bind them into masses, and distant masses into systems. I do not pretend
that this is what any one avows ; I only say that it is a paraphrase of \vhat many
teach. Few doubt that there is a special Agent symbolized in the term attrac-
tive force (" Ce monstre metaphysique si cher a une partie des philosophes
modernes, si odieux a 1'autre," says Maupertuis), and that this Agent acts across
empty space.
" That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter," writes
Newton to Bentley, ' ' so that one body may act upon another at a distance
through a vacuum, and without the mediation of any thing else by and through
which this action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so
great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a
competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it." Nevertheless, even his
own editor, Roger Cotes, declares action at a distance to be one of the primary
properties of matter ; and many mathematicians and metaphysicians have
flouted the scholastic axiom, " A body cannot act where it is not," treating it as
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," vol. II., p. 449.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 347
a vulgar error. They urge that astronomical phenomena prove bodies to act at
enormous distances ; and moreover, that the molecules are never in actual con-
tact even when they act on each other.
The notion of action at a distance contradicts Rule II. It presupposes a
body to be moving through the space in which it does not move, existing where
it does not exist. Action is dynamic existence. The force or pressure by
which, in which a body acts, is ideally, but not really, separable from the active
matter, and the coexistent positions named space. Having thus ideally sepa-
rated the Agency from the Agent, men find it easy to suppose the Force acting
where the matter is not ; and some men materialize this Force, convert it into
an Ether interposed between masses and molecules, so that the matter acts on
this ethereal Force, and the Force transmits the action to Matter.
Experience does indeed seem to suggest action at a distance, and thus to con-
tradict the axiom. I am seated in my study, and can certainly act upon my
servant, who is distant from me in the kitchen. I have only to touch the bell
and she comes up-stairs. She is drawn toward me, as the apple is drawn toward
the earth, across a distant space. But the scholastic axiom, "A thing cannot
act where it is not," is undisturbed by such a fact, and only seems contradicted
by it when we suppress in thought all the intermediate agents whose agency
was indispensable. I acted directly on the bell-rope, which was continuous with
the bell, and set it vibrating ; the vibrations of the bell acted on the air, the air
on my servant's auditory organ, that on her intellectual organ, and that in turn
upon her muscles. In the fall of an apple the case seems different, because we
cannot so readily realize to ourselves all the co-operant conditions ; but the
phrase by which we express these, when we say the earth attracts the apple, is
not less elliptical than the phrase, ' ' I caused my servant to come up-stairs by
ringing the bell."
If bodies "attract" each other across empty space, we can only under-
stand this attraction as a moving toward each other in the line of a resultant
pressure, not as the dragging by immaterial grappling-irons thrown from
one to the other. " Equidem existimo gravitatem," says Copernicus, "non
aliud esse quam appetentiam quandam naturalem, partibus inditam a divina
providentia opificis universoruin." * And Euler says : "In attempting to dive
into the mysteries of nature, it is of importance to know if the heavenly bodies
act upon each other by impulsion or by attraction ; if a certain subtile, invisible
matter impels them toward each other, or if they are endowed with a secret
occult quality by which they are mutually attracted. Those who hold the
second view maintain that the quality of mutual attraction is proper to all
bodies ; that it is as natural to them as magnitude. Had there been but two
bodies in the universe, however remote from each other, they would have had
from the first a tendency toward each other, by means of which they would in
time have approached and united." 2
This fiction respecting two bodies alone in the universe, and their inherent
tendency to approach each other, is in open defiance of all experience. Let us
1 Copernicus : " De Revolutionibus Orbium," I., ch. IX.
* Euler : " Letters to a German Princess," vol. I., p. 211.
348 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
grant the existence of only two bodies isolated in space : we must first declare
that, according to all the inductions from experience, they would not tend to
move toward each other, for they would not move at all ; some external motion
or pressure would be requisite, since their own internal motions would be in
equilibrium ; nor would an external force impel them to move toward each
other, unless the direction of that force were in this line and no other. Sup-
pose each body to be in motion, each would pursue its own direction, nor would
they ever meet, unless some third body in motion redirected them. Of course,
if the bodies are assumed to have an inherent tendency to rush together like two
water-drops, but without the external pressures which blend the water-drops,
they would inevitably meet ; but what evidence is there for such an assumption ?
It is obvious that we cannot explain the- phenomena of attraction by the
fiction of two isolated bodies in empty space, because that fiction presupposes
conditions wholly unlike those of the known universe, which is not an universe
of two isolated bodies, but of infinite and variously related bodies.
Mr. Mill is very contemptuous in his notice of Hamilton's reliance on the
axiom that one body cannot act directly on another without contact. " In one
sense of the word," Mr. Mill says, " a thing is wherever its action is ; its power
is there, though not its corporeal presence [a singular distinction in the writings
of so positive a thinker !]. But to say that a thing can only act where its power
is, would be the idlest of mere identical propositions. [An axiom is an identical
proposition.] And where is the warrant for asserting that a thing cannot act
when it is not locally contiguous to the thing it acts upon ? * * * What is the
meaning of contiguity ? According to the best physical knowledge we possess,
things are never actually contiguous. What we term contact between particles,
only means that they are in the degree of proximity at which their mutual
repulsions are in equilibrium with their attractions. [Are not these repulsions
and attractions hypothetic phrases to express the fact that, however closely
bodies may be pressed together, their molecules cannot be both made to occupy
the same space, each unit, as an unit, having its limit ? — a fact also expressed by
impenetrability.^ If so, instead of never, things always act on one another at
some, though it may be a very small, distance. The belief that a thing can only
act where it is, is a common case of inseparable, though not ultimately indis-
soluble, association. It is an unconscious generalization, of the roughest possi-
ble description, from the most familiar cases of the mutual action of bodies
superficially considered. The temporary difficulty felt in apprehending any
action of body upon body unlike what people were accustomed to, created a
natural prejudice which was long a serious impediment to the reception of the
Newtonian theory : but it was hoped that the final triumph of that theory had
extinguished it [Newton, as we have seen, would have repudiated this conclu-
sion] ; that all educated persons were now aware that action at a distance is
intrinsically quite as credible as action in contact ; and that there is no reason,
1 " II paraitra par nos meditations," says Leibnitz, "que la substance cre'ee
ne recoit pas d'une autre substance creee la puissance meme d'agir, mais seule-
ment une limitation et determination de son propre effet pre-existant et de la
vertu active."
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 349
apart from specific experience, to regard the one as in any respect less probable
than the other."1
The idea that a body like the sun, which is ninety-two millions of miles dis-
tant from us, can act directly on us across this distance, assumed to be a vacuum,
is absolutely inconceivable, since action involves motion, and the motion
through this space must be either the motion of the body itself, or of some body
to which it has been transferred. A mere crack in a glass extinguishes its
sounding property ; that is to say, the waves of molecular motion are no longer
propagated because of this solution of continuity ; and if between us and the
sun there were any solution of material continuity, the waves of ether would not
reach us from the molecular agitations of the sun ; or — if we suppose them to
pass across this gap — it would still be the actual presence of the wave which at
each point exerted its pressure. Action at a distance, unless understood in the
sense -of action through unspecified intermediates, is both logically and physi-
cally absurd. Logically, since action involves reaction, and is only conceivable
as the combination of forces ; physically, since the attraction said to act across
the distance is avowedly a function of the distance, which increases as the
distance decreases ; and this implies that the distance is an Agent. Now, if we
assume the space between two bodies to be empty, we make this nothing an
effective Agent, which offers resistance to pressure, and causes a decrease of
attraction. I therefore ask, with Professor Clerk Maxwell : " If something is
transmitted from one particle to another at a distance, what is its condition
after it has left the one particle and before it has reached the other ? If this
something is the potential energy of the two particles, how are we to conceive
this energy as existing in a point of space coinciding neither with the one parti-
cle nor the other? In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to
another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy
exists,"3 otherwise there would be energy which was not the active state of
matter, but an activity floating through the Nothing.
It should be observed, and the observation is suggestive in many directions,
that some of the most eminent physicists have not only adopted the idea of
action at a distance, but have constructed on it elaborate and effective theories
of electrical action. Gauss, Weber, Riemann, Neumann, and others, have in-
terpreted electro-magnetic actions on this assumption ; and the success which
has attended their efforts is another among the many examples of the truth we
have previously enforced, that no amount of agreement between observed
phenomena and an hypothesis is sufficient to prove the truth of the hypothesis.
Contrasted with the labors of these mathematicians and physicists, we have the
labors of Faraday, Thomson, Tait, Clerk Maxwell, and others, who start from
the hypothesis of a material medium. Not only are they able to explain all
the observed phenomena on this hypothesis, but they have the immense advan-
tage of not invoking an agency which is without a warrant in experience. Where
the mathematicians admitted only the abstraction pure Distance, and centres of
force acting on each other across this Distance, Faraday and his followers have
1 Mill: " Examination of Sir W. Hamilton," p. 531.
* Clerk Maxwell : " Electricity and Magnetism," vol. II. p. 437.
350 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
admitted with the Distance its concrete Medium, and with the centres of force,
radii or lines of force ; where the one class sees the abstract power of action at
a distance impressed upon the electric fluids, the other class sees the actions
going on in the Medium, and these are the concrete phenomena. The supe-
riority of the second point of view seems to me to consist in its speculative and
its practical advantages. Although the two are mathematically equivalent, the
second has the speculative superiority of conformity with Experience ; and ac-
cording to Professor Maxwell it has the further practical advantage of leading
us to inquire into the nature of the action in each part of the medium.1
The conception of a Plenum is simply the unavoidable conclusion from the
conception of Existence as continuous ; and this continuity is itself the cor-
relative of the impossibility of accepting the pure Nothing otherwise than as a
generalization of our negative experiences. But if continuity of Existence is
thus necessarily postulated, it does not interfere with the utmost variety in the
modes of Existence ; and with every variation in mode there is superficial dis-
continuity. When a feeling changes, it is because another feeling has replaced
it. My hand passing over a surface has one mode of feeling until it reaches the
boundary, and then a new mode arises to replace the former,— the feeling of
solid resistance gives place to one of fluid or aerial resistance. The new mode
is unlike the old, discontinuous with it ; but it is nevertheless only a new form
of the fundamental continuity of Feeling.
The conception of a Plenum is further shown to be unavoidable when we
come to inquire into the nature of that void which is supposed to exist in the
interstices of molecules, and in the interplanetary spaces. Space is the abstract
of coexistent positions ; its concretes are bodies in the various relations of posi-
tion ; but in our abstraction we let drop the bodies, and retain only the relations
of position ; although a moment's consideration suffices to show that were there
no bodies, there could be no positions of bodies, consequently no relations of
coexistent positions, — in a word, no space. If, therefore, by interspaces be-
tween molecules or planets we understand simply the relations of position of
these bodies, we may indeed conveniently abstract these relations from their
related terms, and treat of spaces irrespective of bodies ; but we may not from
this artifice conclude that between these related terms there is a solution of the
continuity of Existence, — that between the bodies there is a void.
It is held that, were our senses sufficiently magnified, we might see the mole-
cules and atoms distributed throughout what now appears a mass, much as we
see the constellations distributed among the vast spaces of the heavens. Per-
haps ; but even then our magnified senses would discover no solution in the
great continuum. Necessarily so, since by no possible exaltation of an organ
of sense could the Suprasensible be reached. The void — if it exist — cannot
be felt, and the only Existence knowable by us is the Felt.
Hence the idea of action at a distance is absurd, if the distance be taken to
represent any solution in the material continuity, which is the continuity of the
Agent whose Agency is the action ; but the idea is intelligible and true if the
distance be taken to represent simply the relative positions of the body from
which the action is supposed to originate, and the body in which it is completed.
1 See his " Electricity and Magnetism," vol. I., pp. 58, 65, and 123.
CHAPTER XVI.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES (CONCLUDED).
The Relation of Universal to Organic Activities — Lewes' Theory of Perception.
To the reader who may have followed thus far the argu-
ment here presented, perhaps it will not be too much to say
that Metaphysics is a completed study. The problem of the
Ultimate Reality, which has puzzled thoughtful humanity
from Aristotle to the present day, has, owing to the vast
logical movement of this age of Evolution, at last achieved
its own solution, and we stand emancipated from the mys-
teries of idealism and the discouragements of skepticism,
with naught to fear for the integrity of human knowledge.
The logical position which an ultimate analysis occupies is
invulnerable. There is, perhaps, no keener pleasure than to
observe the resistance which it offers to the attacks of
trained men of science. If they reason from a statical basis,
postulating matter as an ultimate fact, " a substance which
remains after all properties have been accounted for," they
fall into the error of neglecting the very property by which
we appreciate facts, namely, their activity. If they postulate
this activity and deny to it extension or position, they again
involve themselves by first employing a symbol and then
withdrawing its meaning ; for no fact can be expressed with-
out conceding to it extension or position. The course to be
pursued in such a controversy is to watch carefully for terms
having the same meaning as Space, such as Infinite, Coex-
istence, Matter, Substance, Status, Position, etc. ; or the
equivalents of Time, such as Absolute, Abstract Sequence,
Force considered as the cause of motion, or Motion consid-
351
352 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
ered apart from its space aspect; or the equivalents of
Motion, such as Life, God, Power, First Cause ; and, when
these terms are used, to insist upon giving them their full
significance. Nothing can withstand the force of such an
analysis. It is soon perceived that by employing abstrac-
tions, we recede from the particulars of life to the first or
simplest fact, the initial relation of personal and general
existence.
It is therefore with feelings of the utmost relief that we
take leave of the abstractions of metaphysics and take up
the remaining three volumes of Lewes' philosophic writings
purely as a scientific study, neglecting any thing we may
find in them pertaining to ontological questions.
Indeed Lewes seems to have written these last volumes in
much the same spirit as that in which we would review them,
for we find in them, after all, but little that is strictly
metaphysical.
The first of these is entitled the " Physical Basis of Mind,"
and deals with the following problems : " The Nature of
Life"; "The Nervous Mechanism"; "Animal Automa-
tism," and " The Reflex Theory." The second contains the
problems : " Mind as a Function of the Organism " ; " The
Sphere of Sense and the Logic of Feeling " ; " The Sphere
of Intellect and the Logic of Signs." The last is the brief
work entitled " The Study of Psychology."
It is our purpose merely to select from the above prob-
lems the most striking lessons, so as to convey a general
idea of the results to which Lewes has attained, and to
define their relations to what has already been indicated as
a complete philosophy.
A minute study of the procedures of organic growth shows
how difficult it is to avoid the theory of a design in nature.
All human efforts are so intimately connected with design,
that it is difficult for us to look upon natural sequences in
any other light. The great masters in biological research
have felt this difficulty, and, for the most part, yielded to it.
Thus " Von Baer, in his great work, has a section entitled
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 353
' The Nature of the Animal Determines its Development ' ;
and he thus explains himself : ' Although every stage in de-
velopment is only made possible by its pre-existing condition,
nevertheless the entire development is ruled and guided by
the nature of the animal which is about to be ; and it is not
the momentary condition which alone absolutely determines
the future, but more general and higher relations.' " The
form that this superstition generally takes is the belief that
an organism is determined by its type, or, " as the Germans
say, its Idea." "All its parts take shape according to this
ruling plan ; consequently, when any part is removed, it is
reproduced according to the Idea of the whole of which it
forms a part. Milne Edwards, in a very interesting and sug-
gestive work, concludes his survey of organic phenomena in
these words : ' In the organism every thing seems calculated
with a view to a determinate result, and the harmony of
the parts does not result from any influence which they can
exert upon one another, but from their co-ordination under
the empire of a common power, a preconceived plan, a pre-
existing force.' ' " This," continues Lewes, " is eminently
metaphysiological (superstitious). It refuses to acknowledge
the operation of immanent properties, refuses to admit that
the harmony of a complex structure results from the mutual
relation of its parts, and seeks outside the organism for some
mysterious force, some plan, not otherwise specified, which
regulates and shapes the parts. * * * Let us note the logical
inconsistencies of a position which, while assuming that every
separate stage in development is the necessary sequence of its
predecessor, declares the whole of the stages independent of
such relations ! Such a position is indeed reconcilable on the
assumption that animal forms are moulded ' like clay in the
hands of the potter.' But this is a theological dogma which
leads to very preposterous and impious conclusions ; and
whether it leads to these conclusions or to others, positive
Biology declines theological explanations altogether. * * *
The type does not dominate the conditions, it emerges from
them ; the animal organism is not cast in a mould, but the
354 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
imaginary mould is the form which the polarities of the or-
ganic substance assume. It would seem very absurd to sup-
pose that crystals assumed their definite shapes (when the
liquid which held their molecules in solution is evaporated)
under the determining influence of phantom crystals or Ideas ;
yet it has not been thought absurd to assume phantom forms
of organisms. The conception of Type as a determining influ-
ence arises from that fallacy of taking a resultant for a prin-
ciple, which has played so conspicuous a part in the history
of philosophy. * * * At first, the Type or Idea was regarded
as an objective reality, external to the organism it was sup-
posed to rule. Then this notion was replaced by an approach
to the more rational interpretation, the Idea was made an
internal, not an external, force, and was incorporated with
the material elements of the organism, which were said to
1 endeavor ' to arrange themselves according to the Type.
Thus Treveranus declares that the seed ' dreams of the future
flower ' ; and ' Henle, when he declares that hair and nails
grow in virtue of the Idea, is forced to add that the parts en-
deavor to arrange themselves according to this Idea.' Even
Lotze, who has argued so victoriously against the vitalists,
and has made it clear that an organism is a vital mechanism,
cannot relinquish this conception of legislative Ideas, though
he significantly adds : ' These have no power in themselves,
but only in as far as they are grounded in mechanical con-
ditions.' Why, then, superfluously add them to the condi-
tions?"1
The imposing analysis which Lewes makes of organic
existence stops not at the latest biological discoveries, but
presses on to what, by comparison with the very best pre-
vious work on the subject, is a new and vastly extended
view of the origins of individual life. Not content with at-
tacking the " superstition of the nerve-cell," upon which is
built the theory of peculiar vital forces " wholly unallied with
the primary energy of motion," which is in itself an impor-
tant physiological reform, he addresses himself assiduously
1 " Physical Basis of Mind," pp. 104-107.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 355
to the task of widening the scientific understanding of the
whole subject of organic life. Beginning with the analysis
of Protoplasm, which discloses the exceedingly high molecu-
lar complexity of this basic substance of organisms, he
identifies the complex but definite activities which this sub-
stance exhibits with the less complex but no less definite
activities displayed by what we know as chemical substances,
the difference in the activities of the two classes of sub-
stances being purely one of degree of complexity, corre-
sponding with their respective degrees of molecular (or
structural) complexity. This generalization, the importance
of which is not easily appreciated, so far-reaching are its con-
sequences, is made to serve as a basis for the extension of
Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of species by Natural
Selection. " The survival of the fittest " is shown to be a
very anthropomorphic way of expressing the great truth
which Darwin brought to light. The struggle for existence,
or the competition and antagonism of organisms, is shown to
extend to the " competition and antagonism " of tissues and
organs for existence ; and for fear that the inconsistency im-
plied in the application of such exclusively mental terms as
competition and antagonism to the energies of organic sub-
stances (which can only be thought of as contributing to
consciousness as remote factors) should be overlooked, he
follows up the interdependencies of tissues and organs with
such remorseless vigor, that nothing is left but to acknowl-
edge that their potentialities are inherent in their chemical
composition. " When a crystalline solution takes shape, it
always takes a definite shape, which represents what may be
called the direction of its forces, the polarity of its constitu-
ent molecules. In like manner, when an organic plasmode
takes shape — crystallizes, so to speak — it always assumes a
specific shape dependent on the polarity of its molecules.
Crystallographers have determined the several forms possible
to crystals ; histologists have recorded the several forms of
Organites, Tissues, and Organs. Owing to the greater
variety in elementary composition, there is in organic sub-
356 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
stance a more various polar distribution than in crystals ;
nevertheless there are sharply defined limits never over-
stepped, and these constitute what may be called the specific
forms of Organites, Tissues, Organs, Organisms. * * * Natu-
ral selection is only the expression of the results of obscure
physiological processes ; and for a satisfactory theory of such
results we must understand the nature of the processes. In
other words, to understand Natural Selection we must recog-
nize not only the facts thus expressed, but the factors of
these facts, — we must analyze the ' conditions of existence.'
As a preliminary analysis we find external conditions, among
which are included not only the dependence of the organism
on the inorganic medium, but also the dependence of one
organism on another, — the competition and antagonism of
the whole organic world ; and internal conditions, among
which are included not only the dependence of the organism
on the laws of composition and decomposition whereby each
organite and each tissue is formed, but also the dependence
of one organite and one tissue on all the others, — the compe-
tition and antagonism of all the elements. The changes
wrought in an organism by these two kinds of conditions
determine Varieties and Species. Although many of the
changes are due to the process of Natural Selection, brought
about in the struggle with competitors and foes, many other
changes have no such relation to the external struggle, but
are simply the results of the organic affinities. They may
or may not give the organism a greater stability, or a greater
advantage over rivals : it is enough that they are no disad-
vantage to the organism ; they will then survive by virtue
of the forces which produced them." 1
In criticising the theory of the generic development of all
living things, which as held by the extreme school is, that all
animal life has descended from a single organic point, all the
subsequent differences being the result of modifications in
the environment or differences in the history of the descend-
ants of this first organism, — the less extreme school holding
1 " Physical Basis of Mind," pp. 101, 102, 124, 125.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 357
that (to use Mr. Darwin's words) " animals have descended
from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants
from an equal or less number," — Lewes pleads hard for
a deeper and more thorough analysis of the facts than
either of these schools offers. Notwithstanding an affec-
tionate reverence for Mr. Darwin, whose great work he
acknowledges to be invaluable as an explanation of that
aspect of organic development called Natural Selection,
Lewes clearly shows that the great theory accounts for but
a part of the facts. In it there is no room for any thing ap-
proaching an ultimate analysis of existence. The points of
resemblance between plants and animals are dwelt upon at
length ; and striking as these resemblances are, the differences
are irreconcilable with a theory of common descent from a
single cell at a single point upon the earth's surface. The
common chemical conditions of the earth at all stages of its
past metamorphosis suggest common organic conditions;
and although the theory of evolution teaches that all devel-
opment is rigidly serial, the simple leading to and making
possible the complex, yet no good reason can be given for
doubting that organic life was widespread and multifarious
in its terrestrial beginnings. The kinship which unites the
organic with the inorganic is quite as prominent a fact as the
relationship of the plant and animal kingdoms, or the inter-
dependence of organic and superorganic life. The law of
organic evolution, which is broad enough to indicate, for in-
stance, the history of the solar system, can surely account for
the changes which have taken place upon a single planet ; in a
word, if we will but take our stand at a sufficiently remote
point of view, it will not be necessary to introduce a mys-
terious beginning to organic life. " Upon what principle are
we to pause at the cell or protoplasm? If by a successive
elimination of differences we reduce all organisms to the cell,
we must go on and reduce the cell itself to the chemical
elements out of which it was constructed ; and inasmuch as
these elements are all common to the inorganic world, the
only difference being one of synthesis, we reach a result
358 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
which is the stultification of all classification, namely, the
assertion of a kinship which is universal."
Passing from these generalizations of organic phenomena
to the physical aspect of mind, Lewes exposes the super-
stitions and unwarranted assumptions of many writers on
mental physiology ; and so vital are the principles involved,
that although the explanations are rather technical, for so
general a review, we cite some of the most important.
The most abridged expression we have of the action of
the sensorium, in which the motor, the sensational, and the
intellectual forms of activity are combined, is called the
nervous arc. Anatomists observe that the motor nerves
issue from the anterior side of the spinal cord (that which in
animals is the under side), and that the sensory nerves issue
from the posterior side (that which in animals is the upper
side). The spinal cord, like the cerebrum, is a double organ,
with the difference, however, that the gray structure is
mainly external in the cerebrum while it is internal in the
cord. Of the development of the nervous system from the
embryo, Lewes says : " In the outermost layer of the germi-
nal membrane of the embryo a groove appears, which deep-
ens as its sides grow upward and finally close over and form
a canal. Its foremost extremity soon bulges into three
well-marked enlargements which are then called the primi-
tive cerebral vesicles. The cavities of these vesicles are
continuous. Except in position and size, there are no dis-
cernible differences in these vesicles, which are known as the
Fore-brain, Middle-brain, and Hind-brain. * * * It appears
that the retina and optic nerve are primitive portions of the
brain — a detached segment of the general centre, identical
in structure with the cerebral vesicle, and not unlike it in
form. * * * It thus appears that the primitive membrane
forms into a canal, which enlarges at one part into three
vesicles, and from these are developed the encephalic (brain)
structures. The continuity of the walls and cavities of these
vesicles is never obliterated throughout the subsequent
changes. It is also traceable throughout the medulla spi-
GEORGE HENR Y LE WES. 359
nalis ; and microscopic investigation reveals that underneath
all the morphological changes the walls of the whole cerebro-
spinal axis are composed of similar elements on a similar plan.
The conclusions which directly follow from the above are,
first, that since the structure of the great axis is everywhere
similar, tJie properties must be similar ; secondly, that since
there is structural continuity, no one part can be called into
activity without at the same time more or less exciting that of
all the rest."
Lewes bitterly complains of the analytical tendency in the
study of the activities of the sensorium. This tendency, he
says, is to disregard the elements which provisionally had
been set aside, and not restore them in the reconstruction of
a synthetical explanation. Such familiar experiences as that
when a stimulus is applied to the skin it is followed by a
muscular movement or a glandular secretion (accompanied
by all degrees of consciousness as the case may be), are inter-
preted by the neurologist as exclusively neural processes ;
all the other processes are provisionally left out of account.
But even in the neural process the organs are neglected for
the sake of the nervous tissue, and the nervous tissue for the
sake of the nerve-cell.
The most abridged statement of the activity of the sen-
sorium, therefore, whether it be a muscular movement, a
glandular secretion, an emotion, or a thought, is to be found
in the theory of the nervous arc. Of the general form
which this theory takes, the conventional description would
be about as follows : " The nerve-cell is the supreme ele-
ment, the origin of the nerve-fibre, and the fountain of
nerve-force. The cells are connected one with another by
means of fibres, and with muscles, glands, and centres, also
by means of fibres, which are merely channels for the nerve-
force. A stimulus at the surface is carried by a sensory
fibre to a cell in the centre ; from that point it is carried by
another fibre to another cell ; and from that by a third fibre
to a muscle ; a reflex action results ; — this is the elementary
nervous arc." The passage of an excitation, therefore, into
360 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
the labyrinths of the sensorium and out again (until it
emerges in action) is said to describe the nervous arc. It is
well known that at some stage in this process, or at some
point in this arc, the phenomenon called consciousness min-
gles in some degree with the excitation ; for the structure of
the whole nervous system, including the brain, being not
only continuous but of the same substances, a wave of ex-
citement set up in any part of it must influence the whole,
however imperceptibly. All that we know of the reflex pro-
cess pictured in the above description of the nervous arc,
which pretends to trace the fibre from cell to cell, is, " that
one fibre passes into the spinal cord, and that another passes
out of it, and that a movement is produced usually preceded
by a sensation and sometimes by a thought." The con-
tinuity of the nerve-fibre, therefore, from cell to cell, through
the spinal cord, which is supposed to demarcate the simpler
reflexes from the realm of consciousness, is purely imagina-
tive. Hence, whether the action of the sensorium which
we observe be the effort of a frog, whose brain has been re-
moved, to repel the irritating point of the scalpel from one
leg by pushing it away with the other, or whether the des-
tinies of a race are being worked out in the mind of some
political or moral autocrat through the slow adjustments of
a lifetime, the same order of organic structures acts and reacts
with the same order of environment, the same potentialities
are called into play, and there is nothing to distinguish the
two events but the degrees of their complexity, which can be
expressed in terms of Space and Time.
The better informed among physiologists and neurologists
are beginning to acknowledge the impossibility of absolutely
separating the simplest reflex actions from sensibility and, in
turn, from thought.
Assuming that consciousness has its seat in the brain, sen-
sation in the base of the brain, or the medulla oblongata, and
the simpler reflexes in the spinal cord, which is a very me-
chanical way of subdividing the interdependent activities of
the sensorium, the manner in which the simpler movements
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 361
and sensations mingle with consciousness is thus explained.
The most widely accepted theory is, that the wave of excita-
tion must pass onward to the central convolutions of the
brain, and that there, in the excitation of the cells, it first be-
comes sensation, — consciousness is first aroused. This theory
regards consciousness and sensation as nearly identical, and
locates them both in the brain. In all these theories sensa-
tion is made the middle term between the most unconscious
or simplest reflex actions, and thought, and the theories differ
only in the distance said to intervene between the central
convolutions of the brain and the supposed seat of sensation.
The following diagram and explanation will illustrate that
theory which locates both sensation and consciousness in
presumably the same neural tract in the brain. " The stimu-
lus wave from the sensitive surface
S is carried to the spinal centre S
1, which may either transmit it di-
rectly to M 3, and thus reach the
muscle M, or transmit indirectly
through S 2, M 2, in the subcere-
bral centre; or, finally, it may pass
upward through S I, S 2, S 3, and downward through M I, M
2, M 3. The reflex of S I, M 3, is purely physical', that of S I,
S 2, M 2, M 3, is psycho-physical, there being a sentient state
accompanying the mechanical process ; while that of S I, S 2,
S 3, M i, M 2, M 3, is a reflex accompanied by consciousness.
The initial stage is a peripheral stimulation ; but the same
reflex may be excited by central stimulation. That is to say,
the impulse may originate in S 3, and pass through M i, M 2,
M 3, or pass through S 2, M 2, M 3. This is when an idea
is said to originate a movement. Again : the stimulus may
be some state of the subcerebral centres and pass from S 2,
M2, M3."1
All processes are therefore Reflex processes, the degree of
centralization, or dependence on the brain, determining the
degree of consciousness or volition which accompanies them.
1 " Problems of Life and Mind," 3d series, vol. II., pp. 431, 432.
362 THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION.
Physiologists, however, would distinguish the relatively in-
voluntary as reflex, and are therefore obliged to invent a
special mechanism for this class. If physiologists could only
agree upon the facts by which they support the Reflex theory,
the path of the student would be smoothed. " Van Deen,
for instance, considers that Reflexion takes place without
Volition but not without Sensation ; and Budge, that it takes
place without Perception (Vorstellung)." "According to
Marshall Hall, who originated the modern form of this theory,
actions are divisible into four distinct classes : the voluntary,
dependent on the brain ; the involuntary, dependent on the
irritability of the muscular fibre ; the respiratory, wherein
'the motive influence passes in a direct line from one point
of the nervous system to certain muscles ' ; and the reflex,
dependent on the ' true spinal system' of incident -excitor
nerves, and of reflex motor nerves. These last-named actions
are produced when an impression on the sensitive surface is
conveyed by an excitor nerve to the spinal cord and is there
reflected back on the muscles by a corresponding motor
nerve. In this process no sensation whatever occurs. The
action is purely reflex, purely excito-motor, like the action of
an ordinary mechanism." ' Miiller also shares this view of
the Reflex theory with Hall.2 Of all of which Lewes says :
" It is needless nowadays to point out that the existence
of a distinct system of excito-motor nerves belongs to im-
aginary anatomy ; but it is not needless to point out that the
Imaginary Physiology founded on it still survives. * * * We
have already seen that what anatomy positively teaches is
totally unlike the Reflex mechanism popularly imagined.
The sensory nerve is not seen to enter the spinal cord at one
point and pass over to a corresponding point of exit ; it is
seen to enter the gray substance, which is continuous
throughout the spinal cord ; it is there lost to view, its
course being untraceable." :
1 Marshall Hall, in " Phys. Trans.," 1883 ; " Lectures on the Nervous Sys-
tem and its Diseases," 1836 ; " New Memoir on the Nervous System," 1843.
2 Miiller : " Physiology," vol. I., p. 721.
8 " Physical Basis of Mind," pp. 480, 481.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 363
With this hasty glance at these brilliant inductions of
Lewes, we must close our review of his system. Is it too
much to say that to Lewes we owe the most commanding
view of organic Perception that has thus far been offered to
the world ? But perception has a wider base than organic
life. It is the function of conditions which are universal.
Lewes sought to establish the harmony of the organic and
inorganic worlds by the manipulation of ultimate principles,
but, as I have already said, his mind had become biassed by
a conventional metaphysics which he was unable to over-
come, This metaphysics postulated an unknowable, and
Lewes never quite discovered that it was the subtle con-
tradiction implied in this term which vitiated his whole
system of introspection. He then turned to the study of
the functions and structures of organisms, in the hope of
leading up to Mind through its organic processes, — of estab-
lishing a true psychology. This he has done. The achieve-
ment can be expressed in his striking dictum : " Motor
perceptions are condensed in intuitions and generalized in
conceptions."
This is the pivotal truth of the Nature of Perception, for it
discloses the Physical Basis of Mind.
PART III.
THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
365
PART III.
THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY,
CHAPTER XVII.
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY.
Resemblance between Primitive and Modern Religious Beliefs — Superstition
the Negative, Morality the Positive Form of Religion.
RELIGIOUS criticism is wholly a modern art. As language
reached a high state of perfection before the manner of its
growth was discovered, so the higher human sentiments
have grown into bonds of universal sympathy before the
race has been able to form any adequate idea of the laws
of thought and feeling.
It is the study of the development of language which
makes possible an intelligent view of the great subject of
Religion. The races of the world have unconsciously writ-
ten their emotional and moral history in the formation of
their speech. The comparative study of languages gives us
an insight into the origin of nations, so that we are enabled
to classify the races of mankind with far greater accuracy
than before the advent of this science.
The different races of men represent different classes of
ideas ; representative types of thought and feeling which
have their expression in certain forms of social organization
or Morality, and certain forms of the higher sentiments or
Religion. The morals and the religions of the world as we
find them are the products of the slow evolution of human-
367
368 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
ity, the results of past conditions, and they can only be ac-
counted for by studying the phases of development through
which they have passed.
The foregoing divisions of this work have been devoted
to establishing a clear understanding of the fundamental
principles of life, — to building up a true conception of
knowledge. We have dealt, not with the circumstances
of social life, not with human history, but with the nature
of man himself, the interaction of his physical and psychical
nature, with a view to explaining the wonderful phenomena
of language and perception. We are now, in a measure,
prepared to deal with that highest aspect of human exist-
ence which we call Morality, and that vast emotional struc-
ture known as Religion. As the greatest logical achievements
have resulted from the ceaseless energies of metaphysical
investigation, notwithstanding the apparent hopelessness and
unreality of the pursuit, so our best conceptions of duty
and life have sprung from the emotions of religion, notwith-
standing the various degrees of degradation and misery to
which mistaken religious beliefs have subjected all races and
civilizations.
Where the tenets of logic are concerned, men have always
been comparatively free to contend without interference or
reproach ; the populace has taken but little interest in these
wars of abstractions ; but with the contentions of religious
faiths it has been very different, and it is natural that it
should have been so. To wantonly assail a religious faith is
a very serious matter : it may cause inestimable harm, and it
seldom if ever has a good influence.
As will afterward appear, religion and morality are but
the obverse aspects of the higher phases of human character.
To disturb the one is to disturb the other.
If there is one opinion with regard to the criticism of re-
ligion which is universal, it is that we have no right to destroy
a faith unless to supplant it with a better one. Proselytism
has never been condemned as immoral, however much it
has been resisted, for the missionary believes that he is im-
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 369
parting a better religion than the one which he opposes.
The iconoclast, on the contrary, has always been a dreaded
destroyer : he offers nothing to replace the objects of worship
which he ruins.
The Religion of Philosophy is the purest of all faiths, the
highest of all moralities. Its creed is the ever-brightening
zenith of human knowledge ; its precepts spring from the
deepest principles of our existence ; its understanding of
human life and destiny has nothing to yield to any existing
faith ; and its conception of God is so much purer and bet-
ter than that of any other religion, that a comparison be-
comes ungenerous. It requires no consecrated temples for
its worship, no priests or sacraments, no ritual for its dead.
Its followers can worship in any temple, learn of any priest,
and, as they honor all forms of religion, none of its cere-
monies can be inappropriate to their memory.
Each religion represents the highest or most general con-
ceptions of its believers ; for this reason the conventional
classification of faiths can give but the merest outline of the
actual religious convictions of individuals. Creeds are only
partially acquiesced in ; the same formulas of belief are in-
terpreted in widely different ways ; and there is, after all,
an innate independence in religious belief which only gives
formal acquiescence to the established forms of faith. The
spirit of organization, therefore, which pervades the whole
practical world, that strong sense of the necessity of har-
mony and co-operation as conditions of success, gives to
organized religion a dominion which in a logical sense it
does not possess.
The difference between the passive believer in any special
faith and the conscientious critic of religion may be thus de-
scribed : The believer holds that there are divine truths which
the simple and the learned can alike appreciate ; the careful
critic holds that all truths are divine in the sense that
they are related to universal truth, but that the quality
of each mind determines the degree of appreciation of that
truth. They both admit the existence of divine truth, but
370 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
one believes that it belongs exclusively to a religion, while
the other believes it to be coextensive with all existence.
The chances for disagreement are infinite ; for there is clearly
no possibility of limiting the scope of a religion so that it may
not include all existence, or of limiting existence so that it
may not include all religion. The only possible chance for an
agreement is to fix, once for all, upon the meaning of divine,
and all words signifying God. This being accomplished,
the whole question becomes clear. Divine means the high-
est or most general ; God means the Universal Principle,
which is the same thing. To say, therefore, that all truths
are related to the divine is simply to admit that the universe
is an interdependent organon suggesting neither absolute
limits nor separations. With this understanding it becomes
possible to form some idea of the degree in which each type
of mind, from the most simple to the most complex, can ap-
preciate general truths.
It is only by a study of the facts of religious and moral
history that we can succeed in the logical attempt which is
here announced. Upon nothing less tangible than the frame-
work of these facts can the argument take form and avoid
those extreme attenuations which are more apt to confuse
than enlighten.
Our first assumption is, that religion and morality are not
only interdependent activities, but are the obverse aspects of
a single fact of development. The quality of life is but an-
other name for morality. The quality of the mind deter-
mines the quality of the religion. Superstitions are but the
negative side of religion, while right thinking, feeling, and
doing, or morality, constitute all that is real in religious life.
Worship is universally conceded to be a lifting up of the
heart to God. When we find the idea of God undeveloped,
therefore, we must expect to find no worship, or worship in
its most degraded forms. The term atheist (godless one)
has a purely relative meaning. If God is the universal fact,
if the conception of God is an appreciation of divine unity,
what life can be godless ? Tylor tells how ancient invading
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 371
Aryans described the aboriginal tribes of India as adeva, i. e.
" godless," and the Greeks fixed the corresponding term
aSsoi on the early Christians as unbelievers in the classic
gods ; also how, in later days, disbelievers in witchcraft
and apostolic succession were denounced as atheists ; and in
our own time, controversalists infer that naturalists who
support a theory of development of species are therefore
supposed to hold atheistic opinions.
In the same way the great term Religion is narrowed in
its meaning by numberless writers until the assertion that
such and such tribes and communities " have absolutely no
religion," is not to be trusted till we discover what the re-
ligion of the writer happens to be. From the dogmatist,
who " seems hardly to recognize any thing short of the
organized and established theology of the higher races as
religion," to such liberal writers as Herbert Spencer, who
defines religion as an a priori theory of the universe held
alike by savages and civilized men, and springing from
the need of understanding life,1 we find a tendency to
make all worship the consecration of a fundamental
mystery.
If we would trace religious sentiment to its simplest be-
ginnings, we must identify religious with general knowledge,
and deny that either is the function of the unknowable. In
this investigation we should not allow ourselves to be over-
awed by the vast complexities of organized faiths, for as the
great developments known as language and perception ex-
press but the single fact of motion, so all religions, depend-
ing as they do entirely upon language and perception,
express but the attitude of man to the Universal Principle,
or God. In the dark mind of the savage, where undeveloped
1 " Leaving out the accompanying moral code, which is in all cases a supple-
mentary growth, a religious creed is definable as an a priori theory of the uni-
verse. * * * Religions diametrically opposed in their overt dogmas are yet
perfectly at one in their conviction that the existence of the world with all it
contains and all that surrounds it is a mystery ever pressing for interpretation.
On this point, if on no other, there is entire unanimity." — HERBERT SPENCER L
" First Principles," pp. 43, 44.
372 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
language permits of no extended thought, there is no visible
approach to the idea of the divine unity of life. Objects
and sensations fill the mind, instead of sentiments and
thoughts.
No race seems too degraded to escape, no language too
inadequate to express, the belief in a divine mystery. In all
the length and breadth of human culture, from the poor
Fuegians and Andamans to the philosophers of England, the
idea of " an all-pervading mystery " seems to be a constant
principle ; yet, instead of admitting that this belief is a posi-
tive religious principle, we affirm that it is a purely negative
phenomenon, or, in other words, the measure of the inca-
pacity alike of the primitive and the civilized man, to form a
true conception of God. There can be no safer measure of
intellectual and moral development than the extent to which
the play of the mind in forming generalizations is interfered
with by the belief in mystery. Thus from the Andamans,
who alone among the lowest tribes are said to be so degrad-
ed as to have scarcely any superstitions, to such intellects
as Mill and Spencer, whose only superstition is a belief
that the mind is a mystery, we have the greatest ex-
tremes of mental development, and also the striking
fact that what is commonly called religion has not yet
appeared in the former and has practically disappeared in
the latter. The intermediate conditions of mind, viewed
from our standpoint, are simply different degrees of super-
stition.
In defining belief with a view to tracing out its beginnings
in the race, Mr. C. F. Keary says : " Belief is something
besides the recognition of what exists in outward sensation.
It is the answering voice of human consciousness, or con-
science, to the call of something behind [nature]. * * * For
what I have only called the recognition of something behind
the physical object is, in reality, a worship of the something
(or Some One) behind it. * * * Perhaps, therefore, if we were
pressed for a single and concise definition of that human
faculty called belief, which we have taken for our study here,
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 373
we could hardly find a better one than this, that it is the
1 capacity for worship.' For if you will consider the nature
of man you will find that with him it always has been and
still is true, that that thing in all his inward or outward
world which he sees worthy of worship is essentially the
thing in which he believes." :
According to this, belief is capacity for worship, and is at
the same time a faith in a mystery, or " something behind
nature." When in this connection we recall the well-known
agnosticism of Mr. Spencer, we have no choice but to con-
clude that both he and Mr. Keary agree in believing that all
worship and therefore all religion, all belief and therefore all
knowledge, depend upon a superstition.
The religion of philosophy acknowledges no mystery ; it
advances a conception of God which declares all mystery to
be a species of immorality, an impediment to the apprecia-
tion of divine unity. It ranks the superstitions of the lowest
races with the belief in an unknowable entertained by so
many enlightened minds of the present day, and finds in
both conceptions the same principle of irreligion.
When we find that the poor Fuegians believed in " powers
of sorcery, in demons, and in dreams"; that their notion of
a future life was confined to an aversion to mentioning the
dead ; that they had a notion of an actively malevolent
power identified probably with " a great black man," sup-
posed to influence the weather according to men's conduct ;
we deny that these mysterious beliefs constituted their
religion any more than the same beliefs which are so general
among modern Christians — if we will substitute for the
" great black man " a personal God — can be called in the
true sense of the word the religion of Christians. For the
religion of all men, whatever their condition, is the form
which their most general conceptions assume. The question
for us then to decide is whether such morality, such right
thought and action, as we find in any civilization is not a
truer index of its spiritual development, of the growth of
1 "Outlines of Primitive Belief."
374 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
true and pure conceptions, than those superstitions which
we are accustomed to classify as religious ?
This assertion that Religion is the form which the most
general conceptions of an individual or a race assume, has
been objected to on the ground that by a large class of
thinkers science or definite knowledge is the name given to
the most general conceptions, and religious conceptions are
considered too vague for classification under the head of
knowledge. This objection brings up the important ques-
tion : Can there be any ultimate difference between religious
and scientific knowledge ?
Knowledge in its broadest sense means life. Human
knowledge means human life. There are many who suppose
that divine knowledge is entirely distinct from human knowl-
edge, whereas we protest that divine means most general,
and that divine knowledge means our most extended gener-
alizations or conceptions. If the man of science denomi-
nates all his superstitions, all his vague ideas of origin and
destiny, Religion ; and all clear and definite conceptions,
those of human duty as well as those of other classes of
facts, Science ; he will, no doubt, object to the statement
that Religion is the form which our most general concep-
tions assume. In fact, he will lose all respect for the word
religion ; and would, no doubt, define it as the science of
mystery, or the unknowable.
But religion, to us, represents something so real, so prac-
tical, so elevating, that we would rescue the word from its
connection with the supernatural, the mysterious, the un-
real ; we would have it represent what it really is, the high-
est phase of human knowledge.
A true philosophy must show that all phases of life and
mind are but parts of a whole, it must establish the unifica-
tion of knowledge.
The zenith of human knowledge is our religion (using the
word in its true sense) ; it is our appreciation of the divine,
or the most general.
What we wish to prove, therefore, is that the thoughts
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 375
and emotions which accompany right conduct are higher and
more general than those conceptions which we call super-
stitions ; that, in a word, a just conception of God is ap-
proached more nearly through right action than through
the undisciplined efforts of the imagination, however legiti-
mate custom may have made them appear.
We find nothing in the superstitions of the lower races,
such as the Fuegians, Andamans, Veddahs, and Australians,
which can justify the name of religion, although almost all
Christian superstitions have their counterpart in the beliefs
of these most degraded of human beings. We see much,
however, in the virtues ascribed to these savages, that sug-
gests religious life. Are not the emotions which accompany
the chastity, the honesty, and the kindliness found among
the lowest savages higher than those emotions which accom-
pany their ignorant dreads ? If superstition, or belief in
mystery, is but the negative side of religion, is it not in its
gradual disappearance that we find true religious develop-
ment ? Has not real religion more to do with conduct than
with merely formal beliefs, if a choice must be made ? If,
as can be demonstrated, Morality increases as superstition
disappears, why should we not define religion as morality in
its widest sense (i. e. right thought as well as right action),
and seek the dawning of religious sentiment in the dawn-
ing of moral life ?
We have a wealth of data to support the assertion that
the religion of each nation is to be estimated by the rectitude
of its action and thought. Let us begin with the relation of
language to morality. " Philologists may continue long to
dispute over the precise origin of language ; but philology
has brought us so far that there can be now no question
that the primitive speech of mankind was of the rudest char-
acter, devoid almost utterly of abstract words, unfit for the
use of any kind of men save such as were in the earliest
stage of thought. It is probably true that the mental and
moral attainment of any people, all that shows their progress
along the path of civilization, is (in mathematical phrase) in
376 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
a direct ratio with the number of their abstract words. If,
therefore, the history of language points back to a time
when man had no abstractions, what could have been his
mental condition then ? * * * It belongs to our mental con-
stitution that, without any distinct names for them, we can
entertain no clear ideas. Without language to give it form,
we can have at the best only the rudiments of thought." *
Again, it is a well-understood principle in ethics, that our
conceptions of right and wrong are limited by the scope of
human life ; that right means in its deepest sense human,
and wrong inhuman. No generalization, however extended,
can relieve us from this limitation of duty. Thus our
ideals of Justice and Mercy have no appeal from humanity.
When an issue arises between the good of our race and any
other order of creation, our inability to form ethical concep-
tions which are independent of humanity becomes apparent.
The scope of language brings us inevitably to the same
conclusion ; for words all spring at first from physical facts
or sensations, and the process of sublimation by which they
become abstractions is merely the addition to their original
simple meaning of larger and larger applications of the same
fact. The word Right, for instance, which is one of our
highest abstractions, " had once its place in the physical
body, and without the need of any deep philological knowl-
edge we can see what its first meaning was. We at once
connect the Latin rectus with porrectus, meaning stretched
out or straight. This brings us back to the German recken,
to stretch. We therefore get upon the scent of right as
meaning first straight, and earlier still stretched, — stretched
and straight being originally really the same words, — the
straight string being the stretched string. We have further
proof, if further proof were wanted, a Greek root, opzy —
opeyrvaiy opeyei, with the same significance of stretched or
straight ; and, finally, we find that all these words are con-
nected with a Sanskrit arf, which means ' to stretch/ What
is stretched, then, is straight, and the straight way is the
1 Keary : " Outlines of Primitive Belief," pp. 6, 9.
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 3/7
right way. (Again) Will (Latin volo, voluntas) is a word
which seems remote enough from any physical thing ; yet
this, too, may be shown to be grounded in sensation. In
the first place, will is only the more instantaneous wish, and
is connected with the German wdhlen, to choose, and ulti-
mately with the Sanskrit var, to choose, ' to place, or draw
out first.' With this root we must connect the Latin verus,
veritas, the Lithuanian and Sclavonic ve'pa, vera, ' belief.'
Verus, or veritas, is, therefore, what is credible, or, earlier
still, the thing chosen ; and the old Latin proverb, reduced
to its simplest terms, stands thus : ' Great is the thing
chosen ; it will prevail.' '
In thus tracing to the simplest physical experiences the
origin of moral ideas, the favorite theory of a mysterious
and inexplicable conscience or moral intuition is removed ;
and the interdependent development of language and
thought is shown to be the first condition of true relig-
ious life.
We must, of course, choose, at the very outset of the in-
quiry, between ceremony and right conduct as the measure
of religion, or we shall have no criterion to go by.
We are told that the ancient Mexicans were " most de-
voted to their religion and persistent in their superstitions."
They had numberless deities and a complicated mythology.
There were " gods of provinces, classes, trades, vices, etc.
* * * The chief gods of the main tribes of Mexico appear
to be deified men. * * * With the Zapotecs, worship of a
dead chief is positively ascertained." Worship of animals,
elements, and objects in nature, was common, as well as a
belief in three distinct heavens and four previous worlds
and mankinds. These most elaborate beliefs were accompa-
nied by a vast ecclesiastical organization. " The number of
priests among the Mexicans corresponded with the multitude
of gods and temples." The priests in the great temple,
some historians estimate, were over five thousand, and
" there could not have been less than a million priests in the
1 Keary : " Outlines of Primitive Belief," p. n.
378 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Mexican Empire." As a counterpart to this vast religio-
ceremonial life, in which human sacrifice was one of the
principal features, we find a low grade of morality and mind,
an undeveloped language, no thought, no literature. The
people were abjectly submissive and very indolent. " They
had been accustomed to act only from fear of punishment."
They were cruel in war and practised cannibalism (though
upon members of other tribes only). " The influence of
religion (?) upon their life seems, on the whole, notwith-
standing many moral injunctions, to have been a pernicious
one, on account of human sacrifices, confessions, and fatal-
istic doctrines ; while apart from religion, the wish to have
the good opinion of the tribe was productive of noble
deeds." '
The Veddahs of Ceylon, supposed to be the descendants
of the aboriginal inhabitants of that island, and who are said
to have preserved the same mode of life for thousands of
years, are thus described : " They have no idols, offer no
sacrifices, pour no libations." They have no knowledge of
God, no temples, prayers, or charms; in short, no instinct of
worship, except, it is reported, some addiction to ceremonies
in order to avert storms and lightning. The only evidence
of worship among them is the vague belief in the guardian-
ship of the spirits of the dead. " Every near relative be-
comes a spirit after death and watches over the welfare of
those who are left behind." This belief seems to be univer-
sal among savages, and has by no means disappeared among
civilized men.
The only religious ceremony which the Veddah performs
is to invoke the " shade of the departed." The spirits of
children are most frequently called upon. " The most common
form of this ceremony is to fix an arrow upright in the
ground and dance slowly around it chanting the following
invocation, which is almost musical in its rhythm :
" * Ma miya, ma miy, ma deya' !
Topang koyihetti mittigan yanda'h ? '
1 How much more nearly correct it would be to use the word superstition
.instead of religion !
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 379
' My departed one, my departed one, my God !
Where art thou wandering ?' "
And yet these benighted wild men are said to be temperate,
fond of their children, gentle, mild, and affectionate to one
another, rarely guilty of grave crimes. Their conjugal fideli-
ty is remarkable (the more so as their neighbors, the Sin-
ghalese, are very loose in this respect) ; they resent with
indignation any reflection on the honor of their women.
They are proverbially truthful and honest, and grateful for
favors. Murder is almost unknown among them. But we
are told they have no language properly so called. " Their
communications with one another are made by signs,
grimaces, and guttural sounds which be"ar little or no resem-
blance to distinct words or systematical language. * * * As
may be supposed, the vocabulary of such a barbarous race is
very limited. It contains only such phrases as are required
to describe the most striking objects of nature, and those
which enter into the daily life of the people themselves. So
rude and primitive is their dialect, that the most ordinary
objects and actions of life are described by quaint para-
phrases. As, for example, to walk is 'to beat the ground
with hammers ' ; a child is ' a bud ' ; the grains of rice are
1 round things ' ; an elephant is not inappropriately termed
*a beast like a mountain.' " 1
Thus we are warned against forming any hasty gen-
eralizations concerning the interdependence of moral and
intellectual development ; for we find many savage tribes
singularly virtuous and yet entirely without definite speech.
But as virtue cannot exist without at least some definiteness
of ideas, it would be interesting to know what amount of
reasoning is necessary to fix such principles as conjugal
fidelity, truthfulness, and honesty in the mind. It is plain
that the most primitive language admits of the necessary
amount of reasoning, for none of the savage dialects are
adequate to express with accuracy any ideas beyond the
monotonous details of daily life, and few of them are equal
1 Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology," Chart No. 3.
380 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
even to this. Of the language of the Dyaks it is said : " At
a village of the Ida'an, North Borneo, we found the villagers
very careless of their pronunciation ; for instance, the word
* heavy ' was at different times written down magat, bagat,
wagat, and ogat ; for ' rice/ wagas and ogas ; for ' to bathe,'
fadshu, padsiu, and madsiu, and indifferently pronounced in
these various ways by the same people." And yet the
fundamental moral sentiments of this tribe seem to be quite
definite. The Dyaks " are mainly hospitable, honest, kindly,
humane to a degree which well might shame ourselves."
Chastity and private morality stand high among them ;
" infidelity to marriage is an almost unheard-of crime."
" Adultery is a crime unknown, and no Dyak (Land) ever
recollected an instance of its occurrence." :
We may read the history of the Christian nations in vain
for such an assertion ; and yet how can we compare the com-
plexity, the definiteness, and the beauty of the languages of
Europe with the dialects of the Malays or the lowest races?
Guizot tells us that the great distinguishing feature of
European civilization is its vast complexity of motives, its
juxtaposition of many and different types of a political,
social, moral, and religious character ; and that this cauldron
of conflicting activities has been seething and bubbling
through the dark ages, the crusades, the revival of learning,
the wars of the Reformation, and the French and the
English revolutions, until something morally great will yet
result from it.
Does the present attitude which the nations of Europe
preserve toward one another warrant this prediction ? Is
there any thing in the relations of the great Christian
nations which promises a cessation of the discords of our
civilization, which promises that equanimity, that balance of
forces, which alone can secure human happiness ? Let it be
our aim to discover in what degree the imperfections of
language account for the confusion in beliefs and sentiments
which we see about us. We cannot consider ourselves
1 See Boyle's " Borneo." * Low's " Sarawak."
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 381
much above savages until we put aside savage imperfections
of thought and feeling, and at least agree upon a definition
of Life and of God.
No one can read the chapters on Animism in Tylor's
" Primitive Culture " without being convinced that all sav-
ages and almost all civilized men believe in some form of
spiritual apparition or ghostly existence. From the negroes
of South Guinea, who are such dreamers and believers in
dreams that they have no control over their imaginations,
uttering falsehoods without intention and being unable to
distinguish the real from the ideal, to the German philoso-
pher who declares that the real is the ideal ; from the Tagals
of Luzon, who object to waking a sleeper on account of the
absence of his soul during sleep, to the Christian Father
St. Augustine, who devoutly believed in the reality of the
phantastic images of his dreams ; we have in our habits of
thought and in our language a clear inheritance of this
childish and savage belief in the existence of another self.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is but another
form of this same belief, and it so clings to us that those
who reject it on the highest philosophical and moral grounds
are regarded as unable to appreciate the full importance and
significance of life: as though to postulate a supernatural
existence could magnify or ennoble in any degree the facts
of actual life.
The savage belief in ghosts or shades is carefully taught
in all our theological seminaries, not excepting the Unitarian
seats of learning. It takes the form of a faith in the reality
of the hosts of heaven, which, as nearly as we can learn, are
supposed to be the surviving spirits of mortals of diverse
ages and civilizations who dwell in the cosmical vicinity of
a personal God.
To revert to other nations for a counterpart of this super-
stition about the impossible subdivisions of personality, we
have " the distinction which the ancient Egyptians seem to
have made in the Ritual of the Dead between the man's ba,
akhy ka, khaba, translated by Mr. Birch as his ' soul/ ' mind,'
382 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
* existence/ ' shade ' ; or the Rabbinical division into what
may be roughly described as the bodily, spiritual, and celes-
tial souls ; or the distinction between the emanative and ge-
netic souls in Hindu philosophy ; or the distribution of life,
apparition, ancestral spirit, among the three souls of the
Chinese ; or the demarcations of the nous, psyche, andflneuma,
or of the anima and animus ; or the famous classic and
mediaeval theories of the vegetal, sensitive, and rational
souls." '
We notice in the Sociological Charts containing the com-
pilations of facts of this order, classified by Herbert Spencer,
that the columns devoted to what are commonly called the
religious ideas of the lower races, the Malayo-Polynesian, the
North and the South American, the African, and the Asiatic
races, are all headed by the word " Superstitions," while the
columns of similar data belonging to the ancient Mexicans,
the Central Americans, the Peruvians, the Hebrews, the
Phoenicians, the English, and the French races are dignified
by the name of " Religious Ideas." In this distinction we
see the universal tendency to call those superstitions religious
which most resemble our own religion.
The writing of these lines was interrupted by a visit to a
Unitarian church, whose pastor is famed for his scientific
acquirements. He is widely acknowledged to be a man of
liberal attainments and fine moral perceptions. He preaches
from a pulpit which is supposed to be entirely untrammelled
by dogma of any kind. His discourse was upon the parentage
and life 'of Jesus. He declared his belief that the great
moral reformer of Galilee was born naturally ; and enlarged
beautifully upon the sanctity and purity of the marital rela-
tion, against which all the asceticism of Christianity is a
direct attack. He then spoke of the interest that the heavenly
hosts took in the birth of Jesus; and continued fluently to
discourse about the angels, who, he said, take an interest in
our lives and actually rejoice when we do right and weep
when we sin. He spoke of God as hearing and seeing us
1 Tylor's " Primitive Culture," vol. I., p. 435.
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 383
and enjoying all the advantages of the human senses and
emotions. He said, Jesus was not asleep in Nazareth, but
looking upon us with open eyes and taking an active inter-
est in our daily existence.
In listening to this sermon I could not help wondering what
sort of immortals the poor Veddahs and Dyaks were, and
whether their uncultivated morality was appreciated in para-
dise ; whether the twenty thousand human victims sacrificed
in the ancient Mexican Empire in a single year had, by vir-
tue of their death, any privileges in heaven ; and above all,
whether the knowledge of God which the angels enjoy
depended upon an earthly or a seraphic dialect for its devel-
opment. I could not help thinking that if, in America, in
this century, cultivated and liberal people are satisfied with
such logical co-ordinations as a discourse upon angels and a
distinctly human God, our language, with all its resources, is
little better than the drivelling speech of the Veddahs and
the Dyaks, and that little more can be expected from its use
in the way of morality than from the inarticulate mumblings
of these degraded races. Should not a reform in the higher
functions of language, or the use of general terms, which
would be sufficiently deep to insure any visible moral im-
provement in our nation, be of necessity so widespread that
our little children would be able to classify a discourse on
angels and a personal God with the stories of giants and
invisible princes with which they are so harmlessly enter-
tained ?
How is truth to be acted until it is more perfectly
thought ? How can logical crimes be detected while our
speech is so slovenly that such distinct principles as general
and individual existence can be hopelessly entangled with-
out exciting the attention of minds that rank far above the
average ?
The " Religious Ideas " of the Hebrews of the pre-Egyp-
tian and Egyptian periods are described as follows : " They
believed in revelations by way of dreams. The dead were
supposed to meet their kindred in the grave. A plural form
384 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
'(Elohim) indicates a polytheistic belief. El Shadai (' the
powerful ') revealed himself to Abraham." There were
" sacred stones, trees, and groves. Teraphim (' the enrich-
ing ones ') were a sort of household gods. Many gods
(probably those of the several Semitic tribes assembled in
Goshen) were worshipped. Yahveh (a name of doubtful
etymological meaning) revealed himself as the God of Israel
to Moses. * * * In the period of wanderings, a motley variety
of religious phenomena prevailed. There were tribes, but no
nation. The names of tribal deities are perhaps preserved
in the names of some tribes. Moses conceived Yahveh in a
moral spirit ; he objected to the bull worship, yet he made a
brazen serpent (nehushtan). * * * After the establishment in
Palestine the Israelitish tribes adopted Canaanitish ideas and
practices (Baal, Ashera). Yet Yahveh was regarded as the
God of Israel and Israel as the people of Yahveh (i. e. he
was supposed to be one of many gods)."
It was during the period of the Two Kingdoms that the
belief in hosts of angels seems to have grown up in Israel ;
and, strange to say, it was about this time that the notion of
Satan, " a special evil spirit set apart," " the accuser of man-
kind," gained possession of the popular mind. The belief in
ghosts, spectres, and powerful men, and the worship of an-
cestors, are abundantly instanced in the Hebrew Scriptures,
and show us how faithfully all the lower orders of super-
stition were reproduced in the Hebrew mind. " Down to
the exile it evidently was quite common to conjure the dead
chiefs, and to imitate by ventriloquistic tricks the chirping
voice of the dwellers of the air, and the groaning one of those
^residing in the underworld."
"And when they say unto you, ' Consult the ghost-seers and
the wizards, that chirp and that mutter; should not people
consult their gods, even the dead (mSttm), on behalf of the
living ? * Hearken not unto them."
" Nor did the Hebrews remain strangers to the belief in
demons and spectres ; they professed their faith in the exist-
ence of Shedim, that is, lords or masters, implying various
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 385
kinds of foreign deities or evil spirits ; and to them they
not only offered sacrifices (Deut. xxxii., 17), but slaughtered
their children (Ps. cvi., 37) ; they attributed reality to the
Lilith, a night-spectre, dwelling in desolate ruins (Isa. xxxiv.,
14), and, according to Eastern legends, rushing forth in the
dead of the night, in the form of a beautiful woman, to seize
children and to tear them to pieces." ]
We have no difficulty, therefore, in tracing back to the
Hebrews many of the absurd superstitions which lurk in the
Christian faith. But we have good reason to feel discour-
aged when we find a prominent minister of the only Chris-
tian sect which makes any pretensions to a true literary
spirit (a true appreciation of human history), discoursing
about the angels in heaven and a personal God, and actually
worshipping the shade of a Hebrew prophet.
We are also at a loss to know why the " Religious Ideas "
of the Hebrews should not be classed with the " Supersti-
tions " of other nations, unless it be that their accompany-
ing ecclesiastical organization entitles them to rank with the
established religions of the Asiatics, the Egyptians, and the
ancient Mexicans.
We look in vain among the superstitions of the Asiatic
tribes for any thing more gross than the religious ideas of
the Hebrews contained. That universal ancestor-worship
unconsciously carried on by Christians is everywhere ap-
parent. The dead chief has given way to the personal God
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, or the Yahveh of Moses ;
fetich worship has risen from the familiar earth to heaven,
where our dead ancestors and children live praising the
Lord of Hosts. We do not lay food and arms on the
graves of the departed, but we preserve the generic descend-
ant of this ceremony in the Eucharist. Instead of sacri-
ficing upon tombs we build altars in churches, and bury our
dead around the sacred edifice. Hardly a bell tolls in the
Christian world but we simulate to ourselves a human sacri-
1 For above quotations see Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology," book VII. t
part 2, B, Hebrews and Phoenicians.
386 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
fice, " Christ shedding his blood for the redemption of man-
kind " ; and we wonder at the ancient Mexicans, who merely
carried the same idea into practice.
We teach our children all sorts of distorted ideas about
nature, which would be childish if they were not criminal;
we pervert their natural intuitions of justice and humanity
by absurd doctrines of mystical retribution, unnatural par-
don and cancellation of sin ; the most savage notions of a
great spirit are perpetuated in the doctrine of a special
providence whose purposes are past judgment. Then we
classify the idolatrous and blood-thirsty Hebrews and our-
selves as religious ; we extend the courtesy of the same clas-
sification, with certain reservations, to the ancient Mexicans,
and to some of the Asiatics and the Egyptians; but all the
other ancestor-worshippers, to whom we owe almost every
religious notion which we possess, we relegate to the baser
level of superstition.
With all our railroads, steamships, and telegraphs, our
schools and universities, our halls of justice and legislation,
— to say nothing of our priests and churches, — we do not
possess the average morality of the Dyaks or the humanity
of the Veddahs. With all our boasted intelligence, language,
and religion, we are unable to bring the individual up to as
high a level of chastity, of honesty, and of general virtue,
as that occupied by these pitiable tribes of primitive men
and women. The reason is, that we are unwilling to believe
that there can be any real progress which does not rest
upon morality, any justice which does not point to the
divine unity of life, any humanity or religion which does
not rise above the conception of a personal God.
We are puzzled to define the term civilization, because
we find in the midst of our vaunted progress the lowest
orders of superstition, the most primitive conceptions of
life and duty; and we are thus unable to distinguish that re-
ligion which should be our most glorious achievement from
the childish beliefs of savages. Until we have so developed
our language as to place beyond the pale of possibility a re-
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 387
turn to these barbarisms of thought and feeling, are we not
in danger of handing down the vast structures of our civiliza-
tion as mere monuments of failure to the races to come ?
Thus we see that the darkness in which the primitive man
groped yields nothing to modern research excepting the
picture of his feeble generalizations, his first efforts to un-
derstand himself and nature, which are given in his rude
virtues and his ruder superstitions.
Upon the supposition that the religion of a people is the
portrayal of their most general conceptions can be built up a
complete theory of Knowledge ; but it is important to re-
member that language is the mind of society, and that in
relatively advanced nations there can be found what might
be called a high-water mark of induction, a highest logical
achievement, to which the tides of humanity make but a
distant approach. Until the researches of Sir William Jones,
in the year 1783, and of those who followed him in the study
of Sanskrit, the religious thought of ancient India was a
blank to the modern world. Through the insensible growth
of language the venerable philosophy, the best thought and
feeling, of an ancient people has been safely conveyed over
the boundaries of race and language into the very heart of
our era. The translations of Sanskrit seemed like a flood of
new light to Christendom, but it was only the uncovering of
an old mine which humanity had worked out ages before,
and whose glittering gems have been worn ever since,
descending as heirlooms through long generations. A great
truth, a refined sentiment, can be expressed in any civilized
tongue ; languages may be forgotten and rediscovered ; but
these facts of existence live on through the changes of race
and speech, each age reproducing them with unfailing accu-
racy. Observe, in proof of this, the dreadful monotony of
metaphysics. Read Plato, the writings of the Alexandrians,
the Christian theologians from the time of the Scholastics to
the present day, decipher Kant and Hegel ; then turn to the
oldest Indian philosophy, the oldest Egyptian speculations,
as they appear in the religions of these countries ; and we
388 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
find the same struggle over being and non-being, spiritual
essence and material form ; the same attempted difference
between time and eternity ; the same divine unity, one and
eternal, contrasted with the changing variety of the senses.
The communication of these thoughts from one nation to
another has been an insensible process, which has in nowise
waited for the rediscovery of languages or the new literary
criticism of our day. But if language has preserved all these
truths and subjected them to that development which can
alone come from the general progress of knowledge, or the
growth of morality, how are we to account for the apparently
fixed and unyielding form which the higher speculations have
assumed ? Why is it that German, French, and English
speculations have not surpassed in metaphysical insight the
best thought of Egypt, India, and Greece ? Are the people
who embody the teachings of Kant, Descartes, and Spencer
to be compared to those who designed the pyramids, wrote
the Vedas, or questioned the Delphic Oracle ? How are
these nations to be compared ?
The difference between civilizations is best portrayed by
a comparison of the KNOWLEDGE of the respective races ;
but when the term knowledge is identified with life, the
comparison is lost in receding equations. When, however,
we put the proposition in a religious form, it will readily
gain acceptance ; for the assertion that races and civilizations
are to be measured by the spread of the divine spirit among
them, by the quality and extent of their knowledge of God,
is a truism for all devout minds.
Our proposition, then, is, that the completeness and sym-
metry with which a nation has performed that great induc-
tion which leads from particulars to generals, from the
lowest forms of sentiency to the highest generalizations, is
the only true measure of its life.
If we would rise above the past, therefore, if we would
place a permanent distinction between our civilization and
that of the lowest savages, or the great intermediate races,
we must improve our language so that its most general
SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. 389
terms will cease to be employed as the vehicle of supersti-
tion and mysteries. The question then arises : Can such an
understanding of language be made to harmonize with any
existing religion? Will not such light as this prove fatal to
Christianity? In order to answer this question, it will be
necessary to glance at the most prominent facts of general
religious history with a view to ascertaining the immediate
origin of our religious beliefs.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA.
In Egypt the Belief in Immortality Reached its Highest Development — Mysti-
cism and Idealism.
THE Egyptians were the most pious people of antiquity.
They seem to have expended more time and energy in
religious observances, and to have had a more realistic con-
ception of a future life, than any other race. Their writings,
says M. Maury, " are full of sacred symbols and allusions to
divine myths, perfectly useless apart from the Egyptian
religion. Literature and the sciences were only branches of
the theology, while its books formed a sacred code, supposed
to be the work of the god Thoth, likened by the Greeks to
their Hermes. The arts were only practised to add to the
worship and glorification of the gods or deified kings.
" The religious observances were so numerous and so im-
perative that it was impossible to practise a profession, to
prepare food, or to attend to the simplest daily needs with-
out constantly calling to mind the rules established by the
priests. Each province had its special gods, its particular
rights, its sacred animals. Neither the dominion of the Per-
sians, nor that of the Ptolemies, nor that of the Romans, was
able to change this antique religion of the Pharaohs ; of all
polytheisms, it opposed the most obstinate resistance to
Christianity, and continued to live on up to the sixth century
of our era. It is because the Egyptian religion had pene-
trated so deeply into the mind of the people and the customs
of the country, that it became, so to speak, a part of the in-
tellectual and physical organization of the race." *
1 Alfred Maury : Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept., 1867.
3QO
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 391
The animal-worship of the Egyptians, which is the term
generally applied to their religion, was, of course, a form of
idolatry, but a far less materialistic form than is generally
supposed. The priests of the early dynasties taught (before
the practice of image-worship had grown up) that their con-
ception of the God of the universe could not be expressed by
any image made by hands, and that they therefore preferred
to take a living creature to symbolize the power and wisdom
of the Creator, — a singularly pure and beautiful idea. The
conception of God as a person having human form and feel-
ings, exercising a divine will in his government of all nature,
and loving, punishing, forgiving, and caring for his children,
is surely as near an approach to making an image of God as
was the practice of setting up living creatures as symbols of
certain divine attributes. Where, after all, shall we find a
religion without idolatry ? Our very words and thoughts are
symbols. Even to say that God is the universal principle, is
to symbolize the most general fact, to create a sign that will
call up this conception in the minds of others.
Speaking of the innumerable gods of the Egyptians and of
the vast machinery of worship which they carried on, Mr.
Clarke says : " Every day has its festival, every town its god
and temple. Sacrifices, prayers, incense, processions, begin
and close the year. The deities, we discover, are innumer-
able. Great triads of gods, superior to the rest, are wor-
shipped under different names in the different provinces.
Every year the festivals of Osiris and Isis renew the mourn-
ing for the Divine Sufferer, and joy at his resurrection. The
tombs are resplendent with mosaics and brilliantly colored
paintings. The dead are more cared for than the living ;
their resting-places are carved out of solid rock and filled with
rich furniture and ornaments. One supreme being, above all
other deities, is worshipped as the maker and preserver of all
things." '
So vast a subject as the morality of a nation whose exist-
ence can be traced back for seven thousand years would be
1 " Ten Great Religions," vol. II., p. 7.
392 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
hazardous to deal with in any but the most general manner.
After the fifth dynasty a great calamity seems to have fallen
upon the people which destroyed for a time their civiliza-
tion. This calamity was probably a nomadic invasion, and
must have revolutionized the whole national life. It is diffi-
cult, therefore, to select moral characteristics which survive
throughout such sweeping changes in a nation's existence.
All authors agree that the notions of divine existence, the
ideas of the lives of the gods, and the general tenor of
prayer or the manner of addressing the gods, indicate a
singular purity of life in ancient Egypt.
Bonwick says : " An entire confidence in the goodness
and integrity of their deities is the most pleasing attribute
of the Egyptian mind. No Greek could trust his lying,
treacherous, unstable, and immoral gods.
" On a tomb of the eleventh dynasty, B.C. 3000, the de-
ceased is made to say : ' I have ever kept from sin, I have
been truth itself on the earth. Make me luminous in the
skies ! Make me justified ! May my soul prosper ! ' Upon,
a papyrus we read this touching appeal : ' My god ! My
god ! O that thou wouldst show me the true god ! ' * * *
" A prophet of Osiris says : ' I have venerated my father.
I have respected my mother. I have loved my brothers. I
have done nothing evil against them during my life on earth.
I have protected the poor against the powerful. I have
given hospitality to every one. I have been benevolent, and
loving the (?) gods. I have cherished my friends, and my
hand has been open to him who had nothing. I have
loved truth, and hated a lie/ * * *
" A prayer from their Scriptures — the Ritual for the Dead
— gives a part of the confession the soul must make after
death. * * * The I25th chapter of the Ritual contains this:
1 Homage to thee, great god, lord of truth and justice ! I
am come to thee, O my master. I present myself to thee,
and contemplate thy perfecting. I know you, lord of truth
and justice. I have brought you the truth. I have committed
no fraud against men. I have not tormented the widow. I
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 393,
have not lied in the tribunal. I know not lies. I have not
done any prohibited thing. I have not commanded my
workman to do more than he could do. I have not been
idle. I have not made others weep. I have not made
fraudulent gains. I have not altered the grain-measure. I
have not falsified the equilibrium of the balance. I have
not taken away the milk from the foster-child. I have not
driven sacred beasts from the pastures. I am pure. I am
pure.' " 1
Again Mr. Clarke thus testifies to the morality of the
Egyptians : " Many of the virtues which we are apt to
suppose a monopoly of Christian culture appear as the
ideal of these old Egyptians. Brugsch says a thousand
voices from the tombs of Egypt declare this. One inscrip-
tion in Upper Egypt says : ' He loved his father, he
honored his mother, he loved his brethren, and never went
from his home in bad temper. He never preferred the
great man to the low one.' Another says: 'I was a
wise man, my soul loved God. I was a brother to the
great men and a father to the humble ones, and never was
a mischief-maker.' An inscription at Sais, on the tomb of
a priest who lived in the sad days of Cambyses, says : ' I
honored my father, I esteemed my mother, I loved my
brothers. I found graves for the unburied dead. I instructed
little children. I took care of orphans as though they were
my own children. For great misfortunes were on Egypt in
my time, and on this city of Sais.' * * * The following
inscription is from the tombs of Ben-Hassen, over a Nomad
Prince : ' What I have done I will say. My goodness and
my kindness were ample. I never oppressed the fatherless
nor the widow. I did not treat cruelly the fishermen, the
shepherds, or the poor laborers. There was nowhere in my
time hunger or want ; for I cultivated all my fields, far and
near, in order that their inhabitants might have food. I
never preferred the great and powerful to the humble and
poor, but did equal justice to all.' A king's tomb at Thebes
1 '* Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought."
394 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
gives us in few words the religious creed of a Pharaoh, which
Moses seems hardly to have appreciated : ' I lived in truth,
and fed my soul with justice. What I did to men was done
in peace, and how I loved God, God and my heart well know.
I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty,
clothes to the naked, and a shelter to the stranger. I
honored the gods with sacrifices, and the dead with offer-
ings. A rock at Lycopolis pleads for an ancient ruler
in the same unmistakable tones. Hundreds of stones
in Egypt announce, as the best gifts which the gods can
bestow on their favorites, ' the respect of men and the love
of women.' '
Thus we see that the morality of the Egyptians had the
same direct and simple source as that of other races, namely,
those perceptions of justice and purity which are engendered
by measuring the feelings of others by our own.
The daily life of the Egyptian people seems to have been
a physical expression of their theology. Certain days in the
year were set apart for observances which corresponded to
events in the lives of their gods. " In an old papyrus
described by De Rouge it is said : ' On the twelfth of
Chorak no one is to go out of doors, for on that day the
transformation of Osiris into the bird Wennu took place.
On the fourteenth of Toby no voluptuous songs must be
listened to, for Isis and Nepthys bewail Osiris on that day.
On the third of Mechir no one can go on a journey, because
Set then began a war.' '
The theology of Egypt indicates a great depth of thought.
The whole nation seemed to be physically employed in illus-
trating its conceptions ; but the vast majority were as
unconscious of the meaning of their religion as the physio-
logical units in a human organism are unconscious of the
genius of the life in which they take part. A great system
of myths and superstitions had grown up during an im-
measurable past. The best minds, no doubt, were able to
decipher in all this a great thought, a commanding general-
1 See " Ten Great Religions," pp. 221, 222.
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 395
ization ; but the majority of the priests and the people, as
in our day, were content with the symbols, and never went
beyond them. The mysteries which the priests so carefully
guarded were connected with their scientific knowledge,
and were not unmixed with the art of magic, hence the
awe with which the people regarded them.
In the Egyptian theology there were two branches or de-
partments,— the esoteric or internal, and the exoteric or ex-
ternal. The former was an interpretation of nature and life
which the priests built up among themselves ; it exhibited
remarkable knowledge and philosophic insight ; but, probably
for the want of a better language, it was for the most part
expressed in the form of deities and their attributes. We
can judge of the penetration of these inquiries from the fact
that they included among others the theory that " Matter is
but the rotating portions of something which fills the whole of
space" The latter was the more concrete and fabulous form
of religion taught to the people, and which was suited to their
understanding. There must have been a great disparity of
intelligence even among the priests themselves. In witness
of which mark the incongruity between their best inductions
and the clumsy symbolism in which we find them expressed.
Not to dwell too long on the complex subject of Egyptian
theology, suffice it to say that there were three orders of
gods, which corresponded to three orders of interpretation
of nature. The first dealt with general principles, and mani-
fested a remarkable power of analysis. The second and third
orders of gods descended from general principles to particu-
lars, and became thoroughly anthropomorphic, assuming the
minutest details of human life.
Looking at the history of Egypt from a distance, the
most striking features are the pyramid-building age, chiefly
confined to the fourth dynasty, and the reign of Rameses II.,
the most brilliant epoch of the Empire. Since Champollion
(1822) deciphered the hieroglyphic inscriptions, the greatest
archaeological discovery of modern times, the history of
Egypt has gradually unfolded itself until a dim outline is
396 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
discerned ; but scarcely more than this can yet be claimed.
The fact that the most ancient writers of the Egyptians re-
garded time in the cyclical light, fixing no era from which to
reckon events, makes it almost impossible to arrive at any
definite dates until the historical age is fairly begun by other
nations. It is generally conceded that at least four thousand
years would have been necessary for the development of the
civilization which appeared in Egypt at the beginning of the
fourth dynasty, when the Great Pyramid was built by
Cheops. Ages before this, Menes emerges from the mytho-
logical period, the age of divine reigns which precedes the
beginning of Egyptian history. It is agreed by all Egyp-
tologists, however, that Menes is no legendary personage,
but that he founded the Egyptian state by uniting its many
parts into one nation, and that he began the building of
the city of Memphis.
The first dynasty, beginning with the reign of Menes, is
estimated by Mariette Bey as 5004 B.C., and by Professor
Lepsius as 3892 B.C. The reign of twenty-six dynasties, or
families of kings, is counted from Menes to the conquest of
Egypt by the Persians ; but owing to the division of the na-
tion into as many as five kingdoms, these dynasties were not
consecutive, several royal families during certain periods
reigning at the same time. When the Assyrian Empire fell,
the Egyptians regained their independence under the Theban
Amenophis, who became king of the whole country, and
founded the eighteenth dynasty. But the nation was soon
again conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, and paid tribute to the
Babylonians until Egypt was absorbed by the Persian Em-
pire. Previous to this the separate kingdoms had been
overcome one by one by the invasion of a race of nomads,
which resulted in the rule of the Shepherd Kings, during
which Egyptian civilization suffered a long decline. It is
in the reign of the last shepherd king that Joseph, who is
acknowledged to be an historical character, is supposed to
have been in power.
It is almost impossible to obtain reliable details of the
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 397
sojourn and oppression of the Hebrews in Egypt and their
subsequent exodus. The legend, as it appears in the sacred
writings of the Jews, is one side of the story, which is gener-
ally admitted by scholars to be highly colored and largely
fanciful ; while from the detached references to the event
gathered from Egyptian inscriptions and other sources, it is
difficult to give to it any thing like the co'herency and rela-
tive historical importance which it assumes in the Hebrew
chronicles.
The theology of Egypt centres about the myth of Osiris,
which seems to be the oldest religious story in the world.
Five thousand years before the beginning of our era, Osiris,
a mythological king of Egypt, was worshipped after reigning
upon the earth, where he left such a remembrance of his
beneficence that he became the type of goodness, the chief
moral ideal of the Egyptians. He was betrayed, suffered
temporary death, ascended into heaven, where he became
the judge of the quick and the dead. The Greek author
Athenagoras " laughed gaily at the Egyptian absurdity of
weeping for the death of their god, then rejoicing at his
resurrection, and afterward sacrificing to him as a divinity."
Bonwick says, in speaking of Osiris : " It is idle for us, at this
distance of time, to talk of him as a solar myth, or a refined
intellectualism of the Egyptians ; he was a person who had
lived and died. They had no manner of doubt abo^t it.
Did they not know his birthplace ? Did they not celebrate
his birth by the most elaborate ceremonies, with cradle,
lights, etc. ? Did they not hold his tomb at Abydos ? Did
they not annually celebrate at the Holy Sepulchre his resur-
rection? Did they not commemorate his death by the
Eucharist, eating the Sacred Cake, after it had been conse-
crated by the priests, and become veritable flesh of his
flesh ? " The solemn strains of the Roman Miserere are but
the echoes of the Egyptian dirges representing the grief of
Isis. This devoted wife of Osiris, the chief maternal goddess
of Egypt, seeks her lost husband round the world and
1 " Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought," p. 162.
398 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
through the regions of death. When she has at last recov-
ered his remains, her tears and prayers revive him, and the
faithful wife miraculously conceives a son. Then she flees
with her unborn babe from pursuing enemies. Some say
that she was caught up by the sun, others that she bore and
suckled the babe Horus in loneliness. Thus Horus, begotten
and born after death through tears and prayers, is but the
living incarnation of Osiris. Horus was the Egyptian saviour
of humanity. He was born in winter, and the annual
festivals in celebration of his birth were the beginning of
our Christmas rejoicings. This beloved god was the last
of the long line of divine rulers, and he was followed by
Menes, the first historical king.
Isis, the mother of Horus, who was worshipped six thou-
sand years ago, was styled by the Egyptians, " ' Our Lady,'
the ' Queen of Heaven/ ' Star of the Sea/ ' Governess/
1 Earth Mother/ ' Rose/ ' Tower/ ' Mother of God/
1 Saviour of Souls/ t Intercessor/ ' Sanctifier/ ' Immaculate
Virgin/ etc. * * * In the story of her love and devotion to
Osiris there is a pathos and a tenderness that speak well for
the domestic virtues of the Egyptian people who invented
and cherished the myth. Only those who believed in faith-
ful wives and honored women could have exhibited so noble
a specimen of female goodness as seen in their chief divinity.
* * * In an ancient Christian work, called the ' Chronicle of
Alexandria/ occurs the following : ' Watch how Egypt has
consecrated the childbirth of a virgin, and the birth of her
son, who was exposed in a crib to the adoration of the
people. King Ptolemy having asked the reason of this usage,
the Egyptians answered him that it was a mystery taught
to their fathers/ " '
It is generally conceded by Egyptologists that Isis is the
Virgo of the zodiac. " One sees," says the Arabian writer,
Abulmazar, " in the first Decan of the sign of the Virgin,
according to the most ancient traditions of the Persians,
Chaldeans, Egyptians, of Hermes, and of Esculapius, a
1 " Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought," pp. 141, 143.
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 399
chaste, pure, immaculate virgin, of a beautiful figure and
an agreeable face, having an air of modesty, holding in her
hand two ears of corn, seated on a throne, nourishing and
suckling a young child."
Thus, as most of the original Christian theology was for-
mulated in Alexandria, we see in its symbols but a repro-
duction of the mythology of Egypt. As Isis was carried to
heaven by her son Horus, so " the virgin Mary was declared
to have been carried there by her glorified son." The im-
maculate conception, the symbols of the cradle and the
cross, the ceremony of the last supper, the death, the res-
urrection, the ascension, and in fact the whole scheme of
Christian salvation, have counterparts in the superstitions of
ancient Egypt. As the Egyptians were undoubtedly the
first historic people, in the mythologies of all other nations
we trace a likeness to their beliefs ; just such a likeness as it
is natural to suppose was disseminated by the slow inter-
course of the earliest races of the world. All superstitions
are merely exaggerations of human experiences, consisting
for the most part of the incidents of family life. This is the
reason why religion is said to be an emotional government,
as its beliefs spring from the childhood of our race, in which
the emotions have ascendancy over thought.
The only emotions which we can trust are moral emo-
tions ; and if we deprive our sacred beliefs of every thing
that thought cannot approve of and morality can dispense
with, superstitions disappear and the religion of Philosophy
alone remains. Could a greater service be rendered to
humanity than to relieve it of the slavery of its hoary
superstitions ?
The monuments of Egypt teach the same lesson of myste-
rious beliefs. Notwithstanding the incalculable amount of
toil which they represent, they are almost wholly the work of
superstition, and therefore have contributed little or nothing
to the well-being of the race that built them. Such vast
structures as the pyramids of Ghizeh or the temples at
Karnac must have been national undertakings ; and so far
400 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
removed were they from the useful, that their construction
must have meant the practical enslavement of large classes
of the population. It is difficult to imagine a state of society
in which labor could have been sufficiently redundant to
explain these enormous ideal enterprises in any other way.
The great public works of China and the Roman Empire
were national movements, but they were for the public good :
the building of the pyramids and temples of Egypt, and the
vast religious industry of the nation, on the contrary, must
have inflicted grievous burdens upon the people ; illustrat-
ing in a striking manner what superstition has cost the
world.
The literary monuments of this people only repeat the same
evidence. The antiquity of the Egyptian Bible is perhaps
the most wonderful fact connected with this oldest of nations.
Portions of these sacred writings are said to have been
written seven thousand years ago. As now collected, they
consist chiefly of a ritual of worship for the guidance of
the priests, and a " code of existence in the other world."
Deveria says : " Not only under the reign of Men-ka-ra, the
builder of the Third Pyramid, but even under the fifth king
of the first dynasty, certain parts of the sacred book were
already discovered, as antiquities, of which the tradition had
-been lost" At the Turin Museum is a copy of this wonder-
ful prehistoric " Book of the Dead." " It covers one side of
the wall. Though in four pieces, it may altogether measure
nearly three hundred feet in length. The breadth of the
papyrus is from twelve to fifteen inches. Parts are, how-
ever, incomplete or obscured by age. * * * Thereon one
seems to have the whole Egyptian theology at a glance.
Though there is every reason to believe the greater part of
the people were at least as well educated in reading as Euro-
peans at the beginning of this century, yet the perpetual
pictorial display could not fail to be instructive to those un-
able to make out the text. The Scriptures must have been
well known, as copies of chapters are found by the thousand
•on the persons of mummies themselves, and on the walls of
Ot
ffn
*&
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 40!
the thousands of tombs, which would not have been the case
were the living majority unable to read."
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is supposed to
have been first elaborated in Egypt. The whole religion of
this first civilization is but a mystic reflection of actual life
in the form of a resurrected existence, and yet, there is not a
single fact of life or mind that can lend reality to this vast
dream of futurity. The belief in the immortality of the soul
has the combined authority of almost every religion the
world has ever known, and yet it is not only a mistaken belief,
but in common with all other superstitions it has a demoraliz-
ing influence upon life.
But how can we hope to overcome such religious supersti-
tions, which rest upon mysteries, while even science and phi-
losophy cling to the belief that all facts centre in an ultimate
mystery or the great unknowable? It would be difficult to
find in this century of intellectual progress a scientist or a
thinker who does not believe the First Cause to be an
unfathomable mystery ; and yet belief in any order of ulti-
mate mystery is a self-contradiction just as flagrant as that
which is implied in the word unknowable. It disregards the
limits of language and the nature of perception, and denies
the possibility of the unification of knowledge.
Almost every form of mystery can be traced to Egypt.
The solemn symbolisms of Freemasonry, which are but
efforts to give expression to divine truths, the art of
magic, which has been almost wholly associated with re-
ligion, and the mystery of immortality upon which all
religious superstitions depend, have all apparently come to
life in Egypt. Although a belief in magic is widely con-
ceded, in our time, to be not only false but vulgar, Chris-
tianity has been closely associated with the "mystic art."
The rite of baptism, the different degrees of superstition
connected with the Lord's Supper, the belief in the power
of prayer to convert souls, to cure sickness, and to obtain
forgiveness of sins ; the consecration of priests and churches,
li4 Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought," pp. 188, 189.
402 THE RELIGION' OF PHILOSOPHY.
and even the ceremony of benediction, are all forms of be-
lief in the magical or the supernatural. The life of Jesus is
full of instances of the same order of belief. It is true that
the more recent development of the black art known as
Demonology had an Eastern origin and was unknown on
the Nile, but the one hundred thousand witches " said to
have been destroyed in Protestant churches alone " show
that Christianity was not inhospitable even to this innova-
tion.
In a word, the belief in any form of mystery, from the
metaphysical tenet of " an unknowable " to all manner of
religious superstition, is diametrically opposed to the higher
appreciations of human life. To overcome this insidious
error is the first condition to the establishment of a true con-
ception of God. The foregoing glance at the beliefs of
Egypt, therefore, is intended but to give an idea of the
form which this error assumed in the earliest civilization, so
that we may recognize it as it reappears in the religions of
other nations.
We may now turn to another but almost equally ancient
faith.
The study of the civilizations of India, China, and Japan
is excluded from the range of what is generally termed
ancient history, because these nations were but little known
to the Greeks, who originated history for us. It is prin-
cipally through modern research that such knowledge as
we have of the life of these nations has been obtained. The
study of Sanskrit, begun by the English scholars at Calcutta
during the early part of this century, has developed so rap-
idly that now nearly all the important universities of the
world have established professorships *of this language.
It is through the efforts of these students of oriental
languages that we are enabled to trace out the history of
India and the East, which a short time ago was a blank to
the outer world. The literature of India, although very
voluminous, is utterly devoid of historical data. Consisting-
of poems, mythology, and sacred books, " no piece of
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 403
chronicle, no list of kings," breaks the monotony of these
emotional and abstract writings, and we are left to discern
the moral character of the people of India, to judge of
the thoughts and feelings of this great race, through the
agency of fable. These fables consist of a philosophy sus-
ceptible of the deepest interpretations, strangely mixed with
the most elaborate, grotesque, and even brutal idolatry, and
a vast mythology, the joint fruit of widespread religious sen-
timent and a gorgeous and unrestrained imagination.
It is by a recent movement in science, that the origin of the
Hindoo people, which was of late supposed to be undiscover-
able, has been made familiar to the reading world. As early
as the sixteenth century, Renan tells us, it was discovered that
the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Syrians,
Babylon, from a certain period at least, the Arabs, the Abys-
sinians, spoke languages wholly cognate. " Eichhorn, in the
last century, proposed to call these languages Semitic, and
this name, inexact as it is, may as well be retained. * * * The
philologists of Germany, Bopp in particular, laid down sure
principles, by means of which it was demonstrated that the
ancient idioms of Brahmanic India, the different dialects of
Persia, the Armenian, many dialects of the Caucasus, the
Greek and Latin languages, with their derivatives, the Sclavic
languages, the Germanic, the Celtic, formed a vast whole
radically distinct from the Semitic group, and this they
called Indo-Germanic, or Indo-European."
This division of the principal nations of the world into two
great groups? however, relies upon more than the generic
development of languages; the same division is disclosed by
a comparison of their respective literatures, customs, institu-
tions, governments and religions. Thus we see that the
philosophy of history, great as are its achievements, has
scarcely begun the work of portraying the conditions which,
are to explain human development.
The Aryans, to which name the modern Ivan for Persia
and the ancient Ariana for the region about the Indus are
traced, occupied those vast plains in Asia lying east of the
404 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Caspian Sea. The division of this primitive race of warlike
shepherds into the family of Indo-European nations must
have been very gradual, as the results of their early migra-
tions are to be seen in the first dynasties of Egypt, a period
varying from one to two thousand years before the time at
which the Aryans are supposed to have lost their identity in
the formation of other nations.
The castes into which the Hindoo nation has been so
firmly crystallized are, first and highest, the Brahmans, or
priestly class, a spiritual aristocracy, which, viewed from
every standpoint, is beyond question the most wonderful so-
cial phenomenon presented by our race. Beneath them are
graded the landed military class, the commercial and agricul-
tural, and the servile classes, and the social status of each is
minutely provided for in the Vedic law, forming a civilization
entirely unique.
The oldest works in the Hindoo literature are the Vedas,
which, like all the earliest writings of the world, are religious
in character. They were composed and preserved by priests,
and it is through them alone that we are able to study
Hindoo history, as the two great epics are so legendary and
fanciful that they give but the vaguest idea of events.
" The last hymns of the Vedas were written (says St.
Martin) when the Aryans arrived from the Indus at the
Ganges and were building their oldest city, at the confluence
of that river with the Jumna. Their complexion was then
white, and they call the race whom they conquered, and
who afterward were made Soudras, or lowest caste, blacks.
The chief gods of the Vedic age were Indra, Varuna, Agni,
Savitri, Soma. The first was the god of the atmosphere ;
the second, of the Ocean of Light, or Heaven ; the third, of
Fire ; the fourth, of the Sun ; and the fifth, of the Moon.
Yama was the god of Death. All the powers of nature
were personified in turn, — as earth, food, wine, months,
seasons, day, night, and dawn. Among all these divinities
Indra and Agni were the chief. But behind this incipient
polytheism lurks the original monotheism, — for each of
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 405
these gods, in turn, becomes the Supreme Being. The
universal Deity seems to become apparent first in one form
of nature and then in another. Such is the opinion of Cole-
brooke, who says that ' the ancient Hindoo religion recog-
nizes but one God, not yet sufficiently discriminating the
creature from the Creator.' And Max Miiller says : ' The
hymns celebrate Varuna, Indra, Agni, etc., and each in turn
is called supreme. The whole mythology is fluent. The
powers of nature become moral beings. It would be easy
to find, in the numerous hymns of the Veda, passages in
which almost every single god is represented as supreme
and absolute. Agni is called * Ruler of the Universe ' ;
Indra is celebrated as the Strongest god, and in one hymn
it is said, ' Indra is stronger than all.' It is said of Soma
that ' he conquers every one.' '
To give an idea of the purity of thought and grandeur of
expression which these ancient Hindoos commanded, to say
nothing of their monotheism, we give a translation by Max
Miiller of one of the oldest Vedic hymns in which their idea
of the creation is set forth.
" RlG-VEDA x, 121.
" In the beginning there arose the Source of golden light.
He was the only born Lord of all that is. He established
the earth, and this sky. Who is the God to whom we shall
offer our sacrifice ?
" He who gives life. He who gives strength ; whose
blessing all the bright gods desire ; whose shadow is immor-
tality, whose shadow is death. Who is the God to whom
we shall offer our sacrifice ?
" He who through his power is the only king of the
breathing and awakening world. He who governs all, man and
beast. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ?
" He whose power these snowy mountains, whose power
the sea proclaims, with the distant river. He whose these
regions are as it were his two arms. Who is the God to
whom we shall offer our sacrifice ?
406 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
"He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm.
He through whom heaven was stablished ; nay, the highest
heaven. He who measured out the light in the air. Who
is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ?
" He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by his will,
look up, trembling inwardly. He over whom the rising sun
shines forth. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
sacrifice ?
" Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they
placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose he who is the
only life of the bright gods. Who is the God to whom we
shall offer our sacrifice ?
" He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds,
the clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice ; he who
is God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall
offer our sacrifice ?
" May he not destroy us, — he the creator of the earth, —
or he, the righteous, who created heaven : he who also
created the bright and mighty waters. Who is the God to
whom we shall offer our sacrifice? "
The Vedic literature begins with the hymns called the
Rig-Veda; these are divided by Mu'ller into the Chhandas
and the Mantras periods. These writings are liturgic in
character. The earliest theological writings of India are the
Brahmanas. Later on, the philosophic writings called the
Upanishads make their appearance ; these are almost the
only Vedic writings which are read at the present day ; and
if the antiquity claimed for them can be substantiated, i. e.
800 to 600 years B.C., they show clearly that the speculations
of the earliest Greeks were anticipated in India. When we
think how Egyptian and Babylonian history, also, gives
evidence of philosophic thought vastly older than any thing
connected with Greece, it would seem possible that the
Aryans were not only the progenitors of the language, but
the thought, of the Indo-European nations. It may seem
venturesome, however, to attribute much philosophic insight
1 Mtiller's "Ancient Sanskrit Literature," p. 569.
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 407
to the warlike shepherds who occupied the regions east of
the Caspian Sea, before the earliest dates of even legendary
history, and of whom nothing more definite is known than
what is suggested by the words traced through convergent
languages to them ; but is it more venturesome than to
suppose that all the details of metaphysical speculation
should be faithfully reproduced in different countries, at great
distances in time, without any generic connection ? This is
the same question with regard to psychology as that which
is presented by the contrasted theories of Darwin and Lewes
in biology. Darwin says that organic life began in not
more than four or five different points on the earth's surface,
and that all subsequent development has been a generic
divergence from these points of beginning. Lewes says that
the conditions of organic life are far too general to admit of
any such narrow beginnings. When we study the general
subject of the beginnings of life, and see how clearly organic
activities are affiliated with chemical and cosmical activities,
are we not irresistibly carried to the larger of these views ?
So with regard to the origin of philosophy. If thought is
the function of conditions, it is natural to suppose that cer-
tain civilizations produce inevitably certain types of thought.
The only question is, what constitutes the intellectual germ,
or logical type, upon which the social conditions of each age
have acted as merely a developing medium. Will not the
psychology of the future demonstrate that this logical germ
is as deeply seated in every sentient organism as the proper-
ties of its physiological units, and is in fact indistinguishable
from them ? Our inductions are as natural as the swinging
of the pendulum, or the response of the organic compounds
to light and heat. There is no break in development
between the cosmical and the organic activities expressed in
our race and its highest logical genius. An analysis, there-
fore, which seeks to discover some ultimate principle as the
basis of mind will have to relinquish one special fact after
another until it comes face to face with the ultimate reality,
the first principle of life.
408 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
/
In the light of this induction, the thought of Aryan shep-
herds, Hindoo priests, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the
most modern European metaphysicians, will assume a level
which, in an unphilosophical view of history, would seem im-
possible. The thought of the human race, from its earliest
beginnings to its best attainments, forms but the base-line in a
sentient parallax of infinite proportions. With our compli-
cated vocabularies we imagine that we have risen far above
the level of those early inductions which mingled dim intui-
tions of divine unity with all manner of superstition ; but alas !
after seventy centuries of reform, we find the inarticulate
gesture of the primitive man declaring the scope of language
and the nature of perception as unerringly as our most
scholarly analyses of mind ; and thus the fact of sentiency,
viewed through the long avenues of organic development
which lead up to it, presents a level scarcely broken by the
highest waves of civilization. In a word, so deep-seated in
nature are the facts of consciousness, that the difference
between the intelligence of races is rendered insignificant
when this intelligence is viewed in the true perspectives of its
development. It is only in that more complete view of knowl-
edge which identifies action with thought, morality with re-
ligion, practical with theoretical happiness, that our notions
of progress are justified. It is only by subjecting the " tran-
scendental properties of the modern intellect " to the disci-
pline of actual existence, by denying to the imagination all
the extravagances of mystery and superstition, that we are
enabled to really distinguish ourselves intellectually or
morally from the primitive types of man. The question
which presses upon us therefore is, Have we accomplished
this distinguishing logical feat ?
Following the Brahmana period in Hindoo literature, we
have the Sutras, coming from a word meaning string, and
consisting of a string of sentences concise and epigrammatic
in style, representing the thought of the Brahmans reduced
to the simplest form. These writings are supposed to have
appeared from 600 to 200 years B.C. The Brahmanas, which
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 409*
precede in order of time the Sutras and the philosophic
Upanishads, are very numerous. " M Ciller gives stories from
them and legends. They relate to sacrifices, to the story of
the deluge, and other legends. They substituted these
legends for the simple poetry of the ancient Vedas. They
must have extended over at least two hundred years, and
contain long lists of teachers." But when we call them
Vedic writings, we use a form of speech which is inconsist-
ent with fact, for the Vedas were not reduced to writing
until long after they appeared. They were memorized by
the priests and thus transmitted through many centuries.
The antiquity of the original Vedic hymns or Rig-Veda
cannot be determined with any certainty, although all au-
thorities agree in placing them as early as 1200 to 1500
years B.C., while Dr. Haug believes that the oldest hymns
were composed B.C. 2400. In the damp climate of India
no manuscript will last more than a few centuries, which
accounts for the fact that there are few Sanskrit MSS. more
than four or five hundred years old.
" Miiller supposes that writing was unknown when the
Rig-Veda was composed. The thousand and ten hymns
of the Vedas contain no mention of writing or books,
any more than the Homeric poems. There is no allusion
to writing during the whole of the Brahmana period, nor
even through the Sutra period. This seems incredible
to us only because our memory has been systematically
debilitated by newspapers and the like during many
generations. It was the business of every Brahman to
learn by heart the Vedas during the twelve years of his
student life. The Guru, or teacher, pronounces a group of
words, and the pupils repeat after him. After writing was
introduced, the Brahmans were strictly forbidden to read
the Vedas, or to write them. Caesar says the same of the
Druids. Even Panini never alludes to written words or
letters. None of the ordinary modern words for book,
paper, ink, or writing, have been found in any ancient Sans-
krit work, — no such words as volumen, volume ; liber, or
410 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
inner bark of a tree ; byblos, inner bark of papyrus ; or book,
that is, beech-wood. But Buddha had learned to write, as
we find by a book translated into Chinese, A.D. 76. In this
book Buddha instructs his teacher ; as in the ' Gospel of the
Infancy' Jesus explains to his teacher the meaning of the
Hebrew alphabet. So Buddha tells his teacher the names
of sixty-four alphabets. The first authentic inscription in
India is of Buddhist origin, belonging to the third century
before Christ."
The type of religion depicted in the Vedas has long since
passed away. At the present day, in India, there is a poly-
theism among the people very different from the written
religion of the priestly caste. The Brahmans acknowledge
the equal divinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, known as
the Hindoo triad ; but the great mass of the people worship
different gods according to the multitude of sects into which
they are divided. There is a large class of unbelievers in
India who doubt the inspiration of the Vedas, and even
deride the sacred books. The widespread religious feeling
of the people may be judged of from the fact that two thirds
of all the books sold in that country, according to a recent
report from Calcutta, are of a religious character.
There is a sect which corresponds to the Quakers of
England and America, the Kabirs, a part of whose creed it
is to oppose all worship ; there are Hindoo monks, Ramavats,
who live in monasteries ; and there is a prototype of the
polygamous Mormons, the Maharajas, whose religious ob-
servances are mingled with licentiousness. When these facts
are considered, it is difficult to determine to what extent the
great typical religion of India known as Brahmanism, which
succeeded the age of the elder Vedas, was ever observed by
priests or people. The text-book of Brahmanism is known
as the Laws of Manu. This is a very ancient religious code
supposed to have originated about 1000 to 900 B.C. Manu,
in the Vedas, is spoken of as the father of mankind and the
hero of a legend resembling somewhat that of Noah in the
Hebrew Scriptures ; the Brahmans regard him as the author
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 411
of their code. The laws of Manu, in their present form, are
a synopsis of a legendary poem, or metrical composition, of
one hundred thousand couplets, which represented the laws
and customs of the ancient Brahmans. These laws "may
possibly have been reduced to the form of a written code
with a view to securing the system of a caste against a
popular movement of Buddhism, and thus give a rigid fixity
to the privileges of the Brahmans."
The Brahmans represent the early Aryan civilization of
India. They have always been the great literary caste.
Their priestly power has often been assailed, and sometimes
overcome. On account of their comparative monopoly of
learning, however, they have been, until recent times, both
the counsellors of princes and the instructors of the people.
The whole history of India seems to be made up of the
resistance of this caste to religious and political innovations
from the early invasions of non-Brahmanic tribes to the
great religious movement which culminated in the establish-
ment of the Buddhist kingdoms. So determined was the
resistance of the Brahmans, that Buddhism was at last
dethroned and driven out of India. Some writers think
that the manner in which this victory over Buddhism was
achieved was by joining the worship of the two gods Vishnu
and Siva to Brahmanism. The worship of these gods had
gradually grown up in India as a sort of dissent from Brah-
manism long before the time of Buddha. These worships
were founded upon the ancient Vedas, and were simply the
forms which the popular religious ideals of two different
sections of the country assumed. In the valley of the
Ganges the Vedic god Vishnu was promoted to the chief
rank in the Hindoo Pantheon. He was given "the character
of a Friend and Protector, .gifted with mild attributes, and
worshipped as the life of Nature." In the west of India the
god selected was Siva, supposed to be derived from the god
Rudra of the Rig- Veda, who, " fierce and beneficent at once,"
is the Storm-god and presides over medicinal plants. The
worship of this god gradually spread until under the name
412 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
of Siva, the Destroyer, he became one of the most prominent
deities of India. In harmonizing the worship of these two
popular gods with their own religion, the Brahmans were
able to unite India and successfully oppose Buddhism.
The origin of the Hindoo triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and
Siva, like all other divine trinities,1 is probably a dim reflec-
tion of the three elements of thought, the ultimate reality
Motion and its subjective and objective aspects Time and
Space. There is, of course, no resemblance between the
deities composing the Egyptian, Persian, Hindoo, or Chris-
tian trinities and the principles known as Space, Time, and
Motion ; but the conditions of thought are common to all
humanity, and it is more natural to believe that the religions
of the world offer this distant reflection of an ultimate
analysis than that they bear no trace of it.
We will make no attempt to follow out the elaborate be-
liefs of this great race, whose distinct languages, states, and
peoples exceed in number those of all Europe, and whose
civilization was seemingly greater than now before writing
as we use the word was invented in any part of the world ;
suffice it to say that the illogical and extreme part of
Brahmanism is its mysticism. In the imagination of India
mysticism has had a high development. Its alluring prom-
ises have fascinated while its innate deceit has corrupted the
heart of man. Such morality, and hence such true religion,
as the world has seen, has come not from mystery, not from
impossible images of life and purity, but from generaliza-
tions of experiences, the healthful and natural extension of
human sympathies.
Plato derived his ecstasies of perception from the East,
and all subsequent idealism has been but an outgrowth of
these intellectual mysteries. Christianity has assiduously
fostered the mysticism of India ; witness her doctrine of
1 Egypt has Osiris, the Creator ; Typhon, the Destroyer ; and Horus, the
Preserver. Persia has Ormazd, the Creator ; Ahriman, the Destroyer ; and
Mithras, the Restorer. Buddhism has Buddha, the Divine Man ; Dharma,
the Word ; and Sangha, the Communion of Saints. Christianity has God, the
Father ; Christ, the Divine Man ; and the Word, or the Holy Ghost.
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 413
<l Purification, of Illumination, and of ecstatic union with
God and absorption in divine contemplation."
•Mysticism, in its various forms, constitutes the illogical
part of every religion and of every philosophy. In Chris-
tianity and other Catholic religions, this principle takes the
name of Spiritualism, as in philosophy it is called idealism.
The chief tenet of mysticism, as it appears in the ethnic re-
ligions, is contempt for human energy ; which is the belittle-
ment of the present life upon the supposition that there is
another and more important one hereafter. If it is admitted
that morality is the science of human conduct, then mysti-
cism, which in its most familiar form is a belief in immor-
tality, leads away from morality. It is upon this issue
concerning the relative importance of the present and the
future life that all religions must stand or fall. For the
influence of beliefs upon actual life is the measure to which
all systems of faith must sooner or later submit ; and it is
by this comparison that the Religion of Philosophy will
triumph.
The magnificence of the religious monuments of India has
been celebrated in every tongue. Her emblazoned grotto-
temples and matchless mosques tell us how universal her
worship has been, and how art has slowly refined it. The
most beautiful building in the world, the Taj Mahal at Agra,
is a memorial temple raised by a bereaved husband to a
princess of India. The most imposing column in the world,
the Kootub Minar, towers above the desolate site of ancient
Delhi, unequalled in design. But the most lasting monu-
ment which India has raised is her Mysticism. Who can
estimate the extent of its influence ?
Even in America, among the cultivated classes who have
become relatively independent of superstition, who have
given some heed to the recent achievements of historical
criticism, the deep roots of mysticism are still to be found.
When Dr. David Strauss published his " Life of Jesus," the
opposition which it encountered from the orthodox world
was not greater than that experienced, from the same
41 4 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
source, by a small group of literati in this country known as the
Transcendentalists of New England. The critics of Strauss
were, for the most part, blind to the fact that he was an emi-
nent theologian, who distinctly taught a belief in a personal
God, and who, in dealing with the story of Christ as it is
found in the Christian Scriptures, merely tried to separate
the truly historical portions from what was unhistorical, and
therefore mystical. He brought to this labor a vast erudi-
tion, besides a minute conscientiousness with regard to judg-
ing historical data which is almost painful to those who
follow his work. The New England Transcendentalists were
the first people in this country who evinced, on any consid-
erable scale, a truly literary spirit, a disposition to study all
literatures from a comprehensive standpoint. They took the
liberty of casting " a free and bold regard upon the beauties
of the pagan classics and upon the deformities of books
hitherto held as above human estimate." But Strauss and
his followers in Germany, Renan and his school in France,
and the Transcendentalists in this country, have all griev-
ously sinned against philosophy. They one and all perpetu-
ate the mysticism of India. From the ideal mystic, who,
according to the Hindoo conception, passes his life on the
top of a column, abnegating all human relations, or earthly
feelings, so that he may come face to face with God, to the
Transcendentalist, who advocates " a philosophy which con-
tinually reminds us of our intimate relations to the spiritual
world," which aims to approach " the mysteries of man's
higher life," and affirms " the existence of spiritual elements
in his nature," 1 we have but degrees in subserviency to the
same doctrine of the unknowable. Nothing can be more
seductive than the language in which this doctrine finds ex-
pression. It is a worship of man's higher nature on the sup-
position that it has a counterpart in a divine nature. It is
an exceedingly refined anthropomorphism, — so refined that
some of the best minds freely use the idioms and technical
terms which have become identified with this faith with-
1 See article in Atlantic Monthly of July, 1883, by O. B. Frothingham.
THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA. 41$
out a suspicion that they are transgressing the laws of
reason.
Until the sin of idealism shall be laid aside, the idolatry
which we call orthodoxy will have a permanent excuse, and
materialism will be a natural reaction from the religions of
faith. For, strange as it may seem, materialism is the logical
accompaniment of Transcendentalism ; both rest upon the
acknowledgment of a fundamental mystery in life.
The Transcendentalist and the Materialist are both agnos-
tics : one represents the optimistic, the other the pessimistic
form of skepticism. One says life is material; let us reach
after the divine or spiritual, a mysterious type of virtue
which is above and beyond this life : the other says life is
material, and we cannot make it any thing else. The Tran-
scendentalist would make a mystery of a natural propensity
of human life. We have sympathies, or breadth and depth
of feeling ; we have aspirations for a wider and purer sphere
of existence, — feelings perfectly natural and no more and na
less difficult to explain than the simplest sensation ; and
because these feelings are grand in their objects, taking in
the whole sweep of our existence, it is taken for granted that
they are mysteries, and represent " our intimate relations to
a spiritual world."
There is no absolute spirit, there is no mystery in life.
Every thing to which the word spirit can be applied means
also body. Every thing that has ever appeared mysterious
springs from and is indissolubly connected with the familiar.
The principle of perception, the dignity of life, are both
assailed by these substantializations of aspects of our exist-
ence, this confusion of relative facts with the universal prin-
ciple. What, in a word, will it avail us to reason about
divine unity unless we apply the principle to the laws of
perception or individual life ?
CHAPTER XIX.
THE RELIGIONS OF CONFUCIUS, ZOROASTER, AND BUDDHA.
All the Higher Ideals of Christian Morality Firmly Established Principles
throughout the World Ages Before our Era — The Resemblance between
Christian Worship and The Worship of Earlier Faiths.
t
THE Chinese Empire is twice as large as the United States,
and contains a third of the population of the globe. Its
antiquity, by comparison, makes ancient Greece a modern
state, and the first centuries of our era familiar times. For
thirty centuries its oral language has remained the same, and
its writing dates from a far earlier period.
In China we have the only nation which has a purely
literary aristocracy, where office is obtained solely through
competitive examinations, and where there is no rank or
nobility apart from office. The Emperor has theoretically
absolute power, but is in turn rigorously governed by an
unwritten law of usage which defines his duties to his people
as those of a father to his family. So strong is this ideal of
government with the people that its open neglect is inevita-
bly followed by revolution, so that, as a means of retaining
their power, rulers have found it necessary to simulate the
higher virtues.
In the language of China we have a singularly truthful
portrayal of the national mind and character. It is mono-
syllabic, and therefore inflexible, — incapable of that syn-
tactical motion which gives power and grace to expression.
The literature is unimaginative, and were it not for its pure
moral tone and philosophic spirit it might be called common-
place.
The Chinese nation has far excelled the West, until quite
416
THE RELIGION OF CONFUCIUS. 417
recently, in the extent of its public works,1 in mechanical skill,
in the refinement of the industrial arts, and in popular edu-
cation. With regard to some phases of social morality and
civil government, China is unapproached by any modern
nation. Religion with this nation is more ethical than theo-
logical ; philosophy more practical than metaphysical.
The classics of China are the sacred books and writings
upon law and history. All education consists in memorizing
the classics, and the whole national mind, as a consequence,
has fallen into a servile literary imitation. In exalted con-
servatism, in veneration for custom, China is without a peer ;
but in the competition of human genius, — the struggle for
those new combinations of thought and feeling which consti-
tute progress, in short, in imagination, — she is far behind many
of the younger nations. The civilization of China, like that
of Egypt, has a significance of which her people are apparently
unconscious. The design of her social and political life con-
stitutes a beautiful system of ethics, and yet abuses and in-
consistencies are admitted, which, when compared with this
design, appear grotesque. In a word, the individual has
become so highly disciplined that he is but a silent factor
in the spirit of his race ; he has become bewildered by the
proportions of his own civilization.
The religion of China centres around the life and teach-
ings of Confucius, one of the greatest moral teachers the
world has known. What is most admirable in the Chinese
faith is the absence of fable and superstition concerning this
man, who, judged by accepted standards, was holy and
inspired, and fully as worthy of being canonized or deified
as any of the great prophets. It is instructive to see, after
all, how little moral influence, or power for doing good,
depends upon belief in the supernatural. All that appeals
1 China was intersected with canals long before there were any in Europe.
The great wall was built for defence against the fierce tribes of the North, two
hundred years before Christ ; it crosses mountains, descends into valleys, and
is carried over rivers on arches ; it is twelve hundred and forty miles long,
twenty feet high, and has towers every hundred yards. In this country beauti-
ful books were printed five hundred years before the invention of Gutenberg.
41 8 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
to the hearts and consciences of mankind, however express-
ed, must be human. Hence the extravagances of faith are
unnatural, inartistic, irreligious.
Confucius was born, 551 B.C., in the province or state of
Loo, now called Shan-tung, during the reign of Ling-wang,
23d emperor of the Teheou. His parents were of high
dignity, but were poor, and the untimely death of the father
early subjected the son to the discipline of toil. He was
passionately attached to his mother ; and when she died, he
gave up a state office which he held, to mourn her. This,
however, was not without precedent in the customs of his
country. His character early attracted the attention of the
Prince of his State, who offered him the revenues of an office
without the duties, which he declined from a sense of honor.
Confucius was at length given the charge of a city, and
immediately applied himself to the institution of reforms.
" He punished false dealing, suppressed licentiousness, and
reduced brigandage and baronial ambition." Troops of
dancing-girls and fine horses were sent as bribes to the
Prince by those who were inconvenienced by these reforms
of the minister, which at last had the effect of securing his
dismissal. For thirteen years he was an exile, and wandered
from court to court teaching his principles of peace, national
unity, and self-improvement. Some of the friends whom
his principles had attracted followed him in these wanderings
and were known as his disciples. Among them was Men-
cius, himself a very able and profound teacher, although
entirely devoted to Confucius.
The incessant theme of Confucius, says Johnson, is the
balance of character, the danger of one-sidedness, the mutual
dependence of study and original thought, of sound sense
and fine taste ; that due observance of limits in which the
virtue of any quality consists. Being asked by one of his
disciples what constituted the perfect man, he drew no
impossible picture of virtue, but simply responded : " Seek-
ing to be established, the true man establishes others;
wishing enlargement, he enlarges others."
THE RELIGION OF CONFUCIUS. 419
Confucius was renowned for his reverence and sympathy.
While receiving in high office he would rise when approached
by a person in trouble. Even at his time, which seems so
early to us, there were annals of a vast antiquity belonging
to his nation, filled with the lives of pure men. These
annals he assiduously studied, and constantly referred to
them as the source of his principles and knowledge. He
disclaimed all originality ; and it is probably due to this
marked honesty and unselfishness that he is regarded by his
nation as a man, — not as a god.
Those who' study the social history of China cannot fail
to be impressed with the immeasurable advantage which
this simple and unassuming method of teaching morality
has over the more highly colored and imaginative systems
of other countries. The beauty of moral truth is more effec-
tual when unadorned by superstition. In morality as in all
else the best teacher is example ; hence the sublimity of
human nature is in no wise enhanced by the fanciful and
grotesque impersonations of it which we find in the mytholo-
gies and theologies of the world.
Confucius affirms that knowledge and belief should be the
same thing : " When you know a thing, to hold that you
know it ; and when you do not know a thing, to allow
that you do not know it ; this is knowledge." To this he
adds : " To see what is right and not to do it is want of
courage." Nor was Confucius unacquainted with the quali-
ties of the heart, for he says : " It is only the truly virtuous
man who can love or who can hate others. * * * Virtue is
not left to stand alone ; he who practises it will have
neighbors." Again he says : " It is not easy to find a man
who has learned for three years without coming to be good."
In his ethics we. find the golden rule : " What I do not
wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men." The
Brahmans, says Miiller, expressed the same truth in the
Hitopadesa — " Good people show mercy unto all beings, con-
sidering how like they are to themselves."
Confucius also seems to have been conscious of the limits
420 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
of language. " Ke Loo asked about serving the spirits
of the dead. The Master said : ' While you are not able
to serve men, how can you serve their spirits ? ' Ke Loo
added : * I venture to ask about death.' He was answered :
'While you do not know life, how can you know about
death ? ' ' And again, concerning the same question, " The
Master said : ' I would prefer not speaking.' Tsze-Kung
said : ' If you, Master, do not speak, what shall we, your
disciples, have to record ? ' The Master said : ' Does Heaven
speak? The four seasons pursue their courses, all things
are continually being produced ; but does Heaven say any
thing?'"
Do not the ideas of virtue which Confucius promulgated
compare favorably with our best ethical conceptions ? " Vir-
tue is inquiring with earnestness and inwardly making appli-
cation." " Is virtue from a man's own force or from another's ?
How can a man conceal his character ? The superior man sees
the heart of the mean one. Of what use is disguise ? There-
fore the wise will be watchful when alone. * * * Distinction
is not in being heard of far and wide, but in being solid,
straightforward, and loving the right. * * * Filial piety is
supposed to mean the support of one's parents ; but brutes
can do that : without reverence, what difference between
these kinds? * * * Learning is fulfilment of the great rela-
tions of life (a luminous definition of culture). Manners
consist in behaving to each other as if receiving a guest, in
causing no murmurings, and in not treating others as you
would not be treated by them. * * * Propriety is that rule
by which tendencies are saved from excess. If one be
without virtue, what has he to do with the rights of pro-
priety, or with music ? " A quaint way of arguing that
morality is the expression of the highest harmonies of life.
" Language is not mere utterance, but keeping words to
the meaning of things." Hence the virtue of a wise reticence
with regard to what we do not know.
To one who said : " I believe in your doctrine, but am not
equal to it," Confucius said : " That would be a case of
THE RELIGION OF CONFUCIUS. 42!
weakness, but you are limiting yourself. * * * Progress
must be gradual. Conceit and complacency are inexcusable
and fatal."
Confucius, says Johnson, demurs at repaying injuries with
the kindness with which we return benefits ; he taught rather
to " Recompense injuries with justice."
To the ideal character Confucius ascribes unlimited
powers : " It is everywhere appreciated." " It will subdue
barbarians." " Its appeal will do more than punishments
to reform the bad." "It settles strife with a word." It
finds " all men brothers." "Thus founded, a ruler's virtue is
irresistible." What chance have these poor Chinese, educated
under such high principles of morality, in dealing with the
less scrupulous Christian nations?
It is needless to dwell upon the purity of these ethics, or
to attest that they equal any thing to be found in modern
literature or example. They were imbibed from the oldest
writings of China, called the Kings, to which Confucius gave
much study, and which he spent the last years of his life in
revising and editing.
The religions of China are three in number : first and
oldest, the Tao ; then the great revival and reform of this
religion, known as the faith of Confucius ; and lastly, the
innovation of Buddhism.
The philosophy of the Tao religion is found in the great
work of the Tse-Lao, or the old teacher. It is a remarkably
good system of metaphysics, considering its antiquity, and
its morals, as above indicated, are of singular purity. In
the philosophy of Confucius the idea of Heaven and
God seems to be one. The word Teen, so frequently em-
ployed in the sense of the ultimate principle, seems to re-
semble our word divine. The devotions of Confucius do not
imply a belief in a personal god. " They were (says Clarke)
the prayer of reverence addressed to some sacred, mysterious
power above and behind all visible things. What that
power was, he, with his supreme candor, did not venture to
intimate. In the She-King, however, a personal God is
422 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
addressed. The oldest books recognize a Divine person.
They teach that there is one Supreme Being, \vho is
omnipresent, who sees all things, and wishes men to
live together in peace and brotherhood. In these ancient
writings the Supreme Being commands not only right
actions, but pure desires and thoughts, that we should watch
all our behavior, and maintain a grave and majestic demeanor,
' which is like a palace in which virtue resides ' ; but espe-
cially that we should guard the tongue. ' For a blemish
may be taken out of a diamond by carefully polishing it ;
but if your words have the least blemish, there is no way to
efface that.' ' Humility is the solid foundation of all the
virtues.' ' To acknowledge one's incapacity is the way to be
soon prepared to teach others ; for from the moment that a
man is no longer full of himself, nor puffed up with empty
pride, whatever good he learns in the morning he practises
before night.' ' Heaven penetrates to the bottom of our
hearts, like light into a dark chamber. We must conform
ourselves to it, till we are like two instruments of music
tuned to the same pitch. We must join ourselves with it,
like two tablets which appear but one. We must receive its
gifts the very moment its hand is open to bestow. Our
irregular passions shut up the door of our souls against
God.' ' Thus we see that the old Chinese idea of God was
that of a perfect man — the union of all ideals of conduct in
one person.
Confucius instituted an advance upon these older teach-
ings. He separated the human from the divine, the particu-
lar from the general. He saw that idealized conduct was
but the natural forecast of a pure spirit, and that to worship
this human form, this creation of the mind, was idolatry —
a kneeling before symbols.
The " Kings," which are among the earliest productions of
the human mind, resemble in their primitive character the
Hebrew Scriptures, although they are of a higher ethical
order. In the time of Confucius these ancient writings were
almost forgotten by the people and their precepts neglected.
THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER. 423
Confucius revived them and brought about a religious and
moral reform which is still the chief impulse of his people.
The religion of Confucius has often been compared to
Christianity, which it resembles in the purity and sweetness
of its sentiments, and the vast influence for good which it
has exerted. But the idea of human sacrifice for the
expiation of sin, upon which Christianity is built, has no
counterpart in the faith of China. The savage custom
which this idea commemorates seems to be further removed
from the Chinese than from ourselves. At all events, the
bloody sacrifice as a means of salvation is not one of the
superstitions of this people, whereas it is our greatest super-
stition. Confucius was a literary man, an indefatigable
student, as well as a moral reformer. In his teachings the
mysticism and the mythology of Taoism, the old religion of
his people, were left out. Having re-edited the ancient
writings, with explanations and comments, " as one of the
last acts of his life, [he] called his disciples around him and
made a solemn dedication of these books to heaven."
The Buddhists of China are very numerous. To the
student of religion, the introduction of this religion into
China will ever be a question of interest. The inability of Chris-
tianity, notwithstanding its many and persistent attempts,
to gain a footing in the Celestial Kingdom, makes the success
of Buddhism the more remarkable.
What chiefly interests us in the religion of the Chinese, as
above shown, is the simplicity and purity of its moral percep-
tions. It is true that superstition abounds among this people-,
and that in this respect their religion has deteriorated ; but
if Christianity were added to their other faiths, the question
naturally arises, would their morals be exalted, or would
they simply have another prophet to worship, and another
and more complicated scheme of salvation to learn ?
The great prophet of the Persian faith, Zoroaster, is
believed to be among the earliest of religious teachers.
Although it is very difficult to fix any definite date, the
best authorities agree that he must have lived before the
424 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Assyrian conquest of Bactria, 1200 B.C. This, however,
gives but little idea of the remoteness of the age to which
he probably belongs. The uncertainty of the whole question
of the date of (Jpitama Zoroaster (says Johnson) is indicated
by the differences between the almost equally valuable esti-
mates of Haug, Rapp, Duncker, and Harlez, which cover a
period of four hundred years between the eleventh and
fifteenth centuries before Christ. The first great struggle
for empire, of which detailed and authentic accounts have
reached us (says Prof. Spiegel), is the contest between the
Greeks and the Persians, B.C. 490, more than twenty-three
centuries ago ; and even at this early date the religion of
Zarathustra was already so old that the language in which it
was originally composed differed essentially from the lan-
guage spoken by Darius. This much we have learned from
the Cuneiform Inscriptions; but when we attempt to go
farther and fix the date of the Iranian Prophet, we are met
by difficulties, at present insuperable, and we can neither
deny nor confirm the statement of Aristotle, who places
Zoroaster six thousand years before his own time, or rather
that of Plato (about 360 B.C.).1
The sacred writings of the ancient Persians are still read
and reverenced, and the faith which they represent still sur-
vives among scanty communities of Parsis in modern Persia
and India, the largest being at Surat. These sacred writings
are called the Avesta, which has been written in the literary
form of the oldest Iranian language, known as the Zend.2
Hence, the Zend-Avesta is among the most ancient writings
remaining to us of the early history and religion of the Indo-
European family.
One portion of these writings is in the form of a revela-
tion from Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd), the Supreme Being, to
1 See Introduction to Avesta.
3 " The Zend idiom, in its widest sense, embraces two so-called ' Bactrian '
dialects, which, together with the ' West Iranian ' languages, i. e. those of
ancient Media and Persia, form the stock of Iranian tongues. These tongues
were once spoken in what the Zend-Avesta calls the 'Aryan countries ' (Airyao
danh&ro)"
THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER. 425
Zoroaster (Zarathustra), and through him to mankind. " It
is in great part a prescriptive, a moral and ceremonial code,
teaching the means of avoiding or of expiating sin and
impurity." The remainder of the Avesta is liturgic in char-
acter, being made up of prayers and praises to the
Divinity and to other beings ; these are principally metrical,
and give evidences of being by far the oldest portion of the
work, which is thought by Dr. Haug to go back to the time
of Zoroaster himself. The Avesta is clearly an assemblage
of fragments of a much more extended literature. The
Parsis hold that the writings of Zoroaster filled twenty-one
volumes, but were lost and destroyed during the conquest
of Alexander, and the consequent ruin of the Persian Empire
and religion. The present form of the Avesta is probably
what was recovered and preserved from the original writings
during the reign of the first Sassanian monarch.
It is to the devoted and intrepid French Orientalist
Anquetil du Perron that we owe the discovery of the Avesta,
which throws so much light upon the history and the religion
of the Persians. This discovery was the result of the most
determined enterprise in travel and research, efforts which
were promptly recognized and encouraged by the French
Government. He visited the Parsis at Surat, learned their
language, and brought back to Paris, in 1762, one hundred
and eighty Oriental manuscripts, which resulted in the pub-
lication, in 1771, of the Zend-Avesta, containing, besides the
selections from the sacred writings of the Persians, a life of
Zoroaster, and fragments of works ascribed to that sage.
The following passages are from the oldest part of the
Avesta, the Gathas, or Gahs, which are ancient hymns some-
what resembling the Vedas :
11 1 praise thee, O Asha, — to whom belongs an imperish-
able kingdom. May gifts come hither at my call."
" I who have entrusted the soul to heaven with good dis-
position. So long as I can and am able, will I teach accord-
ing to the wish of the pure."
" Teach thou me, Mazda-Ahura, from out Thyself. From
.426 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
heaven, through Thy mouth, whereby the world first arose.
Thee have I thought, O Mazda, as the first to praise with
the soul."
" In the beginning, the two Heavenly Ones spoke — the
Good to the Evil — thus: 'Our souls, doctrines, words,
works, do not unite together.' '
" Now give ear to me, and hear ! The Wise Ones have
created all. Evil doctrine shall not again destroy the world."
" Good is the thought, good the speech, good the work of
the pure Zarathustra."
" He who holds fast to wisdom asks after the heavenly
abodes ; concerning this I ask Thee what may be the punish-
ment (for him) who through evil deeds does not increase life
even a little ? For the tormentors of the active, and those
who do not torment men and cattle?"
" Is he like Thee, O Mazda-Ahura, if he (resembles Thee)
in deeds?"
"Teach us, Mazda-Ahura, the tokens of good-mindedness.
May there come brightness, enduring wisdom through the best
spirit. Accomplishment of that whereby the souls cohere."
" I praise Ahura-Mazda, who has created the cattle, created
the water and good trees, the splendor of light, the earth
and all good. We praise the Fravashis of the pure men and
women, — whatever is fairest, purest, immortal."
" We honor the good spirit, the good kingdom, the good
law, — all that is good."
The following is from the " Khordah (or little) Avesta,"
which consists chiefly of prayers and invocations intended
for the use of the people :
" Purity is the best good." " The immortal sun, brilliant
with swift horses, we praise. Purify me, O God, give me
strength to teach thy joy."
" Ormazd ! Lord, Increaser of mankind, of all kinds, all
species of men. May he let all blessings and knowledge,
fast faith and blessings of the good Mazdaya^nian law come
to me. So be it ! "
"Thou art to be praised, may thou ever be provided with
-offerings and praise in the dwellings of mankind."
THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER. 427
" All good thoughts, words, and works are done with
"knowledge." " All good thoughts, words, and works lead to
Paradise. All evil thoughts, words, and works lead to hell."
" In the name of God, the giver, forgiver, rich in love,
praise be to the name of Ormazd, the God with the name
' Who always was, always is, and always will be ' ; the heav-
enly amongst the heavenly, with the name ' From whom
alone is derived rule.' Ormazd is the greatest ruler, mighty,
wise, creator, supporter, refuge, defender, completer of good
works, overseer, pure, good, and just.
" With all strength (bring I) thanks ; to the great among
beings, who created and destroyed, and through his own
determination of time, strength, wisdom, is higher than the
six Amshaspands, the circumference of heaven, the shining
sun, the brilliant moon, the wind, the water, the fire, the
earth, the trees, the cattle, the metals, mankind.
"All good do I accept at thy command, O God, and
think, speak, and do it. I believe in the pure law ; by every
good work seek I forgiveness of all sins. I keep pure for
myself the serviceable work and abstinence from the un-
profitable. I keep pure the six powers — thought, speech,
work, memory, mind, and understanding. According to thy
will am I able to accomplish, O accomplisher of good, thy
honor, with good thoughts, good words, good works.
" I enter on the shining way to Paradise ; may the fearful
terror of hell not overcome me ! May I step over the bridge
Chinevat ; may I attain Paradise, with much perfume, and
all enjoyments, and all brightness !
" Praise to the Overseer, the Lord, who rewards those
who accomplish good deeds according to his own wish, puri-
fies at last the obedient, and at last purifies even the wicked
one of hell. All praise be to the creator Ormazd, the all-
wise, mighty, rich in might ; to the seven Amshaspands1 ; to
Ized Bahrain, the victorious annihilator of foes."
1 The seven Amshaspands were the chief among the guardian spirits, of
whom Ormazd was first. The other six were King of heaven, King of fire,
'King of metals, Queen of earth, King of vegetables, and King of water.
428 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The following are selections from a
CONFESSION, OR PATET.1
1-2-3. " I praise all good thoughts, words, and works,
through thought, word, and deed. * * * I dismiss all evil
thoughts, words, and works. * * * I commit no sins. * * *
I praise the best purity. * * * I am thankful for the good
of the creator. * * *
4. " I repent of the sins which can lay hold of the charac-
ter of men, or which have laid hold of my character, small-
and great, which are committed amongst men, — the meanest
sins as much as is (and) can be ; yet more than this, namely,
all evil thoughts, words, and works which (I have com-
mitted) for the sake of others, or others for my sake, or if
the hard sin has seized the character of an evil-doer on my
account, — such sins, thoughts, words, and works, corporeal,
mental, earthly, heavenly, I repent of with the three words :
pardon, O Lord, I repent of the sins with Patet."
6. " The sins against father, mother, sister, brother, wife;
child, against spouses, against the superiors, against my own
relations, against those living with me, against those who
possess equal property, against the neighbors, against the
inhabitants of the same town, against servants, every un-
righteousness through which I have been amongst sinners, —
of these sins repent I with thoughts, words and works,
corporeal as spiritual, earthly as heavenly, with the three
words : pardon, O Lord, I repent of sins," etc.
19. " Of pride, haughtiness, covetousness, slandering the
dead, anger, envy, the evil eye, shamelessness, looking at with
evil intent, looking at with evil concupiscence, stiff-necked-
ness, discontent with the godly arrangements, self-willedness,
sloth, despising others, mixing in strange matters, unbelief,
opposing the Divine powers, false witness, false judgment,
idol-worship, running naked, running with one shoe, the
breaking of the low (midday) prayer, the omission of
the (midday) prayer, theft, robbery, whoredom, witch-
JSee Spiegel's Avesta (trans. Bleeck), pp. 153—155,
THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER. 429
craft, worshipping with sorcerers, unchastity, tearing the
hair, as well as all other kinds of sin which are enu-
merated in this Patet, or not enumerated, which I am aware
of, or not aware of, which are appointed, or not appointed,
which I should have bewailed with obedience before the
Lord, and have not bewailed, — of these sins repent I with
thoughts, words, and works, corporeal as spiritual, earthly as
heavenly. O Lord, pardon, I repent."
Is it not evident from these extracts that the spirit of the
Avesta is pure, reverent, and hopeful ? The idea of a dual
principle in nature, however, representing good and evil, which
has its counterpart in the dual conception of God and Devil
in the Christian religion, was a fundamental superstition with
the Persians.
Ahura and Ahriman are respectively the good and evil
Spirits of the Avcsta. The Zoroastrians were known as the
creatures of Ahura by their creed and conduct, while the
children of Ahriman were recognized by their unbelief in the
pure law. In showing this Iranian dualism to be of a purely
ethical nature, a contrast of good and evil conduct, Samuel
Johnson says : " This service of Ahura, this hate of Ahriman,
is a living fire ; the symbol has mounted to the heavens
of conduct. * * * The hosts of spiritual forces, good and
evil, multiply around the central ideas of righteousness and
iniquity." *
As all moral influence springs from the force of example,
we may be sure that the moral element in every religion
emanates from the genius of some individual. In those re-
ligions which do not worship an individual as a founder the
moral element is inconspicuous. In such religions, theology
displaces the study of human conduct, the conduct studied
being chiefly that of a future or mystical life. The religions
of China and ancient Egypt are examples of the opposite ex-
tremes of this fact. Although between the indefinite and
variously interpreted faiths of nations during long periods of
their history it is difficult to make any clearly defined compari-
1 " Persia/' pp. 56-57.
430 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
sons, all doubt as to the historical reality of Zoroaster disap-
pears. We see the stamp of a great life in the literature
and the conscience of the race.
From the establishment of the Persian Empire by Cyrus,
and during his dynasty, which ended with the invasion of
Alexander, there was one definite system of worship through-
out Persia, which was simply an elaboration of the moral
code of the Avesta as interpreted by Zoroaster.
A peculiarity of this religion was its love of nature. Its
sacraments were not made in temples, but on rude altars on
hill-tops. Fire was regarded as the most powerful of the
elements, and was held sacred. Hence the name of fire-
worshippers so generally given to the Persians.
Nothing can be more significant of the life of a race than
the selection it makes of symbols of power. The fire sym-
bol is common to all religions, although there is but one
great instance of pure pyrolatry. The Christians have ex-
alted water and blood as symbols of divine power in the
treatment of sin, but the efficacy of fire, in the same con-
nection, is also distinctly believed in by almost every Christian
sect. The Persians were not baptists, nor did they believe in
bloody sacrifices, nor even in those burnt-offerings which we
are told in our sacred writings were so grateful to the God
of Israel ; but, in " the holy health flame (Hestia), parent of
the city, the homestead, the shrine, awful to gods and in-
violable by men/' the most useful servant of humanity, they
did believe. The name given to the Avestan priest (Athrava)
means " provided with fire." The Parsis still preserve the
fire altar (Atesh-gd/i), or "ever-burning naphtha-spring," as
the central rite of their faith. The celestial impersonations
of fire, which are celebrated in the solar mythologies, have
been reduced to images dwelling in temples, but the simple
fire altars of the Persians have always risen from mountain
tops or in open spaces of light, tributes to the grandeur
and simplicity of nature.
So completely was Persia conquered by the Mohammedans,
that its religion has almost disappeared. A recent account
THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER. 431
estimates the Parsis of Persia, which with those of India are
the chief remaining representatives of the ancient faith of
Zoroaster, as but seven thousand. Many of these have fallen
into poverty and ignorance, but, it is said, they maintain a
reputation for industry, honesty, and chastity. Could a
more eloquent tribute be paid to the value of their ancient
faith ?
In trying to console the Christian missionaries for their
failure to convert the modern Parsis, Professor Muller says
that Christianity is not a gift to be 'pressed upon the unwil-
ling minds of natives by their conquerors ; it is the highest
privilege which the conqueror can offer. These natives,
would lose true caste, and consequently self-respect, by
renouncing the ancient faith of their forefathers," that rests
upon a foundation which ought never to be touched, namely,
a faith in one God, the Creator, the Ruler, and the Judge of
the World." However deplorable this conception of deity
may seem to us, it certainly corresponds closely enough with
the Christian idea of God to obtain from the most devoted
missionary a certain acquiescence. Again, when we are
told : " The morality of the Parsis consists in these words,
' pure thoughts, pure words, pure deeds,' " we perceive at
once that the moral ideals of their religion are identical with
ours ; and that these ideals are the natural aspirations for
purity of life and mind, common to mankind. Another reason
that the Parsi has for preferring his religion to the Christian
is that he is not troubled with any theological problems or
difficulties. His faith in the inspiration of Zoroaster is not
made contingent upon a belief in the stories incidentally
mentioned in the Zend-Avesta. " If it is said in the Yasna
that Zoroaster was once visited by Homa, who appeared
before him in a brilliant supernatural body, no doctrine is
laid down as to the exact nature of Homa." In a word, the
Parsi trusts in the divine principles of his religion, and is
quite indifferent to the fate of the " fables and endless gene-
alogies " which occur in his sacred books. Another fact
which attaches the Parsi to his religion is its remote antiquity
.432 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
and former glory, pleas which are sometimes advanced in
behalf of very much younger faiths.
In thus comparing the Zoroastrian faith with Christianity
we must not too readily conclude that all the advantages
are on the side of the former religion. The pious Parsi has
to say his prayers sixteen times at least every day. These
prayers are all pronounced in the old Zend language, of which
neither the priests nor the people, as a rule, understand a
word. " Far from being the teachers of the true doctrines
and duties of their religion, the priests are generally the most
bigoted and superstitious, and exercise much injurious influ-
ence over the women especially, who, until lately, received
no education at all." For us, it is a truism to say that de-
votions should be acts of intelligence ; and that superstition
and ignorance are inexcusable in priests, since their teachings
belong to the highest sphere of knowledge. It would be
unreasonable for us to expect so high a standard of criticism
to prevail among the poor Parsis. So deep-rooted, however,
in the human heart are the forms of hereditary devotions,
that notwithstanding the many infelicities of the Zoroastrian
faith, we find it still professed by a handful of exiles —
" men of wealth, intelligence, and moral worth in Western
India — with an unhesitating fervor such as is seldom to be
;found in larger religious communities." 3
In Buddhism we find the most correct metaphysical
induction which the history of religion presents. In this
religion conduct is united with thought in defining knowl-
edge, which is in effect to identify knowledge and life as one
fact or principle. This is to suggest the real scope of lan-
guage, by denying the absolute separation of body and
spirit, and recognizing all thought as the interactivity of the
individual and the social organisms. It also suggests the
true nature of perception, by affirming that all insight springs
from the natural procedures of life, and neither tends toward
nor emanates from the supernatural.
In making this great claim for Buddhism, we pay but a
1 " Chips from a German Workshop," Mttller. Vol. I., p. 165.
* " Chips from a German Workshop," Miiller. Vol. I., p. 161.
THE RELIGION OF BUDDHA. 433
just tribute to the astuteness and high moral perceptions of
a Hindoo prince who lived at about the time of the earliest
Greek philosophers, only in a far more advanced civilization.
The father of this prince, the last of the line of Solar
monarchs so celebrated in the great Indian epics, ruled over
the kingdom of Oude at the foot of the mountains of Nepaul,
in the latter part of the sixth century before Christ. The
capital city, Kapilavastu, was the birthplace of Siddartha,
who afterward assumed the title of the Buddha (the en-
lightened). He was distinguished during early youth for
his intellectual attainments, religious fervor, and a deep
solicitude for his fellow-men. He criticised his age and felt
the need of a better knowledge of life than it possessed.
This conviction grew upon him until he decided to renounce
his position and devote his life to the search for truth.
Despite the entreaties of his father and wife, he determined
to withdraw from the world. At Vaisali he attended the
lectures of a famous Brahman teacher who had many pupils.
Then visiting the capital of Magadha, one of the principal
seats of learning in India, he studied under another Brahman
teacher whose lectures attracted great numbers of students.
Dissatisfied with these teachings, which did not contain the
principles of reform that he felt stirring within him, he with-
drew into a solitary hermitage, accompanied by five of his
fellow-students. Here they dwelt (near the village of Uru-
vilva) for six years, subjecting themselves to the severest
penances preparatory to appearing in the world as teachers.
But Siddartha at length became convinced that this manner
of life did not lead to the discovery of truth, and suddenly
resumed a more comfortable mode of living ; upon which
his hitherto faithful disciples deserted him.
The mind of this intense man at last grasped what he con-
ceived to be the true principles of life, upon which he
claimed the title of Buddha — the one who has conquered
knowledge. In his long hesitation whether he would com-
municate to the world the great truths he had conceived,
Max Muller sees the fate of millions of human beings
434 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
trembling in the balance, but " compassion for the suffer-
ings of man prevailed (says Miiller), and the young prince
became the founder of a religion which, after more than
two thousand years, is still professed by four hundred and
fifty millions of people," or more than one third of the
human race.
In setting out upon his mission of teaching, Buddha first
proceeded to Benares, the principal seat of learning in India.
Here he gained for disciples the students who had passed
with him the six years of asceticism. A deliberate crusade
against Brahfnanism, which had become a great religious
despotism throughout India, was then inaugurated. This was
begun by denying the inspiration of the Vedas, and opposing
the system of castes, by proclaiming that men differed from
one another not by birth but by their own attainments
and character. According to the accounts in the Buddhist
canon, the prophet was invited by king Bimbisara to Magadha,
the capital of one of the places at which he had studied after
leaving home. Here he lectured for many years in the
monastery of Kalantaka, which was built for him by his
followers. After the death of Bimbisara, Buddha went
to Sravasti, north of the Ganges, where a friend offered
him and his disciples a magnificent residence. Here most
of Buddha's lectures were delivered. After an absence of
twelve years he visited his father, and converted to his faith
all the Sakyas. His own wife and his foster-mother became
the first female devotees to Buddhism, and founded the
orders which have since grown into so vast a system. At
the age of seventy, while still engaged in teaching, this great
prophet peacefully died, or, as his followers would say, entered
into Nirvana.
Although much philosophical thought has become incor-
porated into the faith of Buddhism, there is no evidence that
its founder inclined much to metaphysical reasoning. His
aim was rather to produce practical reforms, to benefit and
enlighten the people, to remove the burdens of caste, and to
harmonize the interests of all classes. Those who have
THE RELIGION OF BUDDHA. 435
written about this religion all alike pay tribute to the purity
and beauty of the life and teachings of Buddha. The Rev.
Spence Hardy, a Wesleyan missionary, author of " Eastern
Monachism " and a "Manual of Buddhism," testifies to the
purity of the Buddhist ethics. M. Laboulaye, one of the most
distinguished members of the French Academy, remarks in
the Debats of April 4, 1853: "It is difficult to comprehend
how men not assisted by revelation could have soared
so high and approached so near to the truth. * * * Be-
sides the five great commandments not to kill, not to
steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to get drunk,
every shade of vice, hypocrisy, anger, pride, suspicion, greedi-
ness, gossiping, cruelty to animals, is guarded against by
special precepts. Among the virtues recommended, we find
not only reverence of parents, care for children, submission
to authority, gratitude, moderation in time of prosperity,
submission in time of trial, equanimity at all times, but
virtues unknown in any heathen system of morality, such as
the duty of forgiving insults and not rewarding evil with evil.
All virtues, we are told, spring from Maitri, and this Maitri
can only be translated by charity and love." M. Barthelemy
Saint-Hilaire is equally eloquent in his testimony to the
same effect, that the moral teachings of Buddha are unsur-
passed excepting by the revelations of Christianity ;* and as
these three writers are devout believers in supernatural
revelation in their own religion, the reservation which they
make has but little effect.
The meaning of Nirvana, the condition to which Buddhism
looks forward as the future state of man, has been the sub-
ject of much dispute. Max Miiller devotes an able letter to
this question in the London Times (April, 1857), in which
he sustains his opinion that Nirvana means " utter annihila-
tion." This letter is in answer to one from Mr. Francis
Barham maintaining that Nirvana means " union and com-
munion with God, or absorption of the individual soul by
the Divine essence," — both of which interpretations of
human destiny, from the metaphysical standpoint, at once.
43 6 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY,
appear as vain efforts to make an ultimate fact out of what
never can be more than the relative fact of personal exist-
ence. Buddha himself expressed the future state in terms
as free as possible from contradiction when he defined Nir-
vana as the cessation of change or life ; but observe how
deep the contradiction is when he goes on to explain that
the chief end of life is to pass into an existence of perfect in-
action. In declaring, however, that knowledge consists not
only of thought, but of action, he strikes the keynote of
metaphysical truth. In all theologies, in that of Christianity
as well as others, this logical helplessness in the use of ulti-
mate terms appears. Thus it is that in religious writings we
often find the deepest truths and the most absurd contradic-
tions mingled in the same sentence. The task which every re-
ligion sets itself is to solve the problem of existence, to unite
the highest or most general with the simplest truths. And
yet the method universally adopted is that of reaching after
mysteries (which are declared to be unknowable). In this
respect it must be admitted that philosophy, hitherto at
least, has had but little advantage over religion ; for although
the mystery of philosophy has been one instead of many,
although it has resulted from a refinement of speculation
instead of from gross and concrete superstitions, — still the
methods of the most superstitious religion and the most
refined agnosticism are identical ; they both deny the unity
of knowledge ; they would both build up a divine truth, not
upon simpler truths, but upon a mystery which they call the
unknowable.
The speculations of Buddha, therefore, with regard to
human destiny, compare favorably for accuracy with any
thing to be found in other faiths. Seeing no perfect action
about him, he imagined that perfection could alone be
attained by reaching an existence which had no change.
Absurd as this proposition may seem, is it farther from the
truth than the modern theological reasonings concerning a
life which transcends space and time, the aspects of motion
or change ?
THE RELIGION OF BUDDHA. 437
It will be asked, if Buddha paid more attention to moral
reform than to theology or metaphysics, how can the claim
be made that his religion expresses a higher metaphysical
induction than is found in any other faith? The reason
is, that Buddha distinctly taught that the highest aim of life
was to enhance knowledge, and that knowledge does not
mean learning alone, but that it includes conduct ; that it
consists of both moral and intellectual perceptions. Like
all deep thinkers, he was impressed with the universal pres-
ence of change, which made him feel that life was unreal.
" He cried out from the depths of his soul for something
stable, permanent, real," just as the Greek philosophers did ;
but no metaphysical abstraction gave him rest. He made
the discovery that personal existence is a relative fact point-
ing to the one ultimate fact beyond it, which is general
existence. He therefore strenuously denied the existence
of a personal God. He saw in God a universal principle,
not a subject of activity, not an object of worship, but the
source of activity, the cause or inspiration of worship. He
saw in personal life the only field of human activity, and in
the perfection of this life the only means of salvation. He
recognized no bargain with Deity .for salvation ; he recog-
nized only the obligation of man to his fellow-men and to
all surrounding life. It was in this recognition of duty, and
only in this, that he perceived God and worshipped him.
Does not a careful analysis of the principle of worship
clearly show that this is the only virtue which it contains,
the only practical idea which it represents?
To trace the growth of Buddhism would be to write
the religious history of the East from the sixth century
before Christ. After gaining a great ascendency in India, it
was practically driven from that country by the combined
efforts of the Brahman caste whose privileges it assailed.
Though expelled from India, it continued to exert a power-
ful influence^ converting to its creed the majority of the
Mongol nations. To-day it is the principal religion of China
and Japan ; the state religion of Thibet, and of the Burmese
438 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Empire; as well as the religion of Siam, Napaul, Assam,
Ceylon ; in fact, of nearly the whole of Eastern Asia.
The sacred books of Buddhism are of two classes, those of
the Northern and those of the Southern Buddhists. The
former are in Sanskrit ; the latter, which are considered by
far the most important and reliable, are in the ancient Pali ;
the relation of the Sanskrit writings to the Pali resem-
bling, in many respects, that of the apocryphal gospels
to the New Testament. These writings have been made the
subject of several great conventions or councils of priests,
with a view to deciding upon their authenticity. The Tripi-
taka, which is the name gi^en to the Southern canon, was
finally determined upon by the Council of Pataleputra on
the Ganges, which was convened by the great Buddhist em-
peror Asoka, B.C. 250. This work consists of three parts:
the Sutras, or discourses on Buddha ; the Vinaya, or code
of Morality; and the Abhidharma, or the system of Meta-
physics. These three parts taken together are about twice
the length of our Bible, and are regarded by the Buddhists
with a superstitious reverence which Christians will readily
understand. The exalted spirit of Buddhism is by no
means appreciated by all its followers, the majority of whom
look upon the faith as a holy institution which it is their
duty to believe in and support, but not particularly to un-
derstand.
There is a sublime monotony in religion which lulls the mind
to sleep ; its beauties are so grand, its truths so deep, that the
intellect becomes dazed as by the contemplation of infinity.
No such perspectives, however, are necessary to overcome
the majority of minds to whom the unworthy appointments
of superstition assume the same legitimacy as the permanent
conditions of life upon which they have intruded. The
droning cylinders turned by water and filled with inscrip-
tions of the "holy sentence" are the Buddhist engines of
prayer. In these curious devices, varying in size from the
" rotary calabash " carried in the hand of the devotee, in his
walk through the villages when engaged in the ordinary
THE RELIGION OF BUDDHA. 439
affairs of life, to the large cylinders used by lamas in the
service of the great temples and those erected by the road-
side to be turned by water or wind, we have what is, without
doubt, the oldest religious symbol in the world, the sacred
" wheel " which simulates the rotation of the seasons, the
events of life, and the divine power.
The laxity of thought in religion, which is so prominent a
feature in the Christian world, has its counterpart in this
greatest religion of the East. " The Buddhist monks of
Siam do not, as a rule, endeavor to make their sermons in-
teresting. They are satisfied to monotonously chant or
intone a number of verses in the dead language Pali, and to
add an almost incomprehensible commentary in Siamese.
Nor do their hearers care. Crouching on the ground in a
reverential posture, they make merit by appearing to listen,
and they do not believe that that merit would be one whit
the greater if they understood the language of the preacher.
They have been taught that ' blessed is he who heareth the
law.' " * It certainly would not require much imagination
to establish a resemblance between this kind of devotion
and that which distinguishes so many Christian congrega-
tions.
The resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity are
not confined to the unreasoning faith of the followers or the
well-known Catholic spirit of both religions; the symbols,
the ceremonies, the worship, are strikingly alike. As Bud-
dhism preceded the Roman Church by some six centuries,
It is not unlikely that a great many of the forms of Chris-
tianity have been derived from it. " Father Bury, a
Portuguese missionary, when he beheld the Chinese bonzes
tonsured, using rosaries, praying in an unknown tongue, and
kneeling before images, exclaimed in astonishment : ' There
is not a piece of dress, not a sacerdotal function, not a
ceremony of the court of Rome, which the Devil has not
copied in this country ! ' Mr. Davis (' Translations of the
Royal Asiatic Society/ ii., 491) speaks of ' the celibacy of the
1 H. Alabaster : " Good Words," vol. XIII, p. 845.
44° THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Buddhist clergy, and the monastic life of the societies of
both sexes ; to which might be added their strings of beads,
their manner of chanting prayers, their incense and their
candles.' Mr. Medhurst ('China,' London, 1857) mentions
the image of a virgin, called the ' Queen of Heaven,' having
an infant in her arms and holding a cross.1 Confessions of
sin are regularly practised. Father Hue, in his ' Recol-
lections of a Journey in Tartary, Thibet, and China ' (Haz-
litt's translation), says : ' The cross,3 the mitre, the dalmatica,
the cope, which the grand lamas wear on their journeys, or
when they are performing some ceremony out of the temple,
— the service with double choirs, the psalmody, the exor-
cisms, the censer suspended from five chains, and which you
can open or close at pleasure, — the benedictions given by
the lamas by extending the right hand over the heads of the
faithful, — the chaplet, ecclesiastical celibacy, religious retire-
ment, the worship of the saints, the fasts, the processions,
the litanies, the holy water, — in all these are analogies be-
tween the Buddhists and ourselves.' And in Thibet there is
also a Dalai Lama, who is a sort of Buddhist Pope. * * *
The rock-cut temples of the Buddhists, many of which date
back to two centuries before our era, resemble in form
the earliest (Christian) churches. Excavated out of solid
rock, they have a nave and side-aisles, terminating in an
apse or semi-dome, around which the aisle is carried, * * *
and Buddhist monks (centuries before our era, as now) took
the same three vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience,,
which are taken by the members of the Catholic orders."
If the Phoenician navigators in the Mediterranean, eight
hundred years before Christ, brought to the shores of Greece
the knowledge of the arts of Egypt, the manufactures of
Tyre, and the products of India and Africa, is it to be won-
1 Thought to be derived from the still more ancient Egyptian myth of Isis
and the miraculously conceived Horus.
a The Cross is one of the oldest of religious symbols, found in Egypt and the
East, thought to be derived from the ancient sex-worship.
8 " Ten Great Religions," Clarke, vol. I., pp. 139-142.
THE RELIGION OF BUDDHA. 441
dered at that the religious forms and ceremonies of these
early ages should have been gradually transplanted from
one country to another ? It is true that there is no recog-
nized historical movement which indicates the growth of
Christianity out of Buddhism ; but is not the intercourse
which is known to have existed between the ancient nations
sufficient to account for the resemblance between their
religions ?
CHAPTER XX.
THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE, ROME, SCANDINAVIA, AND ISLAM.
"Widely Contrasted Types of Religious Belief Showing Constant Principles of
Development.
THE religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct.
No living representative remains of the worshippers at the
Acropolis and the Pantheon. The gods of these places are
still an inspiration in art and poetry, but they have long
since ceased to be regarded as divine. A just comprehension
of the ancient mythologies, strange as it may seem, has been
gained but recently. The difficulty in reaching the true sig-
nificance of myths arises from the fact that the truths which
they contain are so evanescent that they are injured by any
thing short of the most delicate and sympathetic analysis.
In mythology, analogy is strained to the uttermost, poetry is
abused, symbolism overwrought, fiction overwhelms fact, and
yet truth survives in the form of real thought and feeling
throughout. To discover these truths, to discern the work-
ings of the social heart and mind under these dense accre-
tions of imagery, is the task of the student of mythology.
The Greeks had a wonderfully poetic cosmogony. Their
intellectual vigor is declared by the endless details with
which they worked out their imaginary surroundings.
Where other nations were content with a few abstrac-
tions, concerning the origin of things beyond the reach
of ordinary perception, the Greeks originated fable after
fable to satisfy their inquiring minds, until they were sur-
rounded with a world of semi-supernatural beings to which
all phenomena were traced and by which every conceivable
442
THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 443
experience was explained. " Love issued from the egg of
Night, which floated in Chaos. By his arrows and torch he
pierced and vivified all things, producing life and joy."
Ophion and Eurynome ruled over Olympus until they were
dethroned by Saturn and Rhea. Then the rebellion of Jupiter
against his father Saturn and his brothers the Titans was suc-
cessful. The penalties inflicted upon the vanquished Titans
involved the imprisonment of some of their number in Tar-
tarus. Atlas was condemned to bear up the world upon his
shoulders, and Prometheus, the divine sufferer, is chained to
the rocks and at length delivered by the self-sacrifice of
Cheiron. Jupiter divided with his brothers his newly ac-
quired dominions, retaining the heavens, giving Neptune
the ocean, and Pluto the realms of the dead. Jupiter was
king of gods and men, and the earth and Olympus were re-
garded as common property. Juno (Hera), the wife of
Jupiter, was queen of the gods, the stately peacock was her
favorite bird, and Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, attended
upon her. Jupiter bore the shield called ^Egis, which was
the workmanship of Vulcan, and the eagle attended, carry-
ing his thunderbolts.
Vulcan (Hephaestos), the son of Jupiter, was born lame.
Juno, displeased at his deformity, flung him out of heaven.
A whole day in falling, he at last alighted upon the island
of Lemnos, where, in the interior of his volcano, he com-
manded the Cyclopes workmen at the forge.
Aphrodite, the frail wife of Vulcan ; Mars, the god of
war; Phoebus Apollo, the god of archery, prophecy, and
music ; Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, and Cupid,
her son ; Minerva (Pallas Athene), the goddess of wisdom,
who sprang in full armor from the head of Jupiter, Mercury,
the god of eloquence, science, commerce, and theft ; — these
usher in the long list of Grecian deities, a marvellous im-
aginative creation thronging with heroic personages the
world of fancy in which this nation dwelt. Such explana-
tions of the questions of existence are, no doubt, childlike;
but none but the most intelligent children have such im-
-aginations.
THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The active life of the ancient Greeks was insensibly
blended with this vast mythology, giving it a freshness
and warmth which, owing to the unreality of our religious
conceptions, it is difficult for us to understand.
The joyous Greek civilization, rich in art, poetry, and
thought, formulated its theory of life, or its religion, under
the inspiration of its artists, its poets, and its philosophers.
Homer and Hesiod were the first Greek theologians ; they
named the gods and assigned to them arts and honors. The
great sculptors gave form to the gods and taught morality
and humanity by idealizing human grandeur and beauty.
The Jupiter of Phidias, occupying the Doric temple at
Olympia, was an object of veneration to the whole nation.
The games over which it presided "were a chronology, a
constitution, and a church to the Pan-Hellenic race. * * *
Here at Olympia, while the games continued, all Greece
came together ; the poets and historians declaimed their
compositions to the grand audience ; opinions were inter-
changed, knowledge communicated, and the national life
received both stimulus and unity. And here, over all, pre-
sided the great Jupiter of Phidias, within a Doric temple,
* * * covered with sculptures of Pentelic marble. The god
was seated on his throne, made of gold, ebony, and ivory,
studded with precious stones. He was so colossal that,
though seated, his head nearly reached the roof, and it
seemed as if he would bear it away if he rose. There sat
the monarch, his head, neck, breast, and arms in massive pro-
portions ; the lower part of the body veiled in a flowing
mantle ; bearing in his hand a statue of Victory, * * * and
on his face that marvellous expression of blended majesty
and sweetness." ' Speaking of the great difficulty of form-
ing a true idea of this wonderful statue, L. M. Mitchell
writes in her admirable work on Greek art : " Gladly would
we search the galleries of existing sculptures or ponder over
coins to find a clearer reflex of this great Zeus. One beauti-
ful Elis coin from Hadrian's time is thought to give the most
1 "Ten Great Religions," vol. I., p. 288.
THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 445
faithful hint of the benignant head. * * * In the broad serene
brow, strong eyebrows, firm but gentle mouth, power seems
coupled with unspeakable mildness." ] An ancient writer
says : " Phidias alone has seen likenesses of the gods, or he
alone has made them visible."
All Greece was filled with statues of the gods ; and each
of these inspirations was an expression of the best sentiments
of the best men. Chastity was taught by the attitude, ex-
pression, and very nakedness of the human form. Thus Mil-
man describes the Belvedere Apollo :
" For mild he seemed, as in Elysian bowers,
Wasting, in careless ease, the joyous hours ;
Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway
Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day ;
Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep
By holy maid, on Delphi's haunted steep,
Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove,
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
********
All, all divine : no struggling muscle glows,
Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows,
But, animate with Deity alone,
In deathless glory lives the breathing stone. " *
Another beautiful conception of Greek art is Diana the
twin-sister of Apollo, otherwise known as Artemis, the un-
touched one. In the celebrated statue of this goddess at
Versailles we see a huntress in swift motion accompanied by
a hind. She carries bow and quiver and reaches for an
arrow as she runs. A short tunic gives freedom to the limbs.
In this lovely guardian of the chase we have no difficulty in
recognizing the goddess of chastity and marriage, the Greek
ideal of womanhood. Of all the conceptions of Diana this
seems to be the noblest and purest.8
Plato, the greatest theologian of Greece, reduced the
1 " History of Greek Sculpture." 1883. ' Milman, vol. II., pp. 297-298.
* Diana of Ephesus was only in rare instances accepted by the Greeks outside
of Asia Minor. The Greek Artemis was usually represented as a huntress, with
face like Apollo.
446 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
many gods to one, and built a philosophy upon the idea of a.
personal God, supplementing the great mythology of his
country with a sublime theology, the purest and most con-
sistent ever known. The growth of morality in Greece, as
in all nations, took the form of a protest against the
immoral aspects of its religion. As already mentioned in
Part I., Xenophanes, the rhapsodist of Elea, protested
against the immorality of the Homeric legends. Pindar
taught that "Law was the ruler of gods and men " ; that "a
man should always keep in view the bounds and limits of
things." " The bitterest end awaits the pleasure that is
contrary to right." Sophocles, who constantly enjoined in
his tragedies a reverence for the gods, makes Antigone to
say, when she is asked if she had disobeyed the laws of the
country : " Yes, for they were not the laws of God. They
did not proceed from Justice, who dwells with the Immor-
tals. Nor dared I, in obeying the laws of mortal man, dis-
obey those of the undying Gods. For the Gods live from
eternity, and their beginning no man knows."
Greek mythology, although a curious phenomenon min-
gling the frivolous and the commonplace with things
divine, to an extent which seems grotesque from our
point of view, was yet full of grandeur and purity. It was
a religion in the sense that it was an appeal, a sentiment,
an inspiration. It was a religion because it expressed the
highest and most general conceptions which Greece formed
of her existence. It has passed away because the people who
lived it have passed away ; and we can only understand this
religion by putting ourselves in their position. It was not
a system of belief which could be adopted by other nations ;.
their gods were merely exaggerations of forms and qualities
of Greek life. The chronology of these deities was inter-
woven with Greek history ; their worship was an essential
part of the national or political life. The deities were also
largely local. Different parts of Greece had different pan-
theons, and the interprovincial courtesies which existed!
between the inhabitants were extended to their gods.
THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 447
The Greeks had no sacred books, no doctrinal system.-
The works of their great poets, dramatists, and philosophers
formed the public mind, perfected the language, and were
revered, as were the works of their artists, on account of the
high influence which they exerted.
The most marked superstition which we find in Greece is
connected with the diviners and soothsayers, who were much
consulted. These oracles were often employed as a means
of persuading and imposing upon the credulous and ignorant.
Indeed, thepolitical intrigues connected with the great Delphic
oracle are an important part of the history of the nation.
The solemn and secret worship, known as the mysteries of
Bacchus and Ceres, seems to have been a thing apart from the
joyous and spontaneous religion of this people. The Bacchic
mysteries were a form of wild nature-worship, varying from
the intoxication, or nervous frenzy, which we find in some
degree in almost all religions, to sensual excesses of the
grossest kind. This savage worship was modified and
reformed by Orpheus, but even in its improved state it was
" distasteful to the best Greeks, suspected and disliked by
the enlightened, proscribed by kings, and rejected by com-
mimities." The mystery of Ceres, otherwise known as the
Eleusinian mysteries, seems to have been derived from the
Egyptian myth of Osiris and Isis. In Greece, it took the
form of Ceres or Demeter in search of Persephone, a sym-
bolism connected with the theory of the expiation of sin
and the salvation of the soul hereafter (which was the central
belief of the Egyptian religion), and never took any strong hold
upon the Greek mind. To this doctrine of remorse for and
expiation of sin, with a view to obtaining a future salvation,
can be traced all the exclusive prerogatives of priesthood,
from the unparalleled despotism of the Brahmans to the
mildest form of ecclesiastical pretension. Sacerdotal privi-
leges which are not derived from supremacy of knowledge
and virtue rest upon the inculcation of belief in mysteries
which accounts for the deep affection which all religions,,
display for the unknowable.
.448 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The Greeks had no priestly class : kings, generals, and
fathers of families offered sacrifices to the gods. There were
priests, and sometimes the office was hereditary, but it was
not confined to a class, nor did its sanctity attach to the indi-
vidual, but belonged rather to the offices performed by them.
The life of the Greeks was a succession of religious ceremo-
nies spontaneously mingled with every thing that they did.
All their festivals were religious ; they prayed for every thing
that they wanted in a loud voice with their hands extended
toward heaven, and they even threw kisses to the gods. Is
it any wonder that humanity should love this wonderful
nation, revere its peerless literature, copy its art, and never
tire of the romance of its life? It has taught us the limits
of an exclusively ethnic development, the highest point to
which a nation can reach whose ideals do not express
universal principles.
The Roman nation, although coming from the same
original Aryan stock as the Greeks, was chiefly derived from
three secondary sources, — the Sabines, Latins, and Etrus-
•cans. The gods of these peoples form the beginning of the
Roman pantheon, and their worships that of the Roman
Teligion. The most elaborate polytheism ever known,
the most prosaic theology, was the religion of ancient Rome.
As it developed it borrowed its form and ideas from Greece,
but applied them in the Roman spirit, which made the
resemblance between the religions of the two nations but
superficial. As Rome was hospitable to all nations she was
hospitable to all religions. She expected all foreigners to
worship the gods of their own countries, and in the case of
some conquered nations even admitted their gods to her
pantheon, but the worship was to conform to the methods
of the national or state religion. So preeminent in the
Roman character, indeed, was this spirit of organization, or
government, that the beauties of religion were lost sight of
in the effort to reduce all worship to a public discipline.
•In the Roman religion the element of monotheism was
jnanifested by the subordination of all gods to Jupiter
THE RELIGION OF ROME. 449
(Optimus Maximus); all other gods being declared but
qualities or manifestations of this central deity ; yet they
carried further than any other nation the multiplication of
minor deities. It was the duty of the pontiffs to create
gods as they were needed by the increasing diversities of
life. For instance, there was the old deity Pecunia, money
(from Pccus, cattle), dating from the time when cattle were
a medium of exchange ; after this the gods ^Esculanus and
Argentarius were added, as copper and silver came into use
as coin.
The worship of such gods as Fides (Faith), Concordia
(Concord), Pudicitia (Modesty), and the gods of home gives
us a picture of the Roman moral life. There was no plan
of the universe, no creed, in the Roman religion ; it was a
ceremonial or ritual ; a utilitarian faith, a faithful picture of
the national character, practical, order-loving, unimaginative.
Gibbon tells us that the Roman provincials had been trained
by a uniform, artificial, foreign education, and were therefore
engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold
ancients who had gained honor by expressing their genuine
feelings in their own tongue. " The sublime Longinus * * *
who preserved the spirit of ancient Athens * * * laments this
degeneracy of his contemporaries," who, he says, remained
intellectual pygmies by the unnatural confinement of their
minds in youth. " It was not until the revival of letters in
Europe," continues Gibbon, "that the youthful vigor of the
imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new
religion, new languages, and a new world, called forth another
era of genius. * * * The diminutive stature of mankind
among the Romans was sinking daily below the old standard,
when the fierce giants of the north broke in and mended the
puny breed, restoring a manly spirit of freedom which in
time became the happy parent of taste and science."
It behooves us Americans to take warning of the con-
sequences of a uniform, artificial, and foreign education.
Whether our -moral and intellectual ideals are imported
from Athens as with the Romans, or from Palestine as
45° THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
with the Europeans, we should see that they do not make
intellectual pygmies of us by confining our minds in youth.
Unhappily there are no fierce giants of the north who are
able to swoop down upon us and release our minds by
destroying our civilization.
But it is not alone the religious ideals of the Europeans
(who are in truth the once barbarous heirs of the Roman
Empire) that are limiting us. Their political and social
aspirations are a dangerous example. The nations of Europe
have reproduced Roman characteristics with singular fidelity.
As Christian Rome sought to govern the world with the
sceptre of love through the spread of ecclesiastical dominion,,
so did political Rome seek through the power of organiza-
tion to make her empire universal. The horizon of the
Roman mind was bounded by political aspirations, so that
even its religious sentiment fell within the range of national
aggrandizement and supremacy. National aggrandizement
is the ruling passion of the European mind ; for what power
is really worshipped by these nations but the spread of indi-
vidual dominion? Do they not perpetually confront one
another with the most brutal passions? Are not all their
relations but feints in a struggle in which hate and jealousy,
cupidity, distrust, and arrogance predominate ? Is not royalty
the corner-stone of European society, and can any thing be
more barbarous than royalty, any thing a greater crime
against humanity? Is not the best thought of Europe
locked in a death-struggle with the national religion, and is
not the whole social and political power enlisted upon the
side of the religion which countenances and sanctifies these
barbarities ?
The Romans of the early period had no statues of their
gods ; the art of giving form to their deities they got from
the Greeks, upon whom they depended even in the matter
of augury, for they frequently sent to inquire of the
Delphic Oracle. After the current of Greek influence had
once set in, it was not long before the whole Roman religion
was transformed into an outward imitation of the Greek*
THE RELIGION OF ROME. 45 I
notwithstanding that this tendency was strenuously resisted
by the senate and priesthood. As in Greece, there were gods
representing objects of nature, such as the sun, moon, ocean,
and rivers, the dawn, the tempest, the day, and calm weather.
There were deities representing faculties of the mind, senti-
ments and occupations, such as intellect, reverence for
parents, courage, fear and hope, the time of planting, the
harvest, war and peace. To the chief of these deities tem-
ples were dedicated ; and their worship studded the whole
calendar with holy days, and mingled with almost every
detail of private and public life.
In Rome there was a strange liberty of unbelief and
religious criticism. At the time of Catiline's conspiracy,
Caesar openly opposed, in the senate, the execution of the
conspirators, on the ground that death was the end of suffer-
ing, meaning that he regarded as false what the state religion
taught about suffering after death. And Caesar was at the
time the chief religious dignitary of the state. Again : in
Cicero's" De Natura Deorum," Cotta, the Pontifex Maximus,
refutes the belief in a special providence ; explaining that,
as a Pontifex, he believed in the gods on the authority and
tradition of his ancestors, but as a philosopher he felt per-
fectly free to deny them. These were merely instances of
that general lack of deep religious conviction which the
story of Roman life reveals. These people made a business
of religious observances, but their conceptions of the general
principles of existence were not sufficiently exalted to de-
serve the name of a spiritual faith.1 Notwithstanding her
virtuous emperors, chief among whom was Marcus Aurelius,
Rome produced no great moral reformer who attained suf-
ficient preeminence to inspire any marked regeneration of
life, which gives us the striking picture of a civilization
unsurpassed for political power and internal discipline, but
1 Among the cultivated English and French ecclesiasts of the present day
we have many instances of such apostasy, the difference being that it is in
society, and in converse with critical minds, that their admissions of unbelief
are made, instead of in public tribunals.
452 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
never reaching to the sublime height of the impersonal in
thought and feeling. Hence Rome had no philosophers;
and although she has been called the most religious nation
in the world, in the deepest sense she had no religion.
The most beautiful side of her religion was its worship
of home, its reverence for the family. Much as the his-
tory of Rome may cloud this sentiment, it was neverthe-
less the central feature of the devotional life of the nation.
From this veneration grew the institution of the Vestal
Virgins who watched over the sacred flame of the national
family life.
The mythology of the Scandinavians, as is the case with
that of all nations, was largely determined by their physical
surroundings and mode of life. This race was the most im-
portant branch of the Teutonic or German division of the
Indo-European family. They settled in the northern part
of Europe at a very remote period, and were numerous
enough to organize the great Cimbric invasion which threat-
ened the existence of the Roman Republic one hundred and
eleven years before Christ. The invading host, numbering
over three hundred thousand men, issuing from the Cimbric
peninsula now known as Denmark, after overwhelming four
successive armies of Romans, was. only repulsed at last by
the military genius of Marius.
In the fifth century these Scandinavians invaded and con-
quered England as Saxons, in the ninth century as Danes ;
and in the eleventh century, as Normans, they overran both
England and France.
Bishop Percy, in the preface to his translation of Mallet's
" Northern Antiquities," gives many reasons for believing
that the mythology of the Scandinavians had the same
source as that of all the other branches of the Aryan race,
and he sees traces of a pure monotheism behind the fabulous
adventures of the northern gods.
As, from our metaphysical standpoint, we know that a
pure monotheism can only be a realization of the ultimate
fact or principle of the universe, we, of course, cannot enter-
THE SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 453
tain any theory which supposes this state of mind to have
existed among early and uncultivated peoples ; although we
regard every religion as the best attempt each race and age
have made toward this ultimate analysis. The Vedas and
the Zend-Avesta certainly breathe a spirit of monotheism ;
but it is a clouded monotheism obscured by many imper-
fections, as was also that of the early Hebrews. The favorite
doctrine, among so many modern writers, that there was a
pure monotheism among the ancient Aryans and Jews, as
will more fully appear hereafter, is not supported by facts,
even supposing that these writers had clear ideas of what
constitutes a pure monotheism.
Of the northern gods the chief was Odin, who received in
his palace Valhalla all the braves who were slain in battle.
The heroes, says their sacred legend, who are received into
the palace of Odin " have every day the pleasure of arming
themselves, of passing in review, of arranging themselves in
order of battle, and of cutting one another in pieces. But
as soon as the hour of repast approaches, they return on
horseback, all safe and sound, to the hall of Odin, and fall
to eating and drinking. * * * A crowd of virgins wait upon
the heroes at table and fill their cups as fast as they empty
them. * * * Such was that happy state the bare hope of
which rendered all the inhabitants of the north of Europe
intrepid, and which made them not only to defy, but even
to seek with ardor, the most cruel deaths. Accordingly,
King Ragnor Lodbrok, when he was going to die, far from
uttering groans or forming complaints, expressed his joy by
these verses : ' We are cut to pieces with swords ; but this
fills me with joy, when I think of the feast that is preparing
for me in Odin's palace. Quickly, quickly, seated in the
splendid habitation of the gods, we shall drink beer out of
curved horns. A brave man fears not to die. I shall utter
no timorous words as I enter the Hall of Odin.' This fanatic
hope derived additional force from the ignominy affixed to
every kind of death but such as was of a violent nature, and
from the fear of being sent after such an exit into Niflheim.
454 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
This was a palace consisting of nine worlds, reserved for
those who died of disease or old age. Hela, or Death, there
exercised her despotic power ; her palace was Anguish ; her
table, Famine ; her waiters were Slowness and Delay ; the
threshold of her door was Precipice ; her bed, Care ; she was
livid and ghastly pale, and her very looks inspired horror."
Odin seems to have been an historical as well as a mythical
character. The chronicle of the Swedish kings begins by
giving an account of a people who dwelt on the river Tana-
quisl, who were governed by a pontiff-king named Odin.
This king resided in the city Asgard, and is believed by
some historians to have actually conquered Scandinavia at
the head of an army of Asiatics. This invasion is supposed
to have taken place about forty years before Christ. The
historical character of Odin, however, soon disappears in the
mythology of which he is the central figure. Although
there are verbal traces to this day of the worship paid to
Odin, in the name given by almost all the people of the
North to the fourth day of the week,1 which was formerly
consecrated to him, nothing remains in Europe, either in
literature, customs, or beliefs, which gives any definite idea
of this ancient worship. The learned men of Scandinavia
had reason to be surprised, therefore, when about the middle
of the seventeenth century there was discovered in Iceland
a most extraordinary production of the Odin period. The
Eddas, or the sacred legends of the Scandinavians, had been
reduced to writing, it is supposed, about the eleventh cen-
tury. Iceland had been discovered and settled by the Scan-
dinavians in 860 to 874 A.D. And thus while political and
religious changes were sweeping away all traces of this
ancient faith in the mother country, excepting such as linger
in the sounds of our words, the literature of this distant
island preserved the story in all its details.
The Edda Rhythmica, or Edda of Saemund, was sent by
Bishop Sveinsson from Iceland to the learned Torfseus in
'Old Norse Odin's dagr ; Swedish and Danish Ons dag ; Ang.-Sax.
Wodane's dag; Old Ger. Wuotane's tac ; Eng. Wednesday.
THE SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 455
1643 ; and soon after followed the prose Edda, supposed to
have been collected by Snorro Sturleson, the Wise, in the
eleventh century, from the lips of the Scalds.
When Harold Harfager determined to subjugate Norway
and reduce it to a feudal despotism, which he succeeded in
doing after twelve years' hard fighting, many of the nobles
of that country sought freedom in the Shetland and Orkney
islands, and some went as far as Iceland. Encouraged,
probably, by the long winters, which compelled in-door life,
these Scandinavians developed almost immediately an oral
literature, and Iceland became noted for her learning. An
order of sages kno\v,n as Scalds became numerous and were
sought after and honored by the courts of Europe. These
men were " living libraries of history and of the maxims of
experience," and passed as welcome guests from court to
court, even while the governments were in the highest state
of hostility.
The discovery of Iceland led to that of Greenland, in
982, and Mallet gives a description of several expeditions
which penetrated as far as Massachusetts Bay, built houses,
and traded with the natives on the southern coast of Cape
Cod, from 1000 to 1008 A.D. The runic inscriptions and the
numerous other vestiges of the early colonies scattered along
the eastern shore of Baffin's Bay confirm the authenticity of
the sagas of Iceland which relate the stories of the discovery
of Greenland and the American continent.
Not only did this race of Northmen first discover our con-
tinent, but their influence upon us, difficult as it is to trace,
has been very great. Almost all our popular nursery stories
come directly from the Scandinavian mythology. Our names
of days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, come
from the names of their gods ; their popular assemblies, or
Things, were the origin of our Parliament, Congress, and
General Assemblies. Our trial by jury was immediately de-
rived from Scandinavia, and our love of freedom, and vener-
ation for woman, are clearly to be traced to the same source.
The Elder or Saemund's Edda is the chief depository of the
456 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Odin mythology, and also contains a cycle of poems on the
demigods and mythic heroes of the North. Howitt says
that they show us what the Greek legends would have been
without a Homer to form them into one grand epic. These
writings contain every degree of emotion from tempestuous
passion to unselfish love ; they give evidence of deep wisdom
wrought into maxims, but throughout runs an almost childish
imagination strangely mixed with thought. An idea of the
mythology of this Edda can be had from the following de-
scription by the Howitts in their "Literature and Romance
of Northern Europe " :
" Amid the bright sunlight of a far-off time, surrounded by
the dimmest shadows of forgotten ages, we come at once
into the midst of gods and heroes, goddesses and fair women,
giants and dwarfs, moving about in a world of wonderful
construction. * * * The mysterious Vala, or prophetess,
seated somewhere unseen in that marvellous heaven, sings
an awful song of the birth of gods and men, of the great
Yggdrasil, or Tree of Life, whose roots and branches run
through all regions of space to which existence has extended ;
and concludes her thrilling hymn with the terrible Ragnarok,
or Twilight of the Gods, when the dynasty of Odin disap-
pears in the fires which devour creation, and the new heaven
and new earth come forth to receive the milder reign of
Baldur. Odin himself sings his high song, and his ravens
Hugin and Munin, or Mind and Will, bring him news from
all the lower worlds, but he cannot divest his soul of the
secret dread that the latter will one day fail to return, and
the power which enabled him to shape the sky and all the
nine regions of life beneath it shall fall from his hands. A
strange mixture of simplicity and strength, of the little and
the great, the sublime and the ludicrous, runs through this
ancient production, or rather collection of productions, be-
traying at once an age of primitive vigor and of almost infan-
tine nawett. Odin fights daily with his hero-souls in the
neighborhood of Valhalla, or goes forth on some curious
mission among giants and men ; Thor thunders with his ham-
THE SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 457-
mer among the rocks ; Loki plays off his spiteful tricks on
high and low ; the leaves of Yggdrasil rustle in the winds of
heaven ; the waters of the ocean roll glitteringly between
Midgard and Jotunheim, the outer regions of the Giants and
of Frost ; the gods travel daily over the beautiful bridge
Bifrost, the Rainbow ; and men, the descendants of Ask and
Embla, claim kindred with the divine Asar, and doubt not to
reach Valhalla by deeds of hardihood and endurance.
" To the antiquity of some of these songs it would be vain
to attempt to fix a limit. They bear all the traces of the re-
motest age. They carry us back to the East, the original
region of the Gothic race. They give a glimpse of the
Gudaheim, or home of the gods, and of the sparkling waters
of the original fountain of tradition. They bear us on in
that direction toward the primal period of one tongue and
one religion, and, in the words of the Edda, of that strange
God 'whom no one dared to name.' "
The Younger or prose Edda may be regarded as a sort of
commentary on the poetic one, or as its translation into prose,
mixed with many extravagances in accordance with the taste
of the age. It is said to bear no comparison in literary and
philosophical value to the poetical Edda, which preceded it
by about one hundred and fifty years.
The idea to be gained of the morality of this hardy race of
Northmen from these sacred books, the only record which
we have of their life, is of the vaguest kind. All opinions
seem to concur in according to them a rude chastity, but
their great love of conflict must have entailed an untold
brutality.
Even in so savage a faith as that of the Scandinavians the
principles of religious development are seen to be constant.
Vague ideas of life and nature take on fantastic forms.
Every thing is reduced to imaginary personalities, around
which cluster the most extravagant beliefs. As the mind
advances, these personages range themselves with more or
less order under the government of a single person, who at
last gives way to a single principle.
458 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Some sanguine modern writer, in attempting to voice
the higher aspirations of his fellow-men, has said that " all
earnest Christians desire a unity which rests upon the belief
that ' the children of one Father may worship him under dif-
ferent names/ that they may be influenced by one spirit
even though they know it not, that they may all have one
hope even if they have not one faith." This seems to be a
worthy sentiment, but its author has " counted without his
host," for Christians desire nothing of the kind. They desire
rather that the children of one Father may worship him un-
der one name, and that the world may have as soon as pos-
sible one faith and one hope. The name of this God they
insist is the Christian God, and the faith and hope which
they wish the world to have are faith and hope in Christ.
This is the real Christian spirit, and it is the better spirit of
the two. A true religious spirit means singleness of purpose,
steadfastness of belief, uncompromising loyalty to a certain
God, a certain church, and a certain creed. This is the only
spirit which accomplishes any thing in religion ; a spirit par-
ticularly evident in the latest religion which the world has
produced.
In Islamism we have a religion, the earliest beginnings of
which are within the broad light of history. We know from
many sources the minutest details of its inception and growth,
while the resemblance between it and the older faiths is so
close as to illustrate in a striking manner the universality of
religious sentiment and the uniformity of its development.
The true Christian who studies the religion of Mohammed
is unavoidably puzzled. It contains so much that the Chris-
tian acknowledges to be holy, that the natural resistance to a
rival faith is softened into a reluctant admiration. The puz-
zle of Mohammedanism is not its marvellous growth and
endurance, its near approach to universal truth, nor its doc-
trinal contradictions, but the want of harmony which exists
between its moral precepts and the life and methods of its
founder. The wonder is, how so vast and comparatively
pure a faith could have grown out of a career such as that of
ISLAMISM.
Mohammed. This wonder is only increased by closely ex-
amining the events which immediately followed the death of
its founder. Those of his successors who were in sympathy
with his best aims, one after another fell victims to the hate
of opposing factions, until the power of Islam actually re-
sided with its enemies, who perpetuated the system solely
for the temporal advantages which it secured them : and
yet the faith arose from these spiritual ruins, surviving the
crimes of both the prophet and his enemies, and has exerted
a moral suasion over millions of lives for many centuries.
For forty years Mohammed led an exceptionally upright
life. During his youth having distinguished himself for
probity, and intelligence in business affairs, he was put in
charge of the property of a young widow of high character
and position. He executed his trust so well that he gained
her esteem, which afterward resulted in their marriage. He
was thoughtful and observing, and as his people, the Arabians,
were for centuries before his time a comparatively unorgan-
ized race, living in detached tribes or communities without
national unity, and suffering all the disadvantages of such a
condition, he felt deeply the need of a general and funda-
mental reform. The Arabs and Jews are not only related as
branches of the Semitic race, speaking cognate languages,
but Judaism, in an indistinct form, was the faith of the
Arabian tribes. A vague monotheism, combined with the
worship of local deities, and a reverence for the great Jewish
teachers, were the chief characteristics of the Arabian faith at
the time of Mohammed. Abraham was looked upon as their
physical and spiritual father ; and although the customs and
religious forms of the Jews were entirely distinct from Arabian
life, the essential doctrines of Judaism were common to both
nations.
Against this disorderly state of things the nature of Mo-
hammed rebelled. His thoughts gradually grew into the
most vivid convictions; his feelings, encouraged by the
examples of religious fervor so frequent among his race, be-
came morbidly intense and assumed the form of ecstatic
460 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
visions. He began by believing himself a great prophet, and
his wife, impressed by his deep earnestness and the unques-
tioned loftiness of his aims, became his first convert and
encouraged him in his course. He then openly declared
himself a prophet of God, bent upon the establishment of
a universal religion, the substance of which was faith in one
Supreme Being, submission to his will, trust in his providence,
and good-will to his creatures. " A marvellous and mighty
work," says Mr. Muir, " had been wrought by these few pre-
cepts. From time beyond memory Mecca and the whole
peninsula had been steeped in spiritual torpor. The influ-
ences of Judaism, Christianity, and Philosophy had been
feeble and transient. Dark superstitions prevailed, the
mothers of darker vices. And now, in thirteen years of
preaching, a body of men and women had risen who rejected
idolatry ; worshipped the one great God ; lived lives of
prayer; practised chastity, benevolence, and justice; and
were ready to do and to bear every thing for the truth. All
this came from the depth of conviction in the soul of this
one man."
This is one side of the picture, viewing the religion from its
subsequent success. The other side, that which was pre-
sented at the time of the occurrence of these events, gives us
a view of the opposition and contempt which Mohammed
met on every hand : the niggardly results of the first thirteen
years of his preaching (only about two hundred converts, and
those principally slaves), the indignities and the personal
danger which his cause earned for him among the inhabitants
of his native city of Mecca, and at last the flight from that
place to Medina for safety, — the Hegira, — from which event
the Mussulmans date the beginning of their era. The story
of the thirteen years preceding this event contains all that is
purely religious, all that is inspiring, in the career of Moham-
med. From the Hegira, Mohammed became a great politi-
cal leader, a statesman, a general, but gradually lost, as his
ambition and success increased, all the dignity, simplicity,
and purity of a great reformer.
I SLA MI SM. 461
During the early part of his religious life, the period of
obscure efforts to establish a great truth, we find in Moham-
med a commanding moral character. His thought and his
methods were imbibed from Judaism and Christianity. His
people were peculiarly ripe for such a religious movement as
followed ; and no sooner had he established the nucleus of
the faith than it grew with astonishing rapidity. This growth
completely entangled the great prophet in its luxuriance,
and he became in many ways a weak and worldly man ;
stooping to subterfuges, showing cruelty and arrogance, and
yielding to sensuality. His temptations, however, were
great, and his education rendered him peculiarly liable to
such weaknesses. Had he, for instance, known Christianity
from its better side, he would have seen less to encourage
him in his original undertaking. He would very likely have
been the St. Paul of Arabia, and the strange phenomenon of
a vast Semitic nation becoming Christianized might have
taken place ; for there is scarcely a principle which Moham-
med taught which has not its counterpart in the Christian
religion. Philosophy, however, had mingled with Chris-
tianity, and built up the complicated theory of the Trinity.
It is from this metaphysical side that Mohammed had
learned our religion ; and this side, as many devout Christians
admit, being by far the less imposing and attractive,
Mohammed was uninspired by the great faith, and never
evinced more than a courteous respect for it.
Before Mohammed had gained the political power which
made the progress of his religion, for the most part, a military
conquest, an incident occurred which throws light upon the
difficulties of his undertaking, upon his character, and also
upon that of the people with whom he had to deal. It is
thus related by M. Renan :
" There is a curious episode belonging to the first period of
Mahomet's mission which very well explains the icy indiffer-
ence which he encountered in all about him, and the extreme
reserve which he was bidden to maintain in the use of the
marvellous. He was seated in the square of the Caaba, at a
462 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
short distance from a circle formed by a number of Koreisch
chiefs, all opposed to his doctrine. One of them, Otba, son
of Re"bia, approaches him, takes a place by his side, and,
speaking in the name of the rest, says :
" ' Son of my friend, thou art a man distinguished by thy
qualities and thy birth. Although thou causest disturbance
in thy country, divisions in families, although thou dost out-
rage our gods, taxest our ancestors and sages with impiety
and error, we would deal discreetly with thee. Hear the
propositions I have to make to thee, and consider if it does
not become thee to accept one of them.'
" < Speak/ said Mahomet, ' I listen/
" ' Son of my friend,' resumed Otba, ' if thine object be to
acquire riches, we will contribute to make thee a fortune
larger than that of any of the Koreisch. If thou aspirest to
honors, we will make thee our chief, and we will take no
resolution without thine advice. If the spirit that haunts
thee clings to thee and sways thee so that thou canst not
withdraw thyself from its influence, we will call in skilful
physicians and pay them to cure thee.'
" ' I am neither greedy of property, nor ambitious of dig-
nities, nor possessed by an evil spirit,' replies Mahomet. ' I
am sent by Allah, who has revealed to me a book and has
ordered me to announce to you the rewards and punishments
that await you.'
" ' Very well, Mahomet,' said the Koreisch to him, ' since
thou dost not agree to our propositions, and pretendest to
be sent by Allah, give us clear proofs of thy qualification.
Our valley is narrow and sterile, prevail on God to enlarge
it, to push back these mountain chains that shut us in, to
cause rivers like those of Syria and of Irak to flow through
it, or else to bring from the tomb some of our ancestors, and
among them Cossay, son of Kilab, whose word had such
authority ; let these illustrious dead, revived, acknowledge
thee as a prophet, and we also will recognize thee.'
" l God,' replies Mahomet, " has not sent me to you for
that ; he has sent me merely to preach his law.'
ISLAMISM. 463
" ' At least,' resumed the Koreisch, ' ask thy Lord to cause
one of his angels to appear, and avouch thy veracity and
bid us believe thee. Ask him, likewise, to publicly ratify
the choice he has made of thy person, by relieving thee of
the necessity of seeking thy daily subsistence by trade,
like the rest of thy fellow-countrymen.'
"'No,' says Mahomet, 'I will make none of these re-
quests ; my duty is only to preach.'
" ' Very well ; your Lord may cause the sky to fall on us,
as you pretend that he can ; for we will not believe thee.'
" It is clear that a Buddha, a son of God, a high-flown
magician, were too high for the temperament of this people.
The extreme delicacy of the Arab mind, the frank, plain
way in which he takes his stand on fact, the license of
morals and of beliefs that prevailed at the epoch of Islam-
ism, forbade grand airs to the new prophet. * * * Arabia,
especially, had lost, perhaps never had, the gift of inventing
the supernatural. In all the moallakdt? and in the vast re-
pository of anti-Islamic poetry, we hardly find a religious
thought. This people had no sense for holy things ; but as
compensation it had a very lively sentiment of things finite,
and of the passions of the human heart. This is the reason
why the Mussulman legend outside of Persia has remained
so poqr, and why the mythical element is so absolutely
wanting in it."
With regard to the difficulty that Mohammed had to
create stories of miracles, the same author says : " The only
time that Mahomet allowed himself to indulge in an imita-
tion of the gorgeous fancies of other religions, in the night-
ride to Jerusalem, on a fantastic beast, the affair turned out
very ill ; the story was greeted with a storm of merriment.
Many of his disciples swore off, and the prophet made haste
to withdraw his troublesome idea by declaring that this mar-
vellous journey, given out at first as real, was only a dream."
1 They term moallakdt, or suspended, the pieces of verse which had taken the
prize in the poetical tourneys, and were suspended by gold nails to the door of
the Caaba. Seven of them are extant, to which two or three other poems of
the same character are attached.
464 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Apart from a few miracles, about the details of which, as
we have indicated, Mohammed was very particular, this great
prophet really asked his friends to believe nothing which
could not with perfect propriety be offered to the Christian
world to-day as a valid faith. All the great principles of
Christian belief are rigorously complied with in his appeal.
Mohammed solemnly declared himself to be the true prophet
of the one true God. He offered as credentials a book of
revelations, the authenticity of which can hardly be disputed,
since he wrote it himself. He gave up the greater part of
his time to rewarding his adherents and providing punish-
ments, both temporal and spiritual, for all who refused to be-
lieve in him. He made the most complete arrangements in
heaven to correspond with his plans upon earth, and he took
all his friends into this arrangement and excluded from it
all his enemies. He appointed his apostles, founded his
church, formulated creed and ritual, and virtually created a
bible. In fact, no man ever worked harder to establish a re-
ligion, and few have succeeded any better. Mohammed was
a good organizer ; he knew how to make the best of circum-
stances. Finding that he had to deal largely with Jews and
Christians, he proclaimed that the Jewish law and the Chris-
tian gospels were all equally the Word of God, and he in-
culcated belief in them all on pain of hell-fire. Any con-
fusion which might arise in the minds of the faithful on
account of the variety of beliefs set forth in these holy books
he removed by the luminous doctrine that " as the Koran
was the latest, in so far as it pleased the Almighty to modify
his previous commands, it must be paramount." Moham-
med lost no opportunity of affirming that his writings were
concurrent with the Jewish and Christian scriptures, although
of the latter he knew so little that he supposed the Gospel
was a direct revelation from God to Jesus. No doubt he
possessed a minute knowledge of the facility with which such
a literary transaction could be arranged.
" When his own work was condemned as a ' forgery ' and
' an antiquated tale ' his most common retort was, ' Nay, but
ISLAMISM. 465
it is but a confirmation of the preceding Revelation and a
warning in simple Arabic to the people of the land.' The
number and confidence of these asseverations secured the con-
fidence or at least the neutrality of both Jews and Christians." 1
Thus we see that the analogy between the Christian and the
Mohammedan religions is not accidental. " The New Reve-
lation of Arabia " was persistently offered as the Arabian
form of both Judaism and Christianity, the chief innovation
being confined to the substitution of an Arabian fora Jewish
prophet.
The death of Mohammed was a severe shock to the faith
of his followers, many of whom had gradually come to
believe him immortal. This disaffection, added to the
triumph of those who had refused to believe in him, or had
only half believed, well-nigh caused a general apostasy.
Rival prophets at once appeared all over Arabia. Numerous
sects sprang into existence, some of them bordering on
avowed infidelity. There had been a few proud families of
Mecca, the Omeyyades, who had never made more than the
merest semblance of belief in Mohammed. They by degrees
came into possession of the chief administrative power of
Islamism ; and we have the strange spectacle of the primi-
tive and pure generation of Mohammedan leaders extermi-
nated and replaced by a party who had never been in sym-
pathy with the faith. Thus Islamism grew into the power
and unity which later distinguished it, from a relative be-
ginning of scarcely any religious faith.
Mohammed was no more the founder of monotheism than
of civilization or literature among the Arabs. M. Caussin
de Perceval says that the worship of Allah the supreme
(Allah taala) seems to have been always the basis of the
Arab religion. " The Semitic race never conceived of the
government of the universe otherwise than as an absolute
monarchy. Its theodicy has made no progress since the
Book of Job; the sublimities and the aberrations of poly-
theism have always been foreign to it."
Life of Mahomet," Muir., p. 154.
466 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The Mohammedan bible, the Koran, is entirely unique
among the sacred books of the world, both in its form and
in its manner of production. It is a collection of the preach-
ings of Mohammed (not lacking in beauty of thought and
expression), and the daily orders which he issued to his
followers bearing the date of the places in which they ap-
peared. " Each of these pieces was written, from the prophet's
recitation,1 on skins, on shoulder-blades of sheep, camels'
bones, polished stones, palm-leaves ; or was kept in memory
by the principal disciples, who were called Bearers of the
Koran" These pieces were collected into a single book
soon after the prophet's death, and copied in the order of
the length of their contents without any regard to the sense
or connection. This want of arrangement in the Koran is
regarded by scholars as an evidence of its authenticity : a
forgery would have had more method in it.
The Moslem sects are as numerous as the Christian. Be-
tween these sects, which are grouped in two principal
branches, cruel wars and persecutions have long prevailed.
The most zealous Moslems are the Turks, who observe the
fasts and holy days with rigor, and have no desire to make
proselytes, but cordially hate all outside of Islam. So many
hard things have been said of the Turks of late years, that it
is refreshing to meet with testimonials of their religious and
moral character.
Bishop Southgate says : " I have never known a Mussul-
man, sincere in his faith, * * * in whom moral rectitude did
not seem an active quality and a living principle. In sea-
sons of plague the Turks appear perfectly fearless. They do
not avoid customary intercourse and contact with friends.
They remain with and minister to the sick with unshrinking
assiduity. * * * In truth, there is something imposing in the.
unaffected calmness of the Turks at such times. It is a
spirit of resignation which becomes truly noble when exer-
cised upon calamities which have already befallen them." 2
1 The word Koran means recitation.
11 Southgate's " Travels in Armenia," vol. I., p. 86.
ISLAMISM. 467
Allah is constantly on the lips of the Mohammedans, both
men and women ; but it has become with them a mere form
of speech. The incidents of their daily and religious life
prove that they do not regard God as a person, but rather
as a divine unity of will.
The attempt, so often made by Christians, to account for
all the imperfections of the Moslem governments by the
error of the Mohammedan conception of God is an exalted
method of criticism, but one which can hardly be consist-
ently employed by believers in a personal deity. The con-
ception which a civilization forms of God indicates the stage
of its development, but this conception is the consequence
or function of the whole civilization, not its cause. To
improve it would be to remould the life of a race. As
morality is shown to be a logical phenomenon only by first
establishing the interdependence of thought and feeling, so
the effect upon individual and national conduct of the belief
in a personal God can alone be made clear by tracing knowl-
edge and belief to their humblest beginnings, which is to
take the widest possible view of religious development.
CHAPTER XXL
THE HEBREW RELIGION.
Semitic Monotheism — The Jewish Conception of God.
WHAT can be more instructive than the diverse opinions of
our great religious critics and historians concerning the origin
of our ideas of God, especially when we remember that no
two of them agree as to the nature of Deity ? If by the term
God is meant the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, it
would seem but natural to credit the Jews with the origin
of the conception ; but we are by no means sure that it is
the God of Israel that we are seeking. In the preface to the
great work of Ewald on the history of Israel, Russell Marti-
neau tells us that the author is a devout theologian, and that
no one could have labored more sincerely than he did to
defend the belief in a personal God, and a supernatural
revelation coming from him to Israel, against the contrary
evidence which an intelligent study of tradition would supply.
A careless reader might understand this to mean that Ewald
had not studied tradition intelligently; but had this been
the meaning of Mr. Martineau, is it likely that he would
have written an eloquent preface to Ewald's great work ?
With regard to Ewald's treatment of tradition, Mr. Martineau
says : " If we penetrate further back than the age of mythic
heroes, we come only to a time when the gods themselves
were imagined to people the earth with their kind. If this
is true everywhere alike, we might expect to find it in Israel
also, where, indeed, we do find the very same ideas and
stories. We cannot treat the Assyrian, Persian, and Greek
.deluges as mythical, and refuse the character to the Hebrew,
468
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 469
Hence Ewald treats the Hebrew myths of Genesis in the
same spirit as he would those of any other nation ; nor does
he deem it necessary to justify such treatment any more
than an historian of Rome would apologize for the myth of
Romulus."
If we would gain an idea of how Ewald really has treated
the sacred traditions of Israel, we have but to look a little
farther into the same preface. Here we are reminded of the
difficulties which the conscientious historian has to contend
with in deciphering the truths which lie hidden in those
legends and myths that have until recently been treated as
actual history. "The value of history does not depend upon
the vividness of its colors, or, in other words, the positiveness
of its assertions. * * * The earliest period of the lives of all
nations is now acknowledged to be mythical, but the myths
cover events or thoughts generally grander than themselves.
* * * Dorus and ^Eolus were not single men, but represent
the whole nation of Dorians and ^Eolians ; Shem and Ham,
the whole population of their respective regions, the south-
west of Asia, and the north of Africa. So when Ewald shows
us Abraham as a ' representative man,' and his wanderings as
those of a large tribe, the quarrels between Jacob and Esau
as great international struggles between the Hebrews and
the Arabian tribes, rather than the petty strife of a few
herdsmen, the history assumes a grander scale than we had
any idea of before. Stories which before amused us with
their pettiness now tell of the fates of empires and the
development of nations, and we see why they have been
preserved from an antiquity so high that the deeds of indi-
viduals have long been obliterated. The mythical system,
therefore, as understood and wielded by the chief masters,
is any thing but destructive of history; it rather makes
history where before there was none."
But the same careless reader might think that whatever
fine distinctions the "devout theologian " Ewald may make,
he has certainly forfeited the confidence of Christians by
declaring the Bible, so far as it deals with early Jewish
470 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
history, and the conceptions of God which it describes, not
only uninspired but thoroughly unreliable, a mere mass of
undigested tradition. We are naturally amazed, therefore,
to find that such eminent Christian scholars as Dean Stanley
and Dr. Rowland Williams concede Ewald's universal learn-
ing and " spiritual insight," although differing with him on
"general principles," with regard to the authorship of several
of the books of the Old Testament. Dean Stanley testifies
to " the intimate acquaintance which Ewald exhibits with
every portion of the sacred writings, combined as it is with a
loving and reverential appreciation of each individual char-
acter and of the whole spirit and purpose of the Israelitish
history." The same writer acknowledges the vast influence
which the book has had, not only in the author's country,
but in France and in England, and cites as an example the
constant reference to it throughout the new " Dictionary of
the Bible," "which is one of the greatest and best Christian
books of reference of our time."
To an unprejudiced reader it would seem but natural to
place the sacred writings of the Jews, at least up to the
Persian Period, say B.C. 538, in the category of barbaric
lore.
The reign of David (about rooo B.C.) is supposed to have
been the zenith of Hebrew religious life, and yet what do we
find this life to have been ? We are told that " the zeal for
Yahveh being national, it manifested itself in persecution of
the Canaanites. Samuel was believed to be a rain-maker.
Saul put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards;
yet in one instance he caused the dead to be called. David
apparently believed Yahveh to dwell in the ark, to be confined
to Canaan, to be appeased by the smell of sacrifices, and
to admit of human sacrifices, though he conceived him to
be a righteous God. In David's house teraphim were kept.
Yet he fought the ' battles of Yahveh ' (Yahveh of Hosts
— Tzebaoth). David also believed in angels. Solomon did
not recognize Yahveh as the only true God : he erected
sanctuaries in honor of foreign gods. The brazen serpent
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 4/1
continued to be worshipped." 1 And still " Christian scholars "
who are perfectly aware of these facts unblushingly teach
that these people had a knowledge of the true God, and that
theirs is the God we are to worship. But why should we
complain of this, when we find even such liberal scholars as
Renan clinging to the same superstition, that the Israelites
had in some way been intrusted with a supernatural or
special knowledge of God ? We must admit that the poor
Christian scholars have a certain justification in standing
upon the defensive and in admitting as 'little as possible,
when the boldest investigators seem to quail before this
common Israelitish myth.
Philology tells us that each race has had its mythic age,
and that from this primitive stage of development has come
its language, its thought, and its religion. The characteris-
tics of this age are the same the world over. The causes
which have led to it, and the results attained, are governed
by the conditions of social development, which are in the
main constant. If among the younger nations, such as the
present peoples of Europe, or among the Greeks and Romans,
whose beginnings can be traced through the aid of history,
we know that there was no period of greater illumination
which preceded this age, why should we believe that such
a period existed in Canaan or Judea ? And yet all the well-
known theories of Semitic monotheism rest upon a belief in
a " period of greater illumination " which, in some form,
either preceded, or took the place of, the mythic age of
Jewish history. It is true that some of the most enlight-
ened of these theories confine this " illumination " to the
minds of a few individuals, such as Abraham and Moses,
not being willing, perhaps, to take the responsibility of
asserting that the barbarous and idolatrous Hebrews enjoyed
any especially exalted conception of God.
The belief in the Hebrew knowledge of God, to which the
Christian mind clings with such tenacity, appears in its worst
light when we compare it with the conception of God as a
'See Spencer's "Descriptive Sociology," book VII., table II.
472 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
principle; although the personality which the Jews gave to-
the Deity must certainly be repulsive enough even to the
modern Christian.
This tendency of the Christian mind is aptly illustrated by
the plaintive appeal of the Record, in speaking of Ewald's
work : " We sincerely hope [says the Record'} that the English
mind will long recognize the true grandeur of early Hebrew
history to consist, not in the wanderings and squabbles of
various Arab tribes, but in the presence of the living God
forming for himself that people through which all nations
of the earth are blessed." Thus Christian mythology
fights hard for its life, and only inch by inch yields its
superstitions. The very man who has done the most to give
us a rational view of the Hebrew Civilization, holds to the
most irrational myth of which Israel has been the author.
It is hard to forgive such men as Ewald and Max Muller for
their belief in a concrete personal God ; a belief so utterly
beneath the logical dignity, the scientific knowledge, of
their age. But the brilliant Renan, who represents the
purest, the least ethnic, the most cosmopolitan culture in
the world, who speaks a language which has shown the
least hospitality of all developed tongues to the vagaries;
of metaphysics, — it is still harder to forgive this man, great
in almost every other particular, his failure to conceive God
as the universal principle, to rise above those childish and
limited interpretations of Deity which belong so clearly to
past and inferior civilizations.
Thus, in his essay upon the history of the people of Israel,
Renan says, with regard to the reign of Solomon : " We feel
how far we are from the pure ideal of Israel. The calling of
Israel was not philosophy, nor science, nor art (excepting
music), nor industry, nor commerce. In opening these
secular paths, Solomon, in one sense, caused his people
to deviate from their peculiarly religious destiny. It would
have been all over with the doctrine of the true God if such
tendencies had prevailed. Christianity and the conversion
of the world to monotheism being the essential work of
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 473
Israel, to which the rest must be referred, whatever turned
it aside from this superior end was but a frivolous and dan-
gerous distraction in its history. Now, far from having
advanced this grand work, we may say that Solomon did
every thing to embarrass it. Had he succeeded, Israel
would have ceased to be the people of God, and would
have become a worldly nation, like Tyre and Sidon. * * *
While the successor of David was passing his time playing
at riddles with Saba's infidel queen, there were seen on the
Mount of Olives altars to Moloch and to Astarte. What
more inconsistent with the first duty of Israel ? Guardian
of an idea about which the world was to rally, charged to
substitute in the human mind the worship of the supreme
God for that of national divinities, Israel was bound to be
intolerant, and to affirm boldly that all worship except that
of Jehovah was false and worthless. * * *
" We see exhibited here the grand law of the whole his-
tory of the Hebrew people, the struggle of two opposing
necessities which seem almost to have drawn in contrary
ways this intelligent and passionate race : on one side the
expansion of minds eager to understand the world, to imi-
tate other people, to leave the narrow enclosure in which the
Mosaic institutions confined Israel ; on the other side, the
conservative thought to which the salvation of the human
race was attached."
It is hardly possible to read all this and still believe that
M. Renan yielded to no superstition with regard to the
" sacred career of Israel," that " the conversion of the
world to monotheism was the essential work of Israel,"
or that " the salvation of the human race was dependent
upon Israel," all of which theories are fast disappearing from
the most enlightened historical criticism. In Prof. Max
Muller's essay on " Semitic Monotheism," this favorite
theory of M. Renan is warmly criticised. "The Semitic
family," says Mr. Mu'ller, "is divided by M. Renan into
two great branches, differing from each other in the form
of their monotheistic belief ; yet both, according to their
-4/4 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
historian, imbued from the beginning with the instinctive
faith in one God : —
" I. The nomad branch, consisting of Arabs, Hebrews, and
the neighboring tribes of Palestine, commonly called the
descendants of Terah ; and
" 2. The political branch, including the nations of Phoe-
nicia, of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Yemen.
" Can it be said that all these nations, comprising the
worshippers of Elohim, Jehovah, Sabaoth, Moloch, Nisroch,
Rimmon, Nebo, Dagon, Ashtaroth, Baal or Bel, Baal-peor,
Baal-zebub, Chemosh, Milcom, Adrammelech, Annamelech,
Nibhaz and Tartak, Ashima, Nergal, Succoth-benoth, the
Sun, Moon, Planets, and all the host of heaven, were en-
dowed with a monotheistic instinct? M. Renan admits
that monotheism has always had its principal bulwark in the
nomadic branch, but he maintains that it has by no means
been so unknown among the members of the political branch
as is commonly supposed. But where are the criteria by
which, in the same manner as their dialects, the religions of
the Semitic races could be distinguished from the religions
of the Aryan and Turanian races ? We can recognize any
Semitic dialect by the triliteral character of its roots. Is it
possible to discover similar radical elements in all the forms
-of faith, primary and secondary, primitive and derivative, of
the Semitic tribes? M. Renan thinks that it is. He im-
agines that he hears the key-note of a pure monotheism
through all the wild shoutings of the priests of Baal and
other Semitic idols, and he denies the presence of that key-
note in any of the religious systems of the Aryan nations,
whether Greeks or Romans, Germans or Celts, Hindoos or
Persians. * * * As it is impossible to deny the fact, that the
Semitic nations, in spite of this supposed monotheistic in-
stinct, were frequently addicted to the most degraded forms
of polytheistic idolatry, and that even the Jews — the most
monotheistic of all — frequently provoked the anger of the
Lord by burning incense to other gods, M. Renan remarks
•that when he speaks of a nation in general he speaks only
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 475
of the intellectual aristocracy of that nation. * * * The fact
that Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah were firm be-
lievers in one God, could not be considered sufficient to
support the general proposition that the Jewish nation was
monotheistic by instinct. And if we remember that among
the other Semitic races we should look in vain for even four
such names, the case would seem to be desperate to any one
but M. Renan. * * *
" We cannot believe that M. Renan would be satisfied with
the admission that there had been among the Jews a few
leading men who believed in one God, or that the existence
of but one God was an article of faith not quite unknown
among the other Semitic races ; yet he has hardly proved
more. He has collected, with great learning and ingenuity,
all traces of monotheism in the annals of the Semitic nations ;
but he has taken no pains to discover the traces of polythe-
ism, whether faint or distinct, which are disclosed in the same
annals. In acting the part of an advocate, he has for a time
divested himself of the nobler character of the historian."
In short, M. Renan is struck with the religious instincts of
the Jews and Arabs, and seeks to account for this remarkable
instinct from a philological standpoint. There are other
races besides the Arabs and Jews that belong to the Semitic
group ; and although these other nations — as the Assyri-
ans, Babylonians, and Phoenicians — are not monotheistic, still,
for the sake of the theory, they must be shown to be more
monotheistic than the Indo-European group of nations.
Max Muller, and other orientalists, protest that the facts
of religious history cannot be made to sustain M. Renan's
theory ; but M. Renan replies by offering a learned argu-
ment, in the form of a comparison of the etymological con-
stitutions of the Semitic and Aryan languages, with the
object of proving that the idea of one God is the natural
tendency of the Semitic mind and speech.
To the details of this argument Mr. Muller takes no ex-
ception, but to its aim, which is to prove the natural origin
of the monotheism of the Jews, he opposes a theory which
4/6 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
depends upon a belief in the Bible story of the personal re-
lationships between Abraham and God. " Of the ancestors
of Abraham and Nachor, even of their father Terah, we
know that in old time," says Mr. Miiller, " when they dwelt
on the other side of the flood, they served other gods
(Joshua xxiv., 2). At the time of Joshua these gods were
not yet forgotten, and instead of denying their existence
altogether, Joshua only exhorts the people to put away the
gods which their fathers served on the other side of the
flood and in Egypt, and to serve the Lord : l Choose you
this day/ he says, t whom ye will serve ; whether the gods
which your fathers served that were on the other side of the
flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell :
but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord/
Such a speech, exhorting the people to make their choice
between various gods, would have been unmeaning if ad-
dressed to a nation which had once conceived the unity of
the Godhead. Even images of the gods were not unknown
to the family of Abraham ; for, though we know nothing of
the exact form of the teraphim, or images which Rachel stole
from her father, certain it is that Laban calls them his gods
(Genesis xxxi., 19, 30). But what is much more significant
than these traces of polytheism and idolatry, is the hesitat-
ing tone in which some of the early patriarchs speak of their
God. When Jacob flees before Esau into Padan-Aram, and
awakes from his vision at Bethel, he does not profess his
faith in the One God, but he bargains and says : ' If God
will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and
will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I
come again to my father's house in peace ; then shall the
Lord be my God : and this stone, which I have set for a
pillar, shall be God's house : and of all that thou shalt give
me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee ' (Genesis xxviii.,
20-22). Language of this kind evinces not only a temporary
want of faith in God, but it shows that the conception of God
had not yet acquired that complete universality which alone
deserves to be called monotheism, or belief in one God. * * *
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 477
And yet this limited faith in Jehovah as the God of the
Jews, as a God more powerful than the gods of the heathen,
as a God above all gods, betrays itself again and again in the
history of the Jews. The idea of many gods is there, and
wherever that idea exists, wherever the plural of god is used
in earnest, there is polytheism."
Now, after these evidences of the narrow personal idea
which the Jews had of divine unity, how does Mr. Miiller
enlighten us with regard to that pure original monotheism
from which he seems to regard all forms of polytheism as a
retrogression ? How does he introduce to the minds of his
readers that stupendous event when the ruler of the universe
came " face to face " with a certain man and revealed him-
self unto him, establishing a knowledge of God among men?
It is in these words : " And if we are asked how this one
Abraham possessed not only the primitive intuition of God
as he had revealed himself to all mankind, but passed through
the denial of all other gods to the knowledge of the one God,
we are content to answer that it was by a special Divine
Revelation. We do not indulge in theological phraseology,
but we mean every word to its fullest extent. The Father
of Truth chooses his own prophets, and he speaks to them
in a voice stronger than the voice of thunder."
Before closing his argument, however, Mr. Miiller seems
to have a craving for a logical or philological basis for mono-
theism.
The theory of a " Special Revelation to Abraham " does
not seem to quite satisfy him, so he suggests also a natural
way by which Abraham attained his idea of one God ; which
is not unlike the intellectual procedures observed through-
out the history of philosophy, tending to the reduction of
the categories of thought to a single principle. " Whatever
the names of the Elohim worshipped by the numerous clans
of his race, Abraham saw that all the Elohim were meant
for God, and thus Elohim, comprehending by one name
every thing that ever had been or could be called divine,
became the name with which the monotheistic age was
4/3 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
rightly inaugurated, — a plural conceived and constructed
as a singular. Jehovah was all the Elohim, and therefore
there could be no other God. From this point of view,
the Semitic name of the Deity, Elohim, which seemed at
first not only ungrammatical but irrational, becomes per-
fectly clear and intelligible, and it proves better than any
thing else that the true monotheism could not have risen
except on the ruins of a polytheistic faith." 1
Mr. Miiller leaves it to his readers to identify the " ruins
of a polytheistic faith " and a " Special Divine Revelation
to Abraham," as the sources of monotheism, and the knowl-
edge of the true God. Any confusion which these widely
differing sources of the same event might give rise to would
probably be removed by declaring that Abraham kept
the knowledge of the true God to himself, and that mono-
theism has been a divinely inspired effort of humanity to
share it with him. We think, on the whole, we should pre-
fer M. Kenan's interpretation of the origins of our belief in
One God ; for, although it deprives human history of some
of its grandest outlooks, it certainly leaves us on much bet-
ter terms with the great father of the Hebrews.
After all, is there any necessity for these forced explana-
tions of the monotheism of the Jews? Does not this dis-
pute between two of the greatest scholars of our century
illustrate the futility of the attempt which they both make ?
Would it not be well to remind these learned gentlemen
that when it is found impossible to explain a supposed fact
by natural causes, the fact itself is impeached and must be
examined? M. Renan very naturally asks: How could a
civilization like that of Israel, which was confessedly inferior
to almost all the other civilizations of antiquity in every
thing excepting one phase of religious belief, — how could
a Semitic people, who, " compared with the Aryan nations,
were deficient in scientific and philosophic originality,"
whose " poetry never rose above the lyrical and was with-
out excellence in epic and dramatic composition," whose
1 " Chips from a German Workshop," vol. I., Semitic Monotheism.
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 479
" art had never gone beyond the decorative stage/' whose:
political life had remained " patriarchal and despotic," whose
" incapacity for organization on a large scale has deprived
them of the power of empire," whose " inability to perceive
the general and the abstract, whether in thought, language,
religion, poetry, or politics," limited their horizon to the
individual or personal, — how could this people bequeath to
the world a perfect religious ideal or truth ?
This is indeed a question worth considering, and the
simplest answer to it is, that Israel has done nothing of the
kind. This nation has not bequeathed to humanity a
perfect religious ideal or truth ; and here the whole difficulty
ends. If the Christian religion is a generic development of
Judaism, it is certainly a digression from the alleged mono-
theism of Judaism ; for the doctrines of the Trinity and the
divinity of Christ are diametrically opposed to the belief in
one God, unless Christ and the Holy Ghost are acknowledged
to be but relative facts, or aspects of the universal principle
called God. The Christian metaphysicians have not as yet
advanced this theory, although there is no telling how soon
they may.
Israel, up to the establishment of Judaism proper (about 550-
B.C.), worshipped the God of Abraham, but its ideas of this
God are not to be compared to those which Christendom has
formed of him. Judaism presents, if possible, a still lower
conception of God, — correct in a numerical sense, but utterly
unworthy in every other. To Greece and Egypt, to Persia
and India, and even to Rome, we owe much of our knowl-
edge of God. If we will acknowledge the insensible in-
fluences of races upon one another, we shall see that the
growing conception of divine unity is the product of past
civilizations, and that it finds expression in the actions as
well as the words of men. Hence, although we are indebted
to Israel for faithfulness to the conception of One God, we
cannot forget the ingrained selfishness and narrowness which
their concrete conception of a personal God has bequeathed
to our civilization. In vain the voice of Xenophanes, six
4^0 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
hundred years before our era, protested against this anthropo-
morphism. In vain the dialectics of Plato, and Kant, and
Hegel have tried to dissolve this materialism from our
minds. From one reaction to another the progress of
knowledge has made its way ; and if we are to become con-
scious of a divine unity, it is not by ascribing a supernatural
influence to one class of the many progenitors of our culture,
but by recognizing in our beliefs the varied and combined
influences of an immeasurable antiquity.
The history of the Hebrews is instructive when studied
as a part of the general progress of humanity. Relieved
from superstition, the narrative has a peculiar charm in the
Christian languages ; for in its simple events we see the
origin of countless metaphors by which we express our
highest emotions. A literature " sparkling with originality "
and possessing all the charms of a young and earnest life, is
surely entitled to rank with the classics of other nations.
We should regard, then, all forced interpretations of Hebrew
lore as impediments to a true understanding of its value.
None of the sacred compositions of the world, excepting the
Koran, appeared at first in writing. A searching criticism
has long since established the fact that the documents which
serve as the basis of the history of the Jews, and especially
the five oldest portions of their annals which we are in the
habit of grouping together as the Pentateuch, were formed
by collecting historical fragments of diverse authorship.1
These fragments of history were handed down as oral
tradition until about the eighth century before our era,
when they were reduced to the definite form in which we
know them. This fact has been discerned by the discovery,
side by side with the ancient fragments, of more modern
pieces, to which very different principles of criticism must
be applied.
Renan tells us that Hebrew history has passed through
analogous stages with that of Arabia. " Deuteronomy pre-
sents to us the history at its last period, worked over with a
1 This theory has been adopted by all the enlightened critics of Germany.
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 481
rhetorical intention, the narrator proposing not merely to
recount, but to edify. The four preceding books disclose
visibly the seams of older fragments, set together in a con-
nected text, but not assimilated. We may differ as to the
division of the parts, as to the number and character of the
successive editions ; and it must be confessed that M. Ewald,
in aiming at an unattainable exactness on all these points,
has passed the limits which severe criticism should impose
on itself ; but we can no longer be in doubt in regard to
the process which brought the Pentateuch and the Book
of Joshua to their final state. It is clear that a 'Jeho-
vistic ' editor — that is, one who in his narration used the
name Jehovah — has given the last form to this grand his-
toric work, taking for the basis of it an Elohistic writing,
— a writing, that is, in which God is designated by the
word Elohim, — the essential parts of which may even now
be reconstructed.
" As to the opinion which ascribes the editing of the Pen-
tateuch to Moses, it is outside of criticism, and we have
nothing to do with its discussion ; moreover, this opinion
seems to be quite modern, and it is very certain that the
ancient Hebrews never thought of regarding their legisla-
tor as an historian. The stories of the old times appeared
to them absolutely impersonal ; they attached to them the
name of no author."
This analysis of the Pentateuch, which agrees substanti-
ally with every thing that is regarded by scholars as
authoritative upon the subject, shows us how primitive is
the Christian idea of the first five books of the Bible. The
most striking feature of the question is, that there is hardly
a well-read priest or minister among us, who is not perfectly
familiar with these results of modern historic criticism.
The annals of the Judges, the Kings, and of the Captivity
as far as Alexander, bring us to the confines of modern his-
tory. " No people can boast of so complete a body of
history, or archives so regularly kept."
'Renan : " The History of the People of Israel."
482 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The best authorities agree that Abraham was an Arab
sheik, of a type which is common at the present day.
Some writers regard him as a distinct historical character,
while others incline to the view that he is but a repre-
sentative man who figures in tradition as an individual.
There are many reasons for believing that the art of writ-
ing was not employed among the Jews until the time of
Moses, and that it did not become sufficiently general to
inaugurate any important literary or historical movement
until the reign of Solomon, which was the time of the
greatest literary activity among the Hebrews. It is to be
remembered, however, that this Hebrew literature, from
every point of view, was of the most primitive character.
Such was the destruction of the Jewish state, at the time
of the Babylonian captivity, that only a few fragments of
this literature have reached us. These are the Song of
Songs, the Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Proverbs.
The traditions of Israel attribute to Abraham the begin-
ning of their knowledge of the true God. So prominent
has this idea become, that one naturally looks for some
mark of this knowledge which shall distinguish it from the
many conceptions of a supreme being which we find among
other nations. The chief characteristic of Abraham's con-
ception of God is that of the father of a tribe or family ; or,
in other words, this conception was merely an enlargement
of his own existence. God, to him, was a friend, — a friend
of his friends, and an enemy of his enemies. Abraham sup-
plies us with no cosmogony ; his God is in no sense the God
of nature. He abruptly introduces us to his family and tribal
affairs as pictured in his relations with the Deity. Far from
being the historical beginning of the Semitic race, Abraham's
was one of many Arab tribes occupying the country extend-
ing from their ancient home in Chaldea to the borders of
Egypt. The simple life of these Arab tribes bears evidence
of being of a great antiquity. When Abraham meets Mel-
chisedec, we find him belonging to a confederation of Arab
tribes of which Melchisedec was a sort of arbitrator, or pas-
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 483
toral governor, exercising judicial powers and exacting trib-
ute. The name Melchisedec means King of Justice, and
his title, King of Salem, means King of Peace.
Abraham met Melchisedec on his return from the success-
ful pursuit of Chedorlaomer and his allies, which he had
undertaken for the rescue of Lot's wife. Abraham gave
him tithes of all the spoils, thus acknowledging his official
superiority. The Jewish traveller, Wolff, states that " in
Mesopotamia a similar custom prevails at the present time.
One sheik is selected from the rest on account of his superior
probity and piety, and becomes their ' King of Peace and
Righteousness.' * * * This ' King of Justice and Peace '
gave refreshments to Abraham and his followers after the
battle, ' blessing him in the name of the Most High God/
of whom Abraham recognized him as a true priest."
Thus we see that the knowledge of the true God, which is so
devoutly believed to have been a special revelation to Abraham,
was shared by a number of Bedouin tribes, to whom Mel-
chisedec was both High-Priest and Judge. When to this is
added the well-known fact that the Assyrians, Babylonians,
Phoenicians, and Carthaginians all possessed religions almost
identical with that of the Jews, worshipping a supreme being
under the various names Ilu, Bel, Set, Hadad, Moloch,
Chemosh, Jaoh, El, Adon, Asshur, 1 the originality of Juda-
ism, or the "purity " of its monotheism, becomes more and
more doubtful.
It is supposed that Abraham settled in Canaan (Palestine),
about 2000 B.C., from Mesopotamia beyond the Euphrates.
The term Hebrew is said to have been given these settlers
by the Canaanites. Whatever meaning attached to the
word Hebrew before the time of Jacob, it appears afterward
to have been applied to his descendants exclusively. The
story of the entry of the Israelites into Egypt, their settle-
ment there, their gradual enslavement by the Pharaohs, and.
their exodus under the leadership of Moses, is susceptible of
1 Milman : " History of the Jews," vol. II., p. 417. McClintock and Strong,
vol. IV.
484 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
a perfectly natural interpretation. The chief wonder is, how
these events, so simple and unobtrusive when compared with
the general history of the times, should have acquired so
important a place in our retrospect of antiquity. The
wonder ceases, however, when we remember that until quite
recently our knowledge of antiquity has been principally
limited to the Hebrew scriptures.
The great fault in studying Hebrew history is in regarding
the Israelites as a formed nation at the time of Moses. It
was not until long after this that the national life really
began. Their life under Moses had been the first to awaken
the feeling of solidarity among the tribes which afterward
constituted the nation ; but this feeling took no decided
form until the conquest of Palestine proper, and then, strange
to say, it gradually disappeared. The national unity of
Israel was based upon a common religious belief or govern-
ment which, although it has received the name of Theocracy,
was simply that primitive form of organization which is
found in all the early civilizations. The tribal faith was
summed up in the formula " Jehovah is the God of Israel,
and Israel is the people of Jehovah." The spirit of nation-
ality among the Jews never developed much beyond this
primitive form of religious unity, — the most feeble type of
political life. The cause of this suspension of national
development is certainly one of the most interesting ques-
tions of sociology. From what Dean Stanley calls the
Mosaic Revelation dates the establishment of the "Jewish
Theocracy, the government by God, as well as his worship."
This simply means that the tribal leader Moses legislated
and taught under the form of a divine authority ; and when
we remember to what a recent date the belief in the divine
right of rulers prevailed among us, it is easy to understand
how the course adopted by Moses might have been the only
practical one at the time.
The heroic age of Hebrew history, beginning after the
death of Joshua, the successor of Moses, was barbaric from
every point of view. The land of Palestine was divided
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 485
among the tribes which, as a body of warrior shepherds, had
invaded Canaan. In the measure in which they conquered
the Canaanite cities and passed on to agriculture, they left
tent life for fixed abodes. They believed in the direct action
of Yahveh. The Judges, who had administrative as well as
judicial powers, gave their judgments always in the name of
God, or Yahveh. They had no fixed sanctuary. They sac-
rificed on altars of unhewn stone wherever they saw fit.
" Human sacrifices were rare, but especially meritorious."
Yahveh worship was not without its images, sacred stones,
and trees. " The sanctuaries of the Canaanites were often
resorted to." The ark, the moving sanctuary of the time of
wandering, with its tablets of stone, was held in superstitious
reverence. The priests, besides managing the worship, were
soothsayers. Private people took omens. Divi-ning was
done by means of " holy lots," or of teraphim. The ecstatic
prophecy of the Canaanites was imitated. The armies were
held together by " vows," commanded by the " strongest
men," and disbanded at the death of the leaders, the Elders
commanding the contingents, which were kept separate.
They had neither the horsemen nor the chariots of their
more civilized neighbors. Writing had scarcely passed
beyond " cutting on wood and stone." It was not until the
end of this period that the code was reduced to writing,
probably in archaic Phoenician characters. There was no
permanent union of the tribes. " In times of danger, —
valiant men occasionally succeeded in getting together their
own and perhaps one or more neighboring tribes for common
resistance, and the authority thus gained would sometimes
pass to their sons within the tribe." ' The dialects used
varied between the tribes, and gesture-language was often
resorted to. The possession of the Promised Land by the
tribes was largely theoretical, however much Yahveh is sup-
posed to have supported them. The Midianites, who have
their prototype in the Bedouin Arabs of the present day,
1 For above facts, see Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology, "book VII., Hebrews
and Phoenicians.
486 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
were in the habit of making marauding expeditions from the
desert, " leaving no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor
ox, nor ass.'* Only in the mountain strongholds, in dens
and caves among the hills, could the people preserve their
lives and the produce of their fields. Gideon, who makes
his appearance in history " threshing wheat by the wine-press
to hide it from the Midianites," by his valor and military
genius rids the country from these invaders for a period of
forty years, driving them back into the Syrian desert. The
deep interest which God took in these battles is well under-
stood by the Christian world.
When Jephthah, the natural son of Gilead, was driven
from home by his brothers, he became a successful brigand, —
" a profession not destitute of honor in the East, if practised
in moderation and against national enemies." He was
chosen captain of the Israelitish forces in their opposition to
the Ammonites. He distinguished himself for diplomacy
and generalship, and was one of the greatest of the Judges,
because most successful in resisting the enemies of the tribes
of Israel. The compact which he made with God to sacrifice
the first innocent person who might come out of his house
to meet him, on condition that the Lord would help him to
slay the Ammonites, has become historical because the evil
fate fell upon his daughter. What can be clearer to the
Christian mind than the joy of the Lord upon the fulfilment
of Jephthah's vow, unless it is the satisfaction which the
Deity experienced at the human sacrifice offered on Calvary,
when, according to our illustrious scheme of salvation, the
sins of humanity were atoned for by the blood of Christ?
The respective pictures of Deborah uttering her judicial
oracles from her tent under a palm-tree in Mt. Ephraim, and
the natural statesman and patriot Samuel yielding at last to
the wish of the people to exchange the tribe-life, or Theo-
cratic Rule (?), for a more united and stable form of
government by nominating a king, open and close the
Heroic period, known as the time of the Judges. Then we
have the reign of Saul, with its comparative success over the
THE HEBREW RELIGION. 487
Philistines and the other enemies of Israel ; the conspiracy
of David, the genius of his rule, and the splendid failure of
Solomon, who impoverished the nation by his extravagances.
Then comes the period of the two kingdoms (about two
hundred and fifty years), during which nineteen dynasties
reigned in Israel, " few of whom succeeded to the throne
excepting by the murder of their predecessors." During
this period there is a succession of bloody civil wars, in which
Jehovah is made to take an active interest. The "will of
God " is represented by a line of Prophets, inaugurated by
Samuel, who seem to have derived their policy from the tra-
ditions of the tribal life or the theocratic regime established
by Moses. They seem to have been utterly unable to keep
the people from the grosser forms of nature and image-wor-
ship ; and the God of Israel as defined by these prophets is
systematically neglected. There is no doubt that the moral
influence of Moses and Samuel gives to the teachings of the
prophets a certain dignity and purity, but it is also clear that
the religions of surrounding nations which the prophets
characterized as heathen are not fairly judged in the Hebrew
scriptures ; for when we approach these religions through
other sources wre find that they contain a great deal that is
good, and that on the whole they compare very favorably
with the faith of the Hebrews.
All accounts agree that the Canaanites were far more civil-
ized than the invading Hebrews ; and we risk but little in
supposing that the gods they worshipped were as humane
and just as the God of Israel.
To follow the history of this remarkable people through
their four great captivities, their brief independence, and their
final absorption into the Roman Empire, would throw but
little additional light upon the origin of our religious beliefs.
When Alexander the Great, however, carried one hundred
thousand of the inhabitants of Jerusalem captive to Alex-
andria, an epoch of Hebrew culture began which accounts
almost entirely for the form Christianity has taken. Many
of the early Christian writers were these learned Israelites of
488 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Alexandria. To their speculative genius the elaborate creed
of the Gnostics is due, and it is to their religious thought
and feeling that we owe the fervent spirit of Judaism which
breathes throughout our civilization.
One of the best reasons for supposing that the Christian
civilization will be ranked as barbarous by the historians of
future races is the character of our sacred books. How it is
possible for us to believe that " the Jews were the people of
God," in the sense in which we use the word, or that the
Jewish conception of God was ever an exalted one, is as
great a mystery as that we should regard the Hebrew
scriptures with superstitious reverence, or as in any sense
divine.
For an understanding of these anomalies of religious
belief we must look to the study of the origins of Chris-
tianity.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST.
The Origin of the Faith — The Doctrines of Jesus — A Glance at the Present
State of Christianity in America.
THERE is a painting by Munkacsy called Christ Before
Pilate, which gives at a glance a more truthful conception of
the origin of Christianity than we might be enabled to form
by years of careful study. All the minute researches of the
great German theologians and religious historians of the
present century, which have done so much to distinguish for
us the historical from the ideal Christ, the critical studies of
Renan, the scholarly and eminently devout treatment of the
subject which such men as Channing, Parker, Frothingham,
Clarke, and Emerson have advanced, — all this great and good
effort to dispel the fictions and still retain for the world the
inspiration of Christianity has been voiced in this striking
picture. Confronting the Roman Judge, calm, thoughtful,
and determined, with blanched and even haggard face, a
coarse, uncouth dress, surrounded by clamorous adversaries
representing the different classes of the Jews of Palestine,
this man of Galilee awaits his fate. There is nothing ideal
about the picture. It carries us back to the event itself, and,
banishing for the instant the accumulations of superstition
through which we are accustomed to view it, gives us a
glimpse, startling but true, of what actually took place.
The art of the world has done its best to portray Jesus.
The resources of the human face have been exhausted to find
expressions of benignity, moral power, and sweetness, and all
the nobler attributes of manhood, in trying to do justice to.
489
49° THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
the portraits, real and ideal, of this great man. This artist
simply tried to tell the truth, and has surpassed them all.
Jesus as a man is immeasurably grander than as a God.
As a God, faith in him is so unnatural that it cannot be
reconciled with the better views of history, of science, and
of life ; but as a man he is one of the most commanding per-
sonages of our race.
When we criticise the writings which describe the life of
Jesus, our object is not to decide whether Christ was God,
but whether Jesus thotight that he was God, and what concep-
tion of Deity was possible to him. His education, his social
and moral surroundings, the ideals of the civilization to which
he belonged, were all factors in the conception which he
formed of God. His moral worth can only be estimated by
considering the time and circumstances of his life. Moral
character consists in an individual's relations to actual sur-
roundings. These surroundings are factors in his life, and
largely determine its quality. Many of the principles of so-
cial reform promulgated by the hero of the Gospels would
have been entirely out of place in such mature civilizations as
those of China, India, or Egypt, in the time of Jesus ; and they
have since been demonstrated to be utterly impracticable in
any civilization. But the ideals of personal purity which Jesus
advocated were based on a clearer and better view of life.
They had been taught in other nations ages before the time
of Jesus, and have invariably been found practical and benefi-
cent. There is every evidence which a sincere inquiry can
demand that the conception which Jesus formed of God was
cast in the mould of Israelitish thought and feeling, and was
an inevitable consequence of the circumstances and history
of his race. God to him was a person, not a principle. His
mind had been little exercised in those methodical classifica-
tions which the thoughtful in Egypt, Greece, and other na-
tions had carried to such perfection, and which constitute the
germ of modern science. Jesus was not only entirely uncon-
scious of the vast achievements of Greek culture, but he was
ignorant of the only truly liberal Jewish culture of his own
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 491
time. The beautiful philosophic essays of Philo, his contem-
porary, a representative Jew of Alexandria, in which we find
many moral and religious precepts at least equal in value to
the teachings of the Nazarene, were not only unknown to
Jesus, but belonged to a body of learning which was strictly
interdicted by the religious authorities of Palestine. The
virtues which we so much admire in the character of Jesus :
his deep-laid moral purpose, coming as it did from an earnest
and sincere nature, in which there is a constant play of the
broadest and most delicate human sympathies ; his patience
and cheerfulness under the hardships of poverty ; his stern
opposition to the hollowness and hypocrisy of the established
religion of his time, were not original with him, but had been
set as an example to the Jews by Hillel, the moralist and re-
former of fifty years before, who promulgated maxims which
correspond, to a marvellous extent, with the best teachings of
Jesus.
The atmosphere in which Jesus lived was charged with
mysteries and superstitions. His crushed race, unable to
maintain independence among the stronger nations sur-
rounding it, gave vent to pent-up feelings of sorrow and
vague hope by forming a religion which has few parallels in
history for passionate imagery and sublime selfishness. Ju-
daism is the religion of a race whose destiny is held to be of
much greater importance than that of the rest of humanity,
whose God is not only exclusive, but the violent enemy of
all other nations who for any reason oppose the Hebrews.
The canons of the sacred books of this religion were wrought
into a vast allegory, fantastic, provincial, unenlightened, and
breathing throughout a longing for some physical deliverer
who should re-establish the Jewish state and give to the
nation another lease of independence. That Jesus was not
unaffected by these longings for a national deliverer is
manifested in his life and teachings, as far as they can be
discerned through the mists which surround them. The im-
passioned dreams and eloquence of the prophets, the legends,
.such as the Book of Daniel, which professes to see in the rise
492 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
and fall of empires but movements in a great drama which
was being performed for the exclusive benefit of the Jews,
cannot but have inspired him with that Semitic dream of
dominion called the kingdom of God.
The countrymen of Jesus were continually looking forward
to a universal catastrophe, in which their deliverance was to
be the central figure. Nothing was lacking in the details
which their imaginations bestowed upon this looked-for
event. The most gorgeous cosmical phenomena were to ac-
company it, and to the mind of Jesus this programme, with all
its marvellous superstitions, appeared simple and natural.
" The earth to him appears still to be divided into kingdoms
which were at war ; he seems to be ignorant of the ' Roman
peace ' and the new state of society which his century inaugu-
rated. He had no precise idea of the Roman power ; the
name of l Caesar ' alone had reached him. He saw the build-
ing, in Galilee or its environs, of Tiberias, Julius, Diocesarea,
and Cesarea, — pompous works of the Herods, who sought by
these magnificent constructions to prove their admiration for
Roman civilization and their devotion to the members of the
family of Augustus, whose names, by a freak of fate, serve
to-day, grotesquely mutilated, to designate the wretched
hamlets of the Bedouins. * * * But this luxury of power, this
governmental and official art, was displeasing to him. What
he loved was his Galilean villages, confused medleys of
cabins, of threshing-floors and wine-presses cut in the rock,
of wells and tombs, of fig and olive trees. He always con-
tinued near to nature. The court of the kings seemed to
him a place where people wear fine clothes. The charming
impossibilities with which his parables swarm when he
puts kings and mighty men upon the scene prove that he
had no conception of aristocratic society save that of a
young villager who sees the world through the prism of his
own simplicity." *
The idea of immortality, as we use the word, was first
developed in Egypt. It was for a long time a stranger in
1 Renan : " Life of Jesus, " pp. 78, 79.
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 493
Palestine. Future life to the early Jews was the projection
of their natural life, just as to the man of science and phi-
losophy, future existence is the life of the human family
passing through its generations. The ancient Hebrew writ-
ings contain no trace of future rewards and punishments.
In the time of Jesus Judaism had its Sadducees, who main-
tained the old belief in the identity of body and soul, and
the Pharisees, who believed that the just would live again.
Between these parties or sects there was a controversy as to
the correct principle of immortality, the one teaching that
virtue should be its own reward, and the other that the soul
is immortal in order that it may be rewarded or punished.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as it is now
generally held by the different Christian sects, did not exist
among the Jews of the time of Jesus, but was an outgrowth
of the Pharisaic idea of the resurrection ; the theory of the
return of the just to Abraham's bosom, and of the New
Jerusalem, with all its minute plans, varying from a re-
organization of the nations of the world into a Jewish
kingdom of God, to a new world which was to follow a
season of universal wrath and destruction. It was a con-
firmed habit of the Jews of Palestine to torture the simple
narratives of the old Hebrew scriptures, in order to make
them yield all sorts of predictions concerning their race.
Messianism was the pre-occupying subject of the national
mind. The great principles of history were but poorly
appreciated, if understood at all, by the Jews of the time of
Jesus ; and yet we are confronted with the unwelcome but
incontrovertible fact, that their insufficient theories of life
form the groundwork of nearly all of our religious con-
ceptions. Into this narrow mould of Hebrew thought and
feeling the minds and characters of millions of our fellow-
countrymen are yearly cast, which accounts for much of the
moral and intellectual imbecility which we see about us.
Still we continue to teach the pernicious doctrine of future
rewards and punishments as an incentive for virtue ; still we
detract from the awful responsibilities, the high privileges of
494 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
the hour, by promising a future life which we are unable
even to describe ; still we advocate a philosophy of history
which represents all human events as the play of a divine
will (formed on the plan of human volition, with the differ-
ence that it feels no need of justifying itself).
Is it because the great Galilean taught us some precious
moral precepts that we feel bound to transplant the whole
genius of an undeveloped and benighted race into our new
civilization of humanity ? This exotic is so ill-suited to our
surroundings, so out of sympathy with the dearly-bought
experiences of our people, so unable to supply us with any
adequate principles of life, that our nation in the first flush of
youth is already showing startling symptoms of moral decay.
If we would see this disease fastened upon us, let us continue
to instil into American minds the pitiful views of life which
were dominant in Palestine during the first century of our
era, and which were largely assimilated by the mind of Jesus.
In order to distinguish Jesus from others of the same
name, he was called the son of Mary. His widowed mother,
soon after her husband's death, moved to Cana, a small town
about eight miles from Nazareth. Here Jesus plied the
trade of carpenter during his youth, and gradually developed
that character which afterward made him one of the greatest
of moral reformers ; great because his teachings have influ-
enced a vast civilization, although they contain nothing
either purer or higher than had been taught before. The
sublime earnestness and courage of the young prophet,
the pathos of his teachings, strongly appealed to the sim-
ple-minded people who flocked about him. His life and
sentiments have been made the beginning of a religion of
humanity, for this is what Christianity has tried to become.
Jesus lived in a time of moral reformers and prophets, and
belonged to a nation that had been accustomed to look for
its higher instruction to this class of men. Hillel will never
be considered the real founder of Christianity ; but he enun-
ciated aphorisms as lofty and pure as any to be found in
the Gospels. The great principles which Judaism had estab-
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 495
lished concerning " alms, piety, good works, gentleness, the
desire of peace, complete disinterestedness of heart," have
but been revived in Christianity. Jesus the son of Sirach,
Schemai'a, Abtalion, Schammai, Juda the Gaulonite, and
Gamaliel, were also prophets of the same people at nearly
the same time ; and their teachings, which constitute in great
part the Talmud, are incontestably of the highest moral
excellence. Jesus, therefore, was literally surrounded by
examples of the very life which he afterward chose. Going
about preaching to the multitude was not an innovation, but
a common practice, in his country and time. The idea of
the kingdom of God, which seems to have been the ruling
one of Jesus' life, is explained by him in many conflicting
ways. In no sense was it a clear and consistent conception.
The details change from time to time until it becomes im-
possible to fix upon more than the vaguest principles which
are common to all his descriptions of this ideal state. The
ruling sentiment in these descriptions seems to be a complete
subversion of the existing order of nature and society : the
first shall be last ; the poor shall inherit the earth. At all
events, the dream was Utopian, ideal in the extreme. The
shape that it took varied from that of a democracy, from
which all forms of authority and luxury were abolished, to a
kingdom of souls, whose only activity was to be the worship
of the Father. It is easy to read in these ideas of Jesus the
influence of his surroundings, the ominous Roman power
which he only partially comprehended, and to which he ren-
dered a disdainful submission ; the confusion in his mind of
the pastoral simplicity of the Galilean life with all virtuous
existence ; and the confusion also of governmental discipline,
of which he seems to have had but the crudest conceptions,
with wickedness and enmity to the power of God. Far
from appreciating the true sources of morality, Jesus taught
that this life was ordered by Satan, and that all its conditions
must change before the " children of heaven " could regard
it otherwise than as a tiresome ordeal. No thought of re-
generating the world through natural and existing agencies
496 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
'occurred to his mind. And, above all, there was not the
remotest appreciation of the fact that the feelings of love,
humanity, and justice, with which his pure soul was overflow-
ing, were as natural as the other beauties of nature which he
never ceased to admire. What could have convinced Jesus,
for instance, that the power of political organization, for
which he had so unfeigned a contempt, was merely a higher
phase of the very restraints which gave him control over his
own passions ? What could have convinced him that the
God whom he so sincerely imagined that he represented was
not a person full of the same emotions which he experienced,
but the principle of universal life ? What would have con-
vinced him that the drama of life which he saw from afar,
ignorant of its past, unconscious of its extent, was but the
passing procession of a universal empire of cause and effect ?
How narrow his conception of God, of life, of eternity!
How utterly unable was he to teach, excepting in the most
indirect manner, those civilizations which were contempo-
raneous with him, and which stretched far beyond the range
of his knowledge ! How much less able is he to instruct us
who live in a vastly more complicated world ; who know
that love is not so high a sentiment as that of humanity, nor
humanity, as that of justice ; who know that lives which
represent vast power of rank, of wealth, or of knowledge,
can be sublimely virtuous, touchingly humane, -supremely
just ; who know that submission to unjust political power is
not a virtue, but a crime ; who would scorn to pay to Caesar
his tribute, had we no voice in the imposition ; who, if we
are unjustly deprived of our coat, have no idea of enriching
the plunderer with another garment ; who, if we are struck
upon the right cheek, would straightway resist the assault
under the divine right of self-protection ; who, in a word,
see no virtue in a cringing humility which can come only
from a crushed political existence in which all natural feel-
ings of independence have to be exercised in an ideal world,
or postponed until a supernatural catastrophe inverts all
known relations. The gospel of Jesus is pathetic, when we
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 497
•consider the conditions of its birth ; but it is uninspiring to
our age, it is contradicted in the lives of all men and women
who can be said to have formed a true conception of the
dignity, the opportunities, and the responsibilities of life.
Who can overestimate the baneful influences of that favor-
ite plea of Jesus that the world is on the point of coming to
an end ? Although much ingenuity has been displayed in
explaining away this prediction by those who have perceived
its absurdity, it rings throughout the entire gospels ; it opens
and closes the Apocalypse ; it is not only the leading belief
of the first Christian centuries, but it was almost their whole
belief ; and it is by far the most important tenet of the first
sixteen hundred years of the Christian church. The con-
flicting opinions as to the time at which Jesus said this event
would take place are all lost in his assertion. " There be
some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they
see the Son of man coming in his kingdom " ; " This genera-
tion shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled."1
The source of this unmistakable belief can be traced to the
Jewish apocalyptic writings, upon which the overwrought
imaginations of the Hebrews of the century before Christ
had fed, until the whole nation lived in a morbidly unreal
world. The immediate consequences of this doctrine are to
be seen in the early Christian Apocrypha, which give us the
truest picture extant of the inward life of the new church.
These apocrypha were rejected by the Greek church at the
Council of Laodicea (A.D. 360), and since by all the Protes-
tant churches in England and America, excepting the Church
of England. They are too mystical and absurd to withstand
even the very pale light which has been allowed to enter our
sanctuaries. In repudiating this dream of Jesus, the Protes-
tant church has taken away the whole superstructure of his
teachings, and that which constituted the entire vitality of
Christianity during the first two Centuries of its existence.
1 Matt, xvi., 28 ; xxiii., 36, 39 ; xxiv., 34 ; Mark viii., 38 ; Luke ix., 27 ;
Tod., 32. See also Matt, x., 23 ; xxiv., xxv. entire ; Mark xiii., 30 ; Luke xiii.,
.35 ; xxi., 28, ft seq.; Matt, xvi., 24 ; Luke xii., 54-56 ; John xxi., 22, 23.
498 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Thus it is that the word Christianity has been made to do
service for all sorts of mutilated beliefs, until, in these days
of scientific and historical criticism, when culture and unbe-
lief have become convertible terms, we are calmly told that
Christianity does not necessarily imply a belief in the divin-
ity of Christ, a personal God, heaven or hell, baptism, the
scheme of salvation, or the sanctity of the church ; that Jesus
and his disciples, the early Fathers, all the Christian coun-
cils, the Bible, and every form of ecclesiastical authority,
were mistaken ; that they gave but symbolic utterances to
the great truths of a religion of humanity which is now
voiced in the language of science and thought ; that, had
all these mediums of Christian enunciation spoken more
plainly heretofore, they would not have been understood ;
but now that the world has been enlightened, Christianity
suffers nothing by accommodating itself to the latest in-
ductions of evolution, and by preaching not the gospel of
the Nazarene, but that of humanity. Whether this is an
utter rout of Christian dogma, or a disingenuous method of
retaining possession of the emoluments of a church after
renouncing its creed, we leave it to the fair-minded to judge.
Infinitely more respectable are those Christians who stand
or fall by an honest interpretation of the doctrines of Christ.
It is generally conceded that the beatitudes of Jesus con-
stitute the most beautiful part of his teachings.1 The Lord's
prayer, which is a manifest attempt to generalize supplica-
tion, to rescue it from grovelling particulars by asking for as
little as possible in the briefest manner, is a production which
it is literally impossible for Christians to justly estimate ;
for to them it has a mystical holiness which makes it appear
profane to criticise it.
The solemn injunctions of the sermon on the mount, when
analyzed, give us but familiar maxims of practical life, a few
1 It might be mentioned here that the English version of the New Testament
has far more literary form and charm than the original Greek has. This fortu-
nate accident has made the King James version a considerably more important
book than the original.
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 499
moral precepts, and some absurdities of Jewish law : " Ye
are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have lost his
savour," etc. ; " Ye are the light of the world " ; " Let your
light so shine before men," etc. ; " Whosoever shall say [to
his brother], Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire." Then
follows the beautiful injunction of forgiveness : " First be
reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
"Agree with thine adversary," or avoid lawsuits. "Thou
shalt not commit adultery," ' either in mind or in act ; which
emphasizes the subtle relation between thought and action,
either for good or for evil, and is therefore a most valuable
ethical suggestion. " If thine eye offend thee pluck it
out. * * * If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast
it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy
members should perish, and not that thy whole body should
be cast into hell." Some critics think that these injunctions
declare war against nature ; others, that they advocate a
rigid self-control. Then comes the declaration that divorce
from one's wife for any thing short of unfaithfulness is a
crime ; and again, " Whosoever shall marry her that is
divorced " also commits a crime. This is a social question
which has more than one side, and cannot be subjected to
any absolute rule without inflicting cruel injustice in some
cases. All oaths are said to be productive of evil. This is
also a question which has more than one side, and is open to
discussion. Then comes the command to suffer injustice
and injury without resistance ; which is so repugnant to our
ideas of duty that it finds no sincere adherents even among
the most devout Christians. The principle of forgiveness
and patience under trying circumstances, which we would
call making a virtue out of necessity, is beautifully expressed :
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you ; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
1 See Matt. v.
500 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
just and on the unjust." No one will deny that this spirit
can be exaggerated. The medium course, an equilibrium
between love and hate, aggressiveness and benevolence,
where both feelings are constantly under control, gives us
the best and most admirable characters. The injunction to
be modest in the exercise of virtues, not to advertise one's
own benevolence and piety, were canons of good taste in
ancient Egypt as they are in our own day. Our national
virtues of prudence and thrift, made necessary by our climate
and way of living, impel us to believe that to lay up no
treasures on earth would be a criminal neglect of our welfare
and that of others. We prefer to emulate the bee, not the
lily.
The great question of how much wealth an individual can
acquire without becoming immorally rich is one which we
are earnestly discussing, and which the sermon on the mount
has by no means settled. The virtue of singleness of pur-
pose, illustrated by the impossibility of " serving two mas-
ters " ; the injunction not to be hasty in judging others, but
rather to criticise ourselves, so aptly illustrated by the figure
of the mote in our brother's eye and the beam in our own ;
the invaluable advice not to " cast our pearls before swine,"
are particles of knowledge which we have no difficulty in
recognizing as human. " Seek and ye shall find ; knock and
it shall be opened unto you," are encouragements to effort
expressed in general terms ; and the figure of the bread and
the stone, and the fish and the serpent, are particular in-
stances. " The strait and narrow way which leadeth unto
life," is a beautiful aphorism, reminding us that virtue is
attainable only by self-discipline or intelligent restraint.
The false prophet or preacher, whom we are to recognize
by attending to his conduct rather than to his words, is a
familiar character in modern life ; and the warning of Jesus
in this particular, so far as his own church is concerned,
is on an equality with any of the evidences of his prophetic
vision.
This memorable sermon closes with the parable of " a wise
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 5<DI
man, which built his house upon a rock " ; which reminds us
that the author of " Gesta Christi " has neglected to affirm
that the universal prevalence of this rule in architecture is a
direct consequence of Christianity.
To return to the Beatitudes. Who can resist their gentle
influence ? They call up our earliest recollections of purity
and holiness. They contain a mother's accents, the solemn
voice of a pastor, the vague impressions and charms of re-
ligious devotions.
" Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven." " Blessed are they that mourn ; for they shall
be comforted." " Blessed are the meek ; for they shall in-
herit the earth."
The familiar melody of these words steals over the soul
like the music of the prayer in " Zampa," beguiling us away
from thought into a dream. Who will be cold enough to
measure their ethical value ? Let some one analyze these
sentences who has not been taught them by a Christian
mother; who has not suffered those terrible reactions to
which all thoughtful and earnest Christians of our time are
doomed.
A careful criticism of the New Testament by able and
conscientious scholars seems to have established the fact
that our knowledge of the life of Jesus rests principally
upon two original documents : first, his discourses collected
by the apostle Matthew ; second, the collection of the remi-
niscences of Peter concerning Jesus, which were transcribed
by Mark, who was a follower of Peter and had never seen
Jesus. The gospel of Luke is supposed to have been writ-
ten at the same time as the Acts of the Apostles, and by the
same author. This was soon after the siege of Jerusalem.
Clement of Rome, A.D. 100, and Justin Martyr, A.D. 139,
declare that Luke wrote under the general superintendence
of Paul, and all authorities agree that this gospel is a compi-
lation from anterior writings, and does not compare in
authority with that of Matthew or of Mark. With regard
to the gospel of John, suffice it to say that the best authori-
502 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
ties find many reasons for doubting its authenticity, so much
do the life and sayings of Jesus which it recounts differ
from those given in the synoptics. There is abundant mate-
rial in the other two gospels, however, to give us a clear idea
of the principal facts in the life of Jesus.
The greatest mistake that can be made in studying the
life of this great prophet is to attribute all that appears un-
natural and absurd in it, to mistakes or exaggerations in the
gospel narratives. It is quite common to hear people say
that Jesus never proclaimed himself God, in the sense in
which the Church uses the term ; that he never laid any
claim to supernatural powers, or made promises to his disci-
ples of position or power in heaven. In short, they reason
that, at all events, Jesus must have been an honest man, and
that because he was honest, he could not have done these
things ; therefore the accounts which declare that he did, are
false. Had Jesus lived in our time, these reasonings might
hold, but as he lived in an atmosphere of almost indescribable
ignorance and superstition, he believed many things about
himself which we are unable to understand, unless we enter
into his position, and remember the language, the literature,
the associations of his immediate people.
The narrative of the gospels, we are told by high authori-
ties, is substantially a true picture of what Jesus said, his
method of life and teaching, the people he associated with,
the places he visited, the claims he made for himself. The
miracles, of course, are fabulous, and are doubtless, in some
cases, attempts which Jesus made to exercise supernatural
or mystical powers which others would have persuaded him
that he possessed. The description which Renan gives of
the first converts which Jesus made among the fishermen of
Capernaum is a touching picture of the artless simplicity,
childlike ignorance, and admirable sincerity of a people who
were shut off from every means of enlightenment, and who
saw in the moral and humane purpose and the singularly
fascinating character of Jesus, what they were content to
believe was the realization of their national myth, the prom-
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 503
ised " Messiah," a prophet of God. We may look to the
Jewish sacred writings for the source of this belief ; for
those writings and the traditions of the Jews held a distinct
theory of a Messiah ; and once this Messiah was found, all
control over the credulity of the people was lost. Be-
tween the sacred writings, the traditions, and the words of
the Messiah himself, what theories about him could not be
advanced ? We are not surprised, therefore, to find Salome,
the mother of two of the disciples, taking Jesus aside and
inquiring about the places of honor that her sons were to
have in the kingdom of God ; nor that there were many and
bitter disputes among the disciples about the share of power
and glory which each was to enjoy when their master came
into power. The Christian church seems to have settled
these disputes among the disciples by assigning to each of;
the twelve a distinct standing and occupation. Was ever
such a picture of simplicity presented to the world (for th
foundation of a great religion), as a prophet decrying th
pride of the world and his most intimate pupils cultivating
the pride of heaven ! Does it not appear as though this
pride might be, after all, a very estimable sentiment, if sub-
jected to proper restraints ?
Nor was the kingdom of God merely a figure with Jesus.
He continually gave his disciples the most definite assurance
that they would sit near him on thrones, and govern the
twelve tribes of Israel in a kingdom which was soon to come
about. " The fundamental idea of Jesus was, from the first
day, the establishment of the kingdom of God. But this
kingdom of God, as we have already said, Jesus seems to
have understood in very different senses. At times he would
be taken for a democratic chief, desiring simply the reign of
the poor and the disinherited. At other times, the kingdom
of God is the literal accomplishment of the apocalyptic
visions of Daniel and Enoch. Often, finally, the kingdom of
God is the kingdom of souls ; and the approaching deliver-
ance is the deliverance by the spirit.'* " It is clear that such
a religious society, founded solely upon the expectation of
504 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
the kingdom of God, must be in itself incomplete. The first
Christian generation lived entirely upon expectations and
dreams. On the eve of seeing the world come to an end,
they thought useless all things which serve only to continue
the world. Property was forbidden.1 Every thing which
attaches man to earth, every thing which turns him aside
from heaven, was to be shunned. Although many disciples
were married, there was no marrying, it seems, after entrance
into the sect.8 Celibacy was decidedly preferred ; even in
marriage, continence was commended.3 At one time, the
Master seems to approve those who should mutilate them-
selves for the sake of the kingdom of God.4 He was in this
consistent with his principle."
Christianity, therefore, as Christ taught it, was, according
to overwhelming evidences, a community of Latter-Day
Saints, as Buddhism was at first a society of monks and nuns.
In both cases the theologies, or subsequent elaborations of
belief, have made these faiths applicable to wider fields.
The rite of baptism, or ablution, is of very high antiquity.
All degrees of superstition were attached to it by the nations
of the East. Long before the appearance of the anchorite
John the Baptist in Judea, baptism was an ordinary cere-
mony on the introduction of proselytes to the Jewish
church. There was much less originality in the procedures
of John the Baptist, therefore, than one would suppose from
simply reading the descriptions of his marvellous doings
and his success in making converts, which we find in the
gospels.
The despair of the Jews in reflecting upon their national
destiny caused them to seize upon any thing that promised
a deliverer; the lives of the ancient prophets were con-
spicuous figures in their history. Representing the God of
Israel, criticising the course of kings, and advocating the
1 Luke xiv., 33 ; Actsiv., 32, et seq. ; v., i-ii.
a Matt, xix., 10, etseq.; Lukexviii., 29, et seq.
8 This is the constant doctrine of Paul. Comp. Rev. xiv., 4.
4 Matt, xix., 12.
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 505
policy of the Theocracy, these prophets had risen to the level
of supernatural beings in the minds of the Hebrews.
Elias was considered the greatest of the prophets. He
who dwelt in " the solitude of Carmel, sharing the life of
wild beasts, living in caves of the rocks, whence he emerged
like a thunderbolt, to make and unmake kings," had become
their ideal deliverer; and when John the Baptist, imitating
the rigorous life and methods of Elias, appeared in the wil-
derness of Judea, a loud-voiced reformer denouncing the rich
priests, the Pharisees, the Doctors, and all official Judaism,
the despised classes naturally enough flocked to him. The
prejudices of the aristocratic Jews were set at naught by the
loud assertion of John that God could create "children of
Abraham out of the stones of the highway." So democratic
a notion could hardly fail of applause among the oppressed
classes.
Jesus was a very obscure man when he first heard of this
evangelist preaching in the wilderness. A few disciples
had gathered around him, and with these, and others who
followed from curiosity, he went to hear John. In pursuance
of his method of baptizing every one who would submit to
the ceremony, as an initiation to his band of followers, John
immediately baptized Jesus and his disciples.
Renan tells us that the great service which John rendered
was that of " substituting a private rite for the ceremonies of
the law to which the priests were essential, much as the
Flagellants of the middle ages were the precursors of the
Reformation, by taking away the monopoly of sacraments
and of absolution from the official clergy. The general tone
of his sermons was harsh and severe. The expressions which
he used against his adversaries appear to have been of the
most violent character. They were rude and incessant in-
vective. It is probable that he did not remain aloof from
politics. Josephus, who almost touched him through his
master Banou, hints this in hidden phrase, and the catastro-
phe which put an end to his days seems to suppose it."
After, as before, the mystic rite of baptism, the disciples of
506 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Jesus remained distinct from those of John, but between the
two young leaders ' a friendship sprang up so that they
remained together for some time.
When Jesus returned to Galilee, he also began to practise
the popular rite of baptism, and soon his baptism was sought
almost as much as John's. We are told that the Jordan, for
a considerable distance, was covered on either side with
baptists, whose discourses met with greater or less success ;
which gives an idea of the amount of time people had in
those days to devote to religious observances.
The arrest of John, who was a railer against the established
powers, was to have been expected, and his tragic end is
known as one of the dark crimes of history. Some believed
him to be the expected Messiah, others thought that he was
Elias risen from the dead : both were very common super-
stitions among the Jews of Palestine at the time. The sect
which John established, and which still survives, entertained
the latter belief. That the reformer Jesus was believed in
by the common people and rejected by the educated classes,
and finally, like John, put to death for the sedition, however
pacific it may have been, which his teachings spread, is
not to be wondered at, when we consider the religious and
political state of Palestine at that time.
The incidents of the death of Jesus can never be appreci-
ated when viewed from a superstitious standpoint. All
our natural feelings of admiration for the great devotion of
this man to his principles, are perverted by the contradic-
tions and absurdities which postulate him as a God of
infinite power. It is the man, not the God, upon whom
we look with admiration and sympathy ; nor can we regard
his actions as perfect during the closing days of his career.
There is a certain recklessness and aimlessness about
them, which it is difficult to harmonize with a lofty and
calm intelligence. They irresistibly suggest the blind self-
1 The best authorities declare John's age to be about the same as that of
Jesus, although some writers have endeavored to make the former appear much
older.
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 507
abnegation of the fanatic. We may safely admire, however,
the firmness which enabled him consciously to submit to his
cruel fate ; for there are many reasons for believing that like
Socrates he deliberately chose to die in order to emphasize
and immortalize the principles which he had so faithfully
advocated. Most justly did he estimate 'the power which
such an example would have upon the world. What can
be a more eloquent assertion, than the position which his
name has held for so many centuries, of the humanity of the
man, of his unselfishness, and (in the true sense) of his divine
inspiration? For these qualities are merely other names
for an appreciation of the vast power of moral influence,
a vision of the utter dependence of man for happiness upon
the highest principles of life.
Jesus had been a source of endless trouble to the conserva-
tive religious party at Jerusalem. Coming from the prov-
ince of Galilee, followed by ignorant enthusiasts, who actu-
ally believed they were supporting the mythical Messiah of
their nation, there is no language to express the hatred and
contempt which these pretensions inspired in the haughty
official classes at Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was indeed an " unbelieving city " to Jesus. A
council convened by the high-priest discussed whether Juda-
ism and Jesus could both live. Such was his popularity
among the common people, that the question answered
itself. They decided upon his arrest, knowing that, once in
the hands of the law, they could do with him as they pleased ;
for the acquiescence of the Roman magistrate in the judicial
decisions of this fanatical people, when the question at issue
was one among themselves, could be counted upon. Jesus
came to Jerusalem from Bethany. This, according to the
fourth gospel, was after the miracle of Lazarus had been
noised abroad, and had given him a still greater importance
in the minds of his followers. It is to be remembered, how-
ever, that the raising of Lazarus is not mentioned in the
synoptic gospels. The feast of the Passover was allowed to
pass by the conspiring party, as they feared a riot ; but on
508 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
the following night, aided by the perfidy of one of the dis-
ciples, he was apprehended. On entering Jerusalem, and up
to the time of his arrest, he seemed to be perfectly aware of
the danger which threatened him. He knew that he had
powerful enemies, and that they had been driven to despera-
tion by the anarchical influences of his teachings. This same
party had caused the brother of Jesus, called James, to be
stoned but a short time before, under circumstances not
unlike those attending the death of Jesus ; and there is no
doubt that the defenders of the ancient religion had the
precedent of law, and the authority of their own consciences,
to support them in the course which they pursued.
In thus tracing to the simple events in the life of Jesus the
chief beliefs of Christianity, philosophy has accomplished its
task. The principles of knowledge have nothing to do with
the internal disputes of a religious organization.
No sooner was the body of Jesus laid away in his sepulchre
than these disputes began, and the tale of blood and misery
that has followed them proclaims their inhumanity. Whether
the popes of Rome were the true representatives of Peter,
the Galilean fisherman, or whether the liturgy now used in
the Church of England was employed at the Last Supper ; l
whether the theology invented by the Alexandrians is Roman
Catholic or Protestant ; whether forms of worship should be
complex or simple, artistic or rude ; whether the wars of the
Reformation, the cruelties of the Inquisition, or the narrow-
ness of Puritanism, are Pagan or Christian, or what consti-
tutes the exact difference between Paganism and Christianity,
are questions which in no sense depend for their solution
upon the knowledge of the scope of language or the nature
of perception. Even to feel interested in them requires a
party spirit which is entirely outside of philosophy. The
initial error of Christianity, its conception of God, is to be
found in the mind of Jesus, and is clearly a product of the
Hebrew life and religion. Through this medium the super-
1 I recently heard a sermon by a young Episcopal clergyman, which aimed to
establish this doctrine.
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. $09
stitions of prehistoric times have been disseminated through-
out our civilization, and we thus have the terrible conscious-
ness of not only inheriting the conceptions of savages, but of
regarding them as divine.
The most striking examples of ignorance which we meet
are sometimes the most instructive. When we find a mind
of average intelligence ignorant of very important facts of
history, we naturally conclude that the society in which
that mind has been developed is, in a measure, dead to the
influence of these facts. I once heard an intelligent business
man, who had lived in one of the principal towns of Con-
necticut for the greater part of his life, say, that Roman
Catholics were not Christians. When he saw the surprise
which his remark occasioned, he qualified it by saying that
they were not recognized as Christians by the Protestant
denominations. The ignorance of the true history and na-
ture of Christianity which this opinion demonstrated pre-
vails to a greater extent among even cultivated Americans
than one would readily believe. The wars and controversies
which have marked the relations of the Roman and Protes-
tant branches of the church are so interwoven with the his-
tory of Europe during the last four centuries, — the opposition
between these parties has become so deeply rooted, — that
they are both physically incapable of seeing how very little
difference there is between them. The pomp and ceremony
of Christian worship, which were, for the most part, devised
as a means of attracting and converting the barbarians of
Europe who overcame the Roman Empire, do not fail still
to charm and please the ritualists of England and hundreds
of fashionable congregations in this country. The art of this
worship is imitated, as far as denominational precedents will
allow, by the great majority of the ultra-Protestant sects.
Thus the power of art asserts itself in worship as in every
other sphere of life. The differences to be found between
the theologies of Roman and Protestant Christianity are in-
significant, simply because all legitimate Christian theology
was formulated long before the church was divided. The
510 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
great lights of Protestantism, therefore, as is well known, are
not dissenters from the fundamental canons of Christian
theology, but from certain minor details of worship and
belief, and from certain methods of ecclesiastical govern-
ment, which to their minds had wrought harm to the
church and to the world. It is the ambition of both
these great branches of Christianity to go back to the time
of Christ and his apostles for the authority for all their
beliefs and practices, and as a consequence they vie with
each other in torturing the significance of the simple events
of the life of Jesus. When, therefore, through the agency
of historical criticism, the veil is lifted from the first acts
in the drama of Christianity, and we see a man of high moral
purpose, but many delusions, employing imperishable moral
principles and narrow, inadequate ideas of life in the forma-
tion of a religion, we can see how truly the errors of
Christianity have emanated from Christ himself ; and we
can see that all the great principles which enter into the
formation of a true religion were powers in the world
long before his time, or even the beginning of that civ-
ilization of which his mind was so faithful a type.
But let us look around us and see to what extent Chris-
tianity is really believed in, in America.
On every hand we hear apologies for Christian beliefs, and
these apologies are growing more frequent, more elaborate,
more sweeping in their renunciation of the old faith. Promi-
nent among the more recent of these is an article by the
Rev. Dr. J. H. Rylance, in The North American Review of
January of the past year, entitled " Theological Readjust-
ments." " No intelligent man," says Dr. Rylance, " believes
now in the right or the competence of the church to impose
the opinions of her scholars, touching matters of which
they were often densely ignorant, as articles of belief,
upon the reason and conscience of mankind. All men
of right reason concede to-day that modern science must
therefore be left free to prosecute its researches whitherso-
ever it will, and to formulate the results at which it may
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. $11
arrive ; the church accepting in a spirit of proper submission
all such discoveries and conclusions as shall be shown to be
duly authenticated ; theology accommodating its prescrip-
tions and demands accordingly." This is a graceful admis-
sion that religion is but an aspect of knowledge, that it
enjoys no special privileges in matters of belief, that its facts
must accord with the universal canons of truth ; an admission
which it would seem impossible to question, and still which
is fatal to all those special revelations and other mysteries
upon which the Christian faith absolutely depends.
Touching the absurdities of Christian theology, of which
it must be admitted that Jesus was, for the most part, inno-
cent, the same writer says : " We must not confound the
speculations of our scribes with the doctrines of the Divine
Master ; for this confusion, the Christian church is responsi-
ble, in claiming equal reverence from men, for the speculations
as for the doctrines."
But what is the nature of these doctrines of the Divine
Master ? Will they bear criticism any better than the " specu-
lations of the scribes " which have been regarded by all
Christians until very recently as inspired ? Is it not fair to
ask whether there were not many " matters " of which Jesus
was " densely ignorant," and whether his theories of the
"kingdom of God" were not speculations? Is it fair to
apply the methods of a conscientious criticism to the writings
of all the great and good men who have contributed to the
mass of Christian beliefs, and to fail to apply the same tests
of truth to the teachings of the first prophet of Chris-
tianity? Can any one read the "DOCTRINES" which Jesus
promulgated without detecting in them the elements of
thought or speculation ? No theological readjustments can
ever harmonize the doctrines of Jesus with the knowl-
edge of life which our age possesses, however earnestly such
a result may be wished for. Instead of "theological read-
justments," the Christian church must crumble away under
the weight of its venerable untruths, and it behooves the true
men and women who belong to it to prepare for the change.
512 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
No one can listen to the best class of Christian preachers
in this country without being impressed with the fact that the
conception of God is gradually becoming purified among us;
— that it is assuming the form of an ultimate generalization.
Cultivated or sensitive minds naturally shrink from the logi-
cal sin of attributing the limits of personality to a conception
which unites the infinite and the absolute.
I remember recently listening to a sermon by a Christian
minister (a Congregationalist) upon the worthlessness of
repentance itself. The discourse aimed at exposing the false
belief, so prevalent among Christians, that a mere state of
mind which the world calls regret, has any intrinsic value.
This minister argued that morality is righteous action, not a
subjective state, and that it is demoralizing to teach that any
thing short of actual reform is meritorious, or that any
amount of repentance can cancel even the slightest sin. All
repentance which falls short of this standard of action is
imaginary, and a mere mockery of virtue. This man was
an indifferent speaker, but his words had the ring of common
sense, and carried conviction. He was unconsciously preach-
ing the religion of philosophy, — that life is action, not
imagination, and that God must be worshipped through
deeds, not words. It was observable that every reference he
made to God was purely an ultimate generalization — a fact
expressed in terms as far as possible removed from particu-
lars. He no doubt would have been very much surprised
had he been told that his simple, manly discourse (which
had nothing of the metaphysical about it) was a very ac-
ceptable solution, from a practical standpoint, of the great
problem of the categories of thought, and that his words
had impeached in unanswerable terms the mysticism of
Christianity.
The deepest truths assert themselves through the senti-
ments, long before they are clothed in symmetrical language
and receive a definite form.
If we would get into difficulties with theologians, we have
but to demand of them a more refined and logical expression
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. $13
of their beliefs than they are capable of giving. If we would
live in harmony with them, we must submit to the more
sensuous expressions of truth to which they are accustomed ;
for instance, Mr. Clarke, in trying to justify the practice
of conceiving God as a person, says : " No doubt there
is anthropomorphism in Moses. But if man is made in
God's image, then God is in man's image too ; and we
must, if we think of him as a living and real God, think of
him as possessing emotions like our human emotions of love,
pity, sorrow, anger, only purified from their grossness and
narrowness. Human actions and human passions are, no
doubt, ascribed by Moses to God. A good deal of criticism
has been expended upon the Jewish Scriptures by those who
think that philosophy consists in making God as different
and distant from man as possible, and so prefer to speak of
him as Deity, Providence, and Nature. But it is only be-
cause man is made in the image of God that he can revere
God at all. Jacobi says that ( God, in creating, theo-
morphizes man; man, therefore, necessarily anthropomor-
phizes God.' And Swedenborg teaches that God is a man,
since man was made in the image of God. Whenever we
think of God as present and living, when we ascribe to him
pleasure and displeasure, liking. and disliking, thinking, feel-
ing, and willing, we make him like a man. And not to do
this may be speculative theism, but is practical atheism." !
Here is the plain assertion from an eminent American theo-
logian, that we have the choice of denying God or of regard-
ing him as a person. The authority Mr. Clarke has for
placing the world in this dilemma is the familiar dictum that
" man is made in the image of God." The most cursory ex-
amination of the facts of morphological development, how-
ever, compels us to extend this comparison to so many
species of the vertebrate kingdom, that the argument loses
all force. The image of man is one of the most prosaic facts
in nature. As we succeed in tracing the peculiarities of
his structure to the simplest mechanical laws, we find it more
1 " Ten Great Religions," vol. I., p. 416.
514 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
and more difficult to perceive any mystery in the human
form. " This fundamental tenet of theology " may imply a
vast compliment to the Deity, but if this is so, why should art
so invariably endeavor to represent the movements of " divine
beings " as independent of those laws which are so faithfully
expressed in our physical developments ? Does not this
show that our ideals of the Universal Principle naturally
rebel against the tendency to confine them within the limits
of the statical or structural aspect of life ?
Some years ago, a large and influential congregation in one
of our Western cities was presided over by a minister who was
celebrated for his ability. The mind of this man was cast in
the mould of Presbyterian theology, but his sentiments were
so elevated and his culture so liberal, that he was continually
trying to push out of sight the infelicitous and angular beliefs
of his sect in the hope of making religion more attractive
and instructive to his people. He believed in Christ, a per-
sonal God, and the immortality of the soul ; but in a manner
so indefinite that his teachings could not be made to conform
to the type of theology which he was supposed to uphold.
A sort of modern inquisition was therefore organized, and he
was excommunicated. This greatly increased his popularity.
Some of his own people followed him, many others joined
them, and he has preached to a full house ever since. His,
friends are unable to define his religious beliefs ; which is
very good evidence that he is unable to do so himself ; and
yet, they feel that they are morally and intellectually bene-
fited by hearing him. Such is the power of a good life, such
is the influence of example in thought and feeling, that one
need not be categorical in order to teach the highest truths.
The beautiful church-building remained, however, and the
congregation maintained its organization by filling the places*
of the absentees with people of more definite, if not truer,
conceptions of God. They called different ministers, but for
various reasons they did not stay ; and at last a committee of
the church decided to get a regular orthodox man, — one
who knew what he believed, and who believed the creed of
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 515
their church. They found the man. He was minister-
ing over a faithful flock in the East, and had won a reputa-
tion as a stout defender of the faith. They called him. He
declined. Then such was their longing to be freed from the
unrest of unsettled religious belief, that they went and took
him almost by force. To look at him, you would have
thought that he was a great teacher, and, in a way, he was.
A craggy countenance, with lines and ridges which laughed
at all kinds of opposition, lighted by moral purpose and
self-discipline. He was a man of convictions, and, if unable
to convince others, he was, at all events, utterly incon-
vincible himself. He preached Christ crucified, as a means
of salvation for all who believed in him, and perdition
to those who did not. This scheme of salvation was laid
down in detail, and was declared to be the central feature of
existence. The Bible was sacred and absolutely true. God
was a person of alternate wrath and love, to be propitiated,
loved, and obeyed. Christ was God, not metaphysically, but
actually. God was infinite and absolute ; to know him
was eternal life, providing we knew Christ also ; but this
latter knowledge was of a peculiar kind, partaking more
of blind trust than deliberate conviction. Actions were of
no avail, excepting the action of belief, or faith, which must
be pure and free from personal motives, and yet the in-
centive was declared to be the desire to save ourselves from
eternal perdition. This and many other eminently logical
doctrines the good man preached. He was not only con-
sistent, but aggressive, championing the cause of Christian
faith against all assailants. His congregation at first rallied
about him in admiration of his firmness and courage ; then
some of the gentlemen began to lose interest, and sought
other kinds of instruction on Sunday morning. The children
became less frequent at church, and at last the faithful
women lost heart under the terrible monotony of his appeals.
The committee then saw their mistake; and finally their
pastor, one of the most prominent examples of Christian for-
titude in America, resigned his post. He was an accom-
5l6 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
plished man in many ways, and not an ungraceful speaker ;
but he was so honest in expounding Christianity, that he
became repugnant to the most devout Christians.
There was a Unitarian minister, who held his charge for
many years, also in a great Western city. He was highly
esteemed at home and abroad. At last he yielded to per-
suasion and went to another church. His congregation was
desolated, and in vain, attempts were made to fill his place.
Candidates succeeded one another, but to no avail. The
deep-minded man, schooled in Germany, and having great
resources of metaphysics at his command ; the earnest man,
who preached about the beauty of the mind, and in fact the
beauty of every thing ; the fiery reformer, who sought to
voice modern thought in Christian metaphor ; the man of
wide scientific acquirements, who could beguile the mind
away from too difficult questions by employing such ultimate
terms as God, life, and eternity, so deftly as to produce no
noticeable logical discords ; — all these failed to please. At
last came a man of great organizing power, who declared
that the church was a society for ethical culture, for social
and moral co-operation and encouragement, and that the
object was not to agree upon religious beliefs, but to promote
the amenities of every-day life. This man was accepted, and
at once created an interest. A year afterward I heard him
preach his anniversary sermon to a large congregation. After
a description of his methods and aims, which were almost
entirely confined to the details of parish work, he declared
that morality and religion were separate departments of
life ; that if by any act of his he could make all his congre-
gation of one mind with regard to religion, he would with-
hold the act for fear of destroying their individuality. I
could not help thinking that it was fortunate he had sepa-
rated religion from morality, for otherwise he would have
been obliged to advocate the same confusion in ethical,
as in religious principles. Upon asking one of the most
enlightened members of the congregation what he thought
<of this separation, he replied that it was perfectly right ;
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. $17
that there was no use in trying to make people agree upon
the ultimate questions of religion, and that the usefulness of
the church was quite independent of religious belief. Wish-
ing to discover whether this wonderful independence of the
benign influences of divine unity of life and mind was any
thing more than a compromise with difficulties, I asked a
young lady of the same congregation whether all Unitarians
were not agnostics. She seemed very much surprised at the
question, and replied that she thought scarcely any of them
were. I then asked her to define agnosticism, to which she
replied that she had understood, it signified a want of faith in
any knowledge, which was not confirmed by the senses. I
then asked her if all our knowledge and all our beliefs were
not indissolubly connected with the evidences of the senses.
A gentleman present suggested that the Unitarians believed
in an infinite God, but as the mind was finite, we could not
understand this infinite God, we could only believe in him.
I then asked him if this was not pure agnosticism, or ancient
skepticism ; for how can there be any belief that is indepen-
dent of the understanding ? In a word, we cannot believe
in God and not know him. Agnosticism is simply the asser-
tion of the unreality of human knowledge ; and Unitarians,
like the skeptics of old and the agnostics of our day, may
think it impossible to unite life and mind, or morality and
religion, in a divine synthesis ; but no argument can remove
the fact that the deepest need of life is the realization of
this harmony.
A short time before this I visited an Episcopal church,
accompanied by a friend who was a devout member. We
heard the minister read, in impressive tones, the story of
Daniel in the lions' den, then the parable of the lord who
forgave his servant a debt of about twenty million dollars
(10,000 talents), and was outraged because the released
debtor imprisoned some one else who owed him eighteen
dollars (10 pence) ; whereupon the lord delivered the unfor-
giving man "to the tormentors until he should pay all."
At the allotted time in the service, the following declaration
518 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
of belief was made in a solemn manner by the congregation,
who bore every evidence of being cultivated and sincere peo-
ple, capable at least of understanding that, with a well-ordered
mind, knowledge and belief should be the same thing: — •
" I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven
and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ; who
was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary ;
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried ;
he descended into hell ; the third day he rose again from the
dead ; he ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand
of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to
judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the for-
giveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life
everlasting. Amen." Imagine the knowledge which such a
stupendous belief as this should require !
The text was Matt, xviii., 22 : "I say not unto thee, until
seven times, but, until seventy times seven."
A picture of divine forgiveness was drawn according to the
ideals of holy writ. We were told that God reckoned with
us as he reckoned with Nineveh when Jonah walked its
streets ; that there was a limit to the forgiveness of God, al-
though the figure of the text and the enormous debt can-
celled by the lord in the parable made it appear practically
infinite. " We are hopeless debtors to God," continued the
minister, " by the fact of our existence." " God's forgiveness
was given to Christ for all the world, and by the death of
Christ, God's reckoning with his son was satisfied ; but his
reckoning with us is not satisfied, unless we accept this for-
giveness. Now, how is this acceptance to be made ? By
believing that Christ is God, and by forgiving others as we
are forgiven." "Thus the principle of reckoning is com-
pleted throughout the divine economy, and in accordance
with the same principle * Ye shall be judged without mercy
who do not show mercy.' '
I looked around to see what effect this reasoning had upon
the minds of those present. No one seemed to show any
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. 519
signs of discontent, or surprise, or even to be conscious that
they were listening to about as grovelling a theory of the
universe and the relations of God to man as it would be
possible to imagine. Who could help seeing that the whole
scope of the religious thought and feeling pictured by this
minister hardly rose above the emotions experienced in an
ordinary business transaction? Excellent feelings, no doubt,
but hardly general enough to serve for a religion. While
walking home, I asked my friend whether he believed the
creed that he had recited. He replied rather dejectedly:
" I am supposed to." Nothing more was said upon the
subject, but I felt very deeply that it was not real religion
that I had seen, but only the dead form of what was once a
religion, and that it was preserved, not because it was really
believed in, but because those who professed it knew of
nothing better.
It is hard to deal with these facts with the reverence
which the religious knowledge of the age imperatively
demands; for the knowledge of religion among Christians
has hardly risen, as yet, above the intangible form of sen-
timent ; hence the almost universal separation of what
-should be the same thing — knowledge and belief. The
least we can do, however, is to demand that the sentiment
of religion shall be elevated above the commonplaces
of life, and that the relations of man to God shall not
be illustrated by inadequately conceived commercial transac
tions.
What is the sentiment of Religion? What, after all, is
this feeling of adoration which springs alike from the savage
and the civilized breast, — this religious impulse expressed in
so many ways, animating the whole human race? Is it not
that view of life which accompanies the thought or worship
of God? Whether the Mussulman cries to Allah from the
minarets that dot his empire, or the Angelus summons the
Christian worshipper to prayer ; whether the canticles of
praise are intoned in the gorgeous cathedrals of Europe, or
the patient minister doles out his quota of theology from
520 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
the unassuming pulpits of America ; is not that which remains
constant in it all, after the historical particulars of each faith are
laid aside, a thought of human life magnified by the thought
of God ? How striking that savage men should attempt this
great induction ! How natural that civilized men, of every
race and nation, should imagine, each in his own sphere, that
he has perfected it, and that his thoughts of life and God are
as broad and intelligent, as humane and true, as they should
be ! How little any of us appreciate the development of
which these higher sentiments are capable !
Those who discover in religions logical infelicities, and are
without the grand inspiration of faith, pit their undeveloped
facts against the sublime force of religious sentiment, and
wonder that the world of faith does not capitulate. Those
who have learned religion by rote, and are powerless to dis-
tinguish symbols from ideas, regard others who are outside
their special beliefs as severed from them, in the purest and
highest of human relationships, the sympathies of devotion.
And thus we have powerful elements of discord counteract-
ing the benefits of faith and the moral force of knowledge ;
elements of discord which will only yield to the commanding
synthesis of a universal religion.
On a beautiful morning during the past autumn, while en-
joying an early walk, I came in view of a church, which, from
the side approached, had a somewhat sombre and forbidding
appearance. The masonry was of granite, and massive, the
windows small and apparently insufficient to light such a
structure, and the walls flanking the corners were embrasured
in a way that gave a vague idea of defence. The front of
the building was in the Grecian style, with fluted columns
running to the roof, which was surmounted by towers and a
dome of no mean proportions.
Although it was Monday morning after eight o'clock, the
doors were open and the voices of the choir were audible in
the street. Atttacted by the strange contrast presented by
the bustle of the beginning week, children going to school,
men hurrying to business, and this unusual worship, I en-
THE RELIGION OF CHRIST.
tered and found myself in the Roman Catholic Cathedral
of Baltimore.
The priests and acolytes were celebrating mass ; the
worshippers were few and scattered throughout the audi-
torium. The measured tones of the celebrant rose and
fell, and the responses of the choir and organ re-echoed the
invocation and praise.
Although conscious of the surrounding art, I was im-
pressed. The calculations of the effect of light and sound
were plainly visible, but scarcely interrupted the dreamy
revery which the place invited. The picturesque robes of
the priests called to mind the reforms made by Michael
Angelo in sacerdotal vestments ; the flaming crucifix, the
swinging censers and ascending incense, the altar bells, the
holy sacrament, and the movements of the priests, all sug-
gested the worship of a civilization thousands of years an-
terior to Christ ; but this only increased the interest of the
ceremony and added to its mysterious charm. Still there
was an earnestness about it which was unusual, and bending
forward I perceived a pall-covered coffin lighted by candles
at the extremity of the aisle, and suddenly realized that I
was witnessing the solemn ritual of the dead.
There lay a human being, — whether man, or woman, or
child, I knew not, but as far as humanity was concerned it
was dead. Yet how unwilling the mourners would have
been to admit this indisputable fact !
If there is any language in motions, the attitude of the
congregation and the movements of the priests bespoke sup-
plication to some power, propitiation of some will. They
were praying that the soul of the departed might pass
safely through purgatory and thence ascend to heaven, the
realm of eternal bliss.
I knew that all I saw about me, from the massive cathe-
dral, with its wealth of symbols and devotional devices, to
the thoughts and feelings of the worshippers, were the
consequence of beliefs, and that these beliefs were so far re-
moved from the facts for which they stood as to be prac-
"522 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
tically untrue ; and yet the ceremony so harmonized with
the natural feelings of commiseration for the bereaved that
it was almost a pleasure to take part in it.
Then I wandered from the scene, and through the medium
of memories retraced the development of our feelings toward
the dead. I thought how, in those areas of humanity which
the tides of civilization have passed by, where man has pre-
served that mental and moral condition which preceded all
social reform, and language has remained so undeveloped as
to admit of scarcely any generalizations, the belief in the
existence of a soul after death is almost without exception ;
how the advancing definiteness of language, following upon
enlarged human experiences, or the actions and reactions of
civilizations, has made possible the distinction between
the idea of individual and of general existence, — between
the idea of personality and of God. Then I asked myself :
Would it be possible to impart to these worshippers this
higher knowledge of life, to teach them the religion of phi-
losophy? And the purity and sincerity of the surroundings,
and the deep significance of the occasion, answered, Yes.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY.
An Ultimate Analysis Essential to an Understanding of Morality — The Scope
of Moral Perceptions — The Effect upon Conduct of the Belief in a Personal
God and a Future Life — Language and Intelligence as Factors in Morality
— The Origin of the Idea of Duty or Obligation — The Questions of Personal
and of National Purity.
AT the very outset of the great problem of morality we
have need of a knowledge of the limits of language and the
nature of perception ; for we cannot proceed until we de-
termine the relation of thought or individuality to general
existence. In this problem, above all others, a most
delicate and accurate understanding of ultimate terms is
required. Universal life or divine existence must be dis-
tinguished from human life taken as a whole, and the sum of
human life must be distinguished from individual existence.
Thought must be recognized as the relation of humanity to
God, and language as the vehicle of this relationship. In-
dividual life or conduct, it must be remembered, is not an
ultimate fact ; for God is the ultimate fact, in which all lines
of thought and feeling converge. Hence we must not seek
to express conduct in ultimate terms, but rather to show
that each action has a place in the unity of life. It is by
this analysis alone that actions can be properly classified,
that conduct can be truly estimated. It will not do to
say that God inspires goodness or that sin is opposed to
God ; for if we insist upon identifying goodness with God
we are compelled to call all activity good, and the distinc-
tion we would make is lost in an ultimate generalization.
Good, to have any meaning, must signify less than God or
523
524 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
general existence ; it must be a relative term, employed to-
designate the sum of human life.
The conventional way of studying morality has been to
divide conduct into four classes of relations, — the relations
of the individual to God, to nature, to man, and to
himself. These divisions, it can be seen at a glance, are
superficial ; they are all included in the first and also in
the second, and the third and fourth include each other,
leaving us but one moral relationship which it is possible
to express, — to perceive or make intelligible, — which is
that between humanity and God, or between human life
and general life. If good means human life, the distinc-
tion between good and bad, or morality and immorality,
corresponds with our notions of what promotes or opposes
human life. We cannot conceive of any thing better or
more moral than the progress or life of humanity. To
this end we are to direct individual conduct, and by this
measure we are to judge all the activities of nature. Im-
agine, for instance, if we doubt these limits to language
or perception, the difficulty of estimating the moral value of
a cosmical catastrophe which should sublime the earth by
the heat produced. We know whether cyclones are good
or bad with regard to ourselves, but we cannot otherwise
determine their moral qualities. Morality, therefore, means
humanity. We cannot give it a wider meaning; we dare
not give it a narrower one.
The deepest and most interesting question of morality
is that of the latitude of individual conduct. Have we a
choice between good and evil, and what is the range of
that choice ? To what extent is it free ? Here again an
understanding of ultimate terms comes to our assistance.
Freedom, in this case, means the activity of individual
life ; hence it must be relative or conditional freedom,
for individual life is the function of certain conditions. The
limits of moral freedom are measured by man's ability
to oppose or to favor humanity. The most degraded type
of conduct is the opposition of the individual to society
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. $2$
for his own imagined good ; for, conscious injury of both
self and society is not properly called conduct ; it is con-
sidered so abnormal as to be placed, by common consent, in
the category of insanity. The highest type of conduct is
happiness in the good of others, the benefiting of society for
society's sake, — this we call impersonal happiness. The
lowest meaning of good, therefore, is purely personal happi-
ness ; the highest meaning of good is impersonal happiness.
Thus in selfishness and unselfishness we have the antitheses
of sin and virtue ; neither of them being an ultimate fact,
for they are both relations which begin and end with human
life. Hence it is readily seen that the freedom of the will,
or, " moral agency," is the function of well-defined condi-
tions. Its limits are individual and social existence. The
whole current of life sets toward happiness ; it is a move-
ment in the direction of personal and impersonal good.
Even the suicide indirectly seeks this end by destroying
pain. We have the opposite extreme of conduct in the
one who destroys himself to benefit others (not an un-
common event in life), this act affording the greatest of
all luxuries, — the consciousness of imparting existence to
others.
To those who have made a study of the different systems
of ethics which have been offered to the world, the value
of this ultimate analysis of being will at once appear. A
just conception of God is the only key to the problem of
morality. If we imagine that God means a person, we
are bound to attribute to him personal motives, a divine
willy and in the exercise of this will we are compelled to
recognize a special providence. These beliefs at once throw
the question of morality into hopeless confusion, and the
difficulties to any understanding of conduct become insuper-
able. For example, we speak of a divine goodness, and when
we analyze good we find that it is but another name for hu-
man life. To postulate good and bad as ultimate principles
or facts, therefore, is to distort all the higher logical
perspectives, to descend to the level of such beliefs as a per-
526 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
sonal good God and a personal bad Devil, (for they are
necessary correlates) to represent all the solemn harmonies
of existence, in the imaginary relations of preposterous
beings.
Then to postulate an infallible moral sense or conscience,
" a special and original power of distinguishing right and
wrong," is another instance of mistaking a relative for the
ultimate fact. Conscience is merely the name given to
the capacity of intuitive judgment. Our unconscious rea-
sonings concerning actions (which reasonings are them-
selves actions) are indistinguishable from the complex or
sum of individual existence. The individual is clearly a
centre of activities which we may denominate will, or con-
science, or life, as we regard it from different standpoints ;
but none of these names suggest an ultimate fact, they are
clearly the function of many conditions, moving equilibria
related to universal life. Conduct, therefore, must be both ex-
plained and measured by its conditions : the freedom of the
will is relative, and simply means the latitude of individuality
to which the most positive restrictions arise on every hand.
To appeal to the moral sense, to cultivate habits of right liv-
ing, is to bring the individual into better harmony with his
surroundings, to advance his knowledge of God.
The Utilitarians and Intuitionalistsarethe materialists and
idealists of moral philosophy. The former regard usefulness,
or conduct designed to ameliorate human life, as an ultimate
principle, and the latter regard the moral sense as an ultimate
principle ; whereas universal life, or God, alone is ultimate,
and the amelioration of our existence, and moral sense,
are but relative facts, the expressions of familiar condi-
tions.
The Utilitarian school is right as far as it goes, but it stops
short of that ultimate generalization which satisfies the
highest ideals of life and mind. The Intuitional school en-
counters a metaphysical difficulty before it has fairly embarked
in its analysis, and never gets beyond it. This difficulty is
the erroneous assumption that a faculty of the mind justi-
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 52;
fies itself, or is ultimate. "The Utilitarians proudly remind
us that no dignity, however sacred or august, however ready
to take its stand on unquestioned or superhuman authority,
can conceal its weakness when required to produce as
credentials a proof that the world is ascertainably the
better for it." 1 Is conduct the less dignified because it
can only justify itself by proving that it is a benefit to
humanity ? The limits to the meaning of morality are
described by the limits of humanity; but our ideas of life
extend beyond these limits, and show us that morality is the
human figure of divine unity. This supplies to morality that
dignity or superhuman justification which devout minds
so long for. Such statisticians as Quetelet and H. T. Buckle
would show us that all human conduct is the function of
physical conditions ; that marriages and births and the
different orders of crime follow the values of the crops and
the influences of the seasons with unerring regularity ; in
short, that the highest moral inspirations are akin with the
movements of the tides of commerce, and of the ocean.
This induction is imperfect, the synthesis is not complete.
Who doubts the presence of physical causes in moral phe-
nomena ? But who will be satisfied with them as an expla-
nation ? If either matter or spirit were an ultimate fact, we
might have to accept one or the other as an explanation of
all human phenomena ; but as in the simplest cosmical
event there are infinite perspectives, so in every human ac-
tion we can trace the presence of divine influences ; hence,
instead of degrading life by reducing it to the level of
mechanics, we see in all nature, whether viewed from a ma-
terial or spiritual standpoint, an exalted co-operation and
sympathy.
Passing from these first principles of moral science, we
confront the great problem of society. We must judge hu-
man misery by ultimate principles ; we must determine the
cause which the poor, the ignorant, and the suffering have
before the bar of God. If there be no personal God to ad-
1 " Mind," vol. XXX., p. 231, Prof. W. Wallace.
;528 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
judicate upon our lives, where are the oppressed to find
redress, when will the virtuous be justified or the wicked
punished ?
These conflicting sentiments are but the murmurs which
come up from the great ocean of human life: when its sur-
face is troubled, they are louder, when it is calm they sub-
side, but they have no meaning to the universe beyond.
The weal of humanity is its own affair. We must gain a
knowledge of those inevitable conditions of which our race
is but the expression, and we must make the best of them.
All the control we can gain over life, is over that portion of
its activities which centres in our own existence. We have
no power over the world excepting that which we derive
from power over ourselves.
If the spirit is at rest, there is no trouble which can hide
from it the outlying calm ; there is no grief which has not
a horizon of hope and joy. Happiness and misery are not
entities, they are not absolute facts which we can control ;
they are respectively but the harmony or the discord with
which our natures respond to the activities of life ; they are
but other names for the quality of our existence.
First in the order of the great social problems constitut-
ing practical morality, we have that of the influence of re-
ligious beliefs upon conduct. As explained above, the belief
in a personal God implies a contradiction in terms, a fact
which, in itself, is certainly a sufficient condemnation. To
postulate a " divine will " as a guide for action confuses the
whole question of conduct. Who is to interpret this divine
will ? Who is to find language for it ? Is it those who
think so poorly that they are still lisping the earliest super-
stitions of our race ?
Again, Will is a complex, derivative, or relative fact ; the
function of certain conditions. God is the ultimate fact.
Is it not clear, therefore, that the " will of God " is a contra-
diction in terms, an impossibility ? What can be more im-
moral than to build our ideas of duty and self-control upon
so illogical a foundation ?
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 529
Then comes the question of the effect upon conduct
of the belief in a future life. If morality is well-rea-
soned conduct, — conduct which expresses harmoniously
the conditions of life, — a just appreciation of the great
facts of existence is an advancement of morality. It is a very
common faith among Christians that the belief in a future
life is a help to virtue. The conventional way of reasoning
upon the subject is about as follows: " What ! believe that
I am to die like a dog ! — that this life is to be the last of
me ! What encouragement have I to deny myself any thing
here if there is no heaven to strive for ? Why not ' eat,
drink, and be merry,' why not disregard #//the future, if we
are sure of no life beyond the grave? In a word, what is the
use of being virtuous if we are to have no reward for it in
another life ? " And these arguments are supposed, by a
large class of intelligent men and women, to be conclusive.
They are reiterated over and over again in the pulpit, in
conversation, in literature ; and so decisive are they held
to be, that unbelief in immortality is looked upon as
an abandoned state of mind, which leads directly to reck-
lessness. To state the case of the immortalists plainly,
they reason that a disbelief in a future life engenders
a disregard of the consequences of our actions in the present
life. They do not say how much future life we have to
believe in, in order to enable us to exercise prudence, fore-
thought, and self-denial. I have never found an immor-
talist yet who would say, when made to think carefully
about it, that the future life was to be absolutely eter-
nal. A personal life must suggest some limits to the
most reckless thinker. When we consider it, it will be
found that the future part of our acttial life is but a very
vague conception. We count over the years which it would
be natural for us to live, and think we fully comprehend our
future ; but when we try to fill in this empty symbol of time
with events, we find that we have practically an infinite time
before us after all. Is it not a question whether those who
have their minds constantly fixed upon an imaginary future
530 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
state, do justice to the present ; whether they have a full
appreciation of actual life, of the tragical reality of each day,
each hour of their existence ; of the enormous consequences
which their daily actions involve ; of the boundless oppor-
tunity for good or for evil which the humblest existence
commands ? The realization of the limits of individuality
which a rational view of life cannot fail to fix in the mind, is
a talisman of the highest order, — not a gloomy forecast of
a dreaded catastrophe awaiting us, dampening joy, lessen-
ing hope. This fate has the power of magnifying time
(not of belittling eternity as the immortalists do), of calling
us from the ravings of fancy into the stirring presence of
reality, showing us a life teeming with activities and oppor-
tunities which we at best can but imperfectly appreciate.
Knowledge does not threaten us with death, it makes us con-
scious of life. As for the argument that ignorance of the true
nature of personal existence is conducive to virtue, it is so at
variance with all the great canons of morality, that it is a mat-
ter of amazement how it has influenced so many minds and
endured so long. What is morality but unselfishness, a vastly
extended sympathy, a sublime devotion to the welfare of
humanity? Are we to suppose ourselves indifferent to the
future of our race because we are not to share it ? Are the
lives of our children and our children's children nothing to
us because ours are not to accompany them ? All our better
thoughts and feelings rebel against so gross a theory of
virtue as that which demands a perpetual existence in order
to be upright, to do good, to be humane. When we ex-
amine this theory in the light of the scope of language and
the nature of perception, it is found to be utterly without
excuse ; for to confuse the subjective aspect of motion (time)
with the fact of individual life is a logical monstrosity. To
postulate that such an assumption is essential to the harmo-
nious development of our nature is a sin against life as well
as mind.
The mandates of nature do not spring from intelligence or
thought ; their support is universal. They merely find ex-
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 531
pression in mind. The power of example is as omnipresent
as crystallization or gravitation. It rules in consciousness
and out of consciousness. It is as deep seated in nature, as
widespread in its procedure, as the relative form and weight
of bodies. " For the great bulk of mankind," says Prof.
Wallace, " the validity of their moral * * * principles must
depend, not on their scientific acquaintance with the prin-
ciples of morals, but on constant familiarity and contact
with great and good examples, on the generation in them
of a moral taste which instinctively recoils from evil and
aspires to live with the fair and good. * * * The sense of duty
is the recognition that every act, instead of standing alone, is
confronted, as soon as it emerges into being, with the laws of a
great spiritual kingdom, of which man, as a reasonable being,
is a citizen, and to whose general aims and regulations he is
bound to conform. It is this feeling of a higher and better
world, of a truer self, which conscience bears evidence to.
* * * Here in the conception of a universe, to which every
act must be relative and subordinate, the human soul seeks
a law to limit its extravagances and to consolidate its efforts
after right. * * * Very early in the growth of conscious-
ness, in most men, the character settles into a condition
of stable equilibrium, or of adaptation to the immediate en-
vironment. The mind becomes moulded in a stereotyped
form which resists any attempt at modification. The reaction
of this fixed self against new influences is what we call con-
science." The meaning of this is, that the individual is
an exponent of certain powers. The enormous complexity
of these individual powers is such as to raise the idea that
nothing but a superhuman power can control them, whereas
it is only by an approach to, or imitation of, the more perfect
individual types that imperfections are lessened, and the.
harmonious life of the whole, or humanity, is secured.
Thus the activities of the moral world are akin to uni-
versal activities, they are purely natural phenomena, and the
more we study them, the less need have we for a funda-
mental mystery, or a supernatural will, by which to explain
them.
532 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Instead of this being a mechanical view of morality, it
is the most spiritual view that is possible, for it rises to a con-
ception of the general through the particular, the whole
through its parts, which is the highest order of thought or
induction. The study of practical morality includes all
phases of duty, and therefore of life, but only in the sense
in which religion includes all phases of life. The great
social problems are largely questions of expediency ; ques-
tions of how to reform society without dissolving it ; ques-
tions of the degree in which the end can justify the means, for
it is precisely this degree which determines the moral quality
of all actions, the beneficence of all reforms.
Looking at the experiences of other nations, it is clearly to
be seen that our only hope is in religion; but in order to
make this proposition intelligible, religion must be identified
with morality. Morality and knowledge, using the latter
word in its broadest sense, are the same thing. To act and
think according to the laws of man and God,1 is knowledge as
well as morality. Men and women who allow themselves to
be imposed upon are indirectly imposing upon others. In-
dolence of mind is closely allied to indolence of body,
• and that neglect of the higher orders of facts, so often
found in what passes for religion and virtue, is a vicious
element in society, and borders upon what might be called
criminal ignorance. As we are all judged according to
our opportunities, it becomes an interesting question how
obtuse or dead to facts a mind may be without incurring the
charge of immorality. There are thousands of families of
culture and refinement in the United States who are be-
lievers in the mysteries of Christianity; the question arises:
How many of these families are intellectual criminals ? how
many are endangering the morality of their children and the
safety of their country, by failing to open their minds to
established truths ? Are they to be judged by their oppor-
tunities ?
The most prevalent mistake made by the professional
1 A common metaphor.
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 533
reformers of society, from Plato to the well-known Christian
socialists of England, is that they are unable to see that the
whole world is a social experiment, and that evolution itself
is feeling its way along the path of time. Considered as ex-
periments, the Chinese and Egyptian civilizations may seem
a little tedious, but they have been only vast experiments ;
and unless we would fall to the level of teleologists, we
are compelled to believe that the whole life of the race is
but a huge trial of causes and effects. This should not
deter us from making plans of life both for individuals and
societies; but it should remind socialists that it is not
practical to plan out in the mind a complete set of
conditions for any civilization, or to isolate a community
by cutting it off from those natural relations with the world
upon which, after all, its moral life depends.
The chemist who watches a small quantity of carbon or
oxygen react over and over again in definite ways without
showing the least variation becomes a thorough believer in
the integrity of the forces of nature, although he may never
have thought of applying the rule to society. Common-
sense, or the " genius of humanity," seems to be the only
faculty which enables man to fully appreciate the reality of
natural forces in society ; as a consequence, severely common-
sense people very seldom become reformers of any kind. It
is well known that it is impossible to represent an effect to
the mind without supplying to it a cause. The value of a
reformer's suggestions can be measured by his grasp of con-
ditions or causes. Common-sense carries with it an intuition
of the fact that the causes of social phenomena are so firmly
established as to be practically immovable. This teaches
that a society cannot be reformed from without. All hope
lies in elevating the moral character of its individuals. This
end should be accomplished by disturbing as little as possible
the structures of society, for they have natural causes beyond
our control, and to disturb them produces but artificial
effects. If you would reform a nation, convey to it a knowl-
edge of the true God by removing the thraldom of supersti-
534 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
tion, the darkness of mystery, from its high places. The
true God can only be addressed through actions. We
need not approach the universal principle through hymns of
praise or self-abasements, which are but indirect and artificial
forms of worship. Morality is a deeper and truer symphony,
a more divine language.
To continue the study of practical morality in the direc-
tion of the individual, we come to the problem of personal
purity. With regard to this question, it is difficult to speak
with sufficient delicacy and yet with the needed frankness.
What is the great evil of our society ? Immorality !
And what is the first idea which this word suggests? It calls
up a host of offences ; but which of them is the foremost ?
The word immorality does not necessarily suggest general
crime, but it always suggests the greatest evil that society is
heir to, namely — the crime against chastity. This is the
greatest crime, not because it is the most revolting, or that
it suggests the greatest degree of abandonment, but because
it is the widest in its range ; and notwithstanding the misery
which it engenders it is the most generally condoned. To
look at society as it really is, no one but a dreamer would
think that this crime could be successfully attacked, much
less brought under control. It is so closely connected with
the deepest instincts and the highest sentiments, that not-
withstanding the fact that we find among the most degraded
savages a recognition of the difference between physical
purity and impurity, in what we call our higher civilization
there is a general lack of clear ideas upon the subject. It is
true that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes before
marriage is not regarded by some savages as wrong, although
there are many tribes that do condemn the practice, but in-
fidelity to the marriage vow is regarded by almost all savages,
where there is any approach to family life, as a distinct crime.
In short, even the most degraded races acknowledge in their
laws and customs that immorality attacks the basic institu-
tion of the race, which is the family. The honor of women
is a perfectly distinct ideal among us. No one imagines that
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 535
this honor is less delicate before marriage than after, or that
it is less binding in youth than in maturity. Neither widows
nor spinsters nor divorced women claim any exemption from
the rigor of the moral law upon any pretext ; but the chastity
of men seems to be a question about which our minds are
not made up ; society lacks clear conceptions upon the sub-
ject. Not that Christian ethics, or any other accepted code
of morality, hesitates to condemn all forms of impurity in
either sex, but there is a public opinion which seems to
condone certain orders of incontinence among men. For
instance, among men of the world, a young man who
preserves to the married state the same continence which is
a condition of respectability with young women, is almost a
curiosity. I have heard it confidently asserted by men that
no such being exists. Of course this is a gross mistake. We
all know that there are pure young men, but do we realize
the shocking state of things which makes the question pos-
sible ? Do we realize that we live in so barbarous an age
that our boys are compelled to grow up under examples
which are almost certain to corrupt them ; that the corrupt
man is the rule, not the exception, among all classes alike ?
Do we realize that our daughters are compelled to marry
men who have not even clear ideas concerning personal
purity, who only acknowledge to themselves in the vaguest
manner the sacred vows they make? The misery which this
state of things produces is beyond description. The disease
which is almost the inevitable accompaniment of unclean lives
is alarmingly prevalent among Americans and Europeans. It
is a common thing to find men carrying this disease a in their
1 What can be more horrifying than the following incident, recounted to me
recently by a physician, who affirmed that it was not an unusual occurrence in
our large cities ? A beautiful woman married a "man of the world." They
had two lovely children, who grew up in perfect health. The third child was
an imbecile, the fourth a cripple. The father, after trying several physicians,
at last went to a doctor of great reputation with this crippled child, and asked
for a written opinion on the case. The doctor examined the little sufferer and
sent in the opinion that it was a case of degeneration of the heart, and of other
organs, caused by congenital syphilis, — a disease indescribably insidious and
loathsome, which never invades a pure home excepting by the rare accident of
536 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
system for years, perhaps for a lifetime, as the result of a lack of
proper principles. There are differences of opinion as to
whether it can be thoroughly cured ; but there are none con-
cerning its revolting and insidious nature, and its liability to
be communicated from generation to generation, providing it
assume certain forms. It is of little use to address young men
upon the subject. They admit the danger, but if they are cor-
rupt they are practically unconscious of it. There is but one
class who can successfully attack this crime. They may not
be able to eradicate it, but they can oppose it by demanding
the same standard of respectability from men that is required
of themselves. If they doubt their power let them consider
their own lives and the lives of their children; if they doubt
their ability, they should remember that it is woman who has
the most reliable intuitions concerning morality.
The laws which underlie family life are too simple to
require any extended generalizations. They are the expres-
sion of the most familiar facts of our existence.
Upon the relation of man and wife our whole civilization
depends. This is one of those great truths which escape us
on account of their very simplicity. The true principle of
union between man and woman is that of equality ; any
assumption of superiority on the part of either militates
against the family institution. Upon this principle of
equality is based the law of chastity, from which spring all
the virtues, and without which morality cannot exist.
In perfecting language we have the most direct method of
purifying life. By the help of an ultimate analysis we dis-
cover the source of life or conduct in God, or general exist-
ence, and its end in personal existence extended so as to-
embrace humanity. The part which intelligence plays in
morality is obscured in individual cases by the action of
example, the reactions of acquired habits, and the force of
inoculation, — a misfortune which can be compared in its consequences to death.
Soon after the child died. It had never seen a day of happiness, and its father
was indirectly its murderer. But this is not all. The faithful wife, who had
been a fresh, bright, and strong woman, fell a victim to the consequences of the
same crime and became a wretched and hopeless invalid.
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 537
inherited tendencies. If it were possible to place two indi-
viduals in exactly the same position with regard to antece-
dents and surroundings, the swiftness and accuracy of their
judgments would determine the question of moral ascendency
between them : but so varied and complicated are the condi-
tions of life, that the only means we have of judging con-
duct is by its influence upon the individual and society.
This, of course, is a very imperfect measure, as it leaves too
great a latitude to the individual. The high value which is
placed upon what are called good impulses, irrespective of
their completion in conduct, is a recognition of our inability
to estimate conduct solely through its consequences.
Moral success depends largely upon power and accuracy
of representation, in the calculation of future events. We
have an example of this in the inability of children to esti-
mate the consequences of conduct. Two little brothers,
very fond of each other, are playing at archery. The
younger happens to stand in front of the target at which his
brother wishes to shoot. He calls to him to stand aside, but
for some reason known only to the mental economy of little
boys, he persists in keeping his position. He is warned
again, but to no purpose. The elder boy lets fly his arrow,
surely not at his brother's head, but, as he afterward insists,
at the target. The arrow strikes his brother just over the
eye, cutting the skin and only just missing the organ of
sight, and sending him crying to his mother, who finds the
intrepid archer as much overwhelmed with grief as his
wounded brother.
The mollusc enjoys his life while sparkling on the crest of
a furious wave. This scarcely sentient organism has no fear
of being dashed, a moment later, on the rocks and desiccated
in the sun. The humming-birds of South America alight
again and again upon the flower that is being peppered with
dust shot by the hunter, too innocent to suspect any harm
to themselves. Young men meet in the evening ; the
restraints of the day are joyfully thrown aside ; the tide of
conviviality rises. One thing leads to another, and they
538 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
sally forth with the avowed intention of having a good time.
Away they go, risking their social position by visiting gilded
halls where lewd women come and go. Their personal dis-
cipline may keep them aloof as mere spectators ; but they
ignorantly hover on the brink of vice, enjoying the very
danger. If these men possess any refinement they readily
admit, in their better moments, the utter emptiness of dissi-
pation or vice as a means of enjoyment ; and still they
would feel very much injured if informed that they were
incapable of reasoning upon the subject of conduct ; that
they were incapable of representing to themselves the full
consequences of actions, or of even connecting the day and
the night in their minds. If they were charged with lack of
-co-ordinating power, they would say : " We did not reason
at all ; we were merely moved by the force of example ; we
drifted along with the current." We will admit the plea :
they were aiming at pleasure, and their reputation, their
real happiness, stood in the way. It was not a brother, it
might have been a sister, a mother, or a wife, that they
risked wounding ; but what matter ? The imagined pleasure
of the moment rules their lives ; their powers of representa-
tion are so feeble that they cannot adequately co-ordinate
such spaces as the club-room and their homes, such inter-
vals as night and morning. They are molluscs or humming-
birds, tossed about in the currents of life, guilty because too
innocent of the world as it really is, too ignorant of the laws
of true happiness.
Was there ever so great a fallacy as the idea that men
must be dissipated in order to know the world ? One can
learn more of the world as it really is from children than
from the rout ; for the mind of the child is newly strung by
the hand of nature, and vibrates to the most delicate influ-
ences, while the mind of the " man of pleasure " has lost its
power of answering to the higher harmonies of life.
There are all degrees of mental incapacity. The con-
firmed immoralist may deeply feel the beauty of purity, — so
-deeply that he is ready to worship it ; but habits determine
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 539
his actions, and he is powerless. If he cannot sufficiently
awaken his imagination to make it perform its natural office
of lighting his path a little way ahead, he is lost. His doom
is not a future hell, — he need not wait so long for his punish-
ment ; he occupies and has the full benefit of the only hell
that is prepared for him, — the dire limits of an immoral life ;
for discipline of the mind and character alone opens to us the
full measure of existence.
The importance of culture as a factor in moral life is con-
spicuous. " Education," says Taine, " draws out and disci-
plines a man ; fills him with varied and rational ideas ; pre-
vents him 'from sinking into monomania or being excited by
transport ; gives him determinate thoughts instead of eccen-
tric fancies, pliable opinions for fixed convictions ; replaces
impetuous images by calm reasonings, sudden resolves by
the results of reflection ; furnishes us with the wisdom and
ideas of others ; gives us conscience and self-command."
It cannot be denied that the best culture is that which is
begun in childhood. Children who are accustomed to hear
questions of wide and remote interest discussed at home,
unconsciously acquire large sympathies and elevated tastes.
When our fathers explain to us the living questions of the
day, or describe the course of ancient politics ; when we hear
from our mothers the story of Dido's love, or of the sad fate
of Hector ; when we fight over in our boyish imaginations the
classic wars and personate in play the mediaeval heroes, suffer-
ing, hoping, and loving with centuries passed ; in maturer
years the drama of life breaks upon us with a freshness and
interest only possible to trained hearts and minds.
True culture does not necessarily belong to those who read
Latin "without tasting it," or who write Greek with ease;
for culture, like morality, is simply a vastly extended sym-
pathy ; but in order to feel for our race, we must know the
story of its life ; in order to give play to our sympathies we
must acquire knowledge.
If intelligence is a factor in morality, how clearly does
the perfection of the relations between the sexes depend
540 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
upon education ! The superstition that the knowledge of
nature is injurious to young women is slowly yielding to a
more truthful notion of what womanly purity is. The
healthful action of the mind is the first requisite of integrity ;
for integrity is simply rectitude, or right conduct, — conduct
which is not perverted by ignorance or superstition. There
is no mystery in sex. As soon as a young girl is able to ap-
preciate the sentiments of family life, she is prepared to
study organic life in all its phases. If she is under the influ-
ence of a true mother, she can never fail to regard all the or-
dinances of nature in a wholesome manner, and she will
thus gain a true moral command over herself and others.
One of the marvels of our civilization is the perfection to
which woman has attained, if we consider her past oppres-
sion. Slowly and patiently she has conquered our brutality
and ignorance by her instinctive loyalty to the highest needs
of life. Is it because of her moral superiority that we fear to
accord to her social equality ?
How much the race owes of that physical discipline known
as purity to the example of woman ! The nature of woman
is such as to enable her to co-ordinate the causes and effects
of certain orders of conduct more perfectly than man. The
power of example is such as to inspire in man the refined
ideals of the more delicate sex ; and thus, by living in the
presence of women, we are elevated and humanized. What
an imposing chemistry is this, which imparts to all the in-
dividuals of a race the magic personality of its highest types !
A little boy, who had heard his companions talking disre-
spectfully of some of the physical economies, asked his
mother, who happened to be a physician, whether it was true
that he was once a part of her. The mother took the child
upon her lap and said : " Yes, my son, you were once a part
of me ; you were close to my heart ; so close, before you were
born, that even if you were to become the most wicked of
men, I could never cease to love you. That is why, if you
are not good, my love will be a sorrow ; otherwise it will be
a joy." Is it not likely that this boy will grow up with a due:
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 541
reverence for the simple truths of nature, and an appreciation
of the evil results which spring from a disregard of the funda-
mental restraints of manhood ?
It is widely believed that morality cannot be taught theo-
retically,— that it must be communicated by example ; but
an example which is supported by correct reasoning is
always more powerful. Woman is the most prominent
example in our universe of a pure life. From this example
have sprung the ideas which have developed into moral
philosophy. To live in the presence of this example is to
feel a tremendous influence for good which can be seconded,
but never replaced, by thought.
The idea that woman is a tempter or demoralizer, which
plainly underlies the myth of the Garden of Eden, and the
idea that family relationships are impure, which originated
the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, are barbarous.
The sex-worship of the ancients, which regarded generation
as a divine mystery, was more religious than the Christianity
of Origen,1 the prudery of asceticism, or the theory of a
divinely ordained celibacy ; for sex-worship honors nature,
while these perverted beliefs, so deeply rooted in Chris-
tianity, degrade the life and influence of woman.
The question of Commercial Morality has long been in an
unsatisfactory condition. Not that there is any wide-spread
confusion of ideas with regard to duty in the business
world. On the contrary, it is in the business world that
we find one of the best schools for practical morality. In
no field do we find integrity, self-control, and even intelli-
gent benevolence more fully appreciated and richly re-
warded. A comprehension of the real nature of business
would readily expose the sophistries about its deceit and
selfishness. The first principle of organic life is a limiting
membrane, the principle of separation or resistance between
units which we call individuality. Morality could not exist
without this fulcrum of conduct. It is not the purpose of
1 Origen supposed that the form of self-mutilation which he adopted was
recommended in Matt, xix., 12.
542 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
ethics to destroy individuality, but to secure to this first
principle of life a true development. It is only by perfect-
ing individuals that society can be perfected. The social
state implies social obligations, but they in no wise militate
against individuality. The first sign of organic life is given
by the process of assimilation. Is it immoral for the
" speck of protoplasm " to exercise its affinity for surround-
ing substances, or, in other words, to assimilate or grow?
There is no danger that it will grow too large for the wel-
fare of its neighbors ; the laws of generation which account
for its tiny structure will cause it to fall into pieces, to divide
itself into other individuals, as soon as its time has come.
These processes of assimilation, growth, and reproduction
are too simple and natural to suggest any of the vices of
human life. The idea of suffering or selfishness has no
place in the primitive organic economies. It is only when
organisms achieve a vast complexity, when their structures
and functions become complicated, that the idea of duty or
obligation springs into existence. Duty, therefore, is not a
mystery, but the result of many and apparently conflicting
conditions. To act according to the laws of our nature, to
complete our true destiny, is acknowledged to be right. As
life for us rests upon individuality, morality must study
the weal of individuals, or the good of all. Selfishness
is a forgetfulness of this first principle of life, and is, there-
fore, in the broadest sense, self-destructive. To see that our
lives are true assertions of our nature, to feel that that nature
cannot have a full expression in one individual, but that it
must be studied from the collective side, which we call hu-
manity, as well as the individual side, — this is morality.
He who is careless of assimilation must rely upon the
assimilation of others ; he who does nothing but assimilate
is very apt to interfere with the rights of others. Enormous
powers of assimilation must be balanced by other and higher
powers in proportion, or the individual becomes a menace
to society.
The thoughtful philanthropist admits that it is an exceed-
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 543
ingly difficult thing to do good by giving, for so delicate are
the adjustments of society, that to take from others, directly
or indirectly, the exercise of any of their natural functions,
is apt to create demoralization instead of good. Again : the
wealthier classes are beginning to find that a plethora of
resources limits the development of many of the higher fac-
ulties; and that a few generations of idleness produce an
aristocracy of unmanly men and unwomanly women. What
successful man, whether in art, or science, or affairs, will not
testify to the enjoyment he has derived from well-planned
and sustained endeavor, — a pleasure which is entirely apart
from that of acquisition? It is the enjoyment of well-
directed effort. When one's affairs assume great propor-
tions, and the individual becomes an autocrat, this enjoy-
ment does not cease, but it seeks wider and wider fields of
activity, until a business magnate, if he be truly human,
insensibly becomes a great philanthropist. If the mind
and character of a great assimilator are built upon too small
a scale to admit of these higher developments, he becomes
an enemy to society; for large resources give to purely
selfish men the power of doing harm. Thus it is that a
public opinion is growing up which punishes the undevel-
oped voluptuary by neglect, and the inhuman capitalist by
restricting his operations.
For the poor man of this country to hate the rich is an un-
speakable folly, since the wealthy classes contain a majority
of his wisest and truest friends. Besides, are not the higher
enjoyments of life within the reach of all who are capable of
self-discipline ? In- a free country, all the capital an individ-
ual requires is a high-born nature, for freedom is merely the
removal of all hindrances to self-control.
The deception and selfishness so much decried in the
business world are relics of barbarism, but the general state
of society is responsible for them. The ignorance and
prejudices of consumers are a direct premium placed upon
all forms of commercial deceit. Frauds in business are no
more frequent than in society, in proportion to the number
544 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
of transactions, and, if any thing, they are more severely
dealt with when exposed.
Already, among truly developed people it is safe to live
in a perfectly generous mood ; for the more one tries to do
for the best people, the more they try to do in return, which
makes it necessary to be guarded in dispensing kindnesses
for fear of being overwhelmed with kindness. It will require
a great development for the social world to rise to this
level, but there are abundant signs of the presence of the
same order of feeling throughout the whole human race, a
disposition to give to merit its full reward. The feeling,
of course, can never gain ascendency until it becomes as
difficult to persuade men to accept unmerited advantages
as it now is to obtain for services to society a just recom-
pense. What is chiefly needed is a greater intelligence or
social sensitiveness, and a higher standard of independence.
This study of the chief questions of morality would be in-
complete without an impeachment of the superstitions con-
nected with the sentiment of love. What demands a higher
logical discipline than love ! How can we hope to control
this mightiest of passions, unless we can test conduct by uni-
versal principles ? Long before we arrive at that maturity
of thought which can be said to constitute a full conscious-
ness of being, we find ourselves moved by feelings too deep
to be understood, having an apparent legitimacy, a command
over destiny, which leave us powerless to criticise them. And
so insidiously do these feelings blend with our most exalted
ideas of life, that we become morally helpless when under their
influence. If the circumstances of the passion happen to be
propitious, we never discover that we have overestimated its
sanctity, that we have accepted too easily the wide-spread
delusion that love is a divinely inspired feeling which justifies
itself. If the circumstances of the passion prove unpropitious,
we make the discovery at the bottom of some abyss into
which we have plunged, and in our dismay and disgrace we
may be happy if we have not dragged another with us.
Nothing can be more demoralizing than thus to overesti-
mate the sancity of love. Love is not a thing apart from
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 545
life, it is the emotional tendency of our being, and depends
absolutely for its justification upon the physical, the social,
.and the moral laws of life. No thought or feeling can be
right which will not bear completion in conduct ; hence the
quality of no life can rise above the quality of its actions.
Thus philosophy opposes idealism in every phase of life.
The great moral canons are so omnipresent in the social
atmosphere, that, like the colors of the sunlight, they are
invisible until refracted. Thousands of imperfectly moral
lives pass away without even suspecting the stupendous
power of these forces, so well are they equipoised, so seldom
really challenged. But the soul that, doubting their existence,
provokes them to activity, is seared by their vivid power.
If you doubt that there are magnetic currents which course
in the veins of society in the right lines of virtue, do not
thwart their path, for the lightning may dry up in you all
susceptibility to truth, and you will never know that you
have been destv oyed. All the movements of life are groups
of personal phenomena in which the ultimate principle is
but remotely discerned. We must not, therefore, confound
a human sentiment with the divine principle. No feeling can
be so exalted as to justify itself ; it is at best but the func-
tion of conditions, and must depend on these conditions for
its justification. To enjoy constant love, constantly recur-
ring conditions must be provided, for in these it is that the
love really exists.
Passing from the greatest of personal to the greatest of
impersonal sentiments, from the love of individuals to
that of right government, the same principles apply. A
recent experience will illustrate my argument. While
seated in the office of a leading business house in
Chicago, recently, a gentleman entered, and as he hap-
pened to fall into conversation with me, I noticed that
he had been followed in by an individual whose actions
were somewhat mysterious. The new-comer went through
a pantomime which plainly indicated that he was solicit-
ing money from my interlocutor. This performance was
accompanied by the question : " Do you want the nomi-
546 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
nation for alderman in our ward ? " The man who repre-
sented his ward so disinterestedly was apparently of Irish ex-
traction, and had an unmistakable air of the dissolute about
him, a lack of the dignity belonging to legitimate occupa-
tions. No one can confuse the appearance of an honest
workman, however besmirched his person, with the unclean-
liness of idleness and vice. The man thus approached was
a well-to-do manufacturer. He seemed to be acquainted
with the ward magnate, and, rather pleased at the question,
" Yes," he said, " I want to run for alderman in our ward,,
and I think if I do I will be elected."
"Well," said the other, "it will cost you one thousand
dollars to get the nomination, but there is the best chance
for an alderman, this election, that we have had for some
time."
" How is that?"
" Why the Railroad wants to get into Chicago, and
they are going to spend one hundred thousand dollars to do-
it. Of course that makes a nice divide for the aldermen."
" Well," said the manufacturer, in an absent sort of way,
as though he had not heard the last remark, " \ will give the
one thousand dollars, and I would just as lief pay you to
work for me as any one I know of."
At this juncture I interposed the remark : " What a pure
government you have in Chicago ! " This only provoked a
good-natured retort from both men, and, shaking hands
warmly, they parted.
The whole thing was done so openly, and with such ap-
parent innocence, that it took me some time to realize that
I had witnessed an instance of that deep-laid corruption for
which our country has become so famous, and which threatens
its existence. The clerks who overheard the conversation
evinced no more surprise than if the men had consummated
an ordinary business transaction ; the manufacturer resumed
his conversation with me in perfect unconcern, and the pot-
house politician went on his way rejoicing. The former was,
as I afterward ascertained, an American ; the latter, the son
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 547
of Irish parents, who had brought him to this country when
a child. Neither of these men had any notion of the duties
or true nature of citizenship.1 The uneducated Irishman who
comes to America is not so much to blame. He has no high
ideals of government. To his people, government has been
a symbol of enmity and oppression for ages. He regards it
as a power that plunders him, and he is only too. glad to
plunder it. He comes among us and assumes the functions
of citizenship, but he does not realize that in so doing he
becomes an integral part of our government, and if he be
corrupt he poisons our national life. But the American who
has no ideals of pure government has no rag to cover his dis-
grace. His nature is too narrow and grovelling to take in
his true status in the world. He is dead to the pathos, to
the appeal of human history. The rightful heir to inesti-
mable privileges, the son of a race who freed themselves and
established a great civilization upon the imperishable prin-
1 While this is going to press, six months after the occurrence related above,
a condemned murderer, who had the indiscretion to shoot one of Chicago's
specimen aldermen in his own drinking-saloon, revenges himself upon his com-
panions in political vice, who he thinks ought to have enabled him to escape,
by disclosing a truly frightful state of corruption in the voting of this great city.
He describes methods of wholesale repeating of the boldest description, the
altering of municipal records to suit the purposes of the party in power, and the
open co-operation of the police in securing fraudulent balloting. Upon the
day this is written, October 12, 1884, a leading Chicago journal announces that
"out of one hundred and sixty-five polling-places ninety-four have been located
in saloons, some of them very disreputable." (Is it any wonder that women
shrink from universal suffrage ?) I am informed that in this city it is impossi-
ble to elect any member of the party not in power, when the office is needed
by their opponents, even in wards where an overwhelming majority is known to
exist in favor of the candidate.
I am assured that a majority of the aldermen are disreputable characters,
gamblers, and dissolute men. True " fathers of a city ! "
A stockholder in a gas company in the same place informs me that they pay
one hundred thousand dollars per annum to the board of aldermen to keep out
electric-light companies, but the moment the electric-light companies will pay
a larger sum they will be allowed to enter ; while the president of the same:
company admits that they paid a large sum to the same board of aldermen to
secure the privilege of laying their pipes. These business men, in making
these admissions, did not seem to be aware that they had committed crimes
against the community they were living in.
548 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
ciples of purity and freedom, he is corrupt himself and is
willing that all his liberties shall be endangered by his self-
ishness. He knows no public good which does not in some
way exalt his powers of assimilation. He does not know that
purity and honor in public affairs are as essential to the life
of a nation as virtue is to the life of a family. He excludes
from his idea of government all moral, all humane sentiments.
He is a torpid, impure, poisonous member of society.
And what are the ramifications of this impurity? Corpora-
tions make deliberate appropriations to buy dishonest votes
in municipal, state, and national government. They say they
cannot get their common rights without employing corrupt
means. Railroads raise corruption funds to buy their way
into cities, and competing lines raise other corruption funds
to keep them out. Where does it end ? The spectacle is
appalling; we are rotten throughout the entire structure of
our society, — so rotten, that our very ideals of purity are
disappearing. With vast accumulations of wealth, we have
no recognized class of young men growing up who are pre-
paring themselves to devote their lives to the public good
upon high and unselfish principles. In a country teeming
with opportunities for education, we have no concerted effort
to educate men either morally or scientifically for the respon-
sibilities of office. Our universal citizenship is employed in
a vast struggle for the spoils of office, for the opportunity of
sucking the public blood. We are a nation of parasites, and
the poor frame which we are preying upon is dying of the
great American disease of public corruption. No appeal to
history will avail. Americans have no fear of history ; they
regard their country as a new departure in humanity, and as
not subject to any of the great maladies of which other na-
tions have suffered and died. Thousands seek our shores
who have no ideals of pure government. They come to as-
similate ; and, too ignorant to distinguish the luscious fruit
from the limb that bears it, they eat into the structures of
our body politic and set up a national decay. Too many
Americans, who have forgotten the high principles of their
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. 549
forefathers, join in this unholy carnival. The sound of our
church bells is powerless to call them off ; they are dead to
the inspirations of culture, to the grand sympathies of moral
life ; they are content to bequeath to their children a cor-
rupted state, diseased by the impurity of their own lives.
I have visited a great many Roman Catholic churches and
listened attentively to the sermons, but have never heard a
priest denounce to his congregation the political corruption
from which we are suffering. I have heard Protestant min-
isters speak upon the subject but very rarely, and never with
the warmth which it demands. The Roman Catholics
cannot be blamed for not becoming political reformers. The
great stem of the Church of Christ which they represent has
always had distinct political ambitions, impossible to recon-
cile with the highest ideas of government, and they cannot
be expected to resign these ambitions in America. The
Protestant denominations are too divided to control any
great political influence ; so that, so far as religion takes an
interest in our politics, we are in the power of the Church of
Rome.
But the Church of Christ has no great and pure political
ideals. To Jesus, politics was a thing apart from the king-
dom of God, which he represented. He believed that a
supernatural change of all earthly conditions was necessary
to the establishment of a great moral life. His conception
of life was so primitive and unreal that it has ever since
been an impossible ideal. The interest which his church
has taken in politics through the reign of the popes of Rome
has been of such a narrow and selfish order that Protes-
tantism has sprung into existence, mainly as a protest against
it ; and so inadequate are the Christian ideals of human
government, so little do they answer to the real conditions
of life, that the separation of church and state has become
a fundamental tenet with a large body of Christians, a ma-
jority of whom are Protestants.
What have we, then, to look for, from Christianity, in the
way of ideals of pure government ? With the great Roman
550 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
Church actuated by selfish plans for ecclesiastical dominion ;
with the Protestants jealous of any interference in state
affairs on the part of their religion, holding up the sickly
visions of a sect of Latter-Day Saints as a model for human
life ; — what have we to look for, from Christianity, in the
way of ideals of pure government ?
Political ideals are but enlargements of personal exist-
ence. Purity in the sphere of government must spring
from personal purity, hence the high value which is placed
upon character in public life.
A true religion can alone give us true politics ; a great and
good national life can come only from discipline of char-
acter and mind.
Morality is the study of divine law with respect to social
duties. It is the casting of the true perspectives of life and
mind. There is a popular notion that religion is something
higher and even purer than morality.
Religion and morality are different views of the same
thing; true religion is the highest thought and feeling;
morality, the embodiment of both in action. The religion
of philosophy is broad enough to shape the future of hu-
manity, to secure to our children the advantages of freedom
and the true glory of a moral life. This religion would exalt
principles, not persons ; methods of life, not individuals ; it
enshrines no saints, it bows to no mystery, for it gathers its
inspiration from the general life and mind.
CHAPTER XXIV.
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA IN BEHALF OF THE
RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The Question Considered with Regard to Nations and Men — The Question
Considered with Regard to Children — Religion is the Highest or Most Gen-
eral Thought and Feeling ; Morality, the Embodiment of Both in Action —
The Home is the Citadel of Individual and National Purity.
PHILOSOPHY claims no prerogatives; its organization is
purely intellectual and moral ; it is the critic of succeeding
civilizations, of social progress, and of moral development.
Occupying this position, it has a right to demand reasonable
reforms. Not unmindful of the slow methods of actual life,
or of the disparities of intelligence and sensibility between
nations and classes, it regards organized religion as indis-
pensable to the world, — as the central feature of every civili-
zation. But religion must always represent the highest
knowledge of the race, the purest view of life interpreted in
the most fitting language for each nation of worshippers.
As the thought and feeling of the world learn to respond to
those symphonies of life which declare the human race to be
a great unit, and its origin and destiny but obverse aspects
of the single fact of development, religion must take up this
refrain and repeat it to its followers. It must repeat it in
language which has the dignity of simplicity, the power of
truth. A religion which under any pretext falsifies life is
immoral and must decay. As the realm of religion is that
of thought and feeling voiced in language, purity and integ-
rity of speech should be its first consideration. It has no
right to employ vague symbols when the ideas which they
represent can be more truthfully expressed by the use of
552 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
direct terms. If a creed has life, it must progress; if it is
wholly dead, it must be discarded. Philosophy would do no
violence to living faiths, but it will ever seek to remove
those decaying structures of belief which encumber society
and threaten its welfare. The extent of the religious reform
which each age demands can be measured by the degree of
confusion which prevails among the people with regard to
their most general conceptions. However simple and primi-
tive the religious ideas of a people may be, providing
harmony prevails, morality is comparatively unaffected.
But when from great disparities in intelligence and educa-
tion there is a continual clashing of religious opinion,
morality, which is the expression of the highest logical
harmony of our lives, is sure to suffer. Above all, when
that class which represents the widest culture and deepest
thought of a nation withdraws from its dominant faith a
reaction is sure to follow, for this class embraces the true
religionists of each age. In response to their deeper
thoughts and purer feelings creeds must yield, beliefs must
widen and deepen ; nothing can resist the silent energy of
their reforms. The language, the sentiment, the life of their
epoch they unconsciously control ; they fix the ideals, pass
the judgments, determine the scope of their civilization, for
their convictions and their lives constitute the philosophy,
the morality, and the religion of their time. In the past,
this class has belonged chiefly to the church : in our time,
through the medium of general culture and the higher
refinements of life, this class is entering and transforming
the homes of America ; and the day is approaching, if it has
not already come, when women shall constitute its most
numerous members.
The Christian religion is widely understood to be a re-
ligion of love, and is therefore supposed to have peculiar
claims upon women. It is by no means manifest, how-
ever, that woman has had a greater share in the senti-
ment of love than man, for history shows that she has
wielded .its power rather than submitted to it. But can a
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 553
religion be successfully based upon this sentiment of love ?
Does experience show that in this respect Christianity has
succeeded ? Have the passions of men and the intrigues of
nations been controlled by its power? Is it not rather to
the broader sentiments of justice and humanity that we are
slowly yielding? Are not justice and humanity truer names
for that universal solicitude for our race which makes it
physically and morally a single being? In a word, does not
that affection which extends itself until it recognizes no
individuals, until its object is the single individual of human-
ity, cease to be what we call love? For the purpose of
illustrating this principle, contemporaneous events are quite
as useful as history. Let us, therefore, look about us and
examine the degree of moral authority which the religion of
love exercises over Christian nations.
The practice of bleeding, which was once so popular in
medicine, has been discontinued, because the doctors came
to the conclusion that the physical strength of a patient
could be utilized in his treatment, and was seldom if ever an
obstacle to his recovery. Might not the same reform be adopted
in the domain of international pathology ? It is well known
that no Christian people ever engage in a war which has not a
distinct humanitarian principle at bottom, or, at the least,
which cannot be clearly identified with some of the designs of
Providence. Is it not a well-known fact that modern wars
are principally undertaken for the spiritual amelioration of
the weaker nation ? Have we not abundant evidence for
this view of the case in the justifications which Christian
nations almost always offer for such wars as they may feel
called upon to wage ? To be impressed with the prevalence
of this belief, we need but to glance at that part of contem-
porary literature which deals with international relations. A
striking proof of the existence of this tacit understanding
between the nations of Christendom, that all national policies
are at bottom humane, and even religious, is to be found in
the speech of the Emperor of Germany in commemoration
of the results of the benevolent interest which his people so-
554 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
recently manifested in France. In one of the leading New
York journals of last September the following notice ap-
peared :
A GERMAN MEMORIAL.
THE NATIONAL MONUMENT UNVEILED.
THE CEREMONIES WITNESSED BY CROWDS.
Great crowds gathered at the Niederwald, Germany, yester-
day, to witness the unveiling of the National Monument, which
has been erected as a memorial of the German victory [over
France] of 1870-71. The Emperor William was present, and
expressed much satisfaction with the arrangements. He was en-
thusiastically cheered by the people as he passed through Wies-
baden to attend a banquet at the royal castle. A counter-
demonstration was held in Paris at the statue of Strasbourg.
POPULAR CELEBRATION AT NIEDERWALD.
CASTLES AND VILLAGES ILLUMINATED.
RUDESHEIM, Sept. 28th. — The Germania Monument was unveiled
to-day at Niederwald, in the presence of a great crowd of per-
sons, who came from all parts of the empire ; besides, the Ger-
man Princes, the Princesses, the Mayors of Hamburg, Bremen,
and Lubeck, and nearly every prominent person connected with
the military and civil government, were present. All the German
Sovereigns and Princes assembled before the monument, and the
ceremonies proceeded in accordance with the programme. The
villages and castles along the Rhine were illuminated, and bon-
fires and blue-lights were burned on all the heights. The total
cost of the statue was over one million marks. The inscription
upon it says : " In memory of the unanimous and victorious
rising of the German People, and the reestablishment of the
German Empire — 1870-1871."
SPEECH OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM.
The following is the text of the Emperor William's speech
at the Niederwald unveiling :
" When Providence desires to signify its will with regard to
mighty events upon the earth, it selects the time, countries, and
instruments to accomplish its purpose. The years 1870 and 1871
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 555
were a time when such purpose was indicated. Our threatened
Germany arose in its love for the Fatherland as one man, and, with
princes at the head, stood in arms as the instrument. The Al-
mighty conducted these arms after sanguinary conflicts from vic-
tory to victory, and United Germany takes its place in the history
of the world. Millions of hearts have raised their prayers to God
and given Him humble thanks, praising Him for esteeming us
worthy of accomplishing His will. Germany, to the remotest time?
desires to give constant expression to this feeling of gratitude.
In this sense the monument standing before us was erected. In
the words spoken at the laying of the foundation-stone, words
which my late father, after the wars of liberation of 1813-15, be-
queathed in iron to posterity, I dedicate this monument : ' To the
fallen, a memorial ; to the living, an acknowledgment ; to coming
generations, a source of emulation. May God vouchsafe it ! ' '
On concluding his address the Emperor unveiled the
monument.
COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION IN PARIS.
As a counter-demonstration to the unveiling of the statue of
Germania on the Rhine by the Germans, a crowd of Parisians
assembled around the statue of Strasbourg, in the Place de la
Concorde, and indulged in patriotic cries. The demonstration
passed off without any disorder.
The question naturally arises : What were the feelings of
these citizens of France with regard to the German designs
of Providence ? Mark how familiar and natural the language
of this speech sounds to us ! how little we suspect its full
significance ! The facts are, that France and Germany act
and feel toward each other as hostile feudal lords did in the
middle ages. They are enabled to wield vast military or-
ganizations through the agencies of national revenue, and
debt, and indemnities from conquered nations, instead of an
army of retainers supported by levies upon the surrounding
country and the plunder of their neighbors. Instead of
family feuds, with a chain of murders and pillages to avenge,
we have the history of nations, with defeats to turn into vie-
556 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
tories, and cities and provinces to recover ; instead of legends
of war and love, recounted over mediaeval hearths, and sung
to knights and ladies by wandering bards, our feelings of
avarice and hate are idealized and vivified by the public
voice, the literature, and even the art of our time. What was
courage in the olden time, is now patriotism ; for a sublimer
sentiment is needed to sustain the more mechanical mode of
death ; what was once allegiance to a lord, is now national
pride or spirit ; but worse than all, religion is made subser-
vient to the most brutal passions of men, and it is in the
name of God that the worst national crimes are committed ;
and this with the sanction, not of half-civilized men and
ignorant women, but of nations who boast of the greatest
culture, the highest refinement in the world.
The removal of these great evils is not to be accomplished
through courts and legislatures ; the cause must be pleaded
at the bar of the divine unity of life, or God. We must not
look for the reform of these abuses in the mandates of tribu-
nals ; they must be achieved in the minds and hearts of in-
dividuals by the development of a truer knowledge of life
and humanity than is expressed in our civilization or taught
by our religion. The religions of faith and love may be em-
ployed to inflame passions and perpetuate the discords of
humanity, but the Religion of Philosophy is based upon too
deep a knowledge of life and history ever to be perverted to
such ends.
If the right of the stronger nations of the world to carry
out their ideas of the "designs of Providence" cannot be
successfully tried before the bar of any existing religion ; is
it not time to establish a faith which can enlighten the
world upon such questions, and which will, in time, create a
public opinion, in the form of universal sentiments of human-
ity and justice, too strong for any power to disregard ?
When the history of Europe of the nineteenth century shall
be written, the responsibility of Christianity for our failures
will appear greater than we are now willing to believe. The
designs of Providence, which are being so faithfully carried
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 557
out by each nation according to its own understanding, will
be seen to belong to an idea of Deity which is little better
than savage. Should it not be the ambition of all well-
meaning people to see the closing pages of that history
brightened by the dawn of a broader and clearer under-
standing of life ?
The great question before us is, What are the conditions
of a religion that can become universal ? In the first place,
it must be founded upon an understanding of life which
shall command the respect and adherence of the cultivated
and intelligent world. The sciences furnish us abundant
data for such a comprehension of life, and their unification
into a single organon of truth, which shall be proof against
the delusions of any possible combination of words, is to be
achieved by establishing a common understanding with
regard to the significance of ultimate terms. The beginning
of this achievement is the solution of the metaphysical
problem, which we venture to hope has been successfully
performed in the foregoing pages. This, however, is but
the beginning of a movement which is subject to all the
accidents and misfortunes of human progress. To accom-
plish any great moral reform, the lives of individuals, not of
nations, must be the arena of activity. Literature must
hold up purer ideals of taste and sentiment, art must sec-
ond this attempt by enlisting in the struggle for truth and
beauty, and the religions of faith must rise above the dark-
ness of superstition and the misinterpretations of history, to
a fuller appreciation of the facts and possibilities of life.
Through these established channels alone can the populace
be reached ; and it would be unnatural to believe that those
who preside over the higher departments of knowledge,
should refuse their sympathy to so needed a reform. As yet
the aristocracy of learning have but a distant influence upon
the masses, especially in Europe, and reformations which
with them are practically immediate are slow in working
their way into the national life.
In America, the chief hope of such a reform is with its
55$ THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
women. It is becoming a recognized fact that the women
of this country, as a class, are better educated than the men.
This is a natural consequence of the comparat .iter
amount of leisure which the women of the middle and upper
classes enjoy. It h.. acknowledged that our most
disinterested reforms, our unobtrusive chanties and intellec-
tual enterprises, are chiefly encouraged and sustained by
\en ; and it is a rule, not only in this country, but
throughout the Christian world, that organized religion, not
virtually but actually, depends upon woman for support.
Recognizing, therefore, the ascendency which woman is
gaining in the intellectual, and which she has always had in
the moral, world, it is with the women of America that we
would plead the cause of Philosophy, which is the only true
religion. We would submit to them the question whether
they can afford to disseminate through the medium of their
influence, incon\ - of life, inadequate theories of morali-
ty ; whether they fully estimate the consequences of such a
course. We would ask them whether they are not aware
that the religion of our country is losing the affection and
respect of the men, and is ceasing to be, to them at least, a
moral inspiration.
The remedy for this greatest evil of our age, the divorce
of thought and action, of intellect and morality, is in her
hands. She should demand a more strict accounting from
those who assume to teach religion to the world ; and in
order to do this effectually she should acquaint herself
with the history of religion, of science, and of thought.
From the facts thus acquired she can draw all the conclusions
necessary for the guidance and inspiration of society. It
is true that it requires some courage to inaugurate and sus-
tain such a criticism, but the hearts of women have never
failed humanity; it is now a question whether her mind shall
prove wanting.
The need which woman already feels for a higher mental
discipline is shown by her demands for admittance into our
colleges. If she but knew her power, she could establish
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 559
universities which would soon outshine any that we now
h;ivi .-, and afford her an opportunity of returning good for
evil, by throwing open their doors to all seekers of knowl-
edge without regard to sex.
Hut now that we have considered the ability of the reli-
gion of faith and love to make men and nations moral, and
have pointed out how woman can use her power to benefit
the world in this respect, let us consider what are the
claims of children upon society for a higher religious educa-
tion.
There is no mystery in a mother's love ; it is as natural
and boundless as the sunlight. Who ever heard of a child
reproaching its parent for the defective character or consti-
tution which it has inherited? The belief that these condi-
tions of life are beyond the parents' control exonerates them
from responsibility; but there is a limit to this exoneration.
All those who think about what they are, or what they
might be ; all who are not hopelessly satisfied with them-
selves, or who have not lost interest in life, know that what
they are is chiefly due to their early education, to the direc-
tion which was first given to their thoughts and feelings.
Who can over-estimate the influence of a mother? The
child is but a perpetuation of her existence, and if she be a
woman of sentiment, of deep feeling, she stamps the impress
of her life upon her offspring. She is not only a most pow-
erful example to them; her opinions and her sentiments
constitute for her children, unconsciously, a religion. Thus
it is that the accidents of life determine so largely our happi-
ness. But accidents are only relative chances; there is no
absolute uncertainty. Far beyond the reach of ordinary
perception the inevitable laws of development control the
averages of events, and to these obscure influences can be
traced all the changes of our existence, however fortuitous
they may seem.
In considering the duties of a mother, therefore, we must
allow for all those circumstances which are so far be-
yond her control as to be practically fore-ordained. I have
•560 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
seen a mother struggling under difficulties to possess her
soul in peace for fear of affecting the disposition of her un-
born child ; and long afterward I saw in the face of that
child the hope and victory of a brave woman. Such experi-
ences as these, which are multiplied on every hand, forbid us
to be fatalists, which is but a name for those who believe in
some mysterious control of their existence, a control in which
they have no voice. Philosophy teaches us that we have a voice
in every measure that affects us, and if we but study to gain
an influence in the enactments which prescribe our career,
the power to be gained over ourselves is practically infinite.
When our existence is passing out into that of others, when
our types of character and mind are silently determining the
lives of children too young to take any part in the legislation
of life, our responsibility manifestly grows in an increasing
ratio. The men and women of a nation are chiefly what
their mothers have made them ; it is in the minds and char-
acters of our women that we are to read the future of our
people. If our mothers cling to primitive superstitions, we
must grow up with the beliefs of savages, and all the after-
learning which we can control will be powerless to eradicate
these rude mysteries from our lives.
But what hope have we in appealing to women? They,
•of all members of society, are respecters of constituted
authority. To them, organized religion, no matter how
accidental may be its beliefs, is a despotism which is almost
beyond the comprehension of men.
I have seen men who, to all intents and purposes, were
scoffers at religion, who would reject, when reasoned with,
every important dogma of the Christian faith, attend church
regularly because their mothers had asked them to, because
in so doing they felt that they were perpetuating the hal-
lowed influences of early life ; and still they disagreed from
beginning to end with the creed and the whole religious
polity of their church. Of what avail is knowledge against
such a power as this ? And if it is sufficient to control the
actions of men who have become disaffected in every true
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 561
sense with their religion, what must be the power from which
emanates this influence ! What must be the reverence in
which women hold religion !
There are many instances, in such great religious centres
as Mecca and Rome, of functionaries of the church laughing
at the innocent devotion of pilgrims, although their reverent
offerings are never rejected. If woman would look up from
her prayers into the faces of the great ecclesiastical dig-
nitaries who are the autocrats of her beliefs and the beliefs
of her children, she would see a compassionate smile ; not be-
cause these men are insincere, but because all despotisms are
in themselves an expression of contempt for the oppressed.
Give to man an illegitimate power, whether it be in religion,
or in society, or in civil life, and he accepts the gift by sur-
rendering his respect for the giver; and it requires far more
character than even our men of God possess, to decline this
homage of the multitude.
We are constantly reproaching the cultivated and socially
decorous Jews of Palestine for not believing in Christ. What
were John the Baptist and Jesus if they were not railers against
the constituted authorities in the name of humanity ? Their
conceptions of life were narrow, but they had the weal of
humanity at heart ; and none of us will dare to say that they
were not truer exponents of all that is worth emulating in
life than the orthodox classes of their country. The mothers
of Judea taught their babes the sacred mysteries of Judaism,
and through all the vicissitudes of their people this influence
has lasted, and in our own country the same Moses and the
same God that were worshipped in Jerusalem are adored by
the children of Israel. Will the mothers of America thus
cling to the superstitions of Christianity, and shall we have to
wait until another people arise out of the failures of our own,
to see our best thought and feeling become a religion?
Have wars and pestilences and the death of nations always
to intervene between the oscillations of our religious pro-
gress ?
But what are the constituted authorities that govern the
562 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
beliefs of our women ? They are the official sectaries of
Christianity. Do they agree among themselves ? Only suf-
ficiently to allow their followers to live in comparative peace ;
a condition of society upon which even superstition depends
for sustenance. Are they seekers after truth, or are their
best energies absorbed in striving to enlarge the sway of
their separate convictions ? If all these sects are worshipping
one God, is it necessary that religion should be so divided ?
Has not each denomination its own prophets, and are they
not all regarded as inspired men ? Have not these petty sub-
divisions grown up among us until our religion has lost all
the dignity and simplicity of a universal faith ? Do not
these accidental influences, operating through the religious
instincts of mothers, make heathens of us in our cradles ?
Are we not all duly labelled according to the denomina-
tion in which we are born ?
If the light of God is to be so refracted among us, what will
become of those delicate principles of morality which appeal
to us only through the divine unity of existence ?
But who are the autocrats of our mothers' beliefs, and
what do they teach ? They are our " men of God," and
they teach the grossest superstitions. If our mothers believe
in a personal God, a God-Christ, and a God-Spirit, and are
told that their union into one being is a mystery which they
must not question, what better are they than the Hindoo
mothers, who worship Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva? If our
mothers believe in an eternal life (a flagrant contradiction in
terms), what better are they than the mothers of ancient
Egypt, who were more anxious that their children should
pass the judgment after death than that they should become
true men and true women ?
The life which a mother gives her child is its only life.
This is the verdict of science and of thought ; it is the law
of nature ; it is the law of God. When a fabulous life is be-
lieved in, it detracts from the hopes and possibilities of actual
existence. If we are taught to look to heaven for justice,
(which is the highest human sentiment,) shall we not be less
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 563
apt to accord it, and to demand it, upon earth? If we are told
that our natural ideals of love, purity, and humanity can
only be realized in some distant world, what courage shall
we have to strive for their realization here? And thus it is
that our mothers, from whom we are supposed to gain our
best principles, and truest conceptions of life, dedicate us to
the slavery of superstition, almost before we are born.
And who are they that conspire with our mothers to teach
us narrow and imperfect views of life ; who advocate a puny
morality which has been proved insufficient for the use of
men and nations ; who pretend to represent the highest
intelligence and virtue, and who really teach us savage
beliefs and the morality of primitive races ? They are the
priests and ministers of the religion of Christ, and they
stand impeached before the bar of humanity for this great
crime. They may plead ignorance, but it will be of no
avail. The laws of thought and feeling are universal, and
they have not studied them. They know that God is not a
fiction, but a great fact, and they have closed their eyes to
that science which builds its truths upon facts, discounte-
nancing all mysteries. They know that morality does not
rest upon a superstition, but that it springs from the simplest
experiences of life, and they have been content to question life
at the oracle of a personal God. They know that literatures
are the work of man, and they would have us believe that
their primitive literature is the fiat of a God. They accept
the emoluments of sacred office, the homage which we offer
to our greatest benefactors, and they live in darkness and
superstition, and would cast disgrace upon those who refuse
to follow their example. They profess to represent an
infinite love and a sublime humanity, and they are the
Pharisees, who in the pride of office and the stiffness of cus-
tom, would stone those who seek the truth for its own sake.
" Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " If
Christ were among us and had escaped the slavery of your
education ; if he had drunk the clear draught of knowledge
from the best and purest minds of his race, he would indeed
564 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
condemn you, and you would be just as innocent, and as.
outraged, and as clamorous for his disgrace, as the con-
servative doctors and sacred priests of Judea. Among those
doctors, there were sincere and pure men, who thought
that they were doing right in perpetuating the dogmas of
the Theocracy. You are perpetuating this same Theocracy
among us.
To the priests and ministers of the religion of Christ I c
make no appeal. They hate reforms and despise reformers.
It is with the mothers of America, who look to the estab-
lished Church of Christ for their inspiration and their guid-
ance, that I would plead the cause of our civilization. I
would warn them against the despotism to which they are
submitting. There is only one despotism which justifies
itself, — to which man can with honor and safety intrust his
happiness, — this is the absolute despotism of morality. To
the power of this autocracy alone, can we surrender our
freedom of action and of will, for in its laws are expressed
the principles of free agency, of absolute duty, of divine con-
trol. In its conditions we recognize inexorable fate — the
predeterminations of existence, — and in rendering homage to
it, we can alone accomplish our destiny. In the enactments
of this despotism, duty and happiness are harmonized;
egotism and beneficence become but opposite phases of the
fact of personal life ; for morality is the only power which
can unite the instincts and the intelligence of man under a
single government.
That the mothers of America should believe that they
require the aid of superstition or mystery to teach their
children morality, is a proposition too absurd to be enter-
tained. This would be an instance of modesty surpassing
even womankind. Can woman, who has set the example of
purity to the race, from whom all moralities have taken
their inspiration, — can she be so unconscious of her power ?
There is not a tenet in Christianity which can surpass in
moral value the natural impulses of a mother's heart for her
children's welfare ; or the sacred influences of home.
APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 565
It is to be remembered that all the great writers upon
ethics, from Plato to those of the present day, seek to find
the source of morality in the nature of man. Some call it
a moral sense or intuition, some a divine instinct, others
think it is one of two conflicting elements of life ; but
none believe it to be an external fact. They may all regard
the source of morality as a mystery, but they think that
mystery lies somewhere within us. Following this universal
suggestion, we must seek for moral principles in the natural
activities of life, viewing life in its widest sense ; and in
deference to the age we live in we must disown the common
belief that these principles are unknowable, and that their
secrets are in the keeping of men who deal in mysteries.
There are no generalizations in moral science which have
a deeper or higher source than the simple idea of Justice
universally symbolized by the device of the balance. There
are no ideas of right conduct which are more than enlarge-
ments of the natural relations of family life. All crimes are
crimes against humanity, all virtues are but developments of
life which consider the well-being of others. How few there
are who can imagine the moral order of society progressing,
or even surviving, without the great machinery of religion
which we see about us. Who is able to separate in the
mind, the solemn for<ns of worship, and the sentiment of
duty ? Think for a moment what worship is. Why is it
that your heart warms to the appeal of your priest or minis-
ter ? Has he touched some of your human sympathies ?
Has he aroused your indignation at the sin of others, or
your repentance for your own shortcomings ? Has he
painted for you some picture of heaven in which your ex-
periences of life reappear in brighter colors, or has he fright-
ened you by some threat of mysterious vengeance, which
you vaguely feel that you deserve ? Or is this man of God
compelled, by the intelligence of his audience, to keep in
the background his myths and mysteries, and appeal to your
altruistic sentiments, your love in ever-widening circles for
your fellow-men ? Does he, in a word, simply awaken that
566 THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY.
infinite sympathy in which we find the principles of love,
humanity, and justice? Lift from him, then, all the appur-
tenances of superstition, and he stands before you simply
a man pleading the cause of humanity ; appealing to those
sympathies which begin at home and develop into universal
benevolence. Infinitely more dignified and powerful for
good would this man be without his superstitions.
Has not the world tried the religions of mystery long
enough ? Has not the time come, at least in our land,
when we can dispense with this dishonesty ? Do not think,
therefore, that you are advancing the cause of right-living
by perpetuating the superstitions of the world ; do not flatter
yourselves that by so doing you are serving your family, your
country, or your God.
The religions of mystery have been tried, and they have
been found wanting. Egypt lived under their influence
for ages, and she has left but monuments of oppression and
misery. India has believed in mystery, and her people are
crushed and divided by the iron rule of caste. China has
turned away from the simple morality of Confucius, and in
childish ignorance her millions of people worship artificial
gods. The savages are superstitious, and they believe in
and fear the shadows of their dead. The Christian nations
have perpetuated the mysteries, and they worship a human
God. Their history has been one of ignorance and blood-
shed, and we are still living under the same regime. Is it
not time, at least in America, to try some other religion ?
Will not every phase of our existence be exalted by the
formation of a true conception of God ?
THE END.
AN WITIAL FINE I 01 ; « CENTS
WIU. BE ASSESSED FOR FA.LURETO
THIS BOOK ON ™E DATE DU ^
N SEVENTH
YC 31774
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11