Spiritual philosophy : founded on the teaching of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY

FOUNDED OAr ^j •'

THE TEACHING OF THE LATE

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE:

HV THE LATE

JOSEPH HENRY GREEN, E.R.S. D.C.I,

EDITED,
II 7V// A MEMOIR OE THE AUTHOR'S LIFE

HY

JOHN SIMON, F.R.S.

Medical Officer of Her Majesty's Privy Council,
and Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital.

VOLUME I.

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1\1 T T T A XT A XT T^k r* r\

M A C M I L L A N AND CO.

1865.

3,

CONTENTS OE VOLUME I.

PART FIRST.

OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES AND PROCESSES WHICH ARE
CONCERNED IN THE INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH.

PAGE

SECTION I. — The Speculative Reason and its work . . .

„ II. — The Understanding, or Discourse of Reason . 4

Subsection A. — The Sense and Senses 18

,, B. — Generalization 20

M C. — Reasoning or Sylloge 32

D.— Induction . 100

PART SECOND.

OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER I. — Introductory and Recapitulatory 165

„ II.— The Will, as the ultimate fact of Self-
Consciousness 179

#f CONTENTS.

PAKT SECOND (continued).

PAGE

CHAPTER III.— Ideas . ; 194

„ IV. — Dialectic, or the Polar Logic, and its office in

the conversion of Conceptions into Ideas . 245

„ V.— The Soul, as the total sphere of being of

the Will .... 283

r

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

MRS. GREEN has done me the honour of desiring me to
see through the press the following posthumous work of
my very dear friend and master, her late husband. And it
is part of her wish that, in introduction to the work, and
in explanation of the circumstances under which it was
written, I should briefly tell the story of the Author's life,
and describe, so far as I can, what influence he aimed at
exerting in his generation, and what manner of man he
seemed to those who had the happiness of being nearest
to him.

JOSEPH HENRY GREEN was born in London on the 1st Birth and
of November, 1791 ; and after seventy-two years of life, Death-
during which his powers and virtues won for him the
highest honours possible to his particular career, he died
at Hadley, Middlesex, leaving no issue, on the 13th of
December, 1863.

He was the only son of his parents. The father, Parentage.
Joseph, was a merchant of high standing in the city
of London.* The mother, Frances, was sister of

* Eventually he was known as the head of the firm of Green and
Ross, of Martin's Lane, Cannon Street ; but in 1791 he was carrying
on his business without a partner at No. 11, London Wall, where also
he then had his residence, and where the subject of this memoir was
born.

VOL. I. b

ii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

Mr. Cline ; who, at the end of the last century, had
already attained the place, which he long afterwards
held, in the very foremost rank of English surgeons.*

From at least one side of this parentage, Mr. Green
may well have inherited more than common qualities of
mind. His father, indeed, though said to have been
ardent and vigorous in wiiat he had to do, is more
emphatically described to me as having been one of
the kindliest of men, and quite child-like in the sim
plicity and unworldliness of his nature. But the mother's
character was certainly of exceptional strength. Even
to the end of her very long life, her conversation and
aspect (the latter strikingly like her son's) conveyed
the impression, not only of intelligence and education,
but of a naturally firm, self-possessed, reflective, tran
quil mind. And in her brother, Mr. Cline, there
were marked qualities of the same class ; not only
the intellectual gifts which sufficed for his professional
success ; but a certain grand composure and elevation of
character, which filled his friends and pupils with an
almost religious faith in him, and which, when all who
remember him have passed away, will still be on record
in one of Chan trey's favourite works — that admirable bust,
which Coleridge, when he was talking of the origin of
mankind, was often glad to apostrophise -f- as in itself a
sufficient refutation of Lord Monboddo.

* Mr. Joseph Green died in 1834, at the age of sixty-nine; but his
widow lived to complete ninety years of age, and died only ten years
before her son. Mr. Cline by his own marriage, as well as by his
sister's, was closely connected with the Green family, having married
a half-sister of Mr. Joseph Green.

f "And did that mans ancestor dwell in trees — ? " &c.

MEMOIR Ol1 T1IE AUTHOR'S LIFE. iii

From birth onward, tlie boy had all the educational

educa-

ancl other advantages which ample wealth can command, tion.
Both because he wras his parents' sole child, and also
because he was born of exceedingly delicate constitution,
his young life was the object of supreme care. But the
vigilance of his parents was as great for his moral and
intellectual, as for his bodily, well-being ; and doubtless
in the former respects they found that nature had given
them a very apt soil for cultivation. For health-reasons
he was sent to Ramsgatc to get his first years of schooling.
Afterwards he was for some years at the Reverend Dr.
Attwood's, at Hammersmith, — a school which in those
days was held in very high repute. And then, at the age
of fifteen, he went for further education to Germany,
where he studied in various places (chiefly in Hanover) for
about three years. In illustration of the care which his
parents had for him, it may be noted that during these
three years his mother also resided in Germany, joined
only at intervals by her husband ; and that, according to
her son's educational movements, she changed her resi
dence from place to place, so as always to reside in the
town where he was lodging with his teacher. Concerning
the details of his primary education I know nothing ; but
I know that the result was to make him at an early age
remarkable for his information and accomplishments, and
to give him those habits of methodical industry and deli
berate reflection and conscientiousness which marked him
till the end of his career.

Towards the close of 1809, returning to England, he was Medical

education

apprenticed at the Royal College of Surgeons to his uncle, and its
Mr. Cline. Mr. Cline was Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, stances.

b 2

iy MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOB/S LIFE.

And so the apprentice began his medical studies at that
hospital, of which afterwards he was himself to become
the honored head and ornament. Better security could
not have been found for his future professional eminence,
than that he should thus begin technical work with the
advantage of a first-rate preliminary education, and follow
it under the judicious and vigilant guidance of one who
was himself a great master.*

Mr. Cline knew enough of the freemasonry of fellow-
studentship to be anxious that his nephew's first ac
quaintances at St. Thomas's should be of the right sort.
And the first thing which he did for him, in taking him to
the hospital, was to introduce him to an elder student,
a " dresser " of his own, of whom he had a high opinion,
which the young man's after-career well justified. The
fellow-student to whom the beginner was thus particularly
introduced, and with whom he soon formed the closest of
friendships, was William Hammond, son of a surgeon of
the same name then in large practice at Southgate and
Whetstone. And the friendship was an eventful one to
the subject of the present memoir ; for, through it, Mr.
Green became intimate in the family-circle of his friend,
and there had the good fortune of learning to know, in his
friend's sister, the lady who afterwards became his wife.

Marriage. There had been till about this time a rule at the College
of Surgeons that no apprentice of the College might marry.
But in 1813 the rule was opportunely repealed. And on
the 25th of May of this year, Mr. Green (whose term of

* In 1812 Mr. Cline resigned his surgeonship at St. Thomas's, and
was succeeded by his son, Mr. Henry Cline, who from that time, so far
as the hospital was concerned, undertook the direction of his father's
apprentices.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. V

apprenticeship was as yet little more than half out) was
married to Miss Anne Eliza Hammond. From this event
he dated the more than fifty years of perfect domestic
happiness and serenity which best favoured the peculiar
tenor of his life. From it he also gained what to him (an
only son) was the very great incidental advantage of
alliance with a large and most estimable family ; with the
members of which many of his happiest hours of relaxa
tion were henceforth to be passed ; and among whom
and whose descendents, he, till the end of his life, was
entirely loved and trusted and reverenced.

For more than two years after his marriage, Mr. Green, Early pro-
still a student and dresser at the hospital, lived at his life.
father's business-house, No. 6, Martin's Lane. But on
the 1st of December, 1815, he obtained the diploma of
the College of Surgeons, and now began the practice of
his profession in Lincoln' s-Inn Fields, — where (first at
No. 22, and afterwards at No. 46) he lived for the next
twenty years of his life.

In 1816 he obtained his first official connexion with the
school of St. Thomas's Hospital, by being appointed to
the junior and unpaid post of Demonstrator of Anatomy.
Tenure of that nominally small office involved, fifty years
ago, far more than it now involves. Mr. Green, besides
giving his own anatomical demonstrations, had often, in
the absence of his seniors, to deliver part of the sys
tematic course of lectures on Anatomy and Surgery. And
moreover — as the Hospital had not then any regularly-
appointed Assistant-Surgeon, he was often called upon to
represent in the wards or operating theatre some one of
the surgeons who was absent.

Vi MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

Course of In the summer of 1817, there was an episode in his life
athB°eSiiin!y which, in connexion with the present publication, deserves
particular notice. Then, namely, he made an excursion to
Berlin, for the purpose of having from Professor Solger a
private course of reading in philosophy.* And through
one of the circumstances of that excursion I am enabled
to give a picture of him as he appeared at that period of
his life to one who was well qualified to judge him. Ludwig
Tieck, then in his forty-fifth year, and having in German
literature an influence which was only second to Goethe's,
had been paying a visit to London ; and the circumstances
of Mr. Green's expedition to Berlin are told in a letter which
Tieck wrote to Solger on the subject, and which happens
to be in print among Solger's literary remains.-)- " My chief
" object in writing to you now (Paris, July 26) is a matter
" about which I would have written from London, but
" that the end of my stay there was spent in the utmost
" confusion, and without a minute's leisure or quiet. My
" point is this. I made acquaintance in London with a
" young man of the name of Green, who sought me out,
" and at once fastened on me with a fine kind of faith. He
" is full of a noble eagerness for knowledge, has studied
" German philosophy as far as his youth and his distance
" from us would permit, and is now just in that stage of
" development which is the most interesting and the most
" critical in life. It had been his wish to go to Germany,
" in order to see things for himself, and especially to get

* It is probably superfluous for me to state, — but for fear of any
possible uncertainty I think it well explicitly to do so, — that always,
except where inconsistent with the context, I use the word PHILOSOPHY
in its widest sense, as co-inclusive of THEOLOGY and ETHICS.

f Solger's nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel ; herausgegeben
von L. Tieck und F. v. Raumer, vol. i. pp. 550 — 52. See also p. 557.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOlt'S LIFE. vii

" more exact information about the history of our modern
" philosophy ; but, having been appointed a teacher of
" anatomy in London, he had resigned himself to deferring
" for years the realisation of that hope. In the talks
" which I had with him, your name very naturally was
" mentioned ; and what I said about you, and your book
" which I showed my young friend, all filled him with the
" most enthusiastic desire of knowing you in person.
" Suddenly he made up his mind that before October he
" would go to Berlin to see you. Meanwhile I had to go
" for a trip into the country, and when I came back after
" a fortnight's absence, he, to my surprise, had already
" started — so strong wras his attraction towards Germany
" and yourself. We had agreed that I was to give him a
" letter to you, to explain what he had at heart, and par-
" ticularly to ask you if you could not perhaps manage to
" give him a course — privatissimmn — in the history of
" philosophy. I am now more than a day after the fair,
" but even if I had written from London (which was quite
11 impossible) my letter would hardly have reached you
" before his arrival. Of course before now you have made
u acquaintance with this loveable young man, and I
" heartily hope you have, somehow or other, been able
" to satisfy his burning thirst for knowledge. Few men
" are as much in earnest about it as he is ; and with
" him this is the more noticeable because so few of his
" countrymen can understand one's caring a bit about
" the matter unless for some collateral object. I entreat
" you to do what you can towards fulfilling his wishes, for
" I feel sure that no one but you — with your largeness,
" solidity, and clearness — can help him. Green can at
" least get thus much, that afterwards he will be able to

viii MEMOIR or THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

" work at home with more confidence and success ; and,
" believe me, he is worth a good and wise man's taking
" trouble for him, This is what I had to beg of you.
" You must forgive me if I am tempted to send you
" young men. There are so many occasions when it
" comes naturally to me to speak to them of my reverence
" for your intellect, and of my friendship and love for you.
" How your book has delighted me ! "

In this expedition to Berlin, Mr. Green was accompanied
by his wife ; and on their way back to England they loitered
a little, in order to renew, both together, the pleasant
associations which he had formed during his former long
stay in North Germany. Meanwhile the object of the
visit to Berlin (where Tieck had afterwards joined them)
had been well attained.*

First ac- And here I may note that before this time Mr.

witTcokJ-6 Green's acquaintance with Coleridge had begun, though
certainly as yet it was not intimate. I cannot learn
the exact date or circumstances of its commencement.
But Tieck's visit to England (during which he and Cole-

* That Mr. Green produced on Solger the same sort of impression as he
had produced on Tieck, may be gathered from a slight allusion to him
which Solger makes in a letter to Tieck shortly after the breaking-up of
their party : — " Not long after you left us, who should come but a
" Frenchman — M. Cousin, Professor of Philosophy at the University of
" Paris, who was making a philosophical tour through Germany, in
" order to learn here for himself something of our state of affairs. It
" was a sore change from our gallant Green, who had left us the day after
" you went. One of M. Cousin's first questions was — Monsieur, quel
" est votre systeme ? He was often with me during the week or fort-
" night of his stay, and I found it the very devil to have to philosophise
" with him in French. Yet I didn't dislike his being here. He was
" more earnest than most Frenchmen, and told me lots of interesting
" things about politics and literature in France."

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. IX

ridge met more than once at Mr. Green's house) must
greatly have promoted the intimacy, if it did not actually
occasion the first acquaintance, between Coleridge and
his future disciple.

Early in 1820 Mr. Henry Cline (who, eight years before, Promotion
had succeeded his father as Surgeon to St. Thomas's Thomas's
Hospital) died unexpectedly when only 39 years old. On
the 27th of May Mr. Green was elected to the vacant
Surgeonship, and thereupon became associated with Sir
Astley Cooper as joint Lecturer on Anatomy and Surgery.
Already his Demonstratorship of Anatomy had brought
him before the profession as a writer; for he had pub
lished (first anonymously, under the title of Outlines of
a Course of Dissections, and afterwards, with his name,
under the title of The Dissector's Manual} two editions
of a handbook of dissecting-room anatomy. This book—
which, by-the-bye, is remarkably compendious and exact,
and is illustrated by plates of more than average useful
ness, has long been superseded by other more developed
works of the same kind ; but it deserves notice that
Mr. Green's manual was the first of such attempts to
provide in our literature for a very evident want of the
medical student, and that it became the pattern to a long
and valuable train of successors. The concluding para
graph of the preface is, I think, worth quoting here as an
illustration of the tone of Mr. Green's teaching at that
period of his career: — "In whatever age or country the
" knowledge of Anatomy has been absent, medical science
" has existed in one or other of two extremes : it has either
" groped in detail with a blind empiricism, or blundered
"by wholesale with a dreaming and presumptuous arro-

X MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

" gance ; in the one case sinking below experience ; in the
"other, soaring above it into the empty regions of ab-
" straction. That we are enabled to take the middle path,
" we owe to the courage and industry of the great anato-
" mists before us, more than to any other single cause.
" But there is one use to be derived from the study as at
" present pursued, which is negative indeed, but of scarcely
" less importance to the students as men, than the other
"and positive uses are to them as medical practitioners.
"By serious reflection on what Anatomy has not taught,
" and what no Anatomy ever can teach us, the great laws
' ' of life, we learn not to over-value the senses so as to
" forget the higher faculties of our nature, at the very time
" that we are most sensible that it is only by combining
" these with the exercise of the senses, that we can exert
" ourselves to any purposes of utility or of duty in that
"world of the senses which is the appointed sphere of
"both."

Profes- Mr. Green's merits now began to make rapid way in

gress. P procuring him the confidence of his profession and the
public. In 1824 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy
to the Royal College of Surgeons, and delivered twelve
lectures at the College — the first section of a compre
hensive course (to be extended over four years) on the
Comparative Anatomy of the Animal Kingdom. In 1825
he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Also in
1825 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy to the
Royal Academy, and in the last months of that year
delivered in Somerset House, where the Academy then
had its rooms, the first of a long succession of annual
courses (to which I shall presently again refer) on Anatomy

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. xi

in its relation to the Fine Arts. Ere now, too, he had
acquired a considerable and increasing share in the private
practice of his profession.

Before I speak in detail of the courses of lectures which Schism
date from 1824 and 1825, I am obliged to note in passing Borough
that the year 1825 had one less pleasant association. In
January, in the middle of the medical session, Sir A.
Cooper (influenced, I believe, by some unfounded alarm
as to the state of his health) had abruptly resigned his
share of the anatomical and surgical lectures at St.
Thomas's Hospital, and had proposed to obtain for his
nephews, Mr. Key and Mr. Bransby Cooper, the suc
cession to his share of this important " partnership." But
though Mr. Green seconded Sir Astley's recommendations
in the matter, the authorities of the Hospital would not
appoint Mr. Brausby Cooper to the share proposed for
him in this arrangement. Hereupon Sir Astley Cooper,
getting very angry in his disappointment, determined, with
his nephews, to create at Guy's Hospital (which had
hitherto been practically one with St. Thomas's) a separate
lecturing establishment in rivalry with the school which
he had left ; and, as a museum was necessary for this
purpose, he proposed to carry away from St. Thomas's
half of the partnership-museum which was there as the
necessary apparatus of instruction. In his anger he
forgot that the articles of agreement, under which he had
been lecturing for the last two-and- twenty years, were
framed with very particular stringency against any division
of the museum ; i. e. the museum was to " form one in
separable collection," and, if either of the two proprietors
died or became incapable of teaching, his share in the

xii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

museum was to devolve on the survivor, and be paid
for by a fixed sum of money. That Sir Astley's claim was
altogether untenable under the agreement, and that it
was one which could not properly be conceded, was, I
think, what any dispassionate person might have seen at
a single glance. But Sir Astley and his nephews were
not dispassionate. And they wrote and said a great deal
which they must soon have wished unwritten and unsaid.
And the quarrel extended to the governments of the two
hospitals. And at last Mr. Green, after months of ex
treme provocation borne with the utmost patience, had no
alternative but to publish a pamphlet,* in which, with

* The pamphlet is entitled, A Letter to Sir Astley Cooper, Bart.
F.R.S. SfC.y on certain proceedings connected with the establishment oj
an Anatomical and Surgical School at Guy's Hospital. The last page of
the letter is so characteristic of the writer, that (as it can not now hurt
any one's feelings) I think I may properly subjoin it. " Most anxious
" as I have been," he says, " throughout this letter, to avoid every
" unnecessary reference to myself, and my own feelings, I yet cannot
" conclude it without indulging a complaint that I should thus have
" been forced into a contest, alien from my habits and disposition; and
" which, not only without provocation on my part, but in spite of my
" most solicitous efforts to prevent or arrest it, has distracted my
" attention from my professional duties, and the tranquil pursuits that
" would qualify me for their honourable fulfilment. From my first
" admission into the profession, it has been my deepest conviction that
" there exist but two ways by which the high rank which our pro-
" fession now enjoys in the estimation of the country can be main-
" tained ; first, its intimate connexion with the liberal sciences, cultivated
" without hire or compulsion, on the score of their own worth and dig-
" nifying influences ; and secondly, by the correspondent conduct and
" character of its individual members. It was these that first acquired
" for us the title and privileges of GENTLEMEN : and by these alone can
" we hope to retain the name. Without these adjuncts, surgery itself,
" great and irresistible as its claims are on the ground of utility, would
" still be what it once was, and its name still implies — Chinirgery,

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOB/S LIFE. xiii

admirable temper arid dignity, he fully vindicated his own
position in the matter, and took Sir Astley Cooper very
gravely to task for the course which he had followed.
This pamphlet was left unanswered, and was in fact
unanswerable. I believe that at last the justice of Mr.
Green's view was conceded even by his opponents. At
all events, after some years, perfectly cordial relations
were re-established between him and them ;* — Sir Astley
always treating him with marked distinction, and Mr.
Bransby Cooper in particular always evincing the warmest
liking as well as respect for him.

Of Mr. Green's Lectures on the Animal Kingdom, deli- Lectures
vered at the Royal College of Surgeons in the years 1824 — College of
1827, I cannot from my own knowledge venture to speak.

" Handicraft, a Trade. Skill in a trade, however great it may be, can
" confer no claim to the name of GENTLEMAN on men whose conduct
" gives proof that their motives and objects are those of mere tradesmen.
" But we, Sir, have pledged ourselves by a public and solemn oath, thus
" addressed to us : — ' You swear that you will demean yourself honour-
" ably in the practice of your profession ; and, to the utmost of your
" power, maintain the dignity and welfare of the college. So help you
" God ! ' And 1 can most truly affirm that I have written this letter
" under the conviction that the verdict which society shall give on our
" fidelity and strict adherence to this oath, is the most important and
" sole permanent result of the publicity by which this dissension has
" been so injudiciously aggravated, in opposition alike to the wishes and
" judgment of J. H. G."

* I have reason to believe that the reconciliation was effected under
circumstances equally creditable to both parties. My friend Dr.Whiteley,
of Cannes, a St. Thomas's student of those days, who had opportunity
of knowing the facts, teUs me that the first move towards reconciliation
was made by the Coopers in 1827, under influence of the enthusiasm, of
admiration to which they were moved by Mr. Green's opening of his last
set of lectures at the College of Surgeons.

XIV MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

They were given long before I was even a student of the
profession ; and with exception of some fragments, hereafter
to be mentioned, nothing of them has appeared in print ;
nor in manuscript have I seen more of them than the
two eminently interesting lectures which related to the
Natural History of Man. But my own want of information
on the subject is far more than compensated by my having
the opportunity of inserting here the following extract
from a letter with which Professor Owen has had the
kindness to favor me, stating his recollection of the
lectures. " With reference to the course of Lectures which
" that noble and great intellect raised and honoured our
" Surgeons' College by delivering in its theatre, the first
" characteristic (in the use of the Historian of Zootomy)
"of this course — extended over 4 years — is that it em-
" braced the entire range of the Science. For the first
" time in England the comparative Anatomy of the whole
" Animal Kingdom was described, and illustrated by such
" a series of enlarged and coloured diagrams as had never
" before been seen. The vast array of facts was linked by
" reference to the underlying Unity, as it had been advo-
" cated and illustrated by Oken and Carus. The Compa-
"rative Anatomy of the latter was the text-book of the
" course. Dr. Barclay had given summer courses on Com-
" parative Anatomy, at Edinburgh, aiming at completeness
" but fragmentary in the Invertebrate part. Mr. Green gave
" the first complete course in this country, commencing in

" 1824 I heard the first as a Medical Student, and

"the two last (Aves and Mammalia) as an Assistant,
" being then attached to the Museum.

" Every previous Professor of Anatomy had given some
" part or fragment of Zootomy in relation to his special

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XV

" physiological or ideological views : Mr. Green's course
"combined the totality, with the unity of the higher philo-
" sophy, of the Science ; so far as the latter had been then
"based upon embryological and other researches. To
" such researches, facts or bodies of facts, I am not aware
" that Mr. Green added anything notable. Many dissections
"were made by his Assistants (Cane, Canton, W. H.Clift,
"and myself in 1826 and 1827) but they were to illustrate
"known organizations, or as subjects for the diagrams.
" The then want of knowledge of the species which
" Hunter had dissected, and derived preparations from,
" was keenly felt ; and the general terms ' sea-slug,'
" ( priapism,' ' Banks's odd fish,' &c. &c., were quaintly
" and characteristically quizzed by Green, while thoroughly
" appreciating and admiring the perspicuity of the ex-
" position of structures in the preparations ; and he used
" to lament that he could make so little use of the physio-
" logical series in its then uncatalogued state. Green
" illustrated in this grand Course (12 Lectures per annum)
" CARUS rather than HUNTER : the dawning philosophy
" of Anatomy in Germany, rather than the teleology which
" Abernethy and Carlisle had previously given as Hun-
" terian, not knowing their master."

Of Mr. Green's lectures at the Royal Academy (where Lectures
he retained his professorship till 1852) I can speak from Royal
my own recollection, as having attended several of the Aca<
courses ; and to this I am glad to add that all the more
important lectures which I heard are still existing in
manuscript.*

* Two of them, on Beauty and Expression, were published in the
Athenaum, of Dec. 16th and Dec. 23d, 1843.

XVi MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOE/S LIFE.

His teaching at the Royal Academy, like all his teaching,
was characterised by a very deep-going and comprehensive
treatment of his subject. He recognised of course that
the details of anatomy (even of mere artistic surface-
anatomy) could not be adequately spoken of, much less
conveyed, in the six formal lectures which he had annually
to deliver. He knew, on the contrary, that the art-
student who would learn anatomy must do so, if not
with actual dissection, at least with reiterated mani
pulation, as well as inspection, of his model, — helped
perhaps by familiar interchange of question and answer
with his teacher, but essentially advanced by dwelling
for himself prolixly on part after part, and by scruti
nizing for himself again and again with eye and hand
every fact of form and texture. And seeing all this, he
did not attempt what would have been impossible, nor
aim at sending away the more superficial of his auditors
with a belief that in six short lessons they had learnt
what only long personal study could give them. Pre
eminently he sought to impress on the art-students who
listened to him the spirit rather than the diagrams, the
hermeneutics rather than the chapters and verses, of
anatomy. Not indeed that he omitted to survey, or
surveyed othenvise than admirably, the composition and
mechanism of the human body ; and perhaps no mere
anatomist ever taught more effectively than he, what are
the bodily materials and arrangement which represent
the aptitude for strength and equipoise and grace, or what
respective shares are contributed by bone, muscle and
tegument, to the various visible phenomena of form and
gesture and attitude and action. But to this he did not
confine himself. Specially in the one or two introductory

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHORS LITE. xvii

or closing lectures of each course, but at times also by
digression in other lectures, he set before his hearers that
which to them as Artists was matter of at least equal
concern — the science of interpreting human expression
and appreciating human beauty. His discourses on
these subjects were very deeply considered. Necessarily
they were of wide philosophical range. And they were
enriched with numberless illustrative references to the
history of Art, and to the master-works of ancient and
modern sculpture and painting. Thus at one time, going
to the very root of /Esthetics with a thoroughness which
is not too familiar to English ears, he would discuss the
conditions, objective and subjective, under ivhich the
sense of beauty arises, and particularly the mental
faculties which are concerned in artistic production and
enjoyment. At another time, having to speak pathogno-
mically of the human emotions and passions, having
to follow them one by one in their operance — first as
affecting the vital organs of breathing and blood-moving,
and then as producing (through those organs) the re
spective changes of expression which outwardly mark their
domination, — he would begin by speaking as a Psychologist
of the normal balance of the human soul, and of the
conditions of its excitability in pain or pleasure, and of the
dynamics of its disturbance or self-control. And in such
a lecture he would help and quicken his argument,
perhaps by quoting as illustrations the aptest word-pictures
of emotion from Shakspeare and Milton, or perhaps by
analysing the pathognomical merits of Leonardo's master
piece which hung in copy before him. At another time,
lecturing on the sesthetical significance of the proportions
of the Jwmaii body, but not counselling a revival of

VOL. [. c

xviii MEMOIR or THE AUTHOR s LIPE.

the so-called Canon of Polycleitus, he would derive from
the Greek Pantheon all the illustrations of his lecture,
and, going to the spiritual roots of the mythology, would
discuss what various conceptions of power and beauty
and enjoyment underlay the Attic Sculptor's endeavour to
represent the " fair humanities " of his religion.

Mr. Green's courses of lectures at the Royal Academy
were always attended by very large and very attentive audi
ences, and, to all but the least intelligent of his hearers,
must, I think, have been sources of most valuable in
formation and suggestion. On more than one occasion (as
I see by memoranda which he left) he contemplated pub
lishing a revised selection of them as a System of Artistic
Anatomy. And though exactly that thing might not now
be feasible, yet doubtless the finished papers which he has
left would furnish a very interesting volume of lectures.

Connexion In 1830, when King's College was established, Mr.

Kind's Green was nominated Professor of Surgery in that in-

College' stitution. He thereupon resigned his chair of Surgery

(though he retained his post as Surgeon) at St. Thomas's

Hospital, and in 1831, when the College began to receive

pupils, commenced his first course of lectures at the

College. He held his professorship there till 1836, when,

resigning it, he was elected a member of the governing

Council of the College, which position he retained till his

death. In connexion with his professorship at King's

College, it devolved upon him in 1832 to deliver, on

behalf of the professorial body, the opening address of

the medical session. This address (afterwards published) *

was in great part founded on the views concerning the

* London, B. Fellowes, 1832 ; pp. 43.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. xix

Clcrisy or National Church which Coleridge had then
recently advanced in his work on the Constitution of
Church and State. It treated of the three chief pro
fessions — the Legal, Ecclesiastical and Medical, in their
respective relations to the three corresponding sciences of
Jurisprudence, Metaphysics (theological and ethical) and
Physiology; and it aimed at exhibiting, both in history
and in idea, the relations of the professions to one another,
and their joint dependence, through their respective
sciences, on the one common trunk and root of Philosophy,
— " by whose unobstructed sap they can alone retain the
" characters of life and growth." From this basis the
speaker proceeded to insist on the supreme desirability
of having the professions taught in Universities ; — where
should be cultivated Philosophy before particular sciences,
as the sciences before their respective professions ; — where,
as brethren of one household, the alumni should be bred
in one common law of honour, and of self-respect, and
of respect for each other as fellow-collegians, and of
contempt for all tricks and shams and shows ; — and where,
by the sense of a common derivation, and the fraternising
habits of a common training, the candidates of all the
liberal professions would be prepared for future re-union
as a national learned class, " every member and offset
" of which will be enabled and disposed to regard the
"practitioner of another profession in the same district
" as a brother — as a co-operator in a different direction
" to the same end, whose authority and whose influence,
" whenever rightly exerted, he is bound by duty, and pre-
" pared by impulse, to support and render effectual." By
those who heard it, this address is likely to be still re
membered as a wonderful oratorical display, It seemed

XX MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR,' S LIFE.

one continuous flow of lofty argumentative eloquence, and
the delivery of it was singularly earnest and effective.
To the youths who then first heard Mr. Green, it was
as the opening of a new world. The writer of the present
Memoir was among them — then a very unformed lad,
looking forward to become in another year one of Mr.
Green's surgical apprentices. To him, though now nearly a
third part of a century has since elapsed, the impression is
still vivid that there was his momentous first perception of
noble faculties being nobly exercised. And though so many
years have passed, he still turns with delight to the printed
pages of that address, not only for its momentary power
to conjure back, as in bodily presence, the honoured
teacher who spoke it, but ever also for the thoughts
which are in it — comprehensive and wise and elevated.

The five courses of Surgical Lectures which Mr. Green
delivered at King's College were models of systematised
technical teaching. With admirable method and lucidity
and completeness, and with the nice discrimination and
guardedness which his own large experience suggested to
him, he taught us, up to the knowledge-level of the hour
when he spoke, the principles of Surgical Pathology and
Practice. And this was not all. In an editorial article which
on occasion of Mr. Green's death appeared in one of our
medical journals, and which I probably am not wrong in
attributing to a gentleman, now of standing in the pro
fession, who was formerly among the most intelligent
students in the medical school of King's College, — the writer
truly observes : — " It is impossible to overrate the influence
" for good which such a teacher must have exerted over the
" minds — say, rather, over the whole hearts and being of
" the hundreds of young men who flocked to his teaching.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHORS LIFE.

" Whilst ostensibly learning the principles of surgery, they
" were imbibing lessons of life and manners, taste, philo-
" sophy and morals ; they were taught the awful responsi-
" bility of their calling ; they were indoctrinated with
" sentiments of the highest honour." *

Postponing for the present any mention of certain im- Council-
portant non-professional influences which were now tending theC<5iege
to affect Mr. Green's future career, I may here conveniently
advert to his participation (which began in 1835) in the
disciplinary government of his branch of the Medical Pro
fession. In 1835, the Council of the Royal College of
Surgeons voted him (and it was for life) into their body.
In 1846 he succeeded to a seat, which was also for life, at
the Board of Examiners at the College. Twice in after-
years he filled the annual office of President of the College,
— namely in the years 1849-50 and 1858-9. Twice also,
namely in 1840 and 1847, he appeared before the College
as Hunterian Orator.

Of the part taken by him in the councils of the College
during the eighteen years for which he had a voice in
them, I can speak only in the most general terms. The
meetings of the College Council are held in private ; and,
whatever I may have heard of differences of opinion at
those meetings, I have no means of which I can publicly
avail myself for separating Mr. Green's individual conduct
there from the overt official acts of the body. For reasons
which members of my profession can well appreciate, I
wish that I could exhibit such a separation. As it is,
I must content myself with referring to his published
opinions in matters of medical polity ; — for no one who
* Medical Times and Gazette, December 19th, 1863.

XXli MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR/S LIFE.

had any acquaintance with him will doubt but that in the
secret Councils of the College his voice was uniformly
raised in the sense of those published opinions. Particu
larly I may refer to a pamphlet which he published in
1841, under the title of Touchstone of Medical Reform,
containing three letters addressed by him to Sir Robert
Harry Inglis, then member for the University of Oxford ;*
and I may also refer to the opinions which on various
occasions he expressed before such Parliamentary Com
mittees as were taking evidence on questions of medical
reform. Always he will be seen holding up to the pro
fession and to the public the highest conceivable standards
of professional excellence, and always advocating means
by which the medical profession might be raised in its
education and moral tone. Some of the wishes which
he thus expressed were eventually in part realized, and
this, no doubt, much through his exertions. Thus, — that
decent preliminary education should be required of all
persons purposing to enter the medical profession, was a
need which he had earnestly represented for years before
it was practically recognised. And again, the amendment
which the constitution of the College of Surgeons received
from its charter of 1843 was in almost exact accordance
with suggestions which he had made, in his pamphlet of
1841, for the establishment of a class of Fellows who

* Tins was Mr. Green's third appearance as a writer on the subject
of Medical Reform. In 1S31 he had published, under the title of
Distinction without Separation, a Letter to the President of the College
of Surgeons, on the then state of the Profession. And in 1834 he pub
lished Suggestions respecting the intended plan of Medical Reform,
respectfully offered to the Legislature and the Profession, The pam
phlet of 1841, to which I have referred in the text, contains, I think,
all that was of permanent interest in the two earlier publications.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXiiJ

(with higher professional qualifications than the mass of
Members) should in future be the electors of the Council.
Often, on the other hand, his wishes and endeavours were
doomed to disappointment. Against those fragmentary
professional qualifications, which constitute titles to prac
tise Medicine or Surgery in the United Kingdom, and
which distinguish our professional system from that of
other civilised countries, — so that we may have Surgeons
with no rudiments of medical knowledge, and Physicians
or Apothecaries with no rudiments of surgical knowledge,
—against this, he, from first to last, protested in vain. And
thus, too, I feel sure it must have been in a matter which
more specially concerned his own College. For I know it
to have been against his judgment, that the Council of
the College of Surgeons, charged with the high trust of
providing for the due qualification of persons who by that
portal shall enter the medical profession, persisted in
regarding its own ranks as the only source from which to
appoint examiners for this important purpose; — a view,
in which, alas! it still persists, though involving the
absurdity and scandal, that persons the most removed
from contemporary scientific research (superannuated
hospital-surgeons, and the like) are thus the College's sole
examiners in those daily-growing sciences of Physiology
and Pathology which the College affects to promote in
the interests of the profession and the public.

Among the positive fruits of Mr. Green's Councillors]) ip

, , . Orations.

at the College of Surgeons, must be counted his two
Hunterian Orations, of which I have now to speak. For
the hearing of them, there came together perhaps the
most crowded assemblages, which any of our great pro-

MEMOIR OP THE AUTHOR* S LIFE.

fessional ceremonies could attract, of educated and in
fluential persons. And Mr. Green would not willingly
waive any so good opportunity of making known what
were his views of the broad principles of professional
polity and ethics. On both occasions, accordingly, he
reminded his hearers what obligations of study, and what
moral obligations, have to be fulfilled by the man whose
profession is to be distinguishable from a trade. And
on both occasions the anniversary permitted him not
inaptly to remind the College, that to imitate the unmer-
cenary spirit of Hunter's scientific labours is the one
effective condition for keeping in force the charters and
statutes by which the profession of Surgery has been dis
incorporated from amid the Guild of Barbers. But on
neither occasion was it his main object to speak of matters
like that, nor could he do so otherwise than in a few
emphatic perorational sentences. For each Oration dis
tinctively had its own philosophical object. And con
cerning these respective special objects, I may the rather
be allowed to speak here in some detail, as the Orations,
in their published form, have now for a long time been
out of circulation.

First Hun- ^ *ne ^rs^ Oration (subsequently published,* with
Oration preface and appendices, under the title of VITAL DY
NAMICS) the main object was to discuss the mental
faculties and processes which are concerned in scientific
discovery, and especially to insist on the import of the
pure Reason as the light by which Nature is to be under
stood. He wished (he said) to reconcile the study of
Nature with the requirements of our moral being, and to

* London, Wm. Pickering, 1840; pp. 165.

MEMOIR Or THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXV

connect science — " which even as the noblest offspring of
our intellect is but a fragment of our humanity" — with
the philosophy of Coleridge, — a philosophy, he continued,
" which, as far as my knowledge extends, pre-eminently, if
" not alone, gives life and reality to metaphysical pursuits,
" by showing their birth, growth, and requisite foundation
" in the whole man, head and heart." The Oration of
course included a statement of the doctrine of Ideas.
This word, he said, may sound strangely to those for
whom " Idea " has no other meaning than that with
which Locke used it, as " whatsoever is the object of the
understanding when a man thinks ;" but the advantage
of changing it would be equivocal, — " since this term, or
" some substitute less authorized by philosophical usage,
".is imperatively required in dynamical philosophy in
" order to designate powers as predetermining and con-
" structive, as intelligential acts, Swa/Aci? voepal teal
" vorjTal, and as formce formantes or laws." And pro
posing in his Oration to determine " the import of Ideas
in connexion with the powers of nature," he employed
the term " to designate those energic acts of omnipotent
" wisdom which as lawrs of nature (formse formantes) are
" at once creative and conservative of a nature, ever
" changing and yet ever essentially the same." Only when
interpreted in their relations to Laws and Causes, could he
admit the phenomena of nature to be matter of scientific
experience. And to interpret them in those relations (lie
argued) is not a necessary fruit of the heaping together,
however industriously, of sense-impressions however nume
rous, — is not a mere act of generalisation and abstraction
of like and unlike, — is not a function of the human under
standing as a "faculty judging according to sense," — but is

XXVI MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE.

something which derives its essence from sources super-
sensuous and impersonal. Expounding then in a sense
widely different from the popular one the gist of the
Baconian philosophy, and insisting that the famous in-
quisitio formarum aimed at " somewhat other and more
" than the mental substantiation of facts under whatever
" degree of generality," he calls Bacon to witness that the
power by which men attain to the interpretative insight of
nature is "the lux intellectus, the lumen siccum, the
" pure and impersonal reason, freed from all the various
" idols enumerated by our great legislator of science, the
" idola tribus, specus, fori, theatri,—tlc\&t is, freed from
" the limits, the passions, the prejudices, the peculiar
" habits of the human understanding, natural or acquired,
" but, above all, from the idola intellectus, from the
" arrogance which leads man to take the forms and
" mechanism of his own mere reflective faculty as the
" measure of Nature and Deity." And presently he thus
sums up the essentials of his own creed in the matter : —
" Man finds, in examining the facts of his conscious-
" ness, and as the essential character of his rationality,
" the capability of apprehending truths universal, neces-
" sary, absolute ; the grounds of which being underived
" from, must be antecedent, and presupposed in order,
" to experience : — man finds in himself the capability of
" inferring the reality of that which transcends his
" sensuous experience, and of contemplating causality,
" efficiency, permanent being, law, order, finality, unity :—
" man finds in himself the capability of apprehending,
" in a world of relations, the supra-relative ; in a world
" of dependencies, the unconditional ; in a world of flux
" and change, the immutable ; in a world of imperfec-

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXvii

" tions, the perfect ; — man recognises in himself, as the
" privilege and need of a rational mind, the capability
" of enlarging his thoughts to the universe, infinite as
" the Omnipresence of God ' upholding all things by the
" word of his power ; ' the capability of raising his mind
" to the Supreme as the Absolute Will, causative of all
" reality in the eternal plenitude of being. And it is
" in meditating on the conditions and cause of this
" capability, that man becomes conscious of an operance
" in and on his own mind, of the downshine of a light
" from above, which is the power of Living Truth, and
" which, in irradiating and actuating the human mind,
" becomes for it Reason ; — yea ! which is the revelation
" of those divine acts, at once causative and intelligential,
" which he recognises as first principles, ultimate truths, as
" ideas for the human mind, and constitutive laws in nature.
" It is by virtue of this Reason, that we hear the voice
" and legislative wrords of the Creator, sounding through
" the universe ; and it is in the sabbath stillness of our
" intellectual being, when the busy hum of the world
" is hushed, that the strains of this divine music penetrate
" the soul attuned by meditation to move responsive to
" its harmony."

By way of illustration of the above- described argu
ment, Mr. Green stated his conception of the Laws
which govern the constitution of the animal kingdom,
and determine the mutual similitudes and dissimilitudes
of its various component forms, and regulate the suc
cessive phases of individual organic development. Also,
of course, he abundantly illustrated his argument by
references to the history of science, — especially to the
discoveries of Newton, Dalton, and Faraday, and (as

XXviii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR* S LIFE.

beseemed the occasion) to the labours of John Hunter.
He claimed it to be Hunter's peculiar and eminent merit,
" that he had raised his mind to the apprehension of
" life as a law, in aid of a science of Vital Dynamics,
" and as the means of giving scientific unity to the
" facts of living nature. In what other sense can we
" understand either his assertion that ' life is a principle
" independent of organization,' or the purport of the
" magnificent commentary on his system, the Hunterian
" Museum ? ... By contemplating life (as Newton had
" taught the mechanic philosophers to contemplate gravi-
" tation) not as a thing, nor as a spirit, neither as a
" subtle fluid, nor as an intelligent soul, but as a law,
" he laid the foundation of scientific physiology ; and
" in that very conception of a law taught us that life
" is a power anterior in the order of thought to the
" organization, which it animates, sustains, and repairs, —
" a power originative and constructive of the organiza-
" tion, in which it continues to manifest itself in all
" the forms and functions of animated being. This great
" Idea never ceased to work in him as his genius and
" governing spirit ; and if in his printed works the one
" directing thought seems occasionally to elude his grasp,
" yet in the astonishing preparations for his Museum we
" find him constructing it for scientific apprehension out
" of the ' unspoken alphabet of nature ' and exhibiting
" the legislative idea in the i mode and measure of its
" working,' by bringing together the significant forms
" and types of life and organic existence." Again — " if
" Hunter left the physiological part of his great work
" incomplete, it was only because in obedience to the
" more pressing exigencies of the profession to which

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

" he belonged, he projected a revolution in Pathology,
" of carrying into the obscure recesses of disease the torcli
" of the same philosophy, by which he had already
" successfully shed a light upon the hitherto mysterious
" agencies of vitality. . . . And if the attribute of inven-
" tive genius be his, who unequivocally establishes a
" principle, as including, anticipating, and explaining all,
" and even its possible and yet unknown results, we
" venture to claim this distinction for Hunter, in extend-
" ing to Pathology the same principle which had happily
" guided his physiological researches, by treating disease
" as a problem of Vital Dynamics, and by seeking its
" intelligibility in the unity of the law of life. ... I
" do not hesitate to affirm that one of the main aids
" in constructing a science of Pathology will be by
" adopting as its ground the principle throughout implied
" in Hunter's researches ; that is, by recognising in life
" a power as of an agent at once contrariant to, and
" coerced by, the law which actuates and directs it ;
" and by treating disease as a problem, the solution of
" Which is to be sought in the great laws of life, as
" perturbations indeed of the order which these laws
" maintain, derived from the imperfection of the subject,
" but perturbations to be explained by laws, which, like
" those of the solar system, at once permit and correct
" the deviations. And if after witnessing the Vain strivings
" of this contrariant agency, betrayed in disorder, deformity,
" degeneracy, and disease, the medical philosopher medi-
" tates on the laws which produce the order, permanence,
" regularity, and beauty of organic life, he will feel as
" if, after the toils, vexations, and annoyances of the
" day, he had withdrawn with the astronomer to his

XXX MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR* S LIFE.

" observatory, and in the hushed stillness of some balmy
" night, directing his delighted gaze to the serene spectacle
" of his star-lit sky, contemplated the mystic planetary
" dance, which reveals more sensibly, though not more
" certainly than animated being, the eternal and un-
" changeable laws impressed on nature by nature's
" Architect and Creator. Thence turning back to his
" own pursuits, he will accord to Hunter the high merit
" of being at least the Kepler of his science, which only
" awaits its Newton in order to complete the scientific
" unity, already instinctively anticipated by Hunter's
" genius."

The above-described Oration in its printed form has
some of its arguments further developed in the Appendices
which (as I have stated) were published with it. First,
with reference to notions of cause and efficiency, there is
a paper on the Evolution of the Idea of Power. Next
come three papers respectively relating to Transcendental
Anatomy, to the Gradation of Animal Life, and to
the Characteristics of Man's Bodily Frame, — the last
being the substance of a Lecture which the Author had
given at the Royal Academy, and the others being either
taken from or founded on Lectures which he had given
as Professor of Anatomy at the College of Surgeons.
Fifthly, there is a paper discussing, more fully than the
limits of the Oration itself had permitted, the spirit of
Hunter's Pathology. Sixthly, there is a discourse on
Instinct, which originally formed part of one of the
Author's lectures at the College of Surgeons, and to which
Coleridge had referred in his Aids to Reflexion as agreeing
with his own views of the matter. And lastly, in expansion
of some of the physiological arguments of the Oration,

MEMOIR OF THE AUTIIOE/S LIFE. XXxi

there is a Recapitulatory Lecture of the last course
which the Author had given at the College of Surgeons.

Of the second Hunterian Oration (subsequently pub- Second
lished,* with Appendices, under the title of MENTAL Oration.
DYNAMICS) the main object was to show — and generally
on Coleridgian principles — what are the proper aims and
means of that so-called Liberal Education by which the
mind is best prepared for the scientific following of a
profession. Here, as in all true education, it is (he main
tained) the teacher's ultimate aim, not to have merely
infused certain prepared materials of information, but
rather to have awakened the faculties of the intellect, and
to have disciplined them in habits of conscious reflexion ;
and not even genius f is an exception to the rule, that by
cultivation " we may preserve the freshness, improve the
" vigour, and favour the originative faculties of the mind."
Premising then that the first business of the teacher is to
educe and exercise those elementary factors of thought

* London, Wm. Pickering, 1847 ; pp. 65.

f " Instead, then, of treating Genius as a mysterious endowment and
" occult faculty, I would say that it far rather designates the healthy
" balance and proportionate development of all the powers and faculties
" that are essentially human, and their harmonious constitution to one.
" Hence a more correct and significant expression for what we mean by
" Genius would be Individuality ; since hereby we understand that union
" of Free-will and Reason, by which man consciously affirms his Per-
" sonality, and therein continuously asserts his sphere of thought and
" act : — and it would be at least difficult to discover a more appropriate
" meaning for genius than the achievement of this individuality accord-
" ing to the idea, or the approximation to its excellence, which consists
" in a higher potentiation and happier combination of the human powers,
" intelligent and active, by the animating, modifying, and intensive
" energy of the sole font of original power within us, which we name free
" or moral Will."

XXxii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

which we name Abstraction and Generalization, he showed
how this may be done in an early attentive use of words,
and glanced at the metaphysical beliefs which are implied
in the simplest grammatical forms, and which these forms
may suggest for speculation. He followed the same line
of argument with regard to various other matters which
may be part of a liberal early education ; — to the various
branches of Natural History, as popularly studied, — to
Human History, "exhibited as the great scheme of Pro-
" vidence, which has been, and ever is, operative in the
" moral education of man, considered as the mind and
" soul of the planet," — to Mathematics, as, according to
Plato, " the first purification of the soul by abstracting
the attention from the accidents of the senses," — to Logic,
as " the art of conclusive discourse," and " the process by
which we deduce from known truths all that they legiti
mately comprehend," — to Literature, as " enabling a man
" to collect into his own individuality the discoveries, the
" mental wealth, the ennobling affections, and the models
" of the wise and great of countries and states under the
" most auspicious circumstances," — and to Languages,
whereof each additional one mastered would be to its pos
sessor " as it were a new limb without the deformity ;" —
and he shewed how, during various of these studies and
by their aid, not only Abstraction and Generalisation, but
higher mental faculties, and especially the Judgment,
might be developed and consciously exercised. And
finally, he spoke of the pure Reason, and of the Ideas
which philosophical meditation might bring into distinct
consciousness for the student, and of the relations of the
pure Reason to Science.

Among the Appendices with which this second Oration

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXXiii

was published, is a paper in which the Author discusses
the subject of Self -Consciousness, and incidentally also
discusses what are the main difficulties which have hitherto
opposed themselves to the establishment of a sound philo
sophy ; — " difficulties, implying doctrines so incompatible
" with the natural expectation that philosophy is (or ought
" to be) the complement of common sense, as to deter men
" in general from the pursuit." That enumeration of the
influences which Mr. Green deemed most hostile to true
philosophy might perhaps usefully be read in intro
duction to the following work ; but it will be seen that
he himself has quoted it at the end of the first chapter
of his second part, and I therefore refrain from inserting it
here.

For the convenience of keeping together in narrative the Continued

studies in

matters to which my last few pages have related. I have philoso-
reserved till now the mention of a sort of second life, to p *'
which, for very long before the years of which I have last
spoken, Mr. Green's common professional life had been
gradually becoming more and more subordinate. So far
back as 1817, when he was not yet twenty-six years old,
we saw him so imbued with a passion for speculative
philosophy, that, notwithstanding all other claims on his
strength, he must needs spend his autumn holiday in a stu
dious visit to the stronghold of German Transcendentalism.
We saw, too, that probably at about the same time he first
came within near range of Coleridge's fascinating genius.
And now we have to trace the influence which, from
then onwards, was exerted on his life by the powerful
and increasing undercurrent of his love for abstract
philosophy.

VOL. I. d

XXXiv MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR* S LIFE.

Inter- Whatever may have been (and I do not know them) the

with Cole- steps of his first intimacy with Coleridge, a time soon
began when he was an habitual and frequent visitor to
Highgate. And this he continued to be during the
remaining term of Coleridge's life. Even in the years of
his heaviest professional labour — even in those years (from
1824 onward) when he was doing an amount of professional
work which nothing but his extreme mental discipline and
method could have enabled him to accomplish and live, —
even then his collateral studies in philosophy were con
tinued. From his lectures, of which he was giving some
times as many as eleven in a week, and from his private
practice, of which he was getting more and more, and from
his hospital-practice, which he was conducting with eminent
energy and success, — from these aggregate occasions of
an almost exhaustive fatigue, he turned thirsting, as for
recreation and vigour, to the " fountains of divine philo
sophy." Invariably he spent with Coleridge — they two
alone at their work — many hours of every week, in talk of
pupil and master. And so, year after year, he sat at the
feet of his Gamaliel, getting more and more insight of the
teacher's beliefs and aspirations, till, in 1834, two events
occurred which determined the remaining course of his
life. On the one hand, his father died, and he thus
became possessed of amply sufficient means for his pro
fession to be no longer needful to his maintenance. On
the other hand, Coleridge himself died. And the Ian-
Effect of ^ guage of Coleridge's last will and testament, together no
death and doubt with verbal communications which had passed,
imposed on Mr. Green what he accepted as an obligation
to devote, so far as necessary, the whole remaining strength
and earnestness of his life to the one task of systematising,

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. XXXV

developing and establishing, the doctrines of the Cole-
ridgian philosophy.*

Influenced by these circumstances, he shortly deter- Retire
ment from
mined to withdraw from the private practice of his pro- private

fession. His steps in fulfilment of this resolve were taken
in 1836. It was then (as I have stated) that he resigned

* To Mr. Green, as trustee for Coleridge's children, Coleridge (by will
dated Sept. 17th, 1829) leaves for sale, in order to investment, all,
except trifles, of which he dies possessed, including books and manu
scripts. But as regards the books — "inasmuch as their chief value
will be dependent on his possession of them"— Mr. Green is to "have
" the option of purchasing the same at such price as he shall himself
" determine." And his discretion is to determine whether " to publish
" any of the notes or writings made by me in the same books or any of
" them, or to publish any other manuscripts or writings of mine, or any
" letters of mine should any be hereafter collected from or supplied by my
" friends and correspondents." A codicil dated July 2d, 1830, contained
the following paragraph : — " On revising this my will, there seemed at
" first some reason to apprehend that in the above disposition of my
" books as above determined, I might have imposed on my executor a
" too delicate office ; but on the other hand, the motive from the
" peculiar character of the books is so evident, and the reverential
" sense which all my children entertain of Mr. Green's character, both
" as the personal friend of their father and as the man most intimate
" with their father's intellectual labours and aspirations, I believe will
" be such as will I trust be sufficient to preclude any delicacy that might
" result from the said disposition." It may be convenient here to men
tion, as the direct results of the provisions of this will ; — first, that Mr.
Green added to his own already large library the books to which Coleridge's
bequest referred — books often abundantly annotated by their late pos
sessor ; and secondly, that from the annotated books and other writings
which thus passed into Mr. Green's possession there came the publica
tion of Coleridge's two posthumous works — The Literary Remains, in
four volumes, and the Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, — to the latter
of which works (in its second edition) Mr. Green prefixed a preface of 38
pages, relating particularly to the question of the author's originality in
points where he was in accord with Lesshig.

XXXVI MEMOIR OF THE AUTHORS LIFE.

Further
subordi
nation of
surgical
to philo
sophical
pursuits.

his professorship of surgery at King's College. Then, too,
he gave up his London house — only retaining chambers in
it for his occasional use when in town, and established his
home at Hadley, at the house known as The Mount,
where he continued resident till his death.

Retirement from private practice was no loss to Mr.
Green. Doubtless he might have continued to make from
it a large and increasing income — might, on at least equal
terms, have divided its highest metropolitan honours with
only some two or three elder, though not abler, competitors.
But to him, wealthy as he now was, the emoluments of
private practice were no adequate set-off against its re
straints and obligations. Probably for many years he had
been (to say the least of it) very indifferent to that form of
professional success ; and of late he had scarcely disguised
that it was irksome to him. To the profession, however,
this retirement of his was a great loss ; and I remember
to have heard the late Sir Benjamin Brodie, at a large
professional meeting, publicly lament it as such. For, so
great are the temptations, to which the junior members of
the medical profession are exposed, to do acts of unworthy
competition and claptrap, that it is of signal importance
to our entire body, that those of us who are most in the
public eye, as the leaders of private practice, should be
spotless examples of honour as well as the highest stan
dards of mere technical ability.

The nearly twenty-eight years which Mr. Green lived
after his removal to Hadley were years of devoted student
ship in fulfilment of his adopted duty. Not that in
entering upon his new life he relinquished his interest in
the practical aspects of his profession, or his care for

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXXvii

the amendment of its institutions. On the contrary, for
seventeen years afterwards, he retained his surgeonship
at St. Thomas's, — where, as within a ring-fence, he had all
that he could need to keep himself genuinely a surgeon ;
and during no less than ten years of this time, at the
very urgent and somewhat unreasonable solicitation of the
then managers of the school, he held again (though re
luctantly and without satisfaction to himself) a share of
the course of lectures on surgery. In the government of
the College of Surgeons, too, his participation, instead
of having ended in 1836, had then barely begun, and
(as I have already related) was for many years to go
on continuously increasing. Also, his principal exertions
in matters of professional reform were in times long
subsequent to 1836. No doubt, however, but that from
1836 onward all such objects as the above were secondary
in his mind to the one object of his philosophical studies.
Especially, as he became more and more absorbed in them,
he had to limit the total of work which he could afford for
other matters. And thus, as the College of Surgeons got to
claim more and more of his time, his connexion with the
practice of St. Thomas's grew more and more superficial.
Yet there was extreme unwillingness in our school that Eyentual

retirement

even this thread should be severed ; and it was not till 1853 from St;

Thomas s.

that he finally ceased to hold active office with us. In the
summer of that year he exchanged his post of surgeon for
the honorary appointment (then first made) of Consulting-
Surgeon to the Hospital ; receiving at the same time from
the Governors of the Hospital the compliment of being
nominated of their body. And on the 23d of June, at our
annual distribution of prizes, with a voice which not even
his strong will could keep from faltering with emotion, he

XXXviii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR' S LIFE.

bade public farewell to the colleagues who held him in
unmeasured regard and esteem, — to the place which was
dear to him with memories and associations even from
the days of his boyhood, — to the office, which any man
might have been proud to hold, but which his successors
may prize more highly than ever in remembering that it
was filled by him,

Nature of The scheme of labour which he was endeavouring to
rea^ze at Hadley was one of colossal dimensions. Out-

had under- siders. who knew in general terms that he had undertaken

taken.

some literary responsibilities in fulfilment of Coleridge's
will, may have supposed him engaged in merely editorial
duties, with an abundant publishable written text to
his hand. Coleridge himself had doubtless contributed
to the existence of such a delusion : for he, with his
ardent imagination, had an inveterate mental habit of
magnifying the projected into the "half-done," and the
begun into the " almost ready for publication : " and
expressions which had been uttered by him in that
sanguine spirit led admirers after his death to suppose
that he must have left behind him in a relatively perfect
state some Opus Magnum in philosophy, with which
the utmost that Mr. Green could have to do would
be to fill a few gaps, to supply a few explana
tions, to harmonise a few apparent discrepancies, to
illustrate a few applicabilities, and so forth. But in
truth the existence of any such work was mere matter
of moonshine. Coleridge had not left any available
written materials for setting comprehensively before the
public, in his own language and in an argued form, the
philosophical system with which he wished his name to

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

be identified.* Instead of it there were fragments — for
the most part mutually inadaptable fragments, and begin
nings, and studies of special subjects, and numberless
notes on the margins and fly-leaves of books. True, that
in unambiguous terms he had sounded the key-note of
his philosophy. And there was the tradition of his oral
teachings. And many of the written fragments were in
the highest degree interesting and suggestive ; such as
those which were successively published, under Mr. Green's
authority, in the four volumes of Literary Remains
and in the so-entitled Confessions of an Inquiring
Spirit. But here was no system of philosophy, nor even
the raw materials for a system. In that point of view
Coleridge's written remains could have no value except
in their relation to a general plan and in methodical
correlation among themselves. Evidently if they were
to be made conducive to a system of Coleridgian philoso
phy, it could but be in a very subordinate degree. The
system itself must first exist in a logical form. And in
order to its existence in that form, Mr. Green must
himself thus produce it ; — he, with his indefatigable in
dustry, guided by an unique knowledge of Coleridge's
conceptions and purposes.

This task Mr. Green had taken upon himself. Though Work at
at first I heard little of it as having so comprehensive a
scope, later events satisfied me that from the first he had
resolved to do as much as his remaining quantum of life

* With reference to this and some other assertions in the text, I beg
to refer to a paper which Mr. Green, in answer to some questions on the
subject of Coleridge's Remains, published (June 10, 1854) in No. 241
of Notes and Queries. See also foot-note, p. xlii.

xl MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR* S LIFE.

would allow towards putting forth the Coleridgian philo
sophy, in utmost elaboration, as a complete and coherent
SYSTEM ; and that, in purposing, if possible, to deliver as
Coleridge's legacy to the world a SYSTEM of Coleridgian
philosophy, he had accepted the words " system of philo
sophy" in their most exactive and obligatory sense. A
system of philosophy (he always insisted) does not deserve
its name, unless it virtually include the law and explana
tion of all being, conscious^ and unconscious, and of all
correlativity and duty, and be applicable, directly or by
deduction, to whatsoever the human mind can contemplate
— sensuous or supersensuous — of experience, purpose, or
imagination. In this spirit he set to work to systematise
the Coleridgian doctrines ; and in this spirit, subject to
some necessary qualifications, he, for well-nigh thirty
years, was at work with them. If he could not hope to
establish the system in all the world-wide applications of
which it claimed to be capable, at least, so far as his life
time would allow, that should be the aim and tendency of
his work; and he would for himself, before final publication,
test the applicability of the system in the largest possible
sphere of study. Theology, Ethics, Politics and Political
History, Ethnology, Language, ^Esthetics, Psychology,
Physics and the Allied Sciences, Biology, Logic, Mathe
matics, Pathology, — all were thoughtfully studied by him
in at least their basial principles and metaphysics, and
most were elaborately written of as though for the divisions
of some vast cyclopaedic work.* Even on knowledges which
could only be remotely conducive to his main end, he spent

* The "Vital Dynamics" and "Mental Dynamics" are illustrations
of that sort of work, and this fact will account for the frequency with
which Mr. Green refers to them in the following pages.

MEMOIR OF TIIE AUTHOR'S LIFE. xli

sometimes a good deal of labour. Thus, at an early period
he thought it convenient to increase his familiarity with
Greek ; — subsequently, when more than sixty years old, he
busied himself with learning to read Hebrew ; — and at a
still later period, with particular reference to philology, he
sought at least some acquaintance with Sanskrit. Here
with, however, he kept himself well au courant of the
common talk of his own time. In it he habitually sought
opportunities for testing his philosophical principles.
And it was characteristic of him that, with no view to
publication, but simply for practice in the detailed uses
of his philosophy, he would often very carefully think out,
and sometimes discuss in writing, questions which were at
the moment undergoing newspaper-criticism, — electoral
reform, or capital punishment, or pleas of insanity in
criminal cases, or the American schism, or some recent
novel, or what not.

In such work as the above, especially when it is fre- Lapse of
quently interrupted by avocations of a different nature,
years glide away like weeks. And as Mr Green continued,
even till the end of his career, to hold himself to a con
siderable extent at the call of his profession, so, occasion
ally, there were long spells of time when he could make
but little progress at home.

Too soon, however, a period arrived when he felt that
he might not prudently trust to a much longer continu
ance of life. As he neared seventy years of age (though
with mind as vigorous as ever, and with eye still as cloudless
as a child's) it became evident that his health was deeply
undermined. From his father he had inherited gout. And of
late that versatile disease, not as mere occasional foot-ache,

xlii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR' S LIFE.

but in its most troublesome " irregular " forms, had been
gradually sapping his strength, and giving him almost con
stant inconvenience and suffering. It was irremediable.
So now, he calmly said to himself, he must wind up those
affairs of his trust. Whether subsequently he might
have opportunity to utilise further the long succession of
philosophical treatises which he had prepared in apparent
readiness for publication, he would leave for time to de
termine. But at least one thing should be made sure.
He would at once complete in a compendious form a work
which should give in system the doctrines, especially the
theological and ethical doctrines, which he deemed most
distinctively Coleridgian.* To this object he accordingly
devoted what in effect proved to be the whole available
remainder of his life. And the result is the two volumes
now before the reader.

Religio It must not, however, be supposed that Mr. Green had

LaicL

left to the precarious end of his life a work which for
thirty years he had deemed to be of supreme importance.
On the contrary, his first act in the matter after Cole
ridge's death had been to compose (though necessarily in
a form which he hoped by after-work to supersede as

* Coleridge's aspiration in the matter of religious teaching is expressed,
in the form of an unfulfilled promise, in the following passage of his
Aids to Reflection, 4th Edit. p. Ill : — " The whole scheme of the
Christian Faith, including all the articles of belief common to the Greek
and Latin, the Roman and the Protestant Churches, with the threefold
proof, that it is ideally, morally, and historically true, will be found
exhibited and vindicated in a proportionally larger work, the principal
labour of my life since manhood, and which might be entitled, Assertion
of Religion, as necessarily invoicing Revelation ; and of Christianity , as the
only Revelation of permanent and universal validity"

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. xliii

comparatively crude and fragmentary) a work of the same
main intention as the present one, — an exposition of the
religious doctrines which Coleridge would have most
wished to see vindicated. This (so to speak) provisional
compendium was entitled Religio Laid* It was only after
having completed it, that he undertook the prolonged and
various studies which I have described ; partly with the view
of developing as fully as he could the philosophical basis of
the religious doctrine, and partly with that of rendering
the same philosophical principles fruitful for other depart
ments of human speculation and conduct. And the work
now published — which, in the first heading of his manu
script, he termed " Argument of the Spiritual Philosophy,
revised " — is, as it were, his re-cast of the Religio Laid,
— a re-cast which is enriched (so far as consists with its
scheme) by all the fruits of his subsequent studies, and
represents as near an approach as the duration of his
life permitted him to make to Coleridge's and his own
conception of a system of religious philosophy.

Coleridge's position— that Christianity, rightly under- Aim of the

present

stood, is identical with the highest philosophy, and that, book.
apart from all question of historical evidence, the essential
doctrines of Christianity are necessary and eternal truths
of Reason — truths which man, by the vouchsafed light of
Nature, and without aid from documents or tradition,
may always and anywhere discover for himself, — this,
it seems to me, is the position which Mr. Green has always
considered it his principal obligation to defend. In the
unpublished Religio Laid, which represents his first
action in fulfilment of Coleridge's wishes, I find that he

* With it he wrote, as though for its introduction, a criticism, which
still remains in manuscript, of Coleridge's life and genius.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOB/S LIFE.

confined himself to the assertion and immediate defence
of that Coleridgian view of Christianity. In the second
stage of his labours, when he was giving to his under
taking the cyclopaedic extension of which I have spoken,
the Religio Laid seems to have been for the most part
superseded by a very large theological section (of some
six or seven hundred foolscap pages) entitled Spiritual
Being. In the present work, the first volume is devoted
to the general principles of philosophy ; but the second
volume is entirely theological, and especially aims at vin
dicating a priori (on principles for which the first volume
has contended) the essential doctrines of Christianity.
With reference to his main object, Mr. Green would
doubtless have considered his first volume as mere esta
blishment of introductory philosophical positions ; — but
the reader will of course observe that, while, in this sense,
the second volume essentially rests upon the first, the
first (as relating to general philosophy) may, for merely
logical purposes, be deemed a work independent of the
second. Had Mr. Green's life lasted long enough for a
full execution of his enterprise, the larger work which he
hoped to publish would have differed in its composition
and proportions from the present one : — the Prima
Philosophic!, would have been discussed and illustrated
with infinitely greater amplitude ; and the application
made of it to Christian Theology would have been but
one (though, no doubt, still the most elaborate) of a
series of deductive applications made of it in all the most
important provinces of thought.

The book If Schlegel be right in his well-known dictum as to the

troversial division of the world between Platonists and Aristotelians,

obviouslv one section of thinkers will dissent from the

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

fundamental principles on which the Spiritual Philosophy
is made to rest. And even of those who accept as the
sole right course the Platonic method of philosophising,
there may be many who will more or less dissent from
applications which have here been made of it. For this,
Mr. Green was prepared ; but, had he lived, he would not,
I am sure, have sought to anticipate the objections in de
tail. That I, on this occasion, should attempt from his
notes to do for him any such thing, is, for various reasons,
impossible. I will only venture, on his behalf, to claim for
the Spiritual Philosophy that candid and patient con
sideration which at any time would be due to the fruits
of life-long and conscientious labour in matters of highest
human interest, and which particularly at present (more
perhaps than at any previous moment in the theological
life of this country) is due to such philosophical works
as honestly purport to review the grounds of the national
religious belief.

My duties in editing the work have been but of the State in
humblest description. Such as the work came into my hook was
hands, such, with none but clerical alterations made, it
now stands before the reader. Had Mr. Green lived to
see it through the press, he would have inserted re
capitulatory sections, one at the end of each division of
the work, and one in general conclusion ; — but obviously
these are not necessary to the book, and I have not
deemed it within my competence to attempt any substi
tution of my own. Some less methodical repetitions of
the text which the reader will notice (for instance, in the
several references which are made to the doctrine of the
Trinity) Mr. Green would probably have struck* out in a

Xlvi MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

final revision of the work ; but, in the absence of the
intended recapitulatory sections, I have thought it better to
leave those repetitions as they stand. With regard to one
section of the work — the fourth chapter of the third part,
it will be observed that Mr. Green, instead of completing
that section of his new manuscript, referred to two other
papers from which the materials of the section were to
be got. On consideration, and especially because the
section is one of much theological interest, I have thought
it best not to attempt the adaptations which he would
have made, but rather to print in extenso, as appendices,
the two papers to which his memorandum refers.

I am able confidently to say that Mr. Green regarded
the book as, in every important respect, completed. In
one of the last days of October, 1863, I spent an hour of
chat with him before going abroad for my yearly vacation ;
and he then,*telling me that the work was in effect done,
offered me it to take with me for reading in travel. Little
presaging that I was never again to see him — for he
appeared to be in fully the average health of his later
years, I told him that his papers must not incur chances
of shipwreck, and that I hoped to read them with him
on my return. From that day probably he never touched
them. And a few weeks later, at Rome, I heard at once of
his illness and his death. Mihi, prceter acerbitatem erepti,
cmget mcestitiam, quod adsidere valetudini, fovere
deficientem, non contigit* On the 1st of November,
he had been taken with acute illness, to which he had
very nearly succumbed at once. He had rallied, however,
from the attack, and for some time afterwards had seemed
to be slowly improving in health. Six weeks had passed,
* Taciti Agricola.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. xlvii

and hopes had been entertained that he would soon
resume, at least in part, his former habits and occupations.
But suddenly, on the evening of the 13th of December,
he had been anew seized with acute suffering, which had
almost directly terminated in death.

In concluding my account of Mr. Green's life, I must Last stages
revert for a moment to the public portion of his career, nfe.
in order to mention that from that source, during his last
years, there had come to him some additional honours
and labours.* In 1858, at the installation of Lord Derby
as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Mr. Green
received the honorary title of D.C.L. in that University.
Later in the same year, when the Medical Act brought
into existence (for the educational and disciplinary govern
ment of the medical profession) a so-called General
Council of Medical Education and Registration, the
Royal College of Surgeons elected Mr. Green to serve as
its representative on that Council. Two years later, when

* Eor completeness, too, I may here mention some of the less im
portant professional posts to which he had been appointed at earlier
stages of his career. From 1819 to 1844 he was a member, and for the
later years of this time, the President, of the Board of Examiners of the
Royal Veterinary College. In 1841, he and Sir Benjamin Brodic were
appointed (instead of, Lord Arden and Sir Astley Cooper) to be of
the Trustees of the Himterian Museum ; and this office he held till his
death. In 1842-3 he was one of the Royal Commissioners appointed,
under Sir Robert Peel's Government, to inquire into the state and
management of the North-Leach and Gloucester prisons. In 184G (in
place of the Duke of Richmond) he was appointed one of the Com
missioners for Government of the Pentonville Prison, but within a year
or two resigned the office. And in 1851, on occasion of the first Inter
national Exhibition, he was Chairman and Reporter of the Jury on
Surgical Instruments.

Xlviii MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR5 S LIFE.

the post of President of the Council became vacant by the
resignation of Sir Benjamin Brodie, who had first filled it,
the Council unanimously elected Mr. Green to the office.
In it he continued, with the warmest regard and con
fidence of his constituents, for the remaining three years
of his life. And thus— so far as the medical profession
of the United Kingdom may be said to have an integral
existence, — so far (that is to say) as its internal organi
sation and discipline are concerned, Mr. Green, from the
date of that appointment till the date of his death, was
his profession's acknowledged head and representative.

Jfr- In attempting to describe Mr. Green's character, I will

Greens

character. not attempt to disguise that I write as with the affection
of a son. And whatever may be my disqualifications for
the task, I am not sure that this ought to be counted
among them. For to love a good and great man is the
natural result of having intimately known him. And if
that result vitiates one's testimony concerning him, from
whom is the better testimony to come? Yet, so to
pourtray Mr. Green's character that strangers might have
the same image of him as appeared to us who were most
about him, would indeed require a greatly more skilful
pen than mine. The men who are easily described are
the men who have partial prominences of character ; and
commonly any such obvious traits are but signs that the
main body of character is below its normal level. With
Mr. Green there was nothing of this kind. Beyond any
man I have known he had a proportioned, balanced nature,
— one which was, perhaps as nearly as man's can be, in
seipso totus, teres atque rotundus. But in different rela
tions of life different quantities of the character were seen.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR^ LIFE.

To persons who could not measure his intellect, and in com
mon life.
whose contact with him corresponded only to their need of

his assistance, he would have seemed simply one of the
kindest of men ; — for he was full of pity and compassion
for all kinds of weakness and suffering, and did not
cultivate the convenient economy of helping only people
who can help themselves. Again, to numbers of persons
with whom he had frequent superficial intercourse — to per
sons, for instance, with whom he habitually travelled to and
fro beween London and Hadley, his seeming would chiefly
have been that of the pleasantest of casual companions, —
so good-humoured and sociable, so ready to chat on
whatever might turn up for conversation, so informed of
common things, so full of anecdote, so patient and kindly
a listener, so various in his interests, so singularly un
affected and unassuming and unaggressive. Even for little
children he had always friendly winning ways, and women
he never failed to treat with a respectfulness which was
peculiar and noble. His manners indeed were in a very
marked degree those of a high-bred gentleman — emi
nently courteous and polite, and considerate for persons
whom they concerned. His education had cast them
somewhat in that statelier, more reserved and ceremonious,
type, which belonged rather to the last generation than
to the present one ; and thus, with his life of strict study
and meditation, he might easily have seemed cold or self-
absorbed. But nature was too strong in him for this.
His infinite geniality and kindliness, his unaffected hu
mility, his deep feeling of duty to others, — these shone
out even in unfamiliar intercourse, and, especially in later
years, gave an exquisite graciousness to his deportment.
It seemed to me that persons who knew him bes.t, and saw
VOL. i. e

1 MEMOIR OF THE ATJTHOIl's LITE.

most of his strength of intellect, never lost that impres
sion of his amenity, — that, rather, it continually grew on
them. For the charm of it did not depend on any film of
politeness, but represented, as I have said, the outcropping
and surface-show of his true nature. And the more
deeply that nature was stripped, the more clearly did
one see that its substratum was an inexhaustible central
source of humane and graceful conduct. Yet, while fami
liarity thus increased rather than diminished one's per
ception of what was genial in his character, not less
certainly did every one who had to do with him in grave
affairs find that he had commensurate moral and intel
lectual strength. But of that hereafter.

Asa In Mr. Green's public manner a point of some pro

minence was his very rare skill of elocution — elocution,
I mean, as distinct from eloquence. In youth he had
made it part of his discipline for after-life to educate
himself carefully in that respect, and had regularly
practised under Thelwall. He started with great natural
advantages for oratory, in his extremely tall and marked
but manageable figure, and in voice and countenance which
could lend themselves to any purpose of his speaking.
Thus, when he appeared as an orator, the matter of his
speech was always most effectively delivered. As he
stood ready to begin — acknowledging and half depre
cating the affectionate clamour of hands and voices that
welcomed him, his aspect of noble benignity and wisdom
was the ideal presence of a great teacher of men. And
then for the hour or more during which he spoke, " drawing
audience and attention still as night," not a sentence was
uttered but with the sldlfullest elocutionary management,

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 11

never a syllable slurred, never a whisper lost, never a
passage without rhythm, never a discord between sense
and emphasis ; — so that, even in the longest and most
involved sentences of argument, the logical process always
appeared unambiguous, while, in sentences of passion and
imagination, the emotional effect of the eloquence was
heightened to the utmost by appropriate modulations of
voice and action. To his audience there was much
fascination in this mere outward of his public addresses.
But I have doubted whether, to himself, that great
elocutionary power was not in one respect disadvan
tageous, — whether, namely, it did not make him less
sensible than he otherwise would have been of the pos
sible obscurities of written language, and perhaps bias
him somewhat unduly towards that oratorical style which
has its type " when the skilful organist plies his grave and
fancied descant in lofty fugues." And I have an object in
saying this here. For it may help the reader of the fol
lowing work to an easier understanding of its difficult
passages, if he will remember that Mr. Green oftener
argued with his voice than with his pen, and that he
writes as it were for an audience.

My knowledge of Mr. Green as a surgeon was of course As a snr-

. . j geon-

almost exclusively in the career of hospital-practice, and

this not till after the years when he took most interest in
it. In 1833, when I became his apprentice, he naturally
seemed to me, and I still believe him to have been, as
perfect a master as could be found of the surgery which
then was. In operating he was very skilful, very delibe
rate, and singularly imperturbable. Nothing ever seemed
to take him by surprise, or to affect either his courage or

e 2

Hi MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

his temper. On the very rare occasions when he made
a false step, he recovered himself with consummate cool
ness. It is a memorable fact that his almost matchless
presence of mind under circumstances of danger and diffi
culty was not an original gift of nature, but was the fruit
of gigantic diligence and self-control. Moreover, whenever
he operated, everything had been well considered before
hand, and his faculties were on guard for whatsoever diffi
culty or accident or novelty the progress of his operation
might let loose upon him. Thus, though many men could
do easy operations more quickly than he chose to do
them, very few men could equal the celerity with which
he finished difficult operations. His lithotomy was, in my
opinion, far superior to any I have seen, and, when 1 went
to the hospital, there was a tradition that the first patient
whom he had lost there after that operation was the
fiftieth on whom he had publicly performed it. Judged by
the standard of the present day (when chloroform allows a
somewhat wider latitude to the practice of experimental
operations) it may be said that his surgery was marked
rather by caution than by enterprise ; — but the result of
that peculiarity was, that, of unsuccessful and useless
operations, probably very few great surgeons can have had
a smaller proportion than was his. Of his demeanour to
the sick, it seems superfluous to say more than that it
was characteristic of him : — it revealed the wise man, full
of gentleness and commiseration, administering his art
under the deepest sense, both of its dignity, and of his
own brotherhood to the sufferers.

intellect ^ ^r' ^reen's intellect in its relations to speculative
iTchmitel~ Pnil°s°Phy> I do not here presume to speak. For in that

habits.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. liii

respect I can have no pretensions to forestall the judg
ment which the reader will form for himself, — having
before him, in these volumes, the work to which Mr.
Green undoubtedly devoted his utmost powers of philo
sophical thought.

It is only in other respects that I will venture to speak
of his intellect. It was an intellect, naturally strong
and swift and subtle, developed in all its faculties by
incessant discipline and cultivation, enriched by extensive
stores of knowledge and learning, and sure always to use
common sense with a very uncommon sagacity. So far as
it was exhibited in ordinary grave affairs of life, I may
perhaps most nearly express my opinion of its quality,
when I say that it seemed to me peculiarly such as is
adapted for judicial work, and for some of the higher
functions of legislation : — for though of course certain
moral qualities have infinitely much to do with that
aptitude of mind, its intellectual qualifications are also
special. It was characteristic of Mr. Green (as it is, I
suppose, of all first-class minds) that, in serious discussion,
he was never to be found wasting talk or thought on the
shell of the matter, never dwelling on its inessential
circumstances and accidents of time and place and per
son, but always going right to the true gist and core and
substance of his question. In this he showed such skill
and discernment as I have scarcely ever seen equalled.
With a few preliminary words he would set aside col
lectively all questions which he deemed irrelevant to the
issue, — waiving them in such impartial language as not to
provoke others to revert to them ;— and then, for measuring
any right or wrong under discussion, he would put forward
what he deemed to be the very standard of right ; or, for

liv MEMOIR OIT THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

measuring any expediency under discussion, lie would put
forward such considerations of ultimate aim as lie deemed
to be the true tests of the expediency. And so in common
conversational criticism, whether the talk related to art or
to science or to political or private conduct, always his
mind saw the thing or act according to what he deemed to
be its endeavour, tendency, spirit, and intention ; and
where these could be well justified, never was he to be
found carping at the details of a short-come execution.
Those who knew him could trace always as his under
current thought, — what, for this thing or action, is the
very l&ea of being ? And no incongruity of circumstances
would derange that habit of his mind. His imagination
was not chained by them. Ditit tanquam in Platonis
non tanquam in Romuli faice, sententiam.*

* Cato as described by Cicero. I remember once to liave seen Mr.
Green's idealising habit illustrated under circumstances of quite comical
incongruity. He was winding up his second Hunteriau Oration in the
theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons. His concluding argument
(so far as I need here describe it) was that the medical sciences
might be best taught in Universities, and (said he) in Universities
identified with the National Church. No sooner had he uttered those
last two words (and they seemed, though they were not, almost paren
thetical) than the meeting showed signs of a sensation. "National
Church ! " and there ! ! Some thought of church-rates, others of pew-
rents, others of surplices, others of Articles, others of Laud, others of
Athanasius, and a feeble minority began to groan and hiss, and an over
whelming majority (though not all unperplexed) shouted applause, and
for a moment discord seemed possible ; — when the Orator, by one stately
movement of head and hand, silenced the whole meeting so that a pin-
fall could have been heard, repeated his words with an emphasis so
resolute and yet so conciliative that not one murmur resented them, and
then, in language which might have been Plato's, concluded Ins sentence
and Oration, — " with the NATIONAL CHURCH. . . . as the universal organ
" according to the Idea, for educing, harmonizing, and applying all those

MEMOIK OF T11E AUTHOR'S LIFE. lv

The effectiveness of Mr. Green's intellectual powers Of his

•. ii- ... moral

depended in my opinion in a very great degree (as I must charac-
already have implied) on the noble moral qualities with which l
they were conjoined. That his was a mind in which no mean
or impure thought could arise or for a moment linger, —
that he was a man of absolutely spotless honour and in
tegrity, — that his great mental powers were never used
for selfish ends, — that in all kinds of co-operative action
he was, in the highest possible degree, loyal and sincere,—
that he was, in all finest senses of the word, liberal, —
that he was of temper exquisitely stable and uniform,
without moods and humours and caprice, — that he was
consummately self-controlled and deliberate, — that espe
cially he was cautious fully to measure beforehand
the effect of words and acts, and scrupulous never to
speak beyond his knowledge, or act beyond his inten
tion, — that both in sympathies and in tolerance he was
most large-hearted, — that he was firm, but with firmness
would never cease to be gentle and moderate, — that his
judgments of others were invariably indulgent, but that
his moral appeal was always to broad impersonal prin
ciples of right and wrong, and that his own life was
strictly guided by those principles, — all this was almost

" elements of moral cultivation and intellectual progress , of which Religion
"prescribes the aim and sanctifies tlie use." Yet notwithstanding Mr.
Green's idealising habits of mind, and even while his habitual medi
tations were as high as Milton's, or as abstruse and unpractical as
Hegel's, no mere merchant or lawyer could take to commonest matters
of business with greater apparent facility than was his; and it may serve
as an additional illustration of his activity in common life, if I mention
that for many of his latter years he was chairman of the Board of
Directors of a first-class Life Assurance Company with which he had
been long [connected.

Ivi MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR/ S LIFE.

on the surface of his character, and could not escape any
one's perception who had even moderate intimacy with
him. Doubtless it was by the obvious, or in great part
obvious, union of these qualities with his remarkable vigour
of intellect, that he acquired his strong personal influence.
And waiving any further mention of his public relations
(to which I have sufficiently referred) I may say that in
common affairs of life I have never known a man looked
up to with fuller, with more entire, faith. It was not only
that his opinions when he expressed them seldom failed
to satisfy the judgment. Always also there was the feeling
that the strength which he put forth was but a sample of
that which was in reserve. And beyond this there was
the confidence, such as scarcely any other man could
inspire, in his absolute steadfastness, — the certainty that,
where we left him to-day, there, to all moral intents and
purposes, we should find him (life lasting) till the end of

time : —

" To shame invulnerable ;

Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,
And saving those that eye him."

Nor was it only by reverence that we were bound to
him. There was the love for him which dwelt side by side
with the faith. For all the movements of his mind were
generous, and his nature was no less affectionate than
strong. To his oldest age he was still young in the hap
piest instincts of youth — in frank and clean-hearted readi
ness to admire and enjoy, in sensibility to the claims of
fellowship, in unsuspicious ungrudging trust, in enthusiasm
for the heroic and beautiful. The only two or three occa
sions on which I remember to have heard him spoken of
as angry, he was defending others against what he deemed
to be mean attack. And surely in this place it is not

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. Ivii

irrelevant to cite, as an illustration of his character, that
filial, but not the less chivalric, loyalty, with which he
was well content to spend his best powers in the comple
tion of another man's work, and to merge all his own
hopes of fame in the ambition of winning acceptance for
his teacher.

To me, from the time when I first grew able to appro- influence

of philo-

hend him, the sense of his wisdom and goodness and soyhy on

. 1.11 • his life.

magnanimity was a sense which always went on increasing.
With all his rare union of powers and virtues, with all
his alternate readiness for meditation and for action, he
seemed to me the almost ideal philosopher, — never pur
suing philosophy at the expense of his common duties as
citizen, but always so pursuing it as to gain from it more
aptitude for those duties, and to adorn his hourly life
with the very best fruits which it could afford. How great
a happiness, how great a good it was, to have frequent
familiar access to him, is what I need hardly say. From
an outside world, troublous and sad with the million cares
and wrangles of the battle of life, — from atmospheres
redolent of mean thoughts — egotisms and jealousies and
low ambitions and vanities, — that kindly presence, when
one entered it, ah ! it was ££09 aiQrjp.* For, dominant
there over all other impressions which it gave, was the

* Again and again, as I think of times when I have thus gone to
him, there come to my memory those beautiful lines in which Lucretius
tells of the influence of his master's teaching : —

" Apparet Divum numen sedesque quietse ;
Quas neque concutiunt venti, neque nubila nimbis
Adspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina
Cana cadens violat ; semperque innubilus sether
Integit, et large diffuse lumine ridet."

Rer.NatAv. 18—22,

Iviii MEMOIR OP THE AUTHOR* S LIFE.

sense of lofty and luminous calm, — not the calm which
corresponds to inertia, but the calm which tells of power
and proportion. And in this calm, more than in aught
else, the whole noble nature of the man was expressed.

His supe- His circumstances may indeed seem to have favoured

riority to

circum- the development of that particular tone in his character ;
but I believe that under any circumstances it would have
been the same. It was not a mere semblance of equa
nimity which he had, — nor even a mere superiority to
petty cares and fussiness and irritability. He had that
higher power which is equal to both extremes of fortune —
that power of constancy and fortitude " which looks on
tempests and is never shaken." Of late years he was
habitually subject to severe physical suffering, and often
went about with his heart's action so disordered that he
must have doubted whether life would last him to get
home again. Yet this abated nothing of his composure,
nothing of his kindliness, nothing of his attention to
public affairs, nothing of his home-industry. And instead
of voluntarily dwelling on it in his talk, he would, even
when talk about it was necessary, pass to other matters
as quickly as possible — pass, perhaps, with some joking
allusion to the OVK e'</>' ^luv of Epictetus. Surely, what
ever may be on others the influence of his speculative
teaching, at least in his own life, and to the inmost core
of his being, he was a true and devout philosopher, —
submitting himself with faith and humility to the general
government of things, glad to forget his own momentary
lot in the contemplation of eternal laws, and as incapable
of murmuring against what he had to suffer as of remon
strating against tides and seasons.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. Hx

To talk in much detail of his last scenes of life would How

met

be to violate the reserve in which every self-respectful death.
man claims to hold his inmost domestic and religious
relations. Only so far as I may, without infringing that
principle, add to my illustrations of his character, I would
show that not even the last sudden agony of death ruffled
his serenity of mind, or rendered him unthoughtful of
others. No terrors, no selfish regrets, no reproachful
memories, were there. The few tender parting words
which he had yet to speak, he spoke. And to the servants
who had gathered grieving round him, he said — " While I
have breath, let me thank you all for your kindness and
attention to me." Next, to his doctor who quickly entered
— his neighbour and old pupil, Mr. Carter, — he signifi
cantly, and pointing to the region of his heart, said —
" congestion." After which, he in silence set his finger to
his wrist, and visibly noted to himself the successive
feeble pulses which were but just between him and
death. Presently he said — " stopped." And this was
the very end. It was as if even to die were an act of his
own grand self-government. For at once, with the warn
ing word still scarce beyond his lips, suddenly the stately
head drooped aside, passive and defunct, for ever. And
then, to the loving eyes that watched him, " his face was
again all young and beautiful." The bodily heart, it is true,
had become mere pulseless clay ; — broken was the pitcher
at the fountain, broken at the cistern the wheel ; —
but, for yet a moment amid the nightfall, the pure
spiritual life could be discerned, moulding for the last
time into conformity with itself the features which thence
forth were for the tomb.

JOHN SIMON.

London, 1865.

h

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART FIRST.

OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES AND PROCESSES

WHICH ARE CONCERNED IN THE INVESTIGATION

OF TRUTH.

SECTION I.
The Speculative Reason and its icork.

§ 1. THE aim and object of all Philosophy PART i.
is to attain to the insight of First Principles —
or Ideas — yea, to the insight of the Absolute
First Principle, from which whatever is must
be derived, and in which whatever is must have
the intelligible ground of its Being.

§ 2. There exists in man, as the essential
characteristic of his Humanity, a power or
faculty of Intelligence, best named the Reason,
which discloses to him the need, and enables
him to fulfil the inherent desire, of contempla
ting his manifold knowledges in their absolute
integrity.

§ 3. The contemplation of such absolute
integrity will have been obtained by the con
scious possession and insight of an Idea : — that
is, of a causative Principle, containing, predeter-

if. -\ VOL. I. B

2 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. mining, and producing its actual results in all
- their manifold relations in reference to a final
purpose; and realized in a whole of parts, in
which the Idea, as the constitutive energy, is
evolved and set forth in its unity, totality,
finality, permanent efficiency and integrity of
Being.

§ 4. The requisite insight of such causative
principles is derived from the idea of the Will
as revealed in human self-consciousness. Will
is contemplated universally as the inseparable
union and perpetual distinction of Intelligence
and Originative Power, and as the sole and
sufficing ground of the intelligibility of all
causative powers.

§ 5. The distinction, in the Will, of Intelli
gence and Causative Power implies also the
distinction of the Speculative and Practical
Reason. The Speculative Reason is Intelligence
considered abstractedly from the agency of the
Will, with which in truth it ever constitutes
an indivisible living totality; — it is the Light,
lumen siccum, the pure intelligence or intellect,
considered apart from the total life, of which
it is an integral constituent. The Practical
Reason, on the other hand, is the Intelligence,
which in union with power is necessary to inform
the Will and to direct and guide its operance
in the light of a definite aim and purpose.
In other words it is the enlightened Will ; and
so Reason is the constituent without which Will

THE SPECULATIVE REASON.

is inconceivable as the causative of reality in PART i.
the integrity of Being. It might be said that -
Life is the perpetual process of the realization
of the Will in and by the light of Ileason, and
that Reason is the light of the life. Ex. gr.,
it is the Reason which enlightens the human
Will to become a Conscience, and thereby confers
on the individual man the power of realizing,
or of striving to realize, the Idea of his spiritual
Integrity, that is, his Humanity.

§ 6. The Reason, considered as pure intelli
gence or as the Speculative Intellect, is the
appropriate organ of Philosophy, and therein
the faculty of beholding and of attaining to
the insight of Ideas, or first principles, as
Truths of Reason, which, transcending the scope
of the empirical faculty, appertain to the con
templation of the integrity and integration of
Spiritual Being. The Reason imposes on the
mind of man the necessity, and aids him in
securing the mental possession of those Ideas,
by which unity, totality, finality, permanent
efficiency and integrity are supplied to all his
knowledges. It reveals itself by its own light,
and confers on the human mind the power of
apprehending such Truths or Ideas as Verities
that are at once subjective Truths and objective
Realities, and of beholding them in their full
perfection and complete integrity. By means
of Reason, and by it alone, the human mind
may become a conscious mirror, in which is

B 2

4 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. imaged an epitome of the universe, physical
- and moral, as the work of God, — yea, in which
is revealed the spiritual image of the Divine
Author himself. The Speculative Reason is
then that to which we appeal as the standard
by which we are to measure all things, as that
which is to give light and intelligibility to all
things, and finally as the fundamental principle
of a Spiritual Philosophy, that is of a System
of Realism, in which "Will" is contemplated
as the causative ground of all reality.

SECTION II.
The Understanding, or Discourse of Reason.

§ 7. In order to complete the positions on
which a Spiritual Philosophy is founded, it is
necessary to distinguish from the Speculative
Reason that form of Intelligence which may
most conveniently he designated the Understand
ing. It is the faculty of Experience, sensible and
psychical. Its office is to generalize whatever
specific impressions may have been consciously
received, by including them under generic con
ceptions and by naming them in generic terms.

Further, as the function of the Understanding,
or Empirical Faculty, is to bring all impressions
derived from facts and phenomena under the
conditions of Reason — to raise the empirical
into the rational, the subjective and particular

THE UNDERSTANDING.

into objective and universal Truth, — so the PART i.

J . Sect. 2.

Reason (and here the Speculative Reason) sup
plies the universal and necessary Forms of Con-
cipiency, otherwise known as the Categories or
Moulds of the Understanding, namely : — 1.
Cause and Effect; — 2. Subject and Attribute,
sometimes called Substance and Accident ; — and
3. The Wliole and its Parts.

§ 8. In establishing the distinction between
the Reason and the Understanding, it may be
borne in mind that Truths of Reason vindicate
their distinctive stamp and character by the
fact, hereafter to be proved, that they are
immediate, intuitive, a priori, certain, necessary,
universal, immutable, absolute,— that they con
tain their own evidence, or are revealed by their
own light, — and that they are demonstrable,
apodictic and self-authoritative, by reason of
their evidentness.

On the other hand, Truths of the Under
standing, as contradistinguished from truths of
Reason, must be authenticated by facts of
sensible or psychical experience, are only to be
inferred from empirical data, and require logical
proof conducted according to the rules of
mediate reasoning supplied by the Canon of
format Logic.

§ 9. That the " Conditions" designated in § 7
as Forms of Concipiency, under which Truths of
the Understanding may become Truths of Rea
son, are essentially of the nature of, and derived

6 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. from the Reason, will be admitted,— if Reason
— be (as the postulate requires) the power of be
holding any whole of Being, particular or uni
versal, with all its diverse parts and manifold
relations, in the unity of the Principle which
at once produces and sustains the totality in
its integrity, — and if (as will be shown here
after) Reason cannot contemplate such totality
in its integrity, except under the "conditions"
above specified. They are the indispensable ex
ponents of the realization of a causative Principle
which, considered as predetermining its actual
results, involves necessarily as its factors Cau
sality, Self-substantiation, the Manifestation of
the same substance in all the relative realities
which constitute its sphere of Being, and the
Totality of all as a Whole animated by the One
pervading and Conservative Principle which
gave it birth and being. It will be found that
these unimpeachable positions are Truths of
Reason and Axioms of Rational Integration; —
truths and axioms which are immediately seen
and consciously recognised in the primary
Principle, from which they are derived and of
which they are essential constituents ; — indis
pensable exponents of the Idea of Rational or
Spiritual Integration, which a priori (that is,
originally and inherently by virtue of the light
of Reason) is operative, and even instinctively
and unconsciously operative, in the human mind,
a/nd is discovered in and by spiritual intuition

THE UNDERSTANDING. ^

under reflection of the individual on the facts PART i.

c , . . Sect. 2.

of his consciousness.

§ 10. That the universal forms of Conci-
piency, or so called Categories, are the indis
pensable aids to the acquirement of Experience,
or of scientific Knowledge founded on faith in
an inviolahle order of nature, will appear more
fully in the following § § relating thereto :—

§ 11. Cause and Effect. Whatever requires
a satisfactory explanation of its production, its
occurrence or recurrence, — that is, whatever is
or begins to be, or has existence, and in that
existence undergoes change, requires for its
explanation the assignment of an antecedent
Condition which under the name of " Cause " is
adequate to account for, or render intelligible,
the product, consequent, or " Effect." And the
only adequate conception of such " antecedent
condition " is that of a Power, Efficient or
Agent, which works and in working is the ex
ponent of the process under consideration, and
without which the relation of dependency be
tween antecedent and consequent could have no
meaning.

It is true that the conception of " Power,"
as antecedent condition in the order of thought,
is derived not from sensible experience, whose
limits of cognition it transcends, but from the
self-consciousness of Will. But, without ad
mitting Causative Power to be the " antecedent
condition" of all production, the facts and phe-

8 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. nomena of sensible experience would forfeit all
claim to the real connexion supplied, or intended
to be supplied by the alleged relation of Cause
and Effect. Without the assignment of a Prin
ciple, upon whose operance any whole of phe
nomenal facts, simultaneous or successive, may
be shown to depend for their occurrence and
recurrence our knowledge could be neither
certain nor predictive. And their combination
depending only upon the mental association of
the observer, they would be left as unexplained
and inexplicable data, or as causata non causata ;
namely, by substituting subjective association
for causal, i.e. objective, connexion. In other
words, the attempt to solve the problem would
defeat its own purpose.

Corollary. The human mind recognises a
Law, wherever it attributes Unity to a manifold
of facts and phenomena, contemplates the rela
tion of each and all as necessary, regular, and
invariable, and is thereby rendered capable of
anticipating and predicting a constant order
of succession or of simultaneous co-operation
in their recurrence. But, in the recognition of
a Law so defined, it is impossible for the human
mind to refuse its assent to the position that
such Law must have been already fixed and
predetermined, — and, if predetermined, must
have existed in the causative and operant Power,
or antecedent condition of Efficiency, by which
the results are obtained; — a Power, which

THE UNDERSTANDING. 9

having originated, preconstituted, and prede- PART i.
termined the relations of existential Being, -
enforces the obedience necessary to maintain
their constant order and regularity. In -fine,
the originant Power is what is properly called
" Cause ; " and the predetermined form of its
agency is named " Law." A glorious instance
of the establishment of a law, answering to
this definition, we owe to our immortal country
man Newton/"

§ 12. Substance and Accident, or Subject and
Attributes. In. thinking, or forming a concep
tion, of an object of sensible or psychical ex
perience, a distinction is necessarily made be
tween its attributes, properties, qualities or
accidents, and the " Substance " in which
they inhere; and, although some are more
permanent than others and all may be more
or less changeable, the Thing itself must be
considered to be essentially the same. The
distinction is unavoidable between permanent
"Substance" and changing "Accidents," be
tween an Idem which constitutes the identity
of a Thing amid the changing and exponential
Alter of its sensible manifestations. Without
this concipiency of Substance and Accident,
without this assumption of Idem et Alter, in
all existential Being, without this attributing
a somewhat which is permanent and abiding
amid all change in the outward facts and phe-

* Coiup. Vital Dynamics, p. 16, on the law of Gravitation.

10 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. nomena of existence, the Subject could not be

Sect. 2. ...

- identified as that which gives unity and objective
reality to our experience of the phases of ex
istence, and the phenomenal exponents would
be dissolved into mere unconnected particulars
of sense. What is the real nature of " Sub
stance," will be explained under the head of
Self-consciousness, though it may be here stated
that its true significancy is that of "Will or
Spirit : but it is evident that the concipiency,
which it represents, is an indispensable aid to
Experience. Thus it is of the very condition
of scientific knowledge to recognise Iron as the
same " substance " under the variously modified
forms of Oxides, Rust, Plumbago, Cast Iron,
and Steel. But whatever may be the true
philosophical justification of the Concipiency
in question, the fact taken on trust by the
empirical mind remains the same : — He who
distinguishes a Metal by its properties of weight,
brilliancy, lustre, colour, ductility and the like,
or who by difference of such properties distin
guishes Gold from Iron, or who has noted
with its bare branches the Tree which puts
forth its rich green foliage under the vernal
sun, — he cannot but apprehend the necessity
of the distinction between the permanent sub
stance of a thing and its changing accidents.

Corollary 1. But the concipiency or cate
gory, above described, is the ground of another
and important element of empirical knowledge

THE UNDERSTANDING. 11

when applied to scientific purposes. The term PART i.
"Substance" may be used not merely in the
sense of an assumed or unknown supporter of
phenomena, but may be employed as significant
of actual Being. That is, " Substance " may be
considered as realized in a specific and charac
teristic form of Being, which may be fitly
called a Type, and may be regarded as that
which gives an unity by likeness to many
objects notwithstanding subordinate differences of
each. The Empiricist can neither deny nor reject
such specific and characteristic form of Being,
when it constitutes a Type or Pattern,* by
means of which he is rendered capable of con
necting and uniting in his thoughts whatever
may be assimilated in his conscious experience
as modifications of one and the same common
type of being. All generalization and classi
fication for scientific purposes imply the recog
nition of Likeness with Difference; and the
empirical faculty would be powerless without
adopting the conception of a permanent Type,
of the Modifications of which Experience takes
cognizance in the forms of actual existence.
This subject will meet us again under the heads
of Generalization and Classification : but it is
plain that no naturalist could claim the title
who failed to recognise the same organic Type
in all the modifications of which the Fera or
predaceous animal is the model, whether it be

* Darwin on Selection of Species.

12 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. exhibited in the Lion, Tiger, Dog, Cat, or other

Sect. 2.

variations.

Corollary 2. The Concipiency or Category
of Substance and Accident would be justly
deemed incomplete without adverting to the
Sub-categories of Quality and Quantity.

A. Quality. It will be observed that Acci
dents and Qualities may be taken to mean
nearly the same, since they furnish the marks
by which we acquire or certify our knowledge
of the being of our so-called " Substances "
or self-subsistents, and which we predicate of,
or attribute to, these. By " Quality " we mean
any sort or kind of impression which any object
is calculated to produce, or any specific and
constant mode of operance by which any object,
agent or agency, may or does affect a percipient.
"When we assign to the object or agent that by
which the percipient is affected, we regard the
object or agent as a Subject, and call the cause
of the impression on the percipient an Attribute
of the subject contemplated as agent. And it
will be remembered that here we are not speak
ing of what the realities are in the nature of
things, but of what our Thoughts of such things
and their qualities are, — that here we are, and
necessarily are, treating our subject-matter from
a subjective point of view.

B. The other sub-category of Quantity is a
subject far too large to be here discussed, if we
are to comprehend in it the consideration of

THE UNDERSTANDING. 13

the whole of mathematical science and its PART i.
philosophy : hut a hrief account of its main -
characteristics may not be omitted. " Quantity "
has been denned as that attribute of objects or
things under which they may be conceived as
subject to increase or diminution. But we dis
tinguish two kinds of quantity, namely, the
Continuous and the Discrete. A continuous
quantity or magnitude is primarily the limi
tation or bounding of Space, determining a
certain amount of extent, and secondarily the
quantity of space occupied by any solid body,
or the extent of any phenomenon in space.
But when we have to measure a space thus
bounded, or to count spaces, we begin to num
ber, and require the aid of Discrete Quantities
or Numbers.

Passing over the distinctions which belong
to Dimension and Mensuration, it will be
noticed that by Discrete Quantities we mean
the numbering of the separate or dividuous
as we find it expressed by the ordinary Nu
merals; — and in this numbering we are under
the necessity of considering the things num
bered as the same in kind. And thus, as in
the process of Generalization, by noting the
Like in the Different, we represent the manifold
of Experience in Classes of dissimilar objects, —
so, in the process of Numeration, we arrange
objects of the same sort or kind as classes of
similar objects. Hence, in respect of the logical

14 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHF.

PART i. use of Numeration, we class dissimilar objects
by that which they have in common, or the
like; and we class similar objects, by that
which constitutes their only difference, namely
Numbers.

In all numeration we ought to contradis
tinguish the Unity, and the Units which make
up, or are contained in, the Unity. In counting
the strokes of a clock we do not simply mark
the repetitions or units of beat; but we count
till the number of the repeated strokes has made
up the unity, which we have been expecting
or wishing to ascertain. Two, Three, Tour, are
as much unities as One, and indicate the second,
third, or fourth hour. All systems of Arith
metic exhibit this principle, and although ours
is a Decimal System, yet we find a Binary and
a Duodecimal System; and similar indications
of recognised Unities in the Groat or four con
sidered as Unity, in the Pair, the Triad, the
Leash, the Dozen, the Score and the like.

If we inquire into the origin and nature of
Numbers it may be shown that the ultimate
ground and foundation is the idea of Unity
and Distinction, and therefore essentially derived
from the Reason. But, secondly, if we investi
gate the conditions under which the Idea be
comes realized in and by the human mind, we
shall find that the fundamental element of
Number is to be sought in the sense of Time
as the inseparable associate of all our mental

THE UNDERSTANDING. 15

processes ; but that this sense of time would PART i.
be a mere continuous flux, if without distinction -
of Parts or Moments ; and that the Distinctive,
consisting in part of repeated acts of attention,
is completed by any regular recurrence of a
stronger act of attention however induced.

Apply this in any case in which you have
the opportunity of marking, or are induced to
mark by the state of the attention, a succession
of beats, in which there is a regular recurrence
of a strong beat followed by a certain number
of lighter beats or strokes, — you will have then
what is called Rhythm, or a Thesis and Arsis,
which corresponds to a succession of heightened
or lowered acts of Attention, and furnishes us
with the units and unities which we call Nu
merals.

Finally, in considering the nature of arith
metical operations, in which there is a constant
comparison of the Ratios and Proportions of
Numbers, it will become more and more evident
that all numbers, or the numerals as their repre
sentatives, are in effect and significancy an ex
haustive scheme of Ratios.

§ 13. Whole and Parts. We cannot form
an intelligible conception of any whole in the
physical or moral world, except as an Unity
of interdependent Parts. It must be reserved
for future explanation to show what is the
origin and true foundation of this Concipiency ;
but after what has been already said the Reader

16 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. will anticipate that it is derived from the facts
Sed' 2" of Self-consciousness, which exhibit the realiz
ation of a Will. The Empiricist no doubt
will repudiate such explanation when offered;
nevertheless he must accept the category as a
needful form of thinking and as an indispen
sable mould of his thoughts in acquiring his
experience, although it must remain for him
an unexplained datum. Observe however that
empiricism leads to an inadequate view of this
concipiency, and is prone to believe that a
Whole is merely that which is equal to the
sum of the parts ; but this view, besides being
erroneous in itself, is not even a necessary part
of the empirical use of the category. Say that
(as in the palaeontological researches of a Cuvier)
it were important to reconstruct the structure
of a total animal out of a few fossil remains,
it might be of some predaceous animal: — here
even the Empiricist, in order to the work re
quired of the scientific imagination, could not
but consult the Type of animals to which simi
lar parts are found to belong, and could not
but infer, for instance, that laniary teeth and
curved claws are evidences of their having be
longed to a predaceous quadruped. But it can
not be doubted that he would thus call to his
aid, in constructing mentally the total creature,
somewhat other and more than a sum of parts.
He might have learnt from sensible experience
what the parts are which make up the sum

THE UNDERSTANDING. 1

or visible whole of such a creature. But even PART i.
the logical process implies and requires that he cc'
should found his inference upon a generic con
ception which, although derived from experience,
may be used as a Type for determining the unity
of the visible components. And this unity is not
a mere sum total or aggregate of the parts, but
includes the superadded insight of the Inter-
dependency of the constituents, as reciprocally
needing and implying each other, and of their
conspiration to the accomplishment of the one
constructive aim which the organic whole pre
sents. Hence then this Category may be fitly
described as requiring for empirical knowledge
that every Whole in the physical or moral world
shall be regarded as an Unity of interdependent
Parts, and as such by virtue of a generic Con
ception, or Type, which in providing the Unity
in one dominant and comprehensive Thought,
determines the relations of the Parts, as specific
and integral constituents of the conceptual
whole ; — that is, the one dominant conception,
which gives intelligibility to the Whole, re
appears in each and all as the specific opposed to
the generic.

Without the category of Whole and Parts, i.e.
without the correlation and opposition of Whole
and Parts, in respect of logical Wholes as cor
responding to real Wholes, no unity of Being or
Existence in the manifold could be apprehended,
and no distribution or classification of particulars

VOL. i. c

18 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. could be accomplished. Thus, in respect of the
Sect" 2' . distinctions here insisted upon, we discern in
every organic Body the parts or members of which
it is composed; and in like manner in every
art-construction, as a Ship, a Windmill, a Steam-
engine, we are under the necessity of investi
gating the relations of the parts to each other,
and to a Whole in which every " part" derives
its significance from the Whole of which it is a
component. A mere knowledge of Particulars
without the Unity, upon which their intelligibility
and meaning depend, could have no claim to in
tellectual insight of any kind. Thus again by
the same indispensable aid we are enabled to
classify and distribute the objects of empirical
knowledge under the exhaustive heads of Genera
and Species, or other convenient divisions ; as
witnessed in the classiftcatory Sciences, such as
Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy and the like.

In adopting the above it is necessary however
to bear in mind the distinction made by logical
writers of Logical and Physical Division, ex
plained hereafter in § 33.

SECTION II. (continued.}
Subsection A. The Sense and Senses.

§ 14. In the foregoing §§ on the Discourse
of Reason, theConcipiencies of the Understanding
have been discussed as necessary conditions of
Experience. And we have next to point out

TTTE SENSE AND SENSES. 19

whence and how the materials are acquired, PART i.
which, cast in the moulds of the Understanding,
are elaborated into empirical knowledge.

These mental materials, which are to be
wrought into Thoughts, may be described as
Impressions which adequately excite the con
scious Attention. They are of two kinds, viz. : —
1. Those which affect the Inner Sense, such as
Emotions, Peelings, Volitions, or any psychical
change of state :— 2. Those which affect the Outer
Sense and consist in the affections of the several
Senses. "When such impressions are referred
only to the state of the subject they are called
Sensations. When such impressions are referred
to outward objects or agents supposed to pro
duce the impressions, they are called Percep
tions : — that, under the appropriate conditions,
they are unavoidably so referred, and are affirmed
to be ab extra, depends mainly upon the con
viction that the subject affected by them has no
power to produce, change, or control them by any
act of his volition ; — and hence his unutterable
assurance of the existence of an outward world.

§ 15. But the Sense, both inner and outer, is
exercised only under the inherent " conditions,"
which are designated as Space and Time. It
would be hopeless to attempt, in this summary of
the arguments upon which a spiritual philosophy
is founded, to enter upon an analysis of .the
questions connected with these forms of Sense ;
and I must, instead of quoting at leilgth my

c 2

20 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. papers on the subject, content myself with offer-
Subsect.A. ing the following results of my investigation :—

Space and Time are not mere products of
empirical Knowledge. They may he regarded as
forms of sensuous intuition. But, as containing
grounds of universal and necessary truths (viz.
those of Mathematical Science) these forms of
Sense may he best, or most philosophically, re
solved into Laws of Sensible Distinction. Space
is the form of universal Objectivity : Time is the
form of universal Subjectivity : — both are in
herent forms of realization and of reality in a
world requiring sensible distinctions. And the
laws of sensible distinction are to be finally
traced up to the Sciential Heason, as the ground
and source of all Unity and Distinction when
contemplated as the revelation of the Divine
Intelligence and Wisdom.

SECTION II. (continued.)
Subsection B. Generalization.

§ 16. Pursuing the course indicated in § 14,
namely the explanation of the process required
by philosophy in raising the notices of the
Sense, inner and outer, into Thoughts, considered
as Generic Conceptions substantiated by means
of "Words, — we are, in truth, introducing the
Header into the science of formal Logic : — but,
in order to avoid the complexities of so large
an inquiry, it will be our duty to select such

GENERALIZATION. 21

parts only as a lucid account of the Reasoning PART i.
employed in the Spiritual Philosophy may need SnbaectB
and require.

The work of the Understanding, as the em
pirical faculty, § 7, may be described as Gene
ralization in conformity with the Rules of
formal Logic; and by Generalization is meant
the mental process of bringing the notices of the
sense, or the facts and phenomena by which
we have been consciously impressed, severally
under their appropriate Kinds or " Genera" each
Genus being distinguished by a Name or de
scriptive designation.

§ 17. But the process of Generalization im
plies a correspondent process of Abstraction.
" Abstraction designates the process by which in
contemplating any object our thoughts are di
rected to some one part or property exclusively,
withdrawing our attention from the rest. Gene
ralization indicates the process by which the
mind occupies itself with like parts or proper
ties in dissimilar objects, and in consequence of
the likeness includes them in one genus or kind."
By noticing the Different in the Like, and the
Like in the Different, these elementary factors
of thought, Abstraction and Generalization) are
the indispensable aids to the naming, sorting
and classing of all the materials of which sen
sible and conscious experience are composed.
The propensity to look for resemblances amid
differences in the multitudinous objects and

22 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. agencies by which we are influenced may be
' regarded as one of the earliest and most uni
versal characteristics of the human mind.

§ 18. But, although these processes are the
indispensable conditions under which the facts
and phenomena, from which conscious expe
rience is derived, are raised into human thoughts
and conceptions, a distinction should be made
between what may be called Associative Thoughts
and Logical Thoughts or Conceptions. An as
sociative thought is one which recalls a resem
blance : a logical thought or conception is one
which requires a definition, or such a description
as would justify generic inclusion. A seaman,
who had been a voyage to the Arctic seas, might
give a sufficiently intelligible description to his
townsmen of a Whale, wiiich they had never
seen, by its resemblance to objects with which
they might be familiar ; but in order to convey
an accurate conception of the logical kind or
genus, he would be obliged to distinguish it at
least as an inhabitant of the deep which breathes
by lungs and suckles its young.

§ 19. The primary form then, as pointed out
above, in which the Generalization of Experience
meets us, and this in its logical acceptation, is
that in wiiich the mind occupies itself with like
parts or properties in dissimilar objects, and in
consequence of the likeness includes them in one
genus or kind. Say that the herdsman in the
rudest state of society distinguishes his cloven-

GENERALIZATION. 23

footed flock of sheep and goats from the wild PART i.
animals armed with sharp pointed teeth and
curved claws, which seize tear and devour those
of which he is the guardian. If he has thus
distinguished them he has already the means of
making the serviceable generalizations, which in
clude his herd and other grazing animals under
the generic conception " cloven-footed," and their
enemies, who prey upon them, under the genus
or kind " with laniary teeth and curved claws."

Thus, when we think of objects by means of
their like character, that is, of what* is common
to many in the impression produced upon us, we
say that we think of them by means of a common
or generic conception. But this generic thought,
by which we include many and different objects
in one conception, would be evanescent and in
determinate, unless we had the power of limiting
and fixing it ; and this we do by the contrivance
of Language. Every generic conception may be
designated by an appropriate Term, which in
cludes and is significant of all the objects to
which the term is applicable in its generic sense.
" When a person speaking to us of any particular
object or appearance refers it by means of some
common character to a known class, which he
does in giving it a name, we say that we under
stand him, i.e. we understand his words." (Aids
to Reflection, p. 222.)

§ 20. Propositions. The logical acts already
noticed are Abstraction and Generalization; and

4 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. it will be readily inferred that they imply Com-
. parison, or the act by which the objects under
consideration are brought into mental juxta
position, in order to note in what they agree or
disagree in respect of a proposed common or
generic mark. And to these we may add Re
flection or the act of turning inward, and of
weighing how far the impressions produced by
the objects fit them, or do not fit them, to be
combined to one Conception in the unity of
conscious Thought. But, lastly, an act of
Judgement is required by which we decide that
a generic mark, otherwise called a Predicate,
does, or does not, apply throughout to the
genus, sort or kind, which it is intended to
designate. And thus we form Conceptions, — that
is, comprehend in an unity of thought a multi
tude of impressions, psychical or sensible; and
thus we are enabled to collect and register the
results of our experience.

It is then an act of Judgement, wrhen we affirm
or deny that any object or appearance is included
in any generic conception or designation. Now
the expression of such an act of logical Judge
ment in Terms is called a Proposition ; and that
of which the generic Term is affirmed or denied
is called the Subject of the proposition, whilst
the generic term affirmed or denied is named
the Predicate; — the Terms or Exponents of
the proposition being connected by the verb
substantive "is" and this connexion is called

GENERALIZATION. 25

the Copula. Thus we say : — " Grass is green," TART i.
" Assassins are cowardly," " Whales are not Subsect.B.
Pish."

We are not, however, to suppose, as might be
perhaps expected, that the subject of a proposi
tion is always its substantive part, and that the
predicate is that which (as an adjective) de
signates its property or attribute. See, respect
ing terms, § 22.

§ 21. Not an unimportant question, connected
with the nature of a Judgement as expressed in
a Proposition, is that of the nature of the rela
tion between Subject and Predicate. It involves
indeed the larger question of the significancy of
the scope and aim of Logic itself, considered as
the science of reasoning.

The question may be in a considerable measure
ventilated by attending to the meaning of the
word "is," which, as we have seen, is the copula
between subject and predicate. And we learn
that it may be used in several senses. Thus it
may mean simply " is like," — e.g., " a whale is
(sc. like) a fish :"--or it may stand for " is desig
nated by the term" — e.g., " the appropriation
of what belongs to another man is (sc. desig
nated by the term) Theft :"•— or it may be equi
valent to "is recognised by the property " — e.g.
" vinegar is (sc. recognised by the property) of
acid taste:" — or its meaning may be "is de
scribed as" — e.g., "a bird is (sc. described as)
that which has aptitude for flight : " — or its

26 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. power may be " is defined as" — e.g.,
SubsectB. (sc. defined as) a rational Being:" — or, accord
ing to some logicians, it answers to " agree
ment ;" that is, expresses that the subject agrees
with the predicate or vice versa, — e.g., " the tem
perature of 100° P. is (sc. agrees with the de
scription) hot :"— or again, the explanation of
the word " is" may be "is equivalent or equal
to" — e.g., " an excuse is (sc. equivalent to) an
admission or confession of the fault charged : —
or lastly, the value of the " is " may be " is in
cluded or contained in" — e.g., " the Tiger is
(sc. included in the generic term) predaceous."
But if we examine each of these several meanings,
it will be found that in each the expression used
may be changed to the affirmation that the
Subject of the proposition is included in or con
tained under the Predicate as the inclusive
generic designation. When we say that Aris
totle was a Logician, that an appropriator of
other men's property is a Thief, that a bird
is a flying animal, and the like, we mean in
each case that the predicate is applicable to,
designates as a generic term, and contains under
it the subject specified. It is not necessary that
we should regard the subject as one of many
species, all of which make a generic whole of
which the predicate is the name. We merely
mean to say that the subject is one, perhaps of
otherwise very different sorts, which is con
tained under and may be designated by the

GENERALIZATION. 27

Predicate, as the means of marking the subject PAUT i.
by a right attribute, without special reference SubaectB.
to the class in which it may be contained.
I conceive then the fundamental position to be,
that a Proposition affirms or denies that the
subject is contained under, or included by, the
Term which stands for the Predicate, and that
the use and value of the Copula are truly
significant of this logical relation. But it
may be properly alleged that in the use of the
proposition to express the relation of Subject
and Predicate, we may distinguish Attribution
and Inclusion : — in the former, attention is only
directed to the application of a right attribute
or designation of the subject ; in the latter the
attention is directed to the variety and num
ber of the species included in the genus desig
nated by the predicate, — e.g., " all animals that
chew the cud, such as the ox, the goat, the sheep,
the deer, are included in the genus lluminant."

§ 22. There are some other considerations
with respect to Propositions, which, though re
quiring only a brief notice here, may not be
altogether passed over.

1. Propositions differ in Quality and Quantity.
In respect of quality they are affirmative or
negative. In respect of quantity or extent they
are said to be Universal or Particular. A uni
versal proposition is one of which the predicate
is affirmed or denied of the whole of the subject.
Its usual signs are "all," " every," ".none," &c.

28 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. A particular proposition is one of which the pre-
Subsect/B. dicate is affirmed or denied of only part of the
subject: — its usual signs are "some," "many,"
" few/3 " several ;" and " all " or " every," if the
copula be negative. To these may be added the
Singular Proposition, or one of which the subject
is an individual: but as singular propositions
predicate of the whole of the subject, they fall
under the rules which govern universals.

2. Propositions are said to be either Categorical
or Hypothetical. A categorical proposition de
clares a thing (Kar^opei) absolutely, "I am,"
" Judas was a traitor." But there may be, besides
the pure categorical, modal categoricals, namely
those which assert the mode or manner, of the
agreement and disagreement between subject and
predicate: and the "modes" usually distinguished
are Necessary, Possible, and Contingent. Thus,
as "Watts' Logic, p. 161, says : " It is necessary
that a Globe should be round : That a globe be
made of Wood or Glass is an unnecessary or
contingent thing : It is impossible that a Globe
should be square: It is possible that a Globe
may be made of water." The Hypothetical Pro
position is subdivided (?) into Conditional and
Disjunctive. A conditional hypothetical proposi
tion consists of two or more categoricals united
by a conjunction called the Copula. It asserts,
not absolutely, but under an hypothesis or con
dition. Such propositions are denoted by the
conjunctions used in stating them ; — e.g., " if

GENERALIZATION. 29

man is fallible, he is imperfect/' A disjunctive PART i.
hypothetical is denoted by the disjunctive con- Subsect. r>.
junction "either"; — e.g., " it is either day or
night." Comp. Wesley, Logic, p. 6.

3. Terms. The terms of a proposition are the
Subject and Predicate ; they are the words which
limit and express the meaning of the proposition.
It is not necessary that the distinctions, which
logicians have made in the use of terms, should
be here explained : but it is to be remembered
that the Subject of a proposition is not always
its substantive part ; nor does the Predicate (as
an adjective) always designate some property or
attribute. These terms, Subject and Predicate,
have merely a logical meaning and relative use
in respect of each other. If we say " Green
is a colour," the property expressed by the
adjective " green " is used as the Subject, and
the substantive "colour" as the Predicate of
the proposition ; and we affirm thereby that
"green" is included or classed under the con
ception " colour."

But the example we have chosen leads to
another distinction in Terms of no mean im
portance : — we are using the term "colour"
abstractedly from all the qualities or properties
which constitute its sensible and real character.
It is substantiated for our mind, as that which
is always present when we receive the impression
of any specific colour, but which may be con
sidered abstractly and for itself in the absence of

30 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. every specific colour. It is not so when we use

Sect. 2. , . , , . , . ,..

SubsectB. a term, which expresses any objective reality,
say a " house," a " tree," a " man ; " — these are
so named, or derive a name in consequence of
their having produced a total impression on the
senses, each of which comprehends various pro
perties contained in that total impression, or
suggested by it. Hence the distinction between
Abstract and Concrete Terms. The first are
those to which there is no corresponding sensible
object, but only a mental substantiation and
an abstract from the similar sensible impression
which the generic term includes and suggests ;—
such are the terms Virtue, Wisdom, Courage,
Humanity and the like. On the other hand,
Concrete Terms correspond to the total impres
sions of actual objects within the sphere of our
sensible Experience, and include or suggest
various dissimilar properties, under each of
which the subject may be classed.

4. Definition. It will be easily seen then how
important is a right use of Terms or Words in any
act or process of Judgement, in order that we our
selves know, and express to others our meaning
correctly, definitely and unequivocally. In order
to attain to a right use of Terms, the meaning
of every proposition requires to be accurately
weighed in respect of the relation between the
Subject and Predicate : — namely, that what is
predicated of the subject is objective, true and
correctly expressed. The most complete attain-

GENERALIZATION. 31

ment of this object is that by means of a so- PART i.
called Definition; and this will be appreciated SubseetB.
if we take Kant's account of the requisites of
a successful definition, viz : — " Concept us rei
adaequatus in minimis terminis complete deter-
minatus." (The adequate conception of a thing
fully determined in the fewest terms.) Logicians
say, and I quote the following from Wesley's
Logic (see Index and Vocabulary) : " Definition
is such an explanation of a term as separates it
like a boundary from every thing else." It is
divided into : — 1. Nominal, which explains only
the meaning of the term by an equivalent ex
pression, that may happen to be better known,
as Decalogue is (equivalent to) the ten com
mandments : 2. Hea^ which explains the na
ture of the Thing. (For further particulars see
the passage referred to.) The test of a sound
Definition is that the Terms of a Proposition
should be convertible. But as this can only be
done when the terms of a proposition are of
exactly the same extent, we have frequently to
resort to what is technically called " Accidental
Definition," — that is, to a Description of the sub
ject by assigning to it, or predicating of it, its
Properties and Accidents.

Under this head might be conveniently con
sidered the Conversion of Propositions, but I pass
it by for the present as not needful to the object
we have in view.

5. And lastly I may observe, that, as every

32 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. logical proposition aims at truth, such truth

Sect. 2.

Subsect.k should be severely tested : —

1. In He, as correspondent to objective

truth, — that is, as existing for our ap
prehension in the nature of things.

2. In Dictione, as in conformity with the

riffht use of Terms or Words.

o

3. In Argumento, or in the argument as a

right conclusion from correct premisses
expressed or implied. This last con
dition of a true Proposition remains to
be explained, and we proceed to do so
in the following Subsection.

SECTION II. (continued.)
Subsection C. Reasoning or Syllogc.

§ 23. I have now to claim the reader's ad
mission of the position advanced in § 16, that,
exclusive of the explanatory details which I
have thought it desirable to introduce in the
preceding subsection, I have in the one word
Generalization stated the essential character of
all Logic ; as that, namely, by which the Under
standing performs its office of collecting and
sorting all impressions on the sense, inner and
outer, of substantiating them as Thoughts or
Logical conceptions by means of Terms or
Words, and of registering them as acts of
Judgement in the form, of Propositions.

§ 24. We have now to consider the process,

REASONING. 33

by means of which the Conclusions are arrived PART i.

Sect 2

at, of which the Propositions are the record. Subsect.c.
And it will he our business to show that what
we call Reasoning, Discourse of Reason, or Logic,
consists essentially in Inference — that is, in in
ferring some truth from another, known or
accepted, and couched in a Proposition of the
kind described.

§ 25. And herein will be found the state
ment of what constitutes Reasoning, and the
Principle of Reasoning. In however ques
tionable a shape a problem may present itself,
and whatever contrivances may have been sug
gested for aiding and correcting the constant
business of reasoning in all the daily concerns
of life, there is only one and universal principle
of Reasoning. This principle or Law — the dis
covery of which we owe to Aristotle, the father
and founder of scientific Logic, is generally
known under the phrase Dictum de Omni et
Nullo, and it may be thus expressed : " What
ever may be predicated affirmatively (de Omni)
or negatively (de Nullo) of a whole class or
kind may be predicated in like manner of all
and every one of the particulars which the
class or kind contains." Thus, if all men
without any exception are mortal, each man
must be mortal. As we have seen the Predi
cate "mortal" is the designation of the class
or genus ; and if it include all men, it cannot
fail to include every man. The truth of this

VOL. I. D

34 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. position it is impossible to deny, since every par-
Subsect. c. ticular belongs to the class, of which it forms
a part, by virtue of the common mark which
constitutes the class;— just as the owner of a
flock of sheep marks each, and, recognising the
components of his flock by the mark, knows
which are his, and is enabled to separate from
them any strange sheep as having either no
mark, or a mark other than his own.

I repeat then that, in the statement of the
Principle just enunciated, we have found the
whole sum and substance of what is called
Logic. * But it is quite true that, for the due
application of the principle, certain forms and
rules will be found convenient, if not necessary.
The most felicitous contrivance for this purpose
is what is denominated the Aristotelian Syllo
gism, for it enables the reasoner to know by
the form itself whether the reasoning be correct.
But more must not be attributed to the form
than a form deserves. It does not constitute
the principle or law of Reasoning ; but, as the
regular form, it supplies a test, and in any
doubtful case may be resorted to as a criterion,
of the correct performance of the process : and
though it would be impossible in practice for
men to reduce all their reasonings to this

* The law of reasoning, above enunciated as the discovery of Aristotle,
is itself a self-evident truth ; — every act of reasoning can be explained
by it, and no act of reasoning can be explained without it. And as the
Father of Logic himself said — As the human hand in relation to the body,
so Logic in relation to the human mind is "the instrument of instruments."

REASONING. 35

strict measure of formal syllogism, it neverthe- PART i.
less provides and lays down certain rules which Bubaectc.
are of indispensable value. Least of all, how
ever, can it be supposed to be any effective
substitute for native Judgement or what has
been called common sense and mother-wit.

§ 26. The model of syllogistic reasoning is
the so-called Categorical Syllogism, and of this
we proceed to give the Reader an account as far
as the shortness of our canvas permits. Trite
examples will be best suited to our purpose,
since thereby the attention of the student will
be more directed to the Form than to the
matter ; and we offer the following as familiar
illustrations, the first as establishing an affirma
tive and the second a negative conclusion : —

(1.) All men are mortal; a King is a man;
therefore a King is mortal ; —

(2.) No man is immortal ; a King is a man ;
therefore a King is not immortal.

In these, as in all similar instances, the validity
and evidentness of the Argument are best se
cured by the formal conditions of syllogism.
And it will be found that in this form we have
to distinguish three Propositions and three
Terms.

The three Propositions are respectively named :
— Major Premiss ; — Minor Premiss ; — and Con
clusion. And the mutual relations under which
they constitute an Argument, or process of
reasoning, may be explained as follows.*

D 2

36 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. 1. In the major premiss the Subject is affirmed
. c. to be included in the class, which the Predicate
designates, as : " All men are (included in the
class) mortal."

2. In the minor premiss the Subject (or that
concerning which the argument is raised, here
"A King") is affirmed to be included in the
Predicate of this premiss, or, what is tanta
mount, in the subject of the major, here in the
sort or kind "Man;"— for the Subject of the
major, and the Predicate of the minor, premiss
are the same, and are so employed in order to
establish the position that the subject of the
minor is contained in, or is a part of the
subject of the major premiss, and therefore in
cluded in its Predicate. Thus, our minor premiss
is "A King is (included in the sort or kind
'man') a man."

3. In the Conclusion, the Subject of the minor
premiss having been legitimately included, by
means of the Predicate of the minor, in the
subject of the major, the necessary consequence
is announced by affirming that the Subject of
the Minor is included in the Predicate of the
Major, or according to our example, "A King
is (included in the class designated by the Pre
dicate) mortal."

On the other hand, as seen in the second or
Negative Example, it is affirmed in the Major
Premiss that no " Man " is included in the Class
designated by the Predicate "immortal." But

REASONING. 37

if the whole class (" man ") is excluded from the PART i.
Predicate "immortal," every part contained in Subsek'c.
the class must necessarily be excluded there
from ; and the object and unavoidable use of the
second or Minor Premiss is to establish the posi
tion that its Subject, here "a King," is con
tained in the rejected sort or kind named
" Man." And hence in the Conclusion it is
announced as incontestable, that as no Man is
immortal, so "A King is not immortal." *

It may be added, however, that, although the
Syllogism is the most convenient and trustworthy
form of establishing a truth, it contributes
nothing to the force of the argument, and that,
after all, the validity of any inference depends
upon the principle — that a Predicate or logical

* Or, syllogism may be illustrated and analysed as follows : —

Major Premiss, — M is contained in P ; —

Minor Premiss, — S is contained in M ; —

Conclusion, — S is contained in P.

M = Middle Term. P = Predicate. S = Subject.
These constitute an Argument or a valid process of Reasoning, when
they are related to each other according to the following Rule: —
That the Predicate in the major premiss includes the Subject of the
same, namely M ;— that the Subject of the major premiss, M, being
made in the minor premiss the Predicate, includes the Subject or S ; and
that this S, or the Subject, (regarding which the argument has been
raised, having been proved in the minor premiss to be included in the
class or kind which the subject of the major M designates) is shown in
the Conclusion to be necessarily included in the Predicate of the major
premiss. In short the validity of the Argument consists in this : —
That S is contained in P, because it is contained in M, and M is con
tained wholly in P ; that is, if P contains M, and M contains S, S must
be contained in P. Or, negatively: — That S is not contained in P,
because it is contained in M, the whole of which, and every part and
portion of which, are excluded from and denied to be contained in P.

38 SPIllITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. term, which rightly designates, or which includes,

Subsect2'c. a Class, rightly designates or includes whatever

" that Class contains. Or a logical term, which

excludes a whole class, excludes whatever the class

contains. This may he, however, illustrated hy

the consideration of the three Terms which have

to be distinguished, as we have noticed above,

in every syllogism.

The three Terms so distinguished are : 1. The
Major Term or Predicate, which, if legitimately
employed in the major premiss to include, or
designate, the class constituting the Subject of
the same premiss, may be employed in like
manner in the Conclusion to include or designate
a part of the Class in question. 2. The Minor
Term is the Subject of the minor premiss and
of the Conclusion, and designates the Part of
the Class concerning which the argument is
raised. 3. The Middle Term appears as the
Subject of the major and as the Predicate of
the minor premiss. It is the hinge and very
pivot of the whole argument ; for it is the term,
which designating the Subject of the major as
the Class included by the Predicate, must, in its
assumed office of Predicate of the minor premiss,
be shown to include the Subject of the same,
as expressing the Part of the Class concerning
which the argument has been raised.

The Middle Term therefore plays a very promi
nent part in every Argument; for it is the
term, which, performing the double office of

REASONING. 39

including the Minor term or Subject and of PART i.
causing it to be included in the Major term or SubeectC.
Predicate, proves the case required by showing
that the Subject, regarding which the Argument
has been raised, is necessarily contained in the
class designated by the Predicate ; — -and this is
the question at issue. Thus, to find a Middle
Term is often of the highest importance, and
one of the first considerations in cases, in which
we have to bring a particular case under a
general rule or generalization. Say our great
Newton, in his anticipation that " the Diamond
is combustible," but without the means of sub
jecting it to experiment, was obliged to test the
opinion by reasoning on facts already known. He
would seek a Middle Term designating a class
which should include the Subject "Diamond,'*
and be included in the Predicate " Combustible."
Now this middle term he would have been
enabled to obtain by his own researches in
the refraction of light, which showed that
" Whatever refracts light beyond the ratio of its
density is combustible : " —and hence Newton's
argument might be represented formally thus :

"Whatever refracts light beyond the ratio
of its density is combustible :

The Diamond refracts light beyond the ratio
of its density : therefore —

The Diamond is combustible.
It will be seen then that every argument
reduces itself to the valid relation of three

40 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. terms, whether this be expressed formally as a
Subsect.'c. Syllogism or not. The question is, whether the
given Subject is, or is not, included in the Predi
cate. And the answer required is : That the
subject belongs to a class (designated by a middle
term) which is affirmed or denied to be included
in the Predicate. And this brings us back to
the Dictum of the founder of Logic : " What
ever may be predicated affirmatively (de Omni)
or negatively (de Nullo) of a whole class or kind
may be predicated in like manner of all and
every one of the particulars which the class or
kind contains/'

§ 27. The above applies to all Mediate 'Rea
soning. And all Logical 'Reasoning is mediate ',
that is, consists in the position that a proposition
being true, or admitted to be true, another pro
position may be legitimately inferred from it.
I do not stop here to inquire whether the dis
tinction between mediate and immediate judge
ments be just or not, or whether there are
Truths which may be properly called self-
evident :* — though it may be safely asserted that
every major premiss is either a self-evident
truth or a foregone conclusion, and that it is
only to the former that the appellation "im
mediate judgement " can really apply. But in
respect of the validity of an Argument, the
determination of which is now before us, it is

* Aristotle's dictum is an instance of a self-evident truth :— " What
ever is predicated of all is predicated of each of the same class."

REASONING. 41

necessary to observe that certain Precautions PART i.
must be observed, in order to render the reason-
ing, whether in the form of a Syllogism or not,
such as may be accepted to be true and to defy
the charge of "Paralogism." And it is the
more necessary to warn the student against the
neglect of such precautions, because the form
of the Argument may have been correctly ob
served, and the conclusion may be true, though
the reasoning may be wrong and hence the argu
ment invalid.

In directing the attention of the reader to
the Rules for avoiding Paralogism we propose
however to confine our observations to what
have been called Logical Fallacies. It will be
found that a paralogism will take place in
three cases of violation of the cardinal rules
of sound conclusion, viz. those called by logical
writers, 1. Undistributed Middle, 2. Illicit pro
cess of the Major Term, 3. Illicit process of the
Minor Term. And the three cases have this in
common, that a Term (middle, major or minor) is
surreptitiously used as universal, where, accord
ing to the regular syllogistic form, it can be
legitimately only used for, or applied to, a part
of its significates.

1. Undistributed Middle Term. As we have
seen in the preceding § the middle term M is
to include the Subject S, and with it to be
included in the Predicate P; but if M is
undistributed— that is, does not stand for all its

42 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. significates, but only for a part of them, the
Subsect.'c. subject may or may not be included in the
part, and the conclusion will be invalid or
not necessarily consequential. Thus if it were
argued : " Some boys are manly, John is a boy,
and therefore John is manly : " the conclusion
would be false in consequence of the middle
term " boys " being undistributed, and leaving
it therefore uncertain whether " John" the sub
ject belongs to that part which is designated
by " some boys." In order to prove that John
is manly, the premiss ought to have been "All
boys are manly," that is, the class "boys"
should have been taken universally.* But this
surreptitious use of the middle term as uni-

* Whatelj (Lessons on Reasoning, p. 26) says : " Again, take such
an instance as this : Food (M) is (P) necessary to life ; Corn (S) is
(M) food ; therefore Corn (S) is (P) necessary to life. Here P, ' neces
sary to life/ is affirmed of 'food/ but not universally; for every one
would understand you to be speaking not of ' all food/ but of ' some
food3 as being 'necessary to life.' — The Rule has not been complied
with ; since that which has been affirmed not of the whole of a certain
class, (or not universally) but only of a part of it, cannot on that
ground be affirmed of whatever is contained under that class." In
respect of Mr. Hume's argument against miracles, which Whately thus
states : Testimony (M) is a kind of evidence more likely to be false than
a miracle to be true ; the evidence on which the Christian miracles are
believed is (M) Testimony ; therefore the evidence, on which the Chris
tian miracles are believed, is more likely to be false than a miracle to be
true : he says, " Here it is evident that what is spoken of in the first of
these premisses, is s Some testimony ;' not 'all testimony' (or any what
ever,} and by 'a witness' we understand, 'some witness/ not 'every
'witness : ' so that this apparent argument has exactly the same fault as
the one above." Ibid. I may note, however, that if Hume's M means
All human testimony, his argument, whatever its value, has not on that
interpretation been fairly stated by Whately.

11EASONING. 43

versal, when it in truth has only a partial sig- PART i.
niticance, may not appear on the face of the subsect.c.
argument as ahove. I take the following in
stance from Whately, Logic, p. 163, though the
syllogism is in the 2nd Figure hereafter to be
explained. It is an instance in which the con
clusion might be valid, or true, if deduced from
suitable premisses, and hence the paralogism
might easily escape detection.
The argument is this : —

All wise rulers endeavour to civilize the
people ;

Alfred endeavoured to civilize the people ;

Therefore he was a wise ruler.
Here the middle term, M, is "endeavour
to civilize the people." It appears in both
premisses ; it is that term which is to include
the subject "Alfred," and with it to be included
in the Predicate "All wise rulers." But the
statement of the Argument does not warrant the
conclusion. The middle term " endeavour to
civilize the people " is affirmed to include "All
wise rulers," and in the minor premiss it is
affirmed that the subject Alfred is also contained
in the same middle term : but it does not follow
that the subject " Alfred" is contained in that
part which is affirmed to be included in the
predicate, namely, " All wise rulers." Because
a Subject belongs to two classes designated by a
common name, it does not follow that one class is
contained in the other ; to adopt such a fallacy

44 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. would lead only to such absurdities as may be
Subse'ct. c. illustrated by the following :—

All vegetables grow ;

An animal grows ; therefore

An animal is a vegetable.
The fault here exposed is then that which has
been called by Logicians the undistributed Middle
Term. That is, the middle term, if undistributed
or not taken universally in one of the premisses,
does not, under the condition of the argument,
include that part of the class to which the subject
belongs. In order to a sound conclusion, the
middle term ought to contain the whole, or every
one of the class, of which the subject is part;
and then the subject may be rightly included
in the Predicate containing the class of which the
middle term is the designation.

There is however a defect of the middle term,
which, although not belonging to the logical
form, may be here conveniently considered,
namely, that in which the middle term is ex
pressed by an ambiguous word. It is unneces
sary to say that an Ambiguous Middle Term is
calculated to vitiate the reasoning, by allowing of
the use of the term in one sense in the major pre
miss, and in another sense in the minor. This
may happen in any case in which the term has not
been denned as far as the meaning is concerned
in the argument in which it is employed.*

* Comp. Whately on ambiguities in language. Logic, p. 176; and at
p. 225 he says, "There are several kinds of joke and raillery which will

REASONING. 45

2. Illicit process. The rule against illicit pro- PART i.
cess is : — No term must be "distributed" (stand Bubseetc.
for all its significates) in the conclusion, which
was not " distributed " in one of the premisses ;
—because you would then employ the whole of a
term in the conclusion, when you had employed
a part of it only in the premiss, and thus intro
duce a fourth term. The violation of this rule is
called an illicit process of the major or minor
term.

The following is an example of illicit process
of major term.

All quadrupeds are animals;

A Bird is not a quadruped ; therefore

It is not an animal.

Here the major term or Predicate " animal "
is not distributed in the major premiss; it
does not stand for all its significates, and may
include not only quadrupeds, but other kinds
of animals. But the predicate "animal" is
distributed in the Conclusion by the word
"not;" for it means, Whatever is not in
cluded in the predicate or major term is not
" animal," and the predicate therefore stands
for all its significates, for " animals," including
all sorts and kinds of animated beings, and
amongst them "birds." Observe the minor
premiss affirms only that a "Bird" is not

be found to correspond with the different kinds of Fallacy : the Pun (to
take the simplest and most obvious case) is evidently, in most instances,
a mock argument founded on a palpable equivocation ^of the middle
Term." — Compare De Morgan, Logic, p. 238. on Fallacies.

46 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. included in " quadruped," but it does not say

Sect 2

Subsectc. and cannot say that a "bird" may not be
included in other kinds contained in the major
term "Animal." Therefore to affirm that a
"bird" is not an animal is the unwarranted
conclusion, that, because the subject is not
contained in one sort which the major term
designates, it is not contained in some other
sort, which the major term may equally include
in its meaning. The example we have above
given is then an instance of the illicit process
of the major term : — this term is used in a
double sense, in the major premiss to signify
a part only of its significates, in the conclusion
to imply the whole of the class of things
which it is intended to designate.

The illicit process of the Minor term, that
is the Subject of the Conclusion, may be thus
exemplified; (though it is to be observed that
the Syllogism is in the 3rd Figure, of which
more anon)—

All beasts of prey are (P) carnivorous;
All beasts of prey are (S) animals; there
fore
All (S) animals are (P) carnivorous.

Here the minor term, or subject, is undis
tributed in the minor premiss, and nevertheless
is taken universally, i.e. as All animals, in the
conclusion. In the premisses it is affirmed
that all beasts of prey are included in the
class of carnivorous animals; but it cannot

REASONING. 47

follow that, because "carnivora" includes all PARTI.
such animals as are beasts of prey, it therefore Subsect. c.
includes all animals. In the conclusion then,
the subject or minor term is illicitly made to
stand for " all animals." If the above syllogism
be "reduced" to the 1st figure, the illicit process
will be exposed by showing that the argument
requires "some animals," thus: —

All beasts of prey are carnivorous;

Some animals are beasts of prey ; therefore

Some animals are carnivorous.
It appears then that in the above cases a
Term, middle, major or minor, is made surrep
titiously to apply as universal, where, according
to the regular form of sylloge, it can only be
legitimately used for, or applied to, a part of
its significates. The inviolable rule is that, if
the major term include the middle, it includes
all that is included in the middle term, but no
more.

§ 28. What has been incidentally mentioned
in the preceding § in respect of "figure"
requires the notice here of the so-called Figures
of the Categorical Syllogism. They may be said
to be four in number, and are distinguished
from each other by the relative position of the
three terms, as may be shown by the following
diagram ; observing that P = Predicate or major
term, M = middle Term, and S = Subject or
minor Term.

48

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART I.

Sect. 2.
Subsect. C.

Fig. 1st.
M — P

Fig. M.
P — M

Fig. U.
M — P

Fig. ktJi.
P — M

S — M

S — M

M — S

M — S

S — P

S — P

S — P

S — P

Such, interchange of the position of the
Terms, and such only as is exhibited in the
four figures, permits in each case of a valid
argument. But, although it may he more
convenient to adopt one of these figures rather
than another according to the particular occa
sion requiring it, yet it ought to he home in
mind that the first figure is best fitted for
general use and the most reliable against
paralogism; that the second figure is only
suited to negative conclusions ; that, by the
third, particular conclusions only can be drawn ;
and that the fourth, rejected altogether by
some logicians, is capable only of exhibiting
the partial inclusion of the subject in the
predicate.

But how little the different figures are
required for logical purposes will be at once
apparent, when the fact is stated that the three
latter figures are only disguises of the first,
and that they may be reduced to the form of
the first; rendering " it always possible to deduce
in the first figure either the very same con
clusion as the original one, or another from
which the original one is deducible by illative
conversion, that is, by equivalence in meaning.

REASONING. 49

See § on conversion of Propositions. It may PART i.
be satisfactory to the reader to have before ''
him an example or two of " Ostenswe Reduc
tion." Tims : Pig. 2.

Whatever corrupts the moral character of

a people injures the State;
No just war injures the State;
No just war corrupts the moral character.
Reduction to Pig. 1.

What is not injurious to a State is what
ever does not corrupt the moral cha
racter ;

A just war is not injurious to a State;
A just war is what does not corrupt the

moral character.

Another example may be offered in the third
Figure : —

Some desires are not blameable ;
All desires are liable to excess;
Some things liable to excess are not blame-
able.
Thus "reduced" to Fig. 1.

All desires are liable to excess ;

Some things not blameable are desires;

Some things not blameable are liable to

excess.

The "Reduction'' has been here effected by

converting the major premiss by negation, and

then transposing the premisses. The conclusion

is the converse by negation of the original one.

§ 29. It will be convenient to the' student,

VOL. I. E

50 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, before quitting the subject of Categorical Syllo-
subsect.'c. gisms, to interpose some remarks on the Uses
of Reasoning, as far as the principles of reason
ing already established may be concerned. The
primary form in which the Generalization of
Experience meets us, and this in the logical
acceptation of Conception, is that in which the
mind occupies itself with like parts or pro
perties in dissimilar objects, and in consequence
of their likeness includes them in one class or
generic Conception. Incalculable is the advan
tage of having thus the means of briefly
recording our empirical knowledge, and of so
classing its details as to be enabled at once
to take a comprehensive survey and to select
whatever part may be required for present
application.

It will be readily seen that the process of
forming generic conceptions depends upon the
law of reasoning expressed in the Aristotelian
Dictum, " Whatever may be affirmed, or denied,
of all (that is, of every one of any kind) may
in like manner be affirmed or denied of each
of the same kind;" — a dictum, which approves
itself by its self-evident truth. But it will
also be seen that the process of Conception
in question can be exercised only under the
logical rule or canon of the Syllogism — and I
speak here with special reference to the Cate
gorical — as may be shown by any familiar
example. Supposing a conversation turned on

REASONING. 51

the pyramids of Egypt, how should a child, PART I.
or other ignorant person, know what was meant '

by "pyramid" unless previously explained?
But when he learns that it is a solid body,
which, from a square, triangular or other, base
rises up diminishing to a point, — he obtains
the conception of a class in which the " pyramids
of Egypt" may be included, and draws a
conclusion to that effect : — he has reasoned
syllogistically, whether the Syllogism be expressed
in a regular form or not. He has performed
the three acts, which are indispensable to an
Argument, namely Seclusion, Inclusion, and
Conclusion : * — 1. Seclusion, by means of a
proposition in which the class is denned or
described, and whose predicate may include
whatever may be the subject for our judge
ment. Thus "Whatever body has a square,
triangular or other base, &c., &c., is a Pyramid."

2. Inclusion. He then includes the subject
submitted to his judgement, here namely the
"pyramids of Egypt," in the class secluded by
its characteristic marks, namely, " The pyramids
of Egypt have these characteristic marks."

3. Conclusion. He infers that "they (whose
name and nature he did not before 'under
stand') are Pyramids."

But if the foregoing be true, and the truth of
the position may be safely asserted, it follows
that what have been considered "immediate"

* Compare S, T. C.'s Logic.
E 2

52 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. iudgements, such as those which enunciate any

Sect. 2. . ,. , . . ,T ,

Subsect.c. immediate impression on the senses, have no
valid claim to the title, and are really mediate
judgements. And the reason is simply this, that
the subject of the proposition must, in order to
be a logical thought, be shown to be included in
a generic conception or class. And it may be
added that the propositions, which are supposed
to express immediate judgements, are in truth
foregone conclusions. Nevertheless I do not, and
cannot, deny that those propositions, which ex
press self-evident truths, must be regarded as
immediate judgements, whatever may be the pre
paratory process, by means of which we are
enabled to enunciate them as such : — they be
come then Truths for which no further reason
can be given, since they are expressions of Reason
itself, and are amenable only to the test of the
Principium Identitatis et Contradictionis — ac-
. cording to which any proposition rests upon its
self-evidentness, and it is seen that the assertion
of the contradictory would involve self-contra
diction. Thus : " What is all black cannot be all
white."

After the foregoing observations on the pro
vince of reasoning, we may readily and securely
deduce from the principle of all logic, namely,
" Whatever may be affirmed or denied, of all, i.e.
of every one, of any class, or generic kind, may be
affirmed or denied, of each of the same class or
kind," — under the authority of this self-evident

REASONING. 53

truth we may deduce, I say, the several uses in PART i.
reasoning, to which logic may be applied, taking
Reasoning to mean the inference of one truth
from another.

1. Perhaps the most simple case, and that
which may be called Simple Generalization, is
the process of forming a sort or kind by a
"colligation" of like facts or phenomena in
consequence of such likeness, and this likeness
expressed by a common designation or generic
term. It is a case of " mediate " reasoning,
because is must be inferred that the " subject "
of the reasoning, in consequence of a like at
tribute, belongs to a kind of which the attribute
is the characteristic mark. The reasoning is so
simple that it may pass unobserved as if merely
a case of noting any given likeness ; but that it is
a logical process, if it is to have a logical value,
will appear from the following statement, which
is only another version of the Aristotelian Dictum.

Whatever objects have like parts or pro- ^
perties may be designated by the mark or marks
which denote the parts or properties common to
them, or may be affirmed to be included in, or
belong to the same Genus. Thus, — Sheep, Goats
and Oxen have the same common property, viz.
"cloven feet;" therefore they may be included
in the same Genus, of which "cloven feet" is
the mark. Or, — All cloven-footed animals be
long to the same class ; Sheep, &c. have cloven
feet ; therefore they belong to the same class.

54 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. Proceeding with, the use to which reasoning

Sect. 2. ? , ,

subsect. c. may be applied, we may state as

2nd. Simple Inclusion. In principle this does
not of course differ from the former, but it ex
hibits more distinctly the inference of one truth
from another ; as we may infer that, because all
known cloven-footed quadrupeds are ruminant,
therefore some newly discovered cloven-footed
animal is ruminant : — or that, because all our
doings which are defective in a right spirit are
nothing worth, therefore " all our doings with
out charity are nothing worth."

3rd. Exemplification. Thus we may exemplify,
or give an example that, as patriotic self-devo
tion is the highest excellence of a citizen, so
B/egulus is an example of such excellence : —
and it may be added that exemplification is
scarcely less than indispensable in order to
render an abstract proposition intelligible.

4th. Application of a Rule to a Particular
Case ; as when we have to bring any case under
some established rule of practice, or under some
accepted result of our generalized experience.
Say, a prisoner is to be tried for murder, and
the rule of law is, "All malicious homicide is
murder." It will be for the judge and jury to
apply the rule in the particular case, and to
decide whether the case at issue may be justly
brought under the class of " malicious homicide."
In this case we proceed as in No. 2, namely
from the general proposition or major premiss to

REASONING. 55

establish the minor, which contains, or expresses, PART I.

Sect. 2.

the new instance or that which is to he included, subsect c.
But there is also a second description of In
ference, in which we have to proceed from the
conclusion to the premisses, from which it has
been deduced. And this we may call

5th Proof. Eor instance, if it were asserted
that " Julius Caesar crossed the Channel/' and
proof were required of the fact, it would demand
the statement of some such argument as the
following : " Whatever is stated by credible
historians may be accepted as true ; that Julius
Caesar crossed the Channel is stated by credible
historians ; therefore that Julius Csesar crossed
the Channel may be accepted as true."

6th. It may be required to disprove an assertion
such as "The ancient Germans were Savages."
For an argument, of which the conclusion would
be, "The ancient Germans were not Savages," it
would be necessary to find a class containing
" the ancient Germans," which is excluded from
or denied to be contained in the predicate
"Savages;" and perhaps such a class may be
found in " Those who have the use of metals."
The argument may be conveniently stated in the
2nd figure of syllogism, thus :

No Savages have the use of metals ;

The ancient Germans had the use of metals ;

Therefore they were not Savages.

This illustrates the use of the second 'Figure,
and shows in what arguments (negative) it may

56 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAKT i. most conveniently be used ; but that the parti-

Subsect. c. cular form is not necessary, i.e. that the Predicate

and Middle term exchange places, may be shown

by the conversion of the major premiss thus : —

All who have the use of metals are not

Savages ;

The ancient Germans had the use of metals ;
Therefore they were not Savages.*

* Whately, Logic, p. 88. "When we have to disprove something that
has been maintained or is likely to be believed, our arguments will
usually be found to take most conveniently the form of the second
figure : viz. we prove that the thing we are speaking of cannot belong to
such a class, either because it wants what belongs to the whole of that
class (Cesare) or because it has something of which that class is destitute
(Camestres) : — e.g. ' No impostor would have warned his followers, as
Jesus did, of the persecutions they would have to submit to ;' and again,
' An enthusiast would have expatiated, which Jesus and his followers did
not, on the particulars of a future state.5 " He adds that the third
figure " is the form into which most arguments will naturally fall that
are used to establish an objection (Enstasis of Aristotle) to an oppo
nent's premiss, when his argument is such as to require that premiss to
be universal: — e.g. if any one contends that 'this or that doctrine ought
not to be admitted, because it cannot be explained or comprehended,'
his suppressed major premiss may be refuted by the argument that ' the
connexion of body and soul cannot be explained or comprehended, &c.'"
I cannot however feel assured that I understand Whately's position.
It appears to me that in his first illustration the argument stands
thus :— •

P M

E No impostor would have predicted persecutions ;
S

A Jesus did predict persecutions ;

E Therefore Jesus was no impostor.

If then " predict persecution " be the class designated by the middle
term, the subject " Jesus " is affirmed to " have" or to belong to a class
which is destitute of " Impostors."

On the other hand, if the argument be —

A 'Enthusiasts expatiate on a future state.

E Jesus did not; therefore

E Jesus was not an Enthusiast.

[Here

REASONING. 57

But the object of the present § was to exhibit, PART i.
as far as ordinary circumstances might require Subsect.'c.
it, the Uses of Reasoning or Inference. And the
result of the brief survey teaches us, as far at
least as the categorical syllogism is concerned,
that Formal Logic consists in Generalization,
that is, the logical process of bringing the facts
and phenomena of Experience under their ap
propriate kinds or Genera ; and that in all cases
Generalization is a logical process implying Syl
logism, or that the proposition, in which the
Conclusion is couched, is the expression of a
Mediate Judgement. Nay, it must be added
that all propositions are conclusions, and con
sequently that all major premisses, excepting
those which are self-evident truths, are really
foregone conclusions, and are therefore not
exempt from the condition of proof when re
quired.

§ 30. It will be seen then that the result
of a whole train of reasoning may be comprised
in a single proposition categorically stated, in

Here it appears to me that the argument turns on showing that the
Subject wants what belongs to the class. Just as we should say:
Animals that have four legs are quadrupeds ; a Bird has not, or wants
four legs ; therefore it is not a quadruped.

Probably the subject wants re-consideration. Perhaps the following
might exemplify the Eitstatic Argument in the Third figure.

M — P ^

jyr g I Whatever cannot be explained is inadmissible.

S - - P ) What cannot be explained is the connexion of Body and

SouL

And as the conclusion would be absurd and contrary to the fact, it
shows that the major premiss is inadmissible.

58 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

somewhat is predicated of a given " sub-
Subsect. q ject;" — and provided the due relations of the
three terms, Predicate, Middle Term, and Sub
ject, be preserved, the Argument will be valid,
notwithstanding any informality in the state
ment. Indeed it would be a thankless task and
an unprofitable labour to exhibit our arguments
in series of syllogisms. But it is a logical duty
to bear in mind (and equally with regard to our
own reasoning and to that of others) what the
proposition is, which it is intended to establish,
and whether the establishment is legitimately
effected by means of a suitable middle term ; —
And in like manner, when we are looking for
the rule which is to give general or universal
validity to the "Subject," whose Predicate is still
problematical, that we select a middle term best
fitted to justify the predicate and include or ex
clude the subject. Thus, by way of example,
take Paul's Epistle 1 Cor. ch. 13, of which
the subject is the praise of Charity. We may
suppose that the proposition intended to be
established is : " Charity is the highest ex
cellence." Here "Charity" is the Subject, and
" highest excellence" the Predicate, and we
want to find the middle term, which working
in Paul's mind, justified him in coming to
the conclusion, which he draws. It is not
improbable that the following, or something
tantamount, may have been the middle term
which was tacitly adopted by him, viz. : —

REASONING. 59

" Whatever in human society best promotes PART i.

* L . Sect. 2.

amity, suppresses enmity, and thereby binds Subscct.c.
each to each and each to all;" and by the ad
dition "is the highest (social) excellence" the
suppressed major premiss would have been com
pleted. The minor premiss would then have
been " Charity best promotes amity, &c.," and
therefore " Charity is the highest excellence."
But, in order to display the fulness of Paul's
argument, the minor premiss must be amplified
by the special illustrations which Paul gives of
the work of charity; such as it "beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things," together with the other
attributes specified which will be found to be
conditions under which amity is promoted and
enmity suppressed. But something more was re
quired in order to vindicate the claim of charity
to the " highest" dignity; and accordingly the
argument is furnished with the supplement well
expressed in the Collect for Quinquagesima Sun
day, viz. : " All our doings without charity are
nothing worth ; and thus faith, knowledge, pro
phecy, even martyrdom, if without charity, are
nothing worth." The argument is summed up
by the statement: — "That which is perfect alone
endureth ; Charity is that which is (always) per
fect; and therefore it alone endureth."

§ 31. The object of the foregoing § has been
to show that there exists no real difficulty in
attaining to a clear logical scheme of an Argu-

60 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. ment, as far as may be necessary to test or to

toCct, 2t,

Subsect.c. derive aid from the rules of Logic, without the
necessity of setting out formally the syllogisms
which are implied. But in so doing we ought
ever to be on our guard against the Fallacies in
Reasoning, the danger of which continually be
sets us, and which may easily escape detection
without constant vigilance. Of the logical fal
lacies we have already spoken in § 27 ; and to
those we added that arising from the use of an
ambiguous middle term. But others, which have
been considered by Logicians as Extra-logical,
also deserve attention, though our space does not
permit us to discuss them in detail in conformity
with the objects here in view. We may here
however notice a few, and for the rest refer the
student to the writings of professed teachers of
Logic.

I subjoin the following from De Morgan's
(Logic, p. 241) account of the Aristotelian Sys
tem of fallacies. It consists of two subdivisions.
In the first, which are in dictione or in voce, the
mistake is said to consist in the use of words :
in the second, which are extra dictionem, or in
re, it is said to be in the matter.

Of the first set, in dictione, six kinds are
distinguished, as follows : —

1. Uqitivocatio or Homonymia ; giving really
no middle term (if the middle term be in ques
tion) or a term in the conclusion which is not
the same name as that used in the premiss. Ex.

REASONING. 61

"Finis rei est illius perfectio; mors est finis PARTI.

Sect, 2.

vite; ergo mors est vita? perfectio." Here the subsect. c.
ambiguity may be thrown on finis or perfectio.
See other examples, especially those in which
the ambiguity arises from changes in the mean
ing of words.

2. Fallacia amphibolic differs in nothing
from the last, except in the equivocation being
in the construction of a phrase, and not in a
single term (doubtful construction). The ex
ample may be the oracle delivered to Pyrrhus :

" Aio te jiEacide Homanos vincere posse," which
may be construed, " That thou shalt conquer the
Romans," or "That the Romans shall conquer
thee."

Or, "Quod tangitur a Socrate illud sentit;
columna tangitur a Socrate; ergo columna sen-
tit." In the major proposition "sentit" means
he, i.e. Socrates, feels. In the conclusion, the
same word means "feels Socrates."

3, 4. Fallacia compositionis, and. fallacia divis-
ionis, consist in joining or separating those
things, which ought not to be joined or sepa
rated: — f. compositionis, when what is proposed
in a divided sense is afterwards taken collectively,
as " Two and three are even and odd ; five is
two and three ; therefore five is even and odd : —
f. divisionis, when what is proposed in a col
lective, is afterwards taken in a divided, sense, as
" The planets are seven ; Mercury and Venus are
planets ; therefore Mercury and Venus are seven."

62 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. 5. Fallada prosodice or accentus was an ambi-
Subsect'c. guity arising from pronunciation. De Morgan
says : " A very forced emphasis upon one word
may, according to usual notions, suggest false
meanings. Thus, "thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour," is frequently
read from the pulpit either so as to convey
the opposite of a prohibition, or to suggest
that subornation is not forbidden, or that any
thing false except evidence is permitted, or that
it may be given for him, or that it is only against
neighbours that false witness may not be borne."

6. Fallada figura dictionis, when, from any
similitude of words, what is granted of one is by
a forced application predicated of another ; as,
" Projectors are not fit to be trusted, therefore
he who has formed a project is not fit to be
trusted." Whately.

All these fallacies come under the head of
ambiguous language, and amount to nothing but
giving the syllogism four terms, two of them
under the same name.

The Fallacies extradictionem or in Re are set
down as follows.

1. Fallada acddentis ; and, 2, Fallada d dicto
secundum quid ad dictum simplidter. The first
of these ought to be called that of a dicto
simplidter ad dictum secundum quid, for the two
are correlative in the manner described in the
two phrases. The first consists in inferring of
the subject with an accident that which was

11EASONING. 03

premised of the subject only: the second in
inferring of the subject only that which was Subsect. c.
premised of the subject with an accident. Of
the first we may give the instance " Wine is
pernicious, therefore it ought to be forbidden."
The expressed premiss refers to wine used im
moderately : the conclusion is meant to refer to
wine however used. Of the second the trite
example is : " "What you bought yesterday, you
eat to-day ; you bought raw meat yesterday ;
therefore, you eat raw meat to-day." The major
premiss refers to anything bought, the con
clusion regards meat with the accident "raw."

" All the fallacies, which attempt the substi
tution in one form for the same thing (as it is
called) in another, belong to this head : such as
that of the man who claimed to have had one
knife twenty years, giving it sometimes a new
handle, and sometimes a new blade." — "More
serious difficulties have arisen from the attempt
to separate the essential from the accidental,
particularly with regard to material objects."
Cartesian doctrine adduced p. 252, ibid.

3. Petitio Principii. It is translated by the
phrase begging the question, that is, assuming the
thing which is to be proved. This is also called
reasoning in a circle, coming round, in the
way of conclusion, to what has been already
formally assumed, in a manner expressed or im
plied. Thus " if a Papist should pretend to
prove that his religion is derived from Christ

64 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, and his Apostles because it agrees with the
t. c. doctrine of all the Fathers of the Church, all the
holy martyrs, and all the Christian world through
out all ages (quod semper ubique et ah omnibus)
he would be met by the objection, that the great
point in contest is, whether his religion does
agree with that of all the ancients and the
primitive Christians, or no." Watts's Logic,
p. 315. He has assumed what he had to prove.
De Morgan says (p. 256) that Aristotle " by the
word principium distinctly means that which
can be Mown of itself (e principium ' being the
major). He lays down five ways of assuming that
which ought to come out of a self-known prin
ciple of which begging the question is the first."
Comp. loc. cit. p. 256.

Eor the following remark the author of
this work is alone responsible. The fallacy of
begging the question regards Proof; and when,
for proof, the conclusion is passed off in the
major premiss (only repeated in general terms)
the fault is committed ; and equally, when the
conclusion is merely a repetition of the major
proposition in the form of a particular case.
Thus it would be a petitio principii to say
" Whatever is, is right," as proof of the right-
ness of any species of wrong, as : —
Whatever is, is right ;
Dishonesty is ; therefore
It is right.

In such cases it will be found that there is

REASONING. G5

really no inference, and therefore no argument ; PART i.
it is but the re-statement of the same proposition, Subscct.'c.
varied by general or specific terms, — a repetition
of the same thing in other words, and not an
inference of one truth from another.

The above might have claimed the character
of reasoning, if stated thus : —

Whatever is, or exists, in conformity with

the laws of Providence is right ;
Evil is, or exists, in conformity with, &c. ;
Evil is right.

Though, not to mislead the student, I ought
to add that the principium or major premiss is
false, and that Evil is not in conformity with
the laws of Providence.

4. The Ignoratio ElencM, or ignorance of the
refutation, is what we should now call answer
ing to the wrong point, or proving something
which is not contradictory of the thing asserted.
Wesley (Logic) calls it uan argument that in
dicates ignorance of the point in dispute ; an
irrelevant conclusion." Watts (Logic, p. 314)
says " it is a mistake of the question ; that is, when
something else is proved, which has neither any
necessary connexion or consistency with the
thing inquired ; as if the question be proposed
whether excess of wine can be hurtful to him
that drinks it, and the Sophister should prove
that it revives his spirits, it exhilarates his soul,
it gives a man courage, and makes him strong
and active, and then he takes it for granted that

VOL. I. F

66 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, he has proved his point. But the respondent

subsect'c. may easily show that tho' wine may do all this,

yet it may be finally hurtful to the soul and body

of him that drinks it to excess." See De Morgan's

remarks on proving a negative, ibid. p. 260.

5. Fallacia Gonsequentis (now very often called
a non sequitur) is the simple affirmation of a con
clusion which does not follow from the premisses.

6. The non causa pro causa. This is the mis
take of imagining necessary connexion where there
is none, in the way of cause considered in the
widest sense of the word.

Any further investigation of the sources of
fallacy in a work of this kind would be out of
place. I therefore forbear to speak of the
fallacia plurinm interrogationum, which con
sists in trying to get one answer to several
questions at once ; of the Extreme Case,
though it is often the only test by which an
ambiguous assumption can be dealt with; of
the different modes of Evasion; and of the
fallacies which depend upon wrong notions of
the Quantity of propositions.

Finally, let it be remembered in taking a
retrospect of categorical reasoning, that formal
logic can do no more than give the rules for
drawing a valid conclusion, assuming the pre
misses; but that the premisses may be right
or wrong, and that they require for determining
their truth the sound judgement which belongs
to an understanding enlightened by Reason. And

REASONING. 67

if any criterion be required in following up our PAUT i.
reasonings to their first principles («/>%<u) it may s
be found in the condition that the only major
premiss, which does not, and cannot, require
proof, is a proposition containing the statement
of a self-evident truth, and to suppose the con
tradictory of which would be self-contradictory.

Continuation of Subsection C.
Hypothetical Syllogism.

§ 32. Hypothetical Judgements are those
which express a relation of connexion between
two propositions, or of dependency of one on
the other, as in the case of cause and effect, or
of condition and conditioned; — ex. gr., if alcohol
inebriates, it is unwholesome; — if the tempera
ture is high, the thermometer rises.

The connexion between the two propositions
is assumed to be necessary, and this necessary
connexion is expressed in a major premiss, of
which the prior proposition is termed the Ante
cedent, and the latter the Consequent : and the
argument is that "if " the first be granted, the
second inevitably follows. But in order to com
plete the syllogism or judgement, the antecedent
must be affirmed or the consequent denied, and
this constitutes the minor premiss. Without this
affirmation or denial, the ground only of the
judgement would have been stated, and the
point at issue left undetermined. But "by affirm-

F2

68 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. ing the antecedent, or denying the consequent,
Subse'ct'c. the conditions are fulfilled by which the Con
clusion, in respect of the connexion or depen
dency of the propositions, may be drawn, and
expressed by an affirmative or negative propo
sition. Syllogisms in which the antecedent is
granted are called Constructive (modo ponente.)
Syllogisms, in which the consequent is denied,
are called Destructive (modo tollente).

Examples.
Major. If A is B; C is D. If rain has

fallen, the ground is wet.
Minor. But A is B. But rain has fallen.
Conclusion. C is D. The ground is wet.

If A is B, C is D. If rain has fallen,

the ground is wet.

But C is not D. But the ground is not wet.
Therefore A is not B. Therefore rain

has not fallen.

The rules then are : 1. The antecedent being
granted, the consequent may be inferred. 2.
The consequent being denied, the antecedent
may be denied.

By denying the Antecedent, or affirming the
Consequent, nothing can be inferred, because
the same consequent may follow from other
antecedents. Rain may not have fallen, and
yet the ground may be wet ; * or the ground
may be wet, and yet no rain have fallen ;

* Here the antecedent is denied.

REASONING. 69

because dew, or an inundation would produce PART I.

facet* L.

the same effect.* Subsectc.

Thomson (Laws of Thought, p. 154) speaking
of hypothetical judgements remarks that there
are only five arrangements of the terms, in
four of which there are but three terms, and
in the fifth four. Of the last—" if A is B, C is
D " he gives the example : "If the moon exerts
her attractive force in the same line as the
sun, the tides are at the highest. " On this,
he observes, " that the fifth alone expresses two
separate facts, brought together as cause and
effect, while in all the rest, from the recurrence
of a term in both clauses, it is impossible to
separate entirely the two things stated. This
leads to the observation of a real difference in
their nature. Without attempting to examine
the origin of our idea of cause and effect, we
may state, as a thing generally admitted, that
all men are accustomed to regard some one
fact as the necessary result of another, which
they have observed invariably to precede or
accompany it; and that they may learn, how
ever different in nature the two facts may
appear, to identify them so far as invariably
to expect the effect where they have observed
the cause."— -"And when the connexion between
them (the two facts) is stated, in a hypothetical
(that is, a conditional) judgement, the truth
of the statement will entirely depend upon the

* Here the consequent is affirmed. (Comp. Wesley, Logic, p. 44.)

70 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, correctness of our observation, since there can
subsect.c. be nothing in the statement itself to serve as
a criterion of its truth." That, if A is B, C is
D, is a statement for which "we have no test
but the application of our idea of cause and
effect to the facts for which these letters stand."
— But, in respect of the cases, in which there is
a term repeated or only three terms (as If A is
B, A is C) " we appeal not to the idea of cause
and effect, but to a categorical judgement of
which the materials are before us. ' If A is B,
A is C ' will be true, provided ' All B is C ' be
true. ' If this be an equilateral triangle, it is
also an equiangular ' must be tried by the rule
' All equilateral triangles are equiangular.' Here
is no notion of a cause; but a statement of
a rule, with the supposition that some one case
comes under it. It really means, not that one
event is caused by another, but that a con
ception has certain marks ; which is the function
of the categorical judgement." The whole pas
sage is highly deserving of the student's con
sideration.

It would appear then that the genuine
characteristic of the hypothetical judgement
is that of bringing two distinct facts, or state
ments of facts, into the relation of, or cor
respondency to, the category of cause and
effect. And it will be seen that the statement
in the Major premiss, "If A is B, C is D"
exactly agrees with the empirical use of the

REASONING. 71

category in assigning in any case the Antecedent PART i.
and the Consequent; and that as a necessary Subsect.c.
connexion is assumed or implied, the name of
the category would be correctly stated as that
of Dependency, that is, of the dependency of
the Consequent on the Antecedent. It may
be noted, however, that this "Dependency" is,
in respect of empirical knowledge, the work
of mental attribution ; for although, as Thomson
says, "the truth of the statement will entirely
depend upon the correctness of our observation, "
the two facts would never "be inseparably
linked together in our minds as a cause and an
effect," unless our minds supplied the "neces
sary connexion " which in any invariable se
quence of events we are justified in assuming.

I have made the above quotations from
Thomson's "Laws of Thought," in order to
strengthen my own similar views, which I
ventured to advance long before I read his
observations. And I refer here to a paper (un
published) wherein I say: — "Whatever may
be thought of the position, it is clear that
the distinctive character of the Hypothetical
argument differs from that of the Categorical
or the argument by Inclusion, in that it is
essentially based upon the principle in the
human mind of a Causal Nexus, or that of
the relation of Cause and Effect."

72 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

8ect-2' Subsection C (continued).

PART I.

Sect. 2.

Subsect. C.

Disjunctive Syllogism.

§33. A disjunctive Syllogism consists of two
or more categorical propositions so stated as to
imply that some one of them at least is true, and
generally that but one can be true ; as " It is
either day or night.55

By denying one of the categoricals of a dis
junctive proposition, if there be but two, you
may infer the truth of the remaining one; as,
"It is either day or night : but it is not day ;
therefore it is night.55 By denying one of them,
if there be several, you may infer the truth
of some one of the remaining ones ; as, " It is
either Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter ; but
it is not Spring ; therefore it is either Summer,
Autumn, or Winter.55 By denying all but one,
you will infer the truth of that one ; as, " It is
neither Spring, Summer, nor Autumn ; therefore
it is Winter.55

When it is implied that only one of the cate
goricals can be true, by affirming one, you of
course deny the rest ; as, " It is either Spring,
Summer, &c. ; but it is Spring ; therefore it is
neither Summer, Autumn, nor Winter.55 Wesley,
Logic, p. 45.*

So far we proceed upon the ground of ordinary
logic. But the argument of the disjunctive syllo-

* Eor an account of the Dilemma the reader is referred to the manuals
of Logic, ex. gr. Wesley's p. 47, or Watts's p. 302.

REASONING. 73

gism has a far wider range, and is one of the PART i.

Sect. 2.

principal instruments of the process which we Suksect. c.
may call Distribution. Thomson (Op. cit. p.
150) in speaking of Definition "as any con
ception, which from having precisely the same
sphere as another conception, may be used to
ascertain its nature and mark out its limits " —
Thomson, I say, mentions, in speaking of the
sources of definition, two ; — that from Division,
and that from Colligation. The first, " where we
define the subject by enumerating its dividing
members ; as Britons are those who dwell in
England, Scotland, or Wales." He adds, "All
the judgements called Disjunctive are under this
head." The latter or Colligation is "the exact
reverse of the last ; where the dividing members
of a conception are enumerated in the subject,
and the divided conception itself added to define
them; as "historical, philosophical and mathe
matical sciences are the sum (i.e. are all or equal)
of human knowledge."

If the reader will refer to § 13 he will find
that we have here to re-consider the category of
" the Whole and its parts" in the logical form
of the Disjunctive Syllogism. Thus I there
say : — " Every whole in the physical or moral
world shall be regarded as an Unity of interde
pendent Parts, and as such by virtue of a generic
conception, or Type, which, in providing the unity
in one dominant and comprehensive Thought,
determines the relations of the Parts as specific

74 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. and integral constituents of the conceptual
Subsect.c. Whole; — that is, the One dominant, or funda
mental. Conception which gives intelligibility to
the whole, reappears in each and all of the parts
as the Specific opposed to the Generic." Why
the category of the Whole and Parts should be
intimately connected with, or resolve itself into,
the Disjunctive form of Judgement will be ap
parent, if we reflect on the primary rules for
the Division or Distribution of a Subject into
its component parts or members: — viz., — "the
Parts of the Division ought to exhaust the
whole Subject which is to be divided ; " and " the
several parts of a Distribution ought to be so
opposed, distinctively to each other, that one
species or kind, in the same rank of division, shall
not contain or include another." Hence it will
be seen that the several parts, in relation to
each and all others, imply the test of a dis
junctive judgement expressed as, "It is either

A or B or C or Z."

The Rules ordinarily given for logical Division
(see Wesley, index in verbo) are three. 1st. " Each
part singly taken must contain less (i. e. have
a narrower signification) than the whole. Thus
{ Weapon ' could not be a division of the term
< Sword.' 2nd. All the parts collectively must be
exactly equal to the subject divided, or as the
logicians say, the parts of a division ought to
exhaust the whole of the subject which is divided.

* Comp. also Thomson, op. cit. p. 247.

ItEASONING. 75

In dividing the term ' Weapon ' into ' Sword,' PART i.
' Pike,' ' Gun,' &c., we must not omit anything
of which ' Weapon ' can be predicated, nor in
troduce anything of which it cannot. 3rd. The
parts or members must be opposed, i.e. must not
be contained in one another. ' Book ' must not
be divided into ' Quarto,' ' French;' for a French
book may be a quarto, and a quarto French.
N.B. You must always keep in mind the Prin
ciple of Division with which you set out, ex. gr.
whether you begin to divide ' Books ' according
to their size, language, matter, or other head."

" It may be observed that a distinction has been
made between Logical and Physical Division.
In the former you may predicate the divided
whole of every dividing member. Thus 'Wea
pon ' may be predicated of ' Sword,' ' Pike,'
' Gun.' This cannot happen in the case of
physical division. ' Gun ' cannot be predicated
of 'the Lock,' 'the Stock,' or the 'Barrel.'"
Ibid. Thus a " Tiger's claw" cannot be termed
a species of the genus Tiger; but still the
division is logical, for, although a part of the
physical whole termed " Tiger," it is a species of
the genus "claw," and amongst other "claws"
it is a "Tiger's claw."

The category of "the Whole and its Parts" is
really founded, as I shall hereafter show, on the
Idea of the Integration of an exhaustive Mani
fold of Distinctive relations of Being in the
Unity of Type out of which they sprang and are

76 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. derived. And this view will find its justifying
. c. ground in the " Idea of the Will, considered as
the Absolute Cause of all Reality." The differ
ence between the conceptual category (or mould
of concipiency) of the Understanding, in aid of
empirical Knowledge, and the " Idea" of Reason
above adverted to, is — that the former proceeds
from the data of experience, and does not, like
the " Idea" contemplate the genetic development
of the Manifold contained in the Principle or
causative Law. The procedure of the Under
standing is to generalize, that is, to bring the
facts of Experience under appropriate genera;
and hence it will be seen that the main business
of the Understanding, working according to the
category of the "Whole and its parts," is that
of Classification in aid of the Sciences which
have been called " Classificatory."

I have already in § 21 pointed out the dif
ference between Attribution and Inclusion in
respect of the relation between Subject and Pre
dicate ; — that, in the former, attention is directed
only to the application of a right attribute or
designation of the Subject ; while in the latter
the attention is directed to the variety, number
and difference of the species included in the
Genus designated by the predicate : — ex. gr. All
animals that chew the cud, such as the ox, goat,
sheep, deer, are included in the genus Ruminant.

In further prosecuting the account of the work
of Classification the reader may be reminded of

REASONING. 77

the nature and relation of classes, the principle PART i.
of which has been already described as that Subsectb.
of Likeness and Difference ; and the following,
principally adopted from Whewell (Philosophy of
Inductive Sciences, p. 460) will show briefly the
means of the "logical99 application of the prin
ciple in question. "Porphyry wrote an Intro
duction to the Categories of Aristotle, which is
entitled « On the Jive Words.9 The 'five Words'
are# enus, species, difference, property, accident.
Genus, and Species are superior and inferior
classes, and are stated to be capable of repeated
subordination. The 'most general genus' (ge
nus supremuni) is the widest class, the 'most
special species' (species injima) the narrowest.
Between these are intermediate classes, which are
genera with regard to those below, and species
with regard to those above them (subalternans).
Thus Being is the most general genus; under
this is Body; under Body is Living Body; under
this again Animal; under Animal is Rational
Animal or Man; under Man are Socrates and
Plato, and other individual men.*

" The Difference is that which is added to the

* " It will be seen that Genus and Species are the only two distinctions
recognised by logicians for the purpose of sorting kinds, but naturalists
finding the difficulty of grouping the multifarious details of their branches
of science have adopted other terms for the gradation and subordination
of genera, and the most common are : — Classes, Orders, Genera and
Species, in which we have others interpolated as Sub-genera or Section
of Genera. The expressions Family and Tribe are commonly appro
priated to natural groups ; and we speak also of the Vegetable, Animal
and Mineral Kingdom" Whewell.

78 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. Genus to make the Species ; thus Rational is the
Subsectb. Difference by which the genus Animal is made
the species Man ; the Difference in this technical
sense is the ' Specific,' or species-making Differ
ence. It forms the Definition for the purposes
of logic, and corresponds to the ( Character' (spe
cific or generic) of the natural Historians.

" Of the other two words, the Property is
that which, though not employed in defining the
class, belongs to every part of it : 6 What happens
to all the class, to it alone, and at all times ; as
to be capable of laughing is a property of a man.'

" The Accident is that which may be present
and absent without the destruction of the Sub
ject, as to sleep (?) is an Accident (a thing which
happens) to man."

I subjoin from the same author the following
remarks (Op. cit. p. 457) on the Gradation of
Kinds, or classes indicated by common names
in virtue of some resemblance which individual
objects possess. " Common names then include
many individuals associated in virtue of resem
blances, and of permanently connected proper
ties; and such names are applicable as far as
they serve to express such properties. These col
lections of individuals are termed Kinds, Sorts,
Classes. But this association of particulars is
capable of degrees. As individuals by their re
semblances form Kinds, so Kinds of things,
though different, may resemble each other so as
to be again associated in a higher class ; and

REASONING. 79

there may be several successive steps of such PARTI.

Sect. 2.

classification. Man, horse, tree, stone, are each
a name of a kind ; but animal includes the two
first, and excludes the two others; living thing
is a term which includes animal and tree, but
not stone; body includes all the four." Compare
Thomson, Laws, &c. p. 100.

" Characters of Kinds. — "When we have a
series of names and classes, we take for granted
irresistibly that each class has some character,
which distinguishes it from other classes in
cluded in, the superior division," — " We entertain
a conviction that there must be, among things
so classed and named, a possibility of defining
each." "Our persuasion that there must needs
be characteristic marks by which things can be
defined in words, is founded on the assumption
of the necessary possibility of reasoning"

61 The reference of any object or conception
to its class without definition, may give us a
persuasion that it shares the properties of its
class, but does not enable us to reason upon
those properties. When we consider man as an
animal, we ascribe to him in thought the appe
tites, desires, affections, which we habitually
include in our notion of animal ; but except we
have expressed these in some definition or ac
knowledged description of the term animal, we
can make no use of the persuasion in ratiocina
tion. But if we have described animals as
£ beings impelled to action by appetites and

80 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

i. passions,' we can not only think, but say, ' man
Subsect'c, is an animal, and therefore he is impelled to act
" by appetites and passions.' And if we add a
further definition, that ' man is a reasonable
animal/ and if it appear that 'reason implies
conformity to a rule of action,' we can then
further infer that man's nature is to conform
the results of animal appetite and passion to
a rule of action.

Difficulty of Definitions. — " Eut though men
are, on such grounds, led to make constant and
importunate demands for definitions of the terms
which they employ in their speculations, they
are in fact far from being able to carry into
complete effect the postulate on which they
proceed, that they must be able to find definitions
which by logical consequence shall lead to the
truths they seek. The postulate overlooks the
process by which our classes of things are formed,
and our names applied. This process consisting,
as we have already said, in observing permanent
connexions of properties, and in fixing them, by
the attribution of names, is of the nature of the
process of induction, of which we shall afterwards
have to speak. And the postulate is so far true,
that this process of induction being once per
formed, its result may usually be expressed by
means of a few definitions, and may thus lead
by a deduction to a train of real truths." Com
pare § 22 ante, on Definitions ; not forgetting the
distinction between Essential and Accidental

REASONING. 81

Definition, and that Essential Definition consists PART i.
logically in substantiating whatever is to be Batoet.0.
defined by declaring in terms its genus and diffe
rence as indispensable to its cognition, — ex. gr.,
" Man is a rational animal."

It cannot have escaped the attention of the
reader that the work of Definition is intimately
connected with the process of categorical reason
ing, and that, in order to vindicate the position of
any part or member of a scheme of Classification,
it will be necessary to resort to categorical syllo
gism. Whewell has above rightly referred to
the claim of Induction in the process of Defi
nition, as based upon the results of empirical
knowledge ; but it will be seen from the example
which he has given in the former paragraph,
how large a share reasoning has in the process.
Thus :-

Whatever beings are compelled to act by
appetites and passions are animals ;

Man is compelled so to act ; therefore

Man is an animal.

Or if we are to justify the further definition
which he gives, it would, or might, stand thus : —

"Whatever animal acts in conformity to a
rule of conduct is rational ;

Man acts in conformity to a rule ; therefore

Man is rational, or a rational animal.
§ 34. It now remains that something should
be said on the subject of Artificial and Natural
Classification, or, in other words, on the exercise

VOL. I. G

82 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, of the understanding in that specific Form of
Subscct.'c. Concipiency which is called "the category of the
Whole and its Parts."

It would appear that our first attempts at
Classification of the products of nature — and the
same holds good with respect also to the classifi
cation of mental objects and psychical phenomena,
— that the first attempts at classification are
those which have the same origin as all our
thoughts of things, and depends upon a comparison
by which we note the Resemblances and Diffe
rences of the objects offered for our Attention.
And further that, in order to give such attempts
the character of Science, we are under the
necessity of giving Definitions, or adequate De
scriptions, of the meaning of the generic con
ceptions and terms employed, and of proceeding
according to the Rules of technical Logic. Thus
far the procedure may be correctly described as
the method of Artificial Classification. At the
same time, it has been justly observed by Dr.
Whewell that in arranging the products of nature
there are always reasons, which oblige the natu
ralist to conform his distribution to characters
strictly of a natural kind and founded in rerum
naturd. In his XC. aphorism he observes : —
" An artificial System is one in which the smaller
groups (genera) are natural; and in which the
wider divisions (classes and orders) are con
structed by peremptory application of selected
characters (selected however so as not to break

REASONING. 83

up the smaller groups)." It may be further PAUTI.
observed that attempts have been made to en- Sub»ct.c.
large and rectify the divisions of the artificial
method by rendering the characteristics of each
more comprehensive. Thus Adanson, dissatisfied
with the narrow base on which the sexual system
of Linnseus is founded, adopted the method of
" making many artificial systems, in each of
which plants were arranged by some one part,
and then collecting those plants which came
near each other in the greatest number of these
artificial systems, as plants naturally the most
related." Whewell, Op. cit. vol. i. p. 483. So
Hunter arranged the animal kingdom in as many
ways as there are organic functions ; — considering
each organ by itself, he formed, by pursuing its
modifications, a series of groups characterised by
that organ alone. See Owen's preface to the
4th vol. of Hunter's works, 8vo edit. But,
although a plan of this kind may be calculated
to assist in the formation of a natural classifica
tion by facilitating comparison, it yet fails in
the main requisite, by leaving undetermined the
law of the proportional development of the several
organic systems, in their relation to each other,
by varying conditions of co- and sub -ordination,
in order to the constitution of the fixed types
of living being.

But if we are to go beyond the merely logical
or artificial method of classification — as indeed
by our constitution as rational beings we are

G2

84 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. bound to do — and at all events to approximate
Subscct.c. as far as we are able to a method of Natural
Classification, that is, one coincident with the
laws of nature impressed thereon by the Creator,
we have to discover principles, which though not
superseding the use of logic, transcend the
boundaries of empirical knowledge. With this
view Whewell has directed our attention to
the "idea of natural affinity" of which he
says (Op. cit. 519) : — " I tappears that our idea
of Affinity involves the conviction of the coin
cidence of natural arrangements formed on
different functions; and this rather than the
principle of the subordination of some characters
to others, is the true ground of the natural
method of classification." Further on, p. 529,
he says : — " The correspondence of the inclina
tions is the criterion of Natural Classes ; and
this correspondence may be considered as one
of the best and most characteristic marks of
the fundamental idea of Affinity. And the
maxim by which all systems professing to be
natural must be tested is this : — that the
arrangement obtained from one set of characters
coincides with the arrangement obtained from
another set." Or as I should prefer to express
it: — that, in seeking insight of the laws by
which the Creator has regulated the systematic
unity and diversity of the organism and ceco-
nomy of His creatures, it will be our business
to proceed by investigating the conditions of

REASONING. 85

natural affinity : and that in this investigation PAUT i.
we may safely adopt the rule: — that the more
numerous the resemblances and coincidences in
character, habits, properties, organization, func
tions and agencies, of groups and components
of groups, the safer will be the inference of
their natural affinity, and the greater the surety
of the identification of the Idea, or genetic
Type out of which they have proceeded, and
consequently the more secure the ground upon
which to found a Natural Method of Classifi
cation.

But in this process of investigating the forms
(forma formantes) of nature, our final aim, and
that which an acquaintance with the facts and
phenomena of nature, even when they are made
mental acquisitions by means of the logical
faculty, does not attain, — our final aim is to dis
cover the Type, the Key-stone of the arched fabric
of nature's works. Whewell, Aphorism XCIII.
says justly: — "A natural group is steadily
fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given
in position, though not circumscribed; it is
determined, not by a boundary without, but by
a central point within ;— not by what it strictly
excludes, but by what it eminently includes ;-
by a Type not by a Definition." "We are in short
no longer within the precincts of the faculty
judging according to experience, but are appeal
ing for light and insight to the higher faculty
of Reason. It is hence only that is revealed

86 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAT*T i. to us the Type as the antecedent and genetic
Subsect.c. unity, which confers the essential and abiding
character on any and every group, and which,
whilst preserving the unity, manifests itself in
the diversity of forms or products, of which
the group consists, at once entire in each and
in all : — and it will be our business to find in
every relative and subordinate type that which
connects it with some higher type, until, proceed
ing from lower to higher, we arrive finally at
the highest and absolute Archetype, even the
Divine Humanity, who is Deus Alter. The
proof of this sublime contemplamen must
indeed be reserved for a more fitting place than
the present ; but meanwhile let it be remarked
that a class founded on a generic conception is
an empirical abstract, whereas a class founded on
a Type or Idea is a causative principle. Thus
if we interpret the facts of Embryology accord
ing to the typical principle, we find Life working
according to a pattern; and we arrange the
phases of operance in a graduated and con
nected Series of evolutions, anticipated from
the beginning and achieving finally the perfected
result.

An attempt to realize and cany out these
principles has been made in my Hunterian
Oration entitled "Vital Dynamics." For the
exposition of the Idea I may refer the reader
to that part of the work, which begins at p. 30,
and I shall content myself here with the follow-

REASONING. 87

ing quotation in aid of the intelligibility of the PART i.
principle asserted : — " Growth, Motion and Feel-
ing : — such are the universal characters, under
which animated being is alone conceivable.
And it is in contemplating these functions as
forces of one subject or power, that we learn
the aim and purpose of the actuating Idea in
the development of an organism, as intending
a living Body, — that is, a sphere of act and
existence, as the indispensable medium and con
dition of the manifestation and working of that
which in and of itself is essentially supersen-
suous — a living subject or power. But if
growth, motion and feeling, constitute the uni
versal characters of animated beings, and must
therefore be predicated of the lowest, we shall
find, in bringing before our minds the different
orders of creatures and ranks of animals, that
these are differenced by a relative subordination
of these forces. If in the germ the living
subject exists in and from itself; if in a higher
form of development, first of growth, and then
of growth with instinctive motion, it exists for
others; and if in the form of sensibility it
exists for itself; — by comparing, I say, the
various groups of the animal kingdom, we shall
find that they may be ranged in an ascending
scale, of which the degrees are marked by a
relative balance and proportion of the vital
forces, and in which the ascent is determined
by the evolution of life into Sensibility, and

88 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAETI. by the superordination of Sensibility, as the
' highest force and most essential form of living
existence."

§ 35. In order to complete the account of the
category of ""Whole and Parts," and to render
it as far as possible auxiliary to the acquire
ment by Generalization of empirical knowledge,
I may observe that it is founded on the follow
ing Axiom : — " "Wherever in any group of pheno
mena, sensible or psychical, we may affirm the
existence of Unity in Diversity, we apprehend
and bring it under the category of Whole and
Parts." To this may be added the following
Corollaries : — 1. The greater the number and
diversity of the Parts, the greater will be the
Intensity of the Unity, and so the more perfect
the Totality. — 2. Whatever may be affirmed
to connect, adapt, amalgamate, assimilate, or
bring into relation with each other, under the
conception which is common to all, any pheno
mena or group of phenomena that may be
deemed Parts of a Whole, contributes to the
Unity aimed at.

The Axiom in question cannot however be said
to approve itself as a generalized educt of the
faculty judging according to experience. It is
indeed derived from, and disclosed by, a know
ledge of the unique facts of spiritual self-con
sciousness, in the examination of which it will
have to be vindicated, and will be verified. But
the category of " Whole and Parts" may be

REASONING. 89

adopted, in the collection and moulding of our PART i.
experience, as the form of the following more or sukscct.c.
less indispensable concipiencies : —

1. Formality, the prevalence of some simple
regular form, by which all the visible parts of an
object are seen as One, — e.g., in a Globe, an Egg,
a Pyramid.

2. Regularity, the arrangement of similar or
diverse parts, which are more or less discrete or
separately discernible, — such as the facets of a
crystal, or the sides and hexagonal shape of the
wax -cell.

3. Symmetry, including the "regular" dis
position of parts. This may be deemed a step
higher, since it implies the prominence or super-
ordination of some parts with the subordination
of others, — e.g., the petioles of flowers, the
limbs of animals placed in pairs, the contri
vances in architecture (dome, cupola, spire, wings,
and the like) to break up into diverse forms, and
thereby animate, the mass of the edifice.

4. Unity by Grouping, — that is, wherever the
parts are too numerous and varied to comprehend
them in any one simple plan, to form and
associate them in lesser Wholes, and these again
brought mediately into larger Wholes, under the
common Unity which characterises the Whole
and constitutes the Totality. This is especially
the business of the Eine Arts: but we have
plentiful illustrations of this mode of combina
tion in the various genera, families, orders, and

90 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. other modes of grouping the animal, vegetable,
Subsect/o. and mineral kingdoms.

5. Proportion, — in greek (rv^erpia : — but the
english " symmetry " may be distinguished from
" proportion," in that the former relates to the
disposition of parts and the latter rather to their
relative quantify ; though I do not aver that the
distinction has been recognised. I would further
distinguish two sorts of proportion, namely,
Sensible and Dynamic. Of the first, perhaps
the best definition would be : — " Measurable
fitness of the parts (in space or time) in relation
to each other and to the Whole, of which they
are the components, and with especial reference
to the form of the total design." This would
apply to objects of nature, such as the forms
of animals and plants : and to objects of fine
art, such as the Orders of architecture, and the
forms represented by drawing or sculpture; —
though it must be confessed that a rule or
canon has not hitherto been satisfactorily estab
lished. And we may add musical composition,
based as it is on a peculiar science of pro
portion. On the other hand we might render
Disproportion intelligible by what is called
" Caricature," which consists in exaggerating
peculiarities or particularities which disturb the
balance and harmony of the total effect.

But I have said there is also what may be
called " Dynamic Proportion," by which I mean
a relation of the comparative intensity of forces,

REASONING. 91

such as the relative balance of the centripetal PART i.
and centrifugal forces. The conception of pro- subsect.'c.
portion enters largely into the determination of
scales of degrees applied to the measurement of
the varying intensity of forces ; but it will be
found that the measurableness of degrees of
intensity is only possible where we have been
enabled to represent them by quantitative equi
valents of motion in space. It may be observed,
however, that there is always implied a latent
reference to Quantity, even under circumstances
in which no rule of mensuration has been, or
can be, established ; for how shall we estimate
by measure the various quanta or degrees of
benevolence, patriotism, heroism, and the like
psychical qualities ? And I say this without
metaphor, for the comparative value cannot be
dispensed with in our judgements concerning
those qualities.

Finally we may say, that, wherever there is ade
quate evidence that there is such quantitative
relation of the parts of any group or assemblage
of phenomena — by adaptation, fitness, subordina
tion, co-ordination, and conspiration — as shall be
in congruity with some end proposed, or with
some conception which shall give an intelligible
unity to all the components, we may assign to
such assemblage that character of diversity in
unity, which we call a Whole and its Parts.

6. Unity by Series is that in which the
facts in any assemblage of phenomena may be

92 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, so arranged, or present themselves so arranged,

Sect. 2.

Subsect.c. as to constitute a regular and continuous suc
cession of steps or parts combined to a totality.
The lowest form in which the conception meets
us is the repetition of similar heats in succession,
as on a drum : and in the animal kingdom the
Annelids are those animals, which leave on us the
least impression of organic wholes. But as a step
higher in the scale of serial unity, we may notice
Hhythm ; of which we need say no more here
than that the fundamental conception of the
same is the repetition of successive heats of
sound or motion at regular intervals in cadences
of equal duration, by which equal metre we
measure the time, or divide it into aliquot parts.
"With this may be combined an almost endless
variety; and so the melody which we call a
Tune is a repetition of a regular succession of
varied notes. And it may be noticed that when
a Tune is played or sung we have the additional
notion of a Cyclical Series. In this, as in many
other instances, the completion of a Series is
certified by the evidence of a Cycle — that is, when
the series terminates where it began, and recom
mencing passes through the same steps in the
same consecutive order, so that the present
recals the past and anticipates the future, and
thereby combines the diverse parts to a whole
or unity.

But we may say : — Any series of events, the
succession of which is determined by some in-

REASONING. 93

telligible purpose, or the steps of which may PART i.
be schematized and explained by some definite Bubaectc.
conception, is the safe indication of a diversity in
unity, or of a Whole of Parts realized in nature.
Thus, where there is sufficient ground for attri
buting to an assemblage of facts the character of
Progressive Development, — whether we ascertain
the transient but actual phases of the process
of evolution, or contemplate them as results of
the process retained as parts of the whole, we
are entitled to assign to the process the cha
racter of diversity in unity, and to designate
it a "Whole and its Parts." No set of facts
is better calculated to illustrate this position
than the comparatively recent discoveries in
Embryology. (See Vital Dynamics, p. 39, and
Appendix to same on Transcendental Anatomy,
p. 56.) A no less instructive example may be
offered in the idea by the light of which the law
of the metamorphosis of plants rose up before
the mind of the poet Gothe. (Ibid. p. 26.) The
law, however, generally accepted, that in naturd
non datur saltus requires correction, — this
namely, — that under the auspices of the Logos,
or divine Reason, those links of the chain may
disappear which are unimportant to the intel
ligibility of the idea contained in the total
construction. It is not indeed necessary, as
may be inferred from the preceding remarks,
that every Series should be that of develop
ment or evolution, provided that the series

4 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. consists of connected links in and to a Whole.

Q * f\

. The scale of a Thermometer is distinguished
into degrees of expansion of. quicksilver cor
responding to the grades of temperature through
which the quicksilver passes under the increase
of Heat, say from Zero to the boiling point of
water. So an Alphabet may be said to be a
Series of the articulate sounds of a language,
arranged as guttural, palatine, nasal and labial
elements, together with their modifications ; —
and it thus forms a serial totality.

7. There is another heading to which I attach
considerable importance, namely, Final aim or
Purpose. For, notwithstanding what has been
in many respects correctly objected to the doc
trine of final purposes or causes, as tending to
divert men's minds from efficient causes as the
true objects of scientific inquiry, nevertheless
there seems to be in many cases no possible sub
stitute for this object in our study of nature, —
for the object, namely, of determining as far as
the inquiry permits, Why or for what purpose
such or such an adaptation of parts, or such and
such combination of parts to a whole, has been
provided. In other words we search for proofs
of Design in order to render certain assemblages
of facts intelligible, and this where other sources
of intelligibility fail us. That any Axiom which
may guide us is founded on our rational nature,
and is not generalized from experience, cannot be
doubted ; and this may be here taken for granted

REASONING. 95

if we consider that any and every will-act, lesnti- IJART i.

Sect 2

mately entitled to the name, must have a definite
aim and purpose, to which the means (as parts
of a connected whole) are to be subordinated as
the conditions of its achievement and success.
And under this impression, I submit, as the
guide to empirical knowledge, in this respect
the following Axiom : — Wherever there are
marks of Design, and evidence of the adaptation
of means in order to a final purpose, as if proposed
under the exercise of human intelligence, we
legitimately assume, in aid of our empirical
knowledge, the operance in nature of a similar
intelligence in order to the completion of an
organic whole, and of organic wholes, according
to the category of diversity in unity, or of a
Whole and its Parts.

A better comment on the Axiom cannot be
offered than in the words of the celebrated Cuvier :
— " Celui qui possederait rationellement les lois
de 1' economic organique pourrait refaire tout
ranimal." Or when he says (Anat. Comp. Vol. I.
p. 47), " Tout etre organise forme un ensemble,
un systeme unique et clos, dont les parties se
correspondent mutuellement, et concourent a la
meme action definitive par une action r^ciproque.
Aucune de ses parties ne peut changer sans que
les autres changent aussi; et par consequent
chacune d'elles, prise separement, indique et
donne toutes les autres." It would be .vain to
attempt any improvement of this lucid and sue-

96 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. cint statement of what we have throughout aimed
' at expressing in our account of the category
of the Whole and its Parts, — equally applicable
as it is to every whole, whether in nature or art,
in poetry, science, or in theology, as the aim
which the philosophic student ought ever to have
in view.

It is not necessary to recal the reader's atten
tion to the subject of classification and distri
bution already discussed, though it might have
furnished one of my present headings. But it
would be a grave omission to pass over without
notice that of which classification may he con
sidered as a species, and which may in a certain
sense he said to he the guiding light of the
Understanding in comprehending to unity the
wealth of particular knowledges of which expe
rience consists — namely, Method.

8. Method. Any attempt, however, on my part
to investigate the subject has been rendered
superfluous by the masterly Essay on Method
by S. T. Coleridge, beginning at the 4th ch. of
vol. 3rd of " the Friend," to which the reader
is referred as exhibiting a treatment at once
popular and profound. And I shall content
myself here with the following instructive quo
tations : — " The absence of method, which cha
racterises the uneducated, is occasioned by an
habitual submission of the understanding to mere
events and images as such, and independent of
any power in the mind to classify and appropriate

REASONING. 97

them. The general accompaniments of time and PART i.
place are the only relations which persons of Subsectc.
this class appear to regard in their statements.
As this constitutes their leading feature, the
contrary excellence must be referred to the con
trary habit. Method, therefore, becomes natural
to the mind which has been accustomed to con
template not things only, or for their own sake
alone, but likewise and chiefly the relations of
things, either their relations to each other, or
to the observer, or to the state and apprehension
of the hearers. To enumerate and analyse these
relations, with the conditions under which alone
they are discoverable, is to teach the science
of Method."

After noticing the opposite faults of want
of generalization and excess of generalization,
and also that defect of generalization which
"retains the outward form only," — and having
happily furnished illustrations from Shakspeare's
plays, he says : — " Thus exuberance of mind,
on the one hand, interferes with the forms of
method; but sterility of mind, on the other,
wanting the spring and impulse to mental
action, is wholly destructive of method itself.
For in attending too exclusively to the relations
which the past or passing events and objects
bear to general truth, and the moods of his
own thought, the most intelligent man is
sometimes in danger of overlooking that other
relation, in which they are likewise to be

VOL. i. H

98 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. placed to the apprehension and sympathies of
Subsect'c. his hearers. His discourse appears like soliloquy
intermixed with dialogue. But the uneducated
and unreflecting talker overlooks all mental
relations, hoth logical and psychological; and
consequently precludes all method which is not
purely accidental. Hence the nearer the things
and incidents in time and place, the more
distant, disjointed and impertinent to each other,
and to any common purpose, will they appear
in his narration : and this from the want of a
staple, or starting post, in the narrator himself;
from the absence of the leading thought, which,
borrowing a phrase from the nomenclature of
legislation, I may not inaptly call the initiative.
On the contrary, where the habit of method is
present and effective, things the most remote
and diverse, in time, place and outward circum
stance, are brought into mental contiguity and
succession, the more striking as the least ex
pected." — "Thus, as 'the lunatic, the lover
and the poet' suggest each the other to Shak-
speare's Theseus, as soon as his thoughts present
him the one form of which they are but varie
ties; so water and flame, the diamond, the
charcoal, and the mantling champagne with its
ebullient sparkles, are convoked and fraternized
by the theory of the chemist." And with re
gard to Shakspeare's works, "we may define
the excellence of their method as consisting
in that just proportion, that union and inter-

REASONING. 99

penetration, of the universal and particular, PAHT i.
which must pervade all works of decided genius Subsect.c.
and true science. Eor method implies a pro
gressive transition, and it is the meaning of
the word in the original language. The Greek

is literally a way or path of transit.
Thus we extol the Elements of Euclid, or So
crates' discourse with the slave in the Menon of
Plato, as methodical, — a term, which no one who
holds himself bound to think or speak correctly,
would apply to the alphabetical order or arrange
ment of a common dictionary. But as without
continuous transition there can be no method, so
without a pre-conception there can be no trans
ition with continuity. The term method there
fore, otherwise than by abuse, cannot be applied
to a mere dead arrangement, containing in itself
no principle of progression."

It will be readily anticipated that the " prin
ciple of progression," the "mental initiative to
all method," of which the author speaks, belongs
no further to the faculty judging according to ex
perience, but to the higher light within us, which
(§ 1) we have called Reason, or in its narrower
sense the Speculative Reason, as the source of
First Principles. But for the consideration of
such first principles or Ideas we shall find here
after a more appropriate place and occasion.

H 2

100 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART I.

Sutstct2b SECTION II. (continued).

Subsection D. Induction.

§36. The term "induction" does not mean
merely the record of the results of Experience ;
but the process of inferring, of inducing upon
our empirical knowledge, the apprehension and
insight of the Causes and Laws which govern
the universe, moral and physical.

§ 37. Thus in the Induction of Causes and
Laws* we may say : — "Wherever the human mind
attributes unity to a manifold of facts and phe
nomena, contemplates the connexion of each and
all in relation to the same as necessary, regular,
and invariable, and is thereby rendered capable
of anticipating and predicting a constant order
of succession, or of simultaneous co-operation, in
their recurrence, it recognises a Causative Law.

§ 38. It will be manifest however that, before
the human mind can have attained to such
causative law or laws, it must have been pre
pared thereto by passing through various stages
of toilsome inductive ascent. And it has been
with this view that we have placed before the
reader the inevitable conditions of acquiring
empirical knowledge. Of those conditions we
may again name specifically, — first, Space and
Time, the inalienable Forms of Sense, — and,

* "Cause" is law operative, and "Law" is cause regulative. See
Vital Dynamics, p. 15, and the example.

INDUCTION. 101

secondly, the essential Forms of Concipiency, PART i.
or Conceptual Moulds, of the Faculty judging Bobaeetb.
according to Experience, from the constitution
and exercise of which they are inseparable —
namely, the three so-called categories of " Sub
ject and Attribute," "Cause and Effect," "Whole
and Parts."

§ 39. "We have seen how the indispensable
business of naming, sorting, connecting, and ar
ranging our empirical knowledges is committed
to their charge, and how each category is em
ployed in its respective work and special voca
tion. But in order to determine the conditions
of the process of Induction, in specific relation
to the purposes of Science, it will be necessary
to take a comprehensive survey of the means,
resources, and circumstances of Experience,
which is to terminate not only in the highest
generalizations of empirical knowledge, but in
the direct aspect and beholding of the wisdom
and power which framed the worlds, in those
energic acts, ideas or laws, which constitute the
divine operance.* " He spake the word, and
they were made ; He commanded, and they were
created. He hath made them fast for ever and
ever : He hath given them a Law, which shall
not be broken." Psalm 148.

§ 40. It is hardly necessary to remind the
reader that the first indispensable step in the
acquirement of empirical knowledge is that of

* See Vital Dynamics, p. 1(J.

102 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. Generalization, implying a correspondent act of
SutseitJX Abstraction; by which processes we note the
Like in the Different and the Different in the
Like ; and of which the results are registered in
Generic Conceptions, and expressed in Proposi
tions of more or less generality. Nor need I add
that such conceptions expressed in general pro
positions must be in the "forms" prescribed by
the constitution of the faculty judging according
to experience, that is, in the forms of sensuous
intuition, or of logical concipiency made and
provided for its specific purpose.

§ 41. In addition, however, to what has been
said in respect of these mental forms or moulds,
which are part and parcel of our intellectual
constitution, it may be desirable for the reader
to consider briefly (as only is consistent with our
purpose) some of the principal Hules, which have
been laid down by the best authorities — and
I would here mention the names of Sir J. Her-
schel, of Mr. J. S. Mill, and of Dr. Whewell— for
successfully instituting investigations in behoof
of Inductive Science.

§ 42. Meanwhile it may be observed that the
scientific interest which attaches to inductive
science, is mainly, if not altogether, centred in
the diagnosis or discernment of Laws, at once
causative and regulative : — that is, considered
from the point of view of the understanding, the
mind is engaged in ascertaining a constant re
lation of dependency between empirical facts,

INDUCTION. 103

so that any B shall not happen without the PART i.

., i . . \l ., Sect. 2.

necessity 01 assigning some A as its cause, or
antecedent condition. And, as the empiricist
repudiates the notion of power or force, the term
" antecedent condition' ' would be preferable in
respect of empirical knowledge, as signifying
that in the mind of the observer a certain fact
B is invariably associated with another fact A
as the indispensable condition of B. Doubtless,
it may be justly objected that A so conceived
carries with it no satisfactory explanation of its
connexion with, and its production of, B ; but it
is true that these conceptions lie beyond the
precincts of empirical knowledge. It may like
wise be premised that the inquiry is set on foot
by seeking to discover the antecedent condition
of a given effect. That is, in the phenomena and
their changes, which challenge our observation,
we are led to ask — What are the causes, or
conditions, which may account for, or explain,
as their effects, the observed changes. Although,
when a cause has been once satisfactorily ascer
tained, the corresponding inquiry is naturally
su^ested : — "What are the different effects, which

oo

may be produced by, or be consequent upon, the
same cause.

§ 43. To return, however, to the promised
exposition of the main Rules which may claim
to be adequate exponents of a Method of Induc
tive Science; — it will be obvious that the first
Rule will be that of noting in any case, which

104 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. offers the inducement to the inquiry, or in all
Subsect.b. similar cases, the constant and invariable asso
ciation of one fact or phenomenon with another,
for the purpose of determining the Dependency
of the one on the other in the relation here con
templated of cause and effect, or rather (as we
have said in the empirical sense) of a condition
and that which is conditional upon it. These
relations have been also called Antecedent and
Consequent ; but without qualification such lan
guage would lead to error ; for no one would
think of considering in the constant sequence
of day and night that the one is the cause or
the effect of the other, the condition of the
change being the diurnal revolution of our
planet.

The instances, which establish the fact of the
Dependency in question, may be termed Affirm
ative; and their constant recurrence and repe
tition are a continual verification of the relation
assumed. Take among many examples which
may be adduced in connexion with our daily life,
the fact of the changes in Water (its freezing
into a solid, its liquefaction, its boiling and
conversion into steam) under the influence of
increased heat, and its return through the same
stages under the abstraction of heat ; and the
evidence of the dependency of the changes on
Heat, as the -cause or antecedent condition, is
complete and satisfactory. In this however as
in other cases, though the most casual observa-

INDUCTION. 105

tion is sufficient to test the genuineness of the PART i.
facts: yet the scientific inquirer is called upon Subsckb.
to determine the conditions of the changes more
accurately. He ascertains that the relative in
crease or diminution of heat is as that marked
by a Fahrenheit's thermometer at 32° for the
freezing point, above which every increase of
temperature is marked by a corresponding rise
of the thermometer until having reached 212°,
or the boiling point, it remains stationary and
the boiling water begins to escape in steam. It
will be seen that the phenomenal changes invite
further investigation, and may set other inqui
ries on foot; but meanwhile that Observation
has been sufficient to note the invariable fact of
Heat as the antecedent condition of the changes
in water. Moreover it will be found further
that, should any doubt remain, the changes may
be renewed at the pleasure of the inquirer, or
that an Experiment, or Experiments, may be
instituted, by which the fact in question may
be verified, and the question finally set at rest.
And wherever this is the case, and the circum
stances permit the trial of the assumed cause
by experiment, we have the additional and in
fallible test of the dependency of a change on
a specific cause or condition, and of the existence
of a causal relation.

§ 44. But as we may and do have affirmative
instances which establish a dependency of one
fact or phenomenon or another, so likewise we

106 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. may have Negative instances, which are decisive
Subsectb. evidence against any causal relation that may have
been hastily taken for granted, though perhaps on
the faith of many affirmative instances. It is not
necessary to refer to the old adage, " Sublatd
causa tollitur effectus" to be aware that in all
cases if the cause be removed the effect cannot
but cease, and that, if the effect continue after
the removal of the influence of the supposed
cause, a wrong cause must have been assigned.
Ex. gr. If the question were : What is the cause
or antecedent condition of the transmission of
Sound to the organ of Hearing. The answer
would be the Air : — and this would be ade
quately proved by the Negative instance, fur
nished by striking a bell in the exhausted receiver
of an air-pump, and finding that no sound would
be heard ; and further that sound would be pro
duced, and would be increased, in proportion to
the admission of air.

In order to turn the distinction of affirmative
and negative instances to the best account in
tracing, from an empirical point of view, the
relation of cause and effect, it will be necessary,
not only to note the cases of the invariable
sequence, or concomitancy, of two or more phe
nomena in any given assemblage of facts, but
in addition to institute a comparison between the
results of the presence and of the absence of
any circumstance, which may be supposed to be
the indication of the causal condition without

INDUCTION. 107

which the effect would not take place. In this PART i.

, ' . XI /> T .• Setf. 2.

we proceed as in other cases of generalization : — Subsect.D.
we abstract from the different circumstances,
under which a remarkable phenomenon, or phe
nomenal change, or effect, occurs, whatever in
variably recurs as its antecedent, and which
therefore may be presumed to be its causal
condition or the exponent of its Cause ; and
we then are entitled to infer, that all like cases
agree in the existence of the same dependency
and warrant a like designation. Thus we may
affirm that All cases of dangerous or fatal
interruption to breathing, whether by hanging,
drowning, or suffocation by noxious or unfit air,
depend upon the absence of the principle neces
sary to aerate the blood.

But, wherever possible, such cases of agree
ment are to be contrasted with, and tested by,
other cases of the like kind but under varied
conditions, and we have to compare the same set
of phenomena in two opposite relations, and to
observe in what the difference of the effect or
result consists under the presence and under the
absence of any given "condition" supposed to
be essential to the effect. It is obvious, namely
that, Whatever material circumstance can be
eliminated is not the causal condition ; whatever
cannot be eliminated, without interrupting the
effect, is the cause or at least one of the causes.
"We have then to examine, and if the trial on
hand admit of experiment the requisite evidence

108 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. is most easily obtained, — we have to examine
Subsect.b. instances of Difference, that is cases in which
all other circumstances being alike, we may by
varying the circumstances ascertain the effect
of the abstraction of any alleged or supposed
cause ; and if by a decisive fact or by repeated
trials we can reduce the possible conditions to
a single one, that is one which if present is
invariably attended by the effect, and which if
abstracted is invariably attended by the absence
of the effect, we may legitimately conclude it
to be the exponent of the " causal condition."

Thus, in investigating the Cause of the deposit
of Dew (concerning which Dr. Wells Js induction
may be studied) we observe under what circum
stances dew is deposited, or collect the affirmative
instances, and under what circumstances dew is
not deposited, or collect the negative instances.
That in which all the cases invariably agree, and
which cannot be eliminated, is the causal con
dition. " It thus appears that the instances in
which much dew is deposited, which are very
various, agree in this, and so far as we are able
to observe, in this only, that they either radiate
heat rapidly or conduct it slowly : qualities
between which there is no other circumstance
of agreement, than that by virtue of either the
body tends to lose heat from the surface more
rapidly than it can be restored from within."
Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 495. Thus again, as we
have seen, a bell struck in air rings audibly;

INDUCTION. 109

but when struck in the absence of air, namely PAUT i.

ftcct 2

in the exhausted receiver of an air pump, no Subseet.b.
sound is heard — the causal condition of the
transmission of sound, that is the medium of air,
having been removed. The single circumstance
of the presence or absence of air justifies the
inference of the dependency of the propagation
of sound on air as the medium.

I have said above, " we proceed in these as in
other cases of generalization" that is, we note
the Like in the different, and the Different in
the like : — in the first, that is in tracing the
Like in the different, in respect of Causation,
we have to note the like indications of Depen
dency under different circumstances : — in the
latter, that is in tracing the Different in the
like, we note the difference produced by the
absence or abstraction of any supposed cause,
all other circumstances being alike. Ex. No. 1.
The Vertebrate animals agree in having a skele
ton; but, under this common character of like
ness, they differ remarkably in being hot- or
cold-blooded. — Ex. No. 2. Cases of a bell sound
ing in air, and not sounding in vacuo, consti
tute the essential characters of Difference with
Likeness in other respects.

§ 45. Any number of affirmative instances would
of course have no iveight in establishing an abso
lute, or universal, affirmative proposition when
opposed to any negative instance, or instances : —
thus, though all instances may have agreed in

110 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. the invariable association of some fact as the
causative condition of some change, as far as
commensurate experience warrants the assump
tion, yet further investigation may produce irre
fragable testimony to the contrary. We have
a striking example of this in the case of the
so-called Acidifying Principle assumed by La
voisier. It had been found that a numerous
class of bodies are distinguished by the character
of Acids ; and it was satisfactorily ascertained
that various substances such as Sulphur, Nitro
gen, Carbon, Arsenic would become Acids simply
by their combination with Oxygen. The change
admitted of the generalization that in all such
cases — and the number was large — the acidity
is invariably associated with the presence of
Oxygen ; and thus, as far as the examination of
the facts studied by Lavoisier warranted the in
ference, he was justified in assuming that Oxygen
is the cause, or should be mentally assigned as
the precondition, of Acidity. Further researches
in chemistry, however, raised up negative in
stances, and exposed the fallacy of his opinion.
Most of the acids contain, indeed, oxygen as one
of their elements : but, as Turner (Chemistry,
p. 629) says — " Acids may and do exist which
contain no trace of oxygen, nor does its presence
necessarily give rise to acidity. The compounds
of oxygen are frequently alkaline instead of
acid; and in many instances are neither acid
nor alkaline." And thus it appears that there

INDUCTION. Ill

are two classes of cases, which effectually nega- PART i.
tive the hypothesis of an universal cause of
acidity, namely, — (1) that of acids that con
tain no trace of oxygen, and (2) that of com
pounds of oxygen which are not acids. And,
adds Turner, — " The progress of science seems to
justify the opinion that there is no body to
which the term acidifying principle is strictly
applicable."

It is evident indeed that we have no safe
test of the Dependency ', which the assignment of
" cause and effect" implies and requires, but that
the effect is invariably present or absent with
the presence or absence of the assigned cause or
causal precondition. "What cannot be abstracted
cannot be regarded otherwise than as cause or at
least a concurrent cause ; and thus in the question
touching the cause of the transmission of sound,
it is found that in the absence of air no sound is
transmitted, and that in its presence sound is
invariably produced. On the other hand, it may
be certainly inferred that whatever can be elimi
nated from the "conditions" under which any
change is produced, cannot be regarded as a
causal condition of that change. As above stated,
what cannot be eliminated is the cause; and
whatever can be eliminated is not the cause. Of
the latter no better illustration can be offered
than the reform, which the art of prescribing
remedies for disease has undergone by reducing
the farrago of ingredients, adopted by older phy-

112 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. sicians, to ingredients of undoubted efficacy. " It
subsect.b. is only within a few years (says Dr. Paris, Phar-
macologia, p. 41) that Theriaca Andromachi, in
its ancient absurd form, has been dismissed from
the British Pharmacopoeia." It consisted of
seventy-two ingredients, and was, as Dr. Paris
states, essentially a preparation of the extract
of opium, of which every other ingredient might
have been eliminated without impairing its me
dicinal virtue, and of which the curative cause
consisted solely in the opium.

§ 46. The most satisfactory assurance of the
reality of a causal condition is that derived from
a Crucial Experiment, — that is, where the cir
cumstances of the case permit the decision to be
referred to a single issue, and the result furnishes
the required proof. Such was the experimental
evidence offered by Dr. Haighton that the restora
tion of the function of a Nerve is dependent upon
the regeneration of its tissue. The division of
a certain pair of Nerves, called Pneumo-gastric
from their influence on the functions of breath
ing and digestion, deprives an animal of life : —
but if these nerves be divided consecutively, and
at such intervals as to allow time for union and
reparation, death will not result from the twofold
operation, for the nerve-function will apparently
have been restored. It remained however a
question, whether the nervous influence was
transmitted through the uniting medium of the
divided nerve, or found a substitute in other

INDUCTION. 113

channels for its current. Dr. H., after allowing PART i.
time for the union of the divided nerves, made
the second division on both sides at once, and
the animal died, as it would have done had the
nerves been in their original condition. And
thus satisfactory proof was afforded that the
nervous current had been transmitted, and trans
mitted only, through a portion of nerve which
had been divided and regenerated.

§ 47. It is not, however, always within our
power to submit a case of doubtful causation to
the test of an Experiment, in which we can at
pleasure determine the influence of the presence,
or absence, of a supposed or reputed cause. In
such cases we have no other help than the
observation and comparison of such instances of
invariable concomitaiicy as are furnished by
nature. I take the following illustration from
Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 462 : " Thus, if it be true
that all animals which have a well- developed
respiratory system, and therefore aerate the
blood perfectly, agree in being warm-blooded,
while those whose respiratory system is im
perfect do not maintain a temperature much
exceeding that of the surrounding medium,
we may argue from this twofold experience,
that the change which takes place in the blood
by respiration is the cause of animal heat."

§ 48. The only proof of causal relation that
can be deemed completely satisfactory is that in
which the affirmative instances of dependency

VOL. i. i

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. agree invariably in one circumstance or condition,
Sectb. and in one only; or in which the negative in
stances agree in nothing but the exclusion of the
same. (See J. S. Mill, op. cit. p. 462.) But
though, as Mill avers, it would be in vain to
expect to obtain evidence so conclusive, yet we
may approach, if we cannot reach what is here
aimed at. For instance, making use of the
example offered in § 44 as proof that Sound is
not propagated except by a medium, and that the
ordinary one is the atmospheric air, we may
reason according to Mill's canon of the Method of
Difference, p. 455 ; — If the Propagation of Sound
occurs in air, and does not occur in vacuo, all
other circumstances being the same, save the
presence of air in the former instance, — the
circumstance, in which alone the two instances
differ, namely the presence of air, is the cause, or
condition, of the propagation of Sound. And it
may be added that the negative instances, in
which Sound is not propagated, agree in nothing
but the exclusion — not indeed of air only, but of
a medium of which air is only a species : — so that
the reasoning in respect of air being the sole con
dition would be invalid, and in this case further
experience would be necessary.

§ 49. But our researches into the causal con
nexions of the phenomena of nature are not
unfrequently baffled, or at any rate rendered diffi
cult, by the presence and influence of causal con
ditions, which, modifying each other, may produce

INDUCTION. 115

a complex result, or obscure the apprehension of PART i.
the principal causal relation. In considering these
Modifying Causes, we may adopt the distinction of
Concurrent and Counteracting conditions, though
it may be difficult in many instances to determine
to which class they may belong. " A familiar in
stance (of such modifying causes) is that of a body
kept in equilibrium by two equal and contrary
forces." " Again, a body solicited by two forces
in directions making an angle with each other
moves in the diagonal." See the observations
by J. S. Mill, vol. i. p. 520. Such cases may be
called either concurrent or counteracting accord
ing to the end aimed at ; but that two forces, so
applied as in the latter instance, may be con
current can not but be admitted, when we know
that this is the very case of the law under which
the planetary bodies preserve their orbits. If
however we look to the causal conditions of many
of the phenomenal changes which are offered to
our notice, it will not be difficult to discover
that the effect of the essential cause is aided or
interrupted by modifying influences. Thus says
Turner, Chemistry, p. 172 : — " Of the conditions
which are capable of promoting or counteracting
the tendency of chemical attraction the follow
ing are the most important ; cohesion, elas
ticity, quantity of matter, and gravity. To these
may be added the agency of the imponderable."
And of these he gives instructive examples.
Look again to the facts of Physiology, and the

i2

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. instances are numberless in which the perform-
Subtect'.D. ance of the functions of the living body is
heightened or depressed by the influence of
collateral agencies. No better illustration can
be given of the value of estimating the effect of
counteracting causes than the conditions under
which alone Vaccination can be successfully
accomplished.

§ 50. J. S. Mill has devoted an interesting
chapter of his work already cited to the "Plu
rality of Causes and Intermixture of Effects."

On the first head he observes (loc. cit. p. 513)
as follows : — " We must consider it (plurality
of causes) as a case actually occurring in nature,
and which as often as it does occur, our methods
of induction ought to be capable of ascertaining
and establishing. For this however there is
required no peculiar method. When an effect is
really producible by two or more causes, the
process for detecting them is in no way different
from that by which we discover single causes.
They may (first) be discovered as separate se
quences, by separate sets of instances. One set
of observations or experiments shows that the
sun is the cause of heat, another that friction is
a source of it, another that percussion, another
that electricity, another that chemical action is
such a source. Or (secondly) the plurality may
come to light in the course of collating a number
of instances, when we attempt to find some cir
cumstance in which they all agree, and fail in

INDUCTION. 117

doing so. We find it impossible to trace in all the PART i.
cases, in which the effect is met with, any com- Subsect.b.
mon circumstance. We find that we can elimi
nate all the antecedents ; that no one of them
is present in all the instances, no one of them
indispensable to the effect. On closer scrutiny,
however, it appears that, though no one is always
present, one or other of several always is. If, on
further analysis, we can detect in these any
common element, we may be able to ascend from
them to some one cause which is the really
operative circumstance in them all. Thus it
might, and perhaps will, be discovered that in
the production of heat by friction, percussion,
chemical action, &c., the ultimate source is one
and the same. But if (as continually happens)
we cannot take this ulterior step, the antecedents
must be set down as distinct causes, each sufficient
of itself to produce the effect."

In reference to his second head — that of
"Intermixture of Effects," Mill says :— " We
have now to consider according to what method
these complex effects, compounded of the effects
of many causes, are to be studied ; how we are
enabled to trace each effect to the concurrence
of causes in which it originated, and ascertain
the conditions of its recurrence, the circum
stances in which it may be expected again to
occur." Of this second head I cannot profess to
give an intelligible abridgement, and must refer
the reader to Mill's work, loc. cit. p. 524. But I

118 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. may direct the attention of the student to the
sutsect2b. following results. Mill says, " The conditions of
a phenomenon which arises from a composition of
causes may be investigated either deductively or
experimentally." And after rejecting altogether
the experimental method, and showing its in
efficiency by a lengthened illustration from medi
cal science of the futile attempt to determine
the modus operandi and curative properties of
Mercury, he says there remains only the Deduc
tive Method, — " that which considers the causes
separately, and computes the eifect from the
balance of the different tendencies which produce
it: in short the deductive, or a priori method.."
P. 533. To this method of investigation he
would assign the inquiries in physiology, politics
and history, in which, he says, " Plurality of
causes exists in almost boundless excess, and the
Effects are, for the most part, inextricably inter
woven with one another." And he adds (p. 532)
"The vulgar notion that the safe methods on
political subjects are those of Baconian induc
tion, that the true guide is not general reasoning
but specific experience, will one day be quoted
as among the most unequivocal marks of a low
state of the speculative faculties in any age in
which it is accredited." *

* " Induction," in the ordinary sense of the term, means essentially no
more than Generalization applied to the investigation of Causes, or of
the unconditional Dependency of phenomena on each other as far as can
be ascertained by empirical observation: — it means the collection of
Instances of any like dependency under a general head, or generic term

INDUCTION. 119

The Deductive Method, he goes on to explain, PART i.
consists of three operations : the first, one of di- Subsectb.
rect induction ; the second, one of ratiocination ;
and the third, one of verification. " The problem
of the Deductive Method is, to find the law of an
effect, from the laws of the different tendencies

designating a class, so that the fact of the dependency in question may
be expressed in a universal affirmative proposition. Ex. " Whatever
falls gravitates, i.e. obeys the law of gravitation." But I venture here
to affirm, that "Induction "in its proper sense signifies, not the empirical
colligation of the uniform sequences of certain phenomena, but the pro
cess prescribed for the establishment of some universal law of the causes
operative in nature, — not merely the work of t]je human mind in such
inquiries, but the investigation, and haply the discovery, of the laws
impressed on nature by its Creator.

" Deduction," on the other hand, consists in the subsumption of any
fresh instance of dependency under the law previously established and
expressed in its appropriate proposition. We deduce from the proposition,
as a major premiss, that a given case is one, which may be legitimately
included in the Rule or Maxim, which it expresses. And thus we may
deduce directly from the above proposition that bodies in falling, either
from want of support or loss of equilibrium, obey the law of equilibrium,
or indirectly that the rise in the barometer, or the paradox of a body
rolling up an acclivity, is also a case of the law of gravitation. But it
may be properly asked, Wliat is the proof of the proposition, that
whatever falls obeys the law of gravitation ? For though used as a
major premiss it is by no means self-evident, and therefore requires proof.
We have elsewhere seen that the proof demanded requires some sucli
self-evident premiss as "Whatever invariably occurs is a law of nature."
The minor then would be some such as " Obedience to the law of gravi
tation in falling bodies is what invariably occurs." Here the minor
would require the evidence of observation and experiment, i.e. the
induction of instances in support of the truth affirmed. And then we
legitimately conclude, or deduce from the major premiss that " Obedience
to the law of gravitation in falling bodies is a law of Nature."

It will be seen then, by this example, that, for the completion of the
Proof required for the establishment of a Law of nature, we have to
adopt both deductive and inductive reasoning — deductive, in as far as we
subsume the case under an established major premiss ; inductive, in as
far as we establish the minor premiss by the inductive generalization of
the facts at issue.

120 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY..

PART i. of which it is the joint result. The first requi-
site, therefore, is to know" (by Induction) "the
laws of those tendencies ; the law of each of the
concurrent causes ; and this supposes a previous
process of observation or experiment upon each
cause separately; or else a previous deduction,
which must also depend for its ultimate pre
misses upon observation or experiment. Thus
if the subject be social, or historical, phenomena,
the premisses of the Deductive Method must
be the laws of the causes which determine
the class of phenomena; and those causes are
human actions, together with the general out
ward circumstances under the dominion of which
mankind are placed and which constitute man's
position in the world."

" To ascertain, then, the laws of each sepa
rate cause which takes a share in producing the
effect is the first desideratum of the Deductive
Method. . . . "When the laws of the causes have
been ascertained, and the first stage of the great
logical operation now under discussion satisfac
torily accomplished, the second part follows, that
of determining from the laws of the causes,
what effect any given combination of those
causes will produce. This is a process of cal
culation, in the wider sense of the term; and
very often involves processes of calculation in the
narrowest sense. It is a ratiocination ; and when
our knowledge of the causes is so perfect, as to
extend the exact numerical laws which they ob-

INDUCTION. 121

serve in producing their effects, the ratiocination PART i.
may reckon among its premisses the theorems SubaectD.
of the science of number, in the whole immense
extent of that science. Not only are the most
advanced truths of mathematics often required
to enable us to compute an effect, the numerical
law of which we already know ; but, even by the
aid of those most advanced truths, we can go but
a little way. In so simple a case as the common
problem of three bodies gravitating towards one
another, with a force directly as their mass and
inversely as the square of the distance, all the
resources of the calculating have not hitherto
sufficed to obtain any general solution but an
approximate one. In a case a little more com
plete, but still one of the simplest which arise in
practice, that of the motion of a projectile, the
causes which affect the velocity and range (for
example) of a cannon-ball may be all known
and estimated ; the force of the gunpowder, the
angle of elevation, the density of the air, the
strength and direction of the wind ; but it is one
of the most difficult of mathematical problems
to combine all these, so as to determine the
effect resulting from their collective action.

" Besides the theorems of number, those of
geometry also come in as premisses, where the
effects take place in space, and involve motion
and extension, as in mechanics, optics, acoustics,
astronomy. But when the complication increases,
and the effects are under the influence of so many

122 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, and such shifting causes as to give no room

Sect. 2.

either for fixed numbers, or for straight lines and
regular curves, (as in the case of physiological, to
say nothing of mental and social phenomena,)
the laws of number and extension are applicable,
if at all only on that large scale on which
precision of detail becomes unimportant ; and
although these laws play a conspicuous part in
the most striking examples of the investigation
of nature by the Deductive Method, as for
example in the Newtonian theory of the celestial
motions, they are by no means an indispensable
part of every such process. All that is essential
in it is reasoning from, a general law to a par
ticular case, that is, determining by means of
two particular circumstances of that case what
result is required in that instance to fulfil the
law.

" Thus in the Torricellian experiment, if the
fact that air has weight had been previously
known, it would have been easy without any
numerical data, to deduce from the general law
of equilibrium, that the mercury would stand in
the tube at such a height that the column of
mercury would exactly balance a column of the
atmosphere of equal diameter, because otherwise
equilibrium would not exist.

" By such ratiocinations from the separate
laws of the causes, we may, to a certain extent,
succeed in answering either of the following
questions : Given a certain combination of causes,

INDUCTION. 123

what effect will follow ? And, what combina- PART i.

Sect. 2.

tion of causes, if it existed, would produce a suUscct. D.
given effect ? In the one case, we determine
the effect to be expected in any complete circum
stances of which the different elements are
known ; in the other case we learn, according to
what law — under what antecedent conditions — a
given complex effect will occur."

In the above long quotation there are two
parts to which I would direct particular atten
tion ; — first, the account which Mill gives of
the aid to be derived from Mathematics; and,
secondly, the account which he gives of "all
that is essential" in the deductive method.

" But it may be asked," he proceeds, " are not
the same arguments by which the methods of
direct observation and experiment were set aside
as illusory when applied to the laws of complex
phenomena, applicable with equal force against
the Method of Deduction?" These objections,
he admits, would be unanswerable, were there
no test by which we may judge whether an error
had been committed or not : and such a test he
affirms to exist, and its application forms under
the name of Verification, the third essential com
ponent of the Deductive Method. "To warrant
reliance upon the general conclusions arrived at
by deduction, these conclusions must be found,
on a careful comparison, to accord with the
results of direct observation wherever it can be
had . . To the deductive method thus charac-

124 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. terised the human mind is indebted for its most
glorious triumphs in the investigation of nature.
To it we owe all the theories by which vast and
complicated phenomena are embraced under a
few simple laws, which, considered as the laws
of those great phenomena, could never have been
detected by their direct study. We may form
some conception of what the method has done
for us in the case of the celestial motions."
P. 546.

I am tempted to add to the above an extract
or two from Mill's chapter on " The Explanation
of Laws of Nature." " An individual fact is said
to be explained by pointing out its cause, that is,
by stating the law or laws of causation, of which
its production is an instance." At p. 558 he
says, " There are three modes of explaining laws
of causation. First, when the law of an effect
of combined causes is resolved into the separate
laws of the causes together with the fact of their
combination. Secondly, when the law which
connects any two links, not proximate, in a
chain of causation, is resolved into the laws,
which connect each with the intermediate links.*
Both of these are cases of resolving one law into
two or more ; in the third, two or more are
resolved into one, when after the law has been
shown to hold good in several different classes of

* Compare Herschel, Nat. Phil. p. 88. on "the analysis of complex
phenomena" :— and, on the subject of this paragraph generally, the 7th
Chap, of the same work, p. 190.

INDUCTION. 125

cases, we decide that what is true in each of PART i.
these classes of cases, is true under some more Subsectb.
general supposition, consisting of what all those
classes of cases have in common."

The last or third mode, to which only I desire
particular attention, he thus describes, p. 555 ; — -
"The third mode is the siibsumption (as it has
been called) of one law under another ; or (what
comes to the same thing) the gathering up of
several laws into one more general law which
includes them all. The most splendid example
of this operation was, when terrestrial gravity
and the central force of the solar system were
brought together under the general law of gravi
tation." (See the example detailed, p. 556, with
the observations thereon.)

In conclusion, I may observe on Mill's views
above quoted, that although it has been gene
rally admitted that the process of gathering up
the results of experience is at once inductive and
deductive, the testimony of so decided an empi
ricist to the pre-eminent value of Deduction is
worthy of all note. I do not indeed take for
granted that he would concede to me what I
have claimed for the Reason as speculative phi
losophy in universalizing human knowledge.
But if, as is undoubtedly the case, empirical
facts are to be treated "inductively," yet, for
the interpretation of the generalizations arising
therefrom (or, in Bacon's phrase, in order that
man may become interpres naturae) we have to

126 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, appeal to first principles which are part and
subsect.b. parcel of onr rational nature. Above all this
appeal will be obligatory, when we have to con
sider the laws of causation which affect the moral
agency of man.

I might begin another paragraph with the
heading " Successive Generalization." But as
this subject has been anticipated above in the
account of the " Subsumption of one law under
another," I pass it by with one remark. I no
wise subscribe to the statement, advanced by
modern natural philosophers, that the inductive
process which Lord Bacon recommends consists
entirely of " generalizations, commencing with
the most circumstantially stated particulars, and
carried up to universal laws and axioms, which
comprehend in their statements every subordi
nate degree of generality;" — and thus that a
law is only a generalization from the facts and
phenomena of sensible experience, a mere result
of, and belonging to, the human understanding.
My reasons for protesting against this doctrine
will be found at p. 11, Vital Dynamics.

§ 51. It is now high time to turn our atten
tion to the aid which the process of induction
derives from mathematical science in determining
the laws of Quantity ; — for according to Bacon,
" Optime cedit iiiquisitio naturalis, quando phy-
sicum terminatur in mathematico." I cannot
however better bring the subject before the mind
of the reader than by a few quotations from

INDUCTION. 127

Herschel's Nat. Phil. Thus at p. 122 he says : TART i.
— " In all cases which admit of numeration or
measurement, it is of the utmost consequence to
obtain precise numerical statements, whether in
the measure of Time, Space, or Quantity of any
kind." — "It is the very soul of science; and its
attainment affords the only criterion, or at least
the best, of the truth of theories, and the cor
rectness of experiments." — " Chemistry is in the
most pre-eminent degree a science of quantity :
and to enumerate the discoveries which have
arisen in it from the mere determination of
weights and measures, would be nearly to give
a synopsis of this branch of knowledge. "We
need only mention the law of definite proportions,
which fixes the composition of every body in
nature in determinate proportionate weights of
its ingredients. J ' Compare Whewell on Lavoisier,
Induct. Phil. vol. i. p. 398. Again Herschel, op.
cit. p. 123. " Indeed it is a character of all the
higher laws of nature to assume the form of
precise quantitative statement." Nor shall we
wonder that man has acquired insight into nature,
in proportion as he has been enabled to reduce
her laws to distinct quantitative statements, and
has brought them within the mental construc
tions of mathematical science, if as in the in
stance before us, " the observed relations among
the data of physics show them to be quantities
not arbitrarily assumed, but depending on laws
and causes which they may be the means of

128 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, disclosing." Need we remind the reader of the
speculations of the Pythagorean school, or of the
sublime saying, Numero, pondere et mensurd gene-
rantur cceli et terra? Vital Dynamics, p. 22.
" Thus (as llerschel says, loc. cit.) the law of Gra
vitation, the most universal truth at which the
human reason has yet arrived, expresses not
merely the general fact of the mutual attraction
of all matter ; not merely the vague statement
that its influence decreases as the distance in
creases ; but the exact numerical rate at which
that decrease takes place; so that, wiien its
amount is known at any one distance, it may be
calculated exactly for any other. Thus too the
laws of crystallography^ which limit the forms
assumed by natural substances, when left to their
own inherent powers of aggregation, to precise
geometrical figures, with fixed angles and pro
portions, have the same essential character of
strict mathematical expression, without which
no exact particular conclusions could ever be
drawn from them."

In speaking of the verification of an induction
of facts, Herschel, Op. cit. p. 168, says, " In the
verification of a law, whose expression is quanti
tative, not only must its generality be established
by the trial of it in as various circumstances as
possible, but every such trial must be one of
precise measurement." See the illustrations,
ibid. And I need not add how much such trials,
conducted with all the precision of mathematical

INDUCTION. 120

science, must contribute to the exactness of our PART T.
knowledge of the facts submitted to the inductive
process and to the accuracy of the induction
itself.

But if the verification of empirical laws is
greatly aided by the exact methods of mathe
matical science, and by their expression as laws
of quantity, it will be found no less that the
Deductive Method is armed thereby with powers
which render it a most effectual instrument for
enlarging our sensible experience. When laws
of nature of subordinate generality have been
resolved into some universal law, or when the
steps of a laborious inductive ascent have been
happily anticipated by some unpremeditated dis
covery, it will be found that a host of minor laws,
which had been obtained only by toilsome in
ductive processes, may now be satisfactorily
deduced by a priori reasoning from the funda
mental law, of which they are at once the con
sequences and proofs ; — a result, which would be
inconceivable, unless grounded on quantitative
conditions, and calculable under the constant
relations which they supply. Thus the great
laws of the planetary motions, announced by
Kepler, were the results of inconceivable labour
of calculation and comparison ; but, as Herschel
(Op. cit, p. 179) says, " they amply repaid the
labour bestowed on them by affording afterwards
the most conclusive and unanswerable proofs of
the Newtonian system;"— and it may be added,

VOL. i. K

130 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. that, according to its indispensable requirements,
Subsect2b. the laws of Kepler were found to be rigorously
deducible from the law of gravity established by
Newton. But the conditions, under which New
ton established the law, were strictly quantitative ;
and thus he was enabled "to show all the
celestial motions known in his time to be con
sequences of the simple law, that every particle
of matter attracts every other particle of matter
in the universe with a force proportional to the
product of their masses directly, and the square
of their mutual distance inversely, and is itself
attracted with an equal force." For the celestial
motions explained by, and deduced from, the
law of gravitation, see Herschel, Op. cit. p. 272.
"It is a remarkable and happy fact, (says
Herschel further, Op. cit. p. 179) that the shortest
and most direct of all inductions should be that
which has led at once, and almost by a single
step, to the highest of all natural laws, — we mean
those of motion and force. Nothing can be
more simple, precise, and general than the enun
ciation of these laws; and as we have once
before observed, their application to particular
facts in the descending or deductive method is
limited by nothing but the limited extent of our
mathematics. It would seem, then, that dy
namical science were taken thenceforward out
of the pale of induction, and transformed into
a matter of absolute a priori reasoning ; and so
it would be were our mathematics perfect and

INDUCTION. 131

all the data known." Compare J. S. Mill on PARTI.
the same subject. Op. cit. vol. i. p. 541. But,
it may be added, that, as the laws of quantity
contain a priori all the possible cases which
may be deduced from them, so they necessarily
are calculated to draw attention to facts and
consequences which might otherwise have es
caped the investigation of physicists, or have
been left to the casual and uncertain notice of
observers in natural science.

§ 52. It remains that we bring before the
notice of the reader the Method of Residues,
of which Herschel (Op. cit. p. 156) says, — " It is
by this process, in fact, that science in its present
advanced state is chiefly promoted. Most of
the phenomena which nature presents are very
complicated ; and when the effects of all known
causes are estimated with exactness, and sub
ducted, the residual facts are constantly appear
ing in the form of phenomena altogether new,
and leading to the most important conclusions.
Por example : the return of the comet pre
dicted by Professor Encke, a great many times
in succession, and the general good agreement
of its calculated with its observed place during
any one of its periods of visibility, would lead
us to say that its gravitation towards the sun
and planets is the sole and sufficient cause of its
orbitual motion : but when the effect of this
cause is strictly calculated and subducted from
the observed motion, there is found to remain

K 2

132 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. behind a residual phenomenon, which would
subsect.b. otherwise never have been ascertained to exist,
which is a small anticipation of the time of its
reappearance, or a diminution of its periodic
time, which cannot be accounted for by gravity,
and whose cause is therefore to be inquired into.
Such an anticipation would be caused by the
resistance of a medium disseminated through
the celestial regions; and as there are other
good reasons for believing this to be a vera
causa, it has therefore been ascribed to such
a resistance." Other instructive examples will
be found in the same part of the work cited, but
which it is unnecessary to repeat here : and the
reader may advantageously compare it with Mill
on the same subject ; vol. i. p. 504.

§ 53. Before quitting the subject of induction
it will be incumbent on us to state with more
clearness than has hitherto been done the prin
ciple of the Inductive Logic. This principle,
in contradistinction to that of the logical Canon,
has been generally described as an inference a
particulars ad universale, and we may well ask,
whether a principle so entirely at variance with
logical reasoning can be admitted ? And yet
it would seem as if men, in generalizing the
results of experience, and in proceeding from
particular to general truths, were constantly and
unavoidably engaged in such a process of reason
ing ; nay, that it is the process, as it seems, by
which they arrive at the highest generalizations

INDUCTION. 133

of Science, and at the rules and maxims (regular PART i.
maximse) on which they rely for the guidance BubeeetD.
of their conduct in the ordinary affairs of life.
We have then to explain these discrepancies,
and to vindicate, or repudiate, the claims of in
ductive logic to the special principle of reason
ing, said to be characterised by inferring from
the particular to the universal.

Now, although I conceive with Archbishop
Whately that, in these cases of so called inductio
ct particulari ad miiversale, we do virtually con
form to the logical canon by reasoning with a
suppressed major premiss, yet I cannot agree with
him in thinking that it is such a one as that
which he proposes for proving that " All men
are mortal;" — namely, "Whatever is true of
John, Peter, Thomas, &c. is true of all man
kind ;" — I cannot agree with him, because it
violates the fundamental law of reasoning, and
has the manifest logical fault of concluding
from a particular to an universal proposition.
But it will be naturally and fairly asked — If we
do conclude, as admitted above, from particular
to universal propositions, and can only in such
wise generalize our experience, how we can
avoid the paralogism and escape the paradox?
And in reply to this question, I venture to say,
that admitting as true the above statement, the
difficulty has yet to be solved. And I say this
notwithstanding that Mr. Mill, after offering
unanswerable objections to Whately's view, has

134 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. himself attempted an explanation, — which, how-
Subsect.b. ever, in my judgement, has not adequately, nor
I think rightly, solved the logical prohlem.

The question is, What is the implied, or
according to Whately the "suppressed" major
premiss, which enahles us to conclude legiti
mately that the particular facts, which we have
gleaned and gathered from experience, may be
affirmed "universally" — taking the term in its
logical sense? And in supplying the answer,
I will do so in the form of the above example
stated in the proposition : " All men are mortal."
Now I venture to think that the major premiss,
which is to "prove" this proposition, is not the
hypothesis proposed by Mill of an "uniform
course of nature," even when verified, as he
supposes it may be, by induction; but that it
must refer to the conditions, under which we
exercise and achieve experience, and might be
expressed in some such terms as the following : —
Whatever has been the result of invariable
experience may be regarded and anticipated
as the uniform course of nature :
That all men are mortal has been the result

of invariable experience : — therefore
That all men are mortal may be regarded
and anticipated as the uniform course of
nature.

If such be the correct statement of the form
of reasoning virtually adopted, even where not
recognised, it will be seen that the conclusion is

INDUCTION. 135

drawn from an universal major premiss to the PART i.

Sect. 2.

particular case contained in the conclusion, in
strict conformity with the rate of the logical
canon which Mill affects to despise, whilst he
admits the necessity of a major premiss.

Meanwhile, however, it is quite true that a
process of reasoning from the particular to the
universal does take place in framing a syllogism
of this nature ; — and in this sense, namely ; that
the subject of the minor premiss includes the cases
derived from experience, and the subsumption of
these under the class designated by that subject
must be accomplished by an inductive process
of reasoning, that is, by generalizing every par
ticular fact or case or seeing that they are
rightly included in the class designated by the
subject and rightly included in the predicate
of the minor premiss. Thus in the above syl
logism, that "All men are mortal" is affirmed
to be "the result of invariable experience;"
and the particular fact is made universal by in
cluding it under the class of "the invariable
results of experience," because, in the major
premiss we have established the warranty that
"whatever has been the result of invariable
experience may be assumed to be, or is un
avoidably assumed to be, the uniform course
of nature."

Or the truth, at which we aim, might be thus
expressed :— That the "subject" of the minor
premiss contains the cases which are brought

136 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

ART i. under the " subject" of the major premiss, and
Subsect.b. thereby included in the major term; that is, the
case that " all men are mortal" is the " subject"
of the minor premiss, and contains the cases
of the mortality of each and every man as
ascertained empirically : — but this collection of
cases, in which the mortality of all men is
affirmed,* is brought under the subject of the
major premiss, as " the result of invariable
experience ;" it is thereby included in the major
term, since " the results of invariable experience "
may be regarded as the uniform course of
nature : — and we conclude then universally that
the empirical fact of men's mortality, being in
cluded in the class of " results of experience "
is included in the class designated as " the uni
form course of nature." But it is to be observed
that the logical justification of the procedure
implies that the sub sumption of the particular
cases derived from experience is effected by an
inductive process of reasoning, that is by gene
ralizing the particular facts under the predicate
of the minor premiss, or in other words including

* With reference to the collection of cases, Wesley (Logic, p. 58) has
the following note to " Induction." " The term c Induction ' is some
times employed to designate the process of investigating and collecting
facts ; which is not a process of argument, but a preparation for if."
I cannot however but consider, as I have stated it, that there is always
a process of remaning in so collecting facts that they may be brought
under the class of facts of invariable experience ; and in each and every
particular case, that we necessarily infer, in conformity with a rule or
major premiss that whatever phenomena are invariably associated are in
the relation of dependency, called Cause and Effect.

INDUCTION. 137

them in the class " the results of invariable PART i.

., Sect. 2.

experience. Subsect.D.

Thus, then, the minor premiss in all such
syllogisms contains the collection of particular
facts, which expresses, or ought to express, the
unimpeachable results of empirical investigation,
and affirms them to be "results of invariable
experience/' And the conclusion founded there
on, in respect of such empirical facts, is universal ;
—supposing always that its validity is guaran
teed by a legitimate induction, that the par
ticular facts have been certified to be results
of invariable experience. And it may be added
that this induction d particulars ad universale is
justified logically; but it is justified only by a
major premiss, which affirms the indispensable
conditions, under which the induction is made
and the universal conclusion established.

Such, I apprehend, is the true account of
empirical logic; and the major premiss above
indicated, or one of the same significancy, is that
which is implied, or expressed, though for obvious
reasons of convenience usually suppressed. It will
be observed, however, that in the minor premiss
facts will have to be expressed, which are not so
universally known or admitted as that " men are
mortal;" though in this case, if the grounds
of the affirmation needed statement, we might
append to the subject of the minor premiss the
requisite evidence — saying, for instance, " that
men are mortal, as shown, by the deaths of all

138 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. preceding generations, of whom no one is left to
Subsectb. testify to the indefinite prolongation of life, and
by the daily recurrence of this common even
tuality." This confirmation of a premiss by an
incidental proposition is what logicians call an
JEJpichirema, or a syllogism of which the pre
miss in question is the conclusion. Thus, in the
instance before us, " All men are mortal" is the
conclusion of the following syllogism : — " What
ever living creature is subject to death in all
past and present generations is mortal : all men
are so subject : therefore all men are mortal."
But it will be at once apparent that in many, or
indeed in most, cases of inductive generalization
such an appendage or " pro-syllogism " will be
absolutely requisite in order to bring before the
mind of those whom it may concern (in con
sequence of their want of information or belief)
the Proofs of the soundness of the conclusion,
and as such the convincing evidence of the steps
of the inductive process, by which the inquirer
had arrived at the generalization or empirical
law enunciated.

And this would bring us again to the " Con
ditions" or Rules, under which legitimate in
ductive generalization may be made, and empirical
laws established. Such rules or conditions of
experience have been, however, already sufficiently
discussed in the preceding pages ; and I have
only here to remind the reader of the important
distinction before made between inductive " gene-

INDUCTION. 139

ralizations," or " empirical laws," and what with PART i.
exclusive propriety may be called the induction Subsect.b.
of laws of nature — laws, revealed by Reason and
attesting the power and wisdom of the Creator.
(Compare Vital Dynamics, p. 16.) " A law not
only implies what is, and must be, the result of
universal experience according to the essential
constitution of the human mind, but that more
excellent knowledge of an operance, which would
be real and effective whether man contemplate
its effects in the works of nature or not, and
which is constitutive in nature."

It would be an unnecessary occupation of the
reader's time and attention to pursue the subject
into further details; — though as an instructive
exercise he may refer to the example before
given of Dr. "Wells' s investigation of the pro
duction of Dew. (See § 44, and the fuller state
ment of the case in Mill's Logic, 1. c.) I cannot
but think that the reader will be convinced
that in all cases of inductive reasoning the
argument may be thrown into, and virtually
consists of, a Syllogism ; of which the major pre
miss states the condition or rule, under which
the conclusion may be valid ; of which the minor
premiss is the statement of the particular fact or
facts under consideration; and of which the
conclusion is the proposition which raises the
particulars into the generality, or universal law,
contemplated in the problem at issue.

§ 54. We have now learnt that the process of

140 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. gathering empirical knowledge, and of consti-
Subsect.b. tuting thereby our Experience, is both inductive
and deductive; — bearing in mind always, how
ever, that such inductive process is for the pur
pose of "inducing" upon empirical knowledge
the insight of the universal laws impressed by
the Creator on the physical and moral universe ;
— that the first, or inductive generalization, is
the work of the subjective mind, and consists
of man's thoughts (i. e. generic conceptions) of
the agencies of the universe ; but that the latter
is the achievement of the objective mind, or that
which is coincident with, and the operance of,
the universal mind. And the reader will be
pleased to recollect that we have vindicated the
assumption of such objective mind by presenting
the Idea of the Reason as the Intelligence, which
is at once human and divine. "We have indeed
made a distinction between Reason speculative
and practical; and, until we have investigated
the moral nature of man, the reader cannot
receive the full assurance that the assumption
of such an intelligence is essentially true. Eut
at the same time the character of the speculative
Reason, has been so enunciated as to bespeak
acquiescence in its reality, and especially in the
fact (partially at least demonstrated) that its
truths cannot but be acknowledged as containing
their own evidence. For what is self-evident must
be true, and to demand a reason for reason would
be absurd. Awaiting, however, the appropriate

INDUCTION. 141

occasion for the full exposition of the truths of PART i.
Reason, it may be here observed that it is by Sublet D.
means of the universal light of Reason that we
are enabled to raise up Axioms of Experience,
and to show that experience is built up on the
foundation of truths of Reason, which attest
their derivation by their self-evident nature. It
has been, indeed, already justly claimed for the
so-called Categories, or moulds of Experience,
that they are original, inherent and indispensable
furniture (Karaa-Kevrj) or equipment of the human
mind by virtue of their being Forms of Reason.
And now, consistently with the character assigned
to them of being the " conditions " of Reasoning,
when Reason is applied to gather empirical
knowledge, and to raise it into the eternal
truth of divine Reason, we have to embody them
as Axioms expressed in universal propositions.
And, in offering them, it may be affirmed that
they are indispensable conditions, without which,
expressed, or understood, or unconsciously
acted upon, Experience would not be possible.
Thus :-

1. Whatever phenomena, in facts or events,
claim to be regarded as results of experience
must be generalized under one or other of the
categories or mental " conditions " of experience,
namely Subject and Attribute, Cause and Effect,
Whole and Parts.

2. Whatever phenomena are generalized under
the head of Subject and Attribute must be con-

142 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, ceived as Appearances ($euv6peva) belonging to
Subsekb. permanent and abiding " Substance," so named,
which is considered as the Noumenon, and of
which the appearances are the sensible mani
festations.

3. Whatever phenomena are generalized, or
have to be generalized, under the head of Cause
and Effect, must be conceived as invariably asso
ciated in consequence of an unalterable condition
of Dependency.

4. Whatever phenomena are generalized or
have to be generalized under the head of Whole
and Parts must be conceived as interdependent
in relation to each other, and to constitute a
totality by virtue of some conception which gives
unity to all.

5. If we add to these the principal condition
of experience, or the form of reasoning (i. e.
syllogism) by which we conclude that the results
of experience may be assumed to be laws of
nature, namely: "whatever has been the result
of invariable experience, and may have been in
fallibly predicted, must be assumed to be in
conformity with the immutable laws of the uni
verse :" — with this, I say, we may be said to
have completed the list of the main Axioms, or
self- evident truths, of experience. And I repeat
that wherever phenomena are to be generalized
(and generalized they must be in order to ex
perience) they must, and can only, be brought
into logical connexion under one, or other, or

INDUCTION. 143

all, of these essential conditions, — conditions, PARTI.

Sect 2

namely, of Reason in that form of working SubwctD.
which has been called the enlightened Under
standing.

§ 55. It would appear then, as the final result
of our investigation of the process of Induction,
that, as far as the work of the Understanding is
concerned, this process of collecting the mate
rials of Experience, and of transmuting the
impressions on the senses and the notices of
changes in our inward state into the conscious
realities of human Thought, — this Induction
may be described as essentially " Generaliza
tion," that is, as the conversion of the materials
of experience into " Generic Conceptions " which
may be defined in universal propositions. In
such generalization we have, however, to distin
guish from those, which are suggested only by
the ordinary occasions of life, those which have
a scientific aim and purpose, and require to be
subjected to the rigorous methods which science
implies and imposes. Of these methods we have
attempted a summary in the preceding pages.
There is, indeed, no art of Discovery, no method
by the use of which scientific truths can be re
vealed : but every person engaged in the pursuit
of science, whatever may be his qualifications
and advantages mental or circumstantial, cannot
with impunity transgress the appointed "con
ditions, under which alone knowledge can be
won and truth achieved." We demand, and the

144 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. rational mind cannot be satisfied with less, that

Sect 9

Subsekb. the facts, phenomena, and changes, which form
the sphere of our sensible and psychical expe
rience shall be rendered intelligible to, and ra
tionally accounted for by, our mind. Compare
Vital Dynamics, p. 9.*

Now if we inquire what may be the ordinary
progress of scientific discovery, it will probably
be found that the attention of the inquirer has
been roused by some striking event, or perhaps
casual occurrence, the effect of which has been
aided by his pursuits, habits, and turn of mind.
Induced thereby to analyse the phenomena and
their change, he now proceeds, by abstracting
what he deems unessential, to insulate and scru
tinize the leading fact and to generalize it,
i.e. bring it under some "generic conception'1
which may explain, or account for, the change
in the phenomena which had prompted the inves
tigation. Thus " the convulsions of a dead frog in
the neighbourhood of an electric discharge, which
originally drew Galvani's attention to the sub-

* 1 suspect, however, that in the foregoing account of Induction
I have unwittingly and too easily adopted the language and modes
of thought of the Empiricists, and have not sufficiently insisted upon the
truth that the rational insight of empirical knowledge depends upon
maintaining throughout the spiritual interpretation of the categories
or concipiencies ; — that no just view of " Subject and Attribute " can be
entertained without contemplating the " noumenon " as substance in the
sense of supersensuous " Spirit," — nor of " Cause and Effect," without
regarding the true nature of the causative as Power rendered intelligible
by " Will " as the operant and originant agency, — nor of a " Whole and
its Parts," except by looking at the pervading Unity as antecedent
and indwelling Spirit, beyond the cognizance of the empirical faculties."

INDUCTION. 145

ject," led to "the knowledge of a general fact, PARTI.
that of the disturbance of electrical equilibrium
by the mere contact of different bodies." (See
Herschel, Nat. Ph., p. 336.) And the reader
may there learn how vast an amount of scien
tific knowledge, and of our resources in explain
ing changes in nature, may be derived from the
happy seizure of a leading or " general " fact.

It is true that in many, perhaps the majority
of, cases we must be content with far less insight
into the agencies of nature than that which has
accrued from Galvani's felicitous observation.
We have to be satisfied with being able only to
observe and record the invariable association of
facts under their respective heads of generaliza
tion; and so, for the purposes of science, we adopt
what Dr. Whewell has called a " Colligation of
Pacts," and proceed to establish " Laws of Phe
nomena," "Empirical Laws," or, as J. S. Mill
prefers to name them, " Uniformities of Nature."
But although instances so named, sorted and
classed, fail to give us the requisite insight into
the causative laws impressed on the universe
by the power and wisdom of the Creator, yet
these collections of instances (illustrating indeed
the use which Bacon assigned them, though
hardly justifying his proposal of accumulating
and tabulating such) ever remain as nutritive
materials ready to be taken up, digested, and
organized into the living body of science.

But, as I have said above, the immediate

VOL. I. L

146 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. question, which the observer, in whose mind an
investigation has been started by some notice
able change, cannot fail to propose to himself
when seeking to find the "generic conception,"
under which he may best secure his acquisition,
is this : — " What will best account for, or ex
plain, the change, as the effect of some cause
which may be regarded as the universal agent
of such changes?" This mental operation of
referring a phenomenal change (as effect) to
some supposed cause, is so unavoidable in the
constitution of the human mind, that, as even
the history of science will inform us, extravagant
explanations have been more acceptable than
none. Our observer then at once probably forms
a notion, more or less satisfactory to his own
mind, of the case before him, and at all events
hazards a conception (i.e. generic conception) of
the class to which he shall refer the phenomenal
change which is the subject of his inquiry. Now
I repeat that the process is inevitable ; and if
the conception entertained be considered as a
preconception afterwards to be verified, the in
terests of truth are not likely to suffer. The
mind of man is so constituted that, whether its
conjecture be well or ill founded, it will, to the
best of its powers, assign the cause or causes
which may be supposed to explain, or account
for, any remarkable change as its effect. The
first attempt may be only a rude guess, as if it
were said that hybernation is the cause of the

INDUCTION. 147

disappearance of swallows at the end of the PARTI.
summer ; but when conjecture has been enlarged BubeectD.
and corrected by more searching inquiry (though
this nevertheless has failed in detecting any
satisfactory cause or condition which may ac
count for a phenomenal change in question) and
especially where the observer is forearmed with
scientific knowledge, the conjecture will be then
converted into what is meant by an Hypothesis
of the causative relation. The Hypothesis pro
fessedly does not amount to a certainty of the
conditions assumed, but has such probability as
a solution of the problem in question, that there
are sufficient grounds for attempting its " Veri
fication" by scientific investigation, or for retain
ing it until the further advancement of know
ledge shall have enlarged the means of testing
its truth. In any such case it would take the
place of Bacon's " prudens quastio " of a deter
minate problem, for the solution of which the
course of nature is referred to as the only ade
quate test and guarantee : but in order to put
the question to nature, and in order to appre
ciate the answer, it is necessary to know pre
cisely what we mean to ask, and therefore that
the preconception, or hypothetical solution,
should have been strictly defined. It may be
quite true, as has been urged, that, in order to
exclude that logical legerdemain, against which
the Baconian induction is the legitimate and
acknowledged protest, scientific Definition should

L2

148 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. be the result, and not the preliminary, of cases
'. tried in the courts of nature's laws. But it is,
nevertheless, indispensable for the purpose of
obtaining an intelligible verdict, that we should
have brought the indictment into court, and
should examine the witness under specific issues ;
and that, in conformity with this object, we
should have clearly stated and have accurately
" defined" the question, which is to be tried and
definitively adjudicated. Hence then it is neces
sary to put the hypothetical case in the form of
an universal proposition; recollecting at the
same time that this proposition defines the con
ception of what we anticipate the thing itself
may be, not the thing, or result, which is to be
the truth recorded as the final acquisition of our
experience.

In framing such Hypothesis, it is scarcely
less than essential to limit the selection to a
relation of Cause and Effect which is consonant
with our experience of the operations of nature.
"To such causes," says Herschel (Op. cit. p. 144)
" Newton has applied the term verce causce ; that
is, causes recognised as having a real existence in
nature, and not being mere hypotheses or figments
of the mind. To exemplify the distinction : — The
phenomenon of shells found in rocks, at a great
height above the sea has been attributed to
several causes. By some it has been ascribed to
a plastic virtue in the soil ; by some to fermen
tation : by some to the influence of the celestial

INDUCTION. 149

bodies ; by some to the casual passage of pil- PART i.
grims with their scallops; by some to birds
feeding on shell-fish; and by all modern geolo
gists, with one consent, to the life and death of
real mollusca at the bottom of the sea, and a
subsequent alteration of the relative level of the
land and sea." Then, after dismissing all but
the last, he proceeds : — " On the other hand, for
a shell-fish dying at the bottom of the sea to
leave his shell in the mud, where it becomes
silted over and imbedded, happens daily ; and the
elevation of the bottom of the sea to become dry
land has really been witnessed so often, and on
such a scale, as to qualify it for a vera causa
available in sound philosophy.' ' (See other ex
amples, ibid.)

Herschel, in speaking of the advantages of
Hypothesis, says, p. 196 : — " Hypotheses, with
respect to theories, are what presumed proximate
causes are with respect to particular inductions :
they afford us motives for searching into analogies;
grounds of citation to bring before us all the
cases which seem to bear upon them, for ex
amination." I do not feel sure, in assenting to
the encouragement which Herschel bestows on

o

the use of hypotheses, that I understand whether
he intends a distinction between hypothesis and
theory, and if he does in what he makes the
distinction, to consist. (See his Chap, vii., and
especially pp. 19 i — 196.) It is quite foreign to
my purposes and wishes, if indeed any criticism

150 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. be called for, to introduce any controversial
matter in this essay : — but not to leave the
reader in doubt with regard to my opinions
on the subject, I have to propose the fol
lowing distinction : — Hypothesis is, as I have
said, a preconception presumed to account for
a particular change or event in the course of
nature; it ought to have a better assurance
of truth in consequence of being founded on
scientific experience than a mere conjecture; but
it is only prospective, anticipative, and substi-
tutive till tested and verified. On the other
hand, Theory is a generalization, or generic
conception, of all previous subordinate general
izations of the same or a similar kind, and known
as particular empirical laws or proximate causes ;
so that, regarded from the higher generalization
as particular cases of some more or less universal
law, they may be deduced from this theoretically
established law. (Compare this description with
that of Herschel, 1. c. p. 190.) Thus the vibration
of a musical string may be regarded as the
proximate cause of the sound it yields, and the
conception of vibratory motion may be extended
to all sounding bodies, and so the propagation of
sound through the medium of the air gives rise to
various laws of subordinate generality : but, not
withstanding the labours of Newton, the Theory
of the propagation of Sound, and of vibratory and
undulatory motions in general, is still so incom
plete that " phenomena are constantly presenting

INDUCTION. 151

themselves, which show how far we are from PART i.
being able to deduce all the particulars, even in
cases comparatively simple, by any direct reason
ing from first principles." Herschel, p. 247.

Hypothesis may be, and probably often is,
the precursor of a theory. But when a sufficient
theory has been inductively established, the
hypothetical scaffolding may be removed, and
the hypothesis, which had served its preparatory
office, may be altogether dismissed, or ceases by
being merged in the theory which it had contri
buted to establish.

On the other hand, Theory ought to be dis
tinguished from " Law," when the latter term is
used in its true and only appropriate sense,
namely, as the immutable statute of the Creator.
A perfect theory — though we have seen in the
example cited above how difficult is its attain
ment, might be regarded as a Law contemplated
subjectively 9 that is, as a product of the human
mind and satisfying the conditions of human
intelligence. Por which we might adduce as the
instance, the theory of Gravitation.* But the
too generally imperfect nature of theories, arising
from their human origin, is attested by the fact
that not unfrequently two or more theories may
be maintained. "Nothing is more common in

* Theory is indeed the product of the Iranian mind, judging by
experience; and though it may be potentiated, or raised into a Law,
as in the case just cited of Universal Gravitation, it cannot be truly
called " Law," until it is found to be coincident with natura rerum
as the impress of the Author and Legislator of the order of nature.

152 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. physics," says Herschel (Op. cit. p. 195) " than
Subsect.b. to find two, or even many theories maintained as
to the origin of a natural phenomenon. For
instance in the case of heat itself, one considers
it as a really existing material fluid, of such
exceeding subtlety as to penetrate all bodies,
and even to be capable of combining with them
chemically ; while another regards it as nothing
but a rapid vibratory or rotatory motion in the
ultimate particles of the bodies heated, and pro
duces a singularly ingenious train of mechanical
reasoning to show that there is nothing contra
dictory to sound dynamical principles in such a
doctrine. Thus again with light : one considers
it as consisting in actual particles darted forth
from luminous bodies, and acted upon in their
progress by forces of extreme intensity residing
in the substances on which they strike ; ano
ther in the vibratory motion of the particles of
luminous bodies, communicated to a peculiar
subtle and highly elastic and ethereal medium,
filling all space, and conveyed through it into
our eyes, as sounds are to our ears, by the
undulations of the air." I would venture to
observe that these doctrines have more the
character of '" hypothesis " than of " theory;"
though with some exceptions either may serve
for a solution of the phenomenal problems con
cerned, or, perhaps I might say, for preserving-
uniformity of language in their description with
out supplying the causal connexions which may

INDUCTION. 153

be said to account for the facts. It is perhaps PART i.
more probable that the agencies of light and
the other imponderabilia await, for the explana
tion of their nature, a sounder philosophy than
that of the physicists of the material school.
The view that light consists of " physical atoms "
has all the difficulties which inhere in the as
sumption of such atoms. (Comp. Vital Dynamics,
preface.) And considered as mere vibratory
motions or undulations, though they might be
supposed to excite the sense of vision, they fail
to explain the chemical properties of light, and
present light under the conditions which might
equally belong to darkness. The difficulties,
connected with the so-called imponderable agents
of nature, have been felt, though not surmounted,
in finding a material substratum for Gravitation.
And it may be asked, whether the solution of
the qucestio vexata does not lie in the following
postulate or unavoidable assumption, — that " ma
terial " can mean only that which is subject to
the laws of space and time, while the only sub
stratum (or noumenon) in nature is what we
may call " Substance," that, namely, of which
we derive the intelligibility from the primary
and fundamental fact of our conscious spiritual
being— the Will ? *

* Induction has three main objects, viz. : —

1. To find the right attribute for a subject;

2. To find the right cause for an effect.

3. To find the right principle of the interdependence of the parts of
a whole, in which each part is distinguished from, or logically excludes,

the

154 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. To proceed :— It has been universally ad-

or . ,i o

subsect.b. mitted that to frame those general and com
prehensive views, which we name hypothesis

the others, while all are included in the principle of interdependence,
which constitutes their totality. But we have here to determine the
meaning of the term " right/' and it is clear that, if the above use of it
is to be of any avail in the inductive process, it ought to be equivalent
to self-evidently true. In order to satisfy this condition we have to
find "Axioms" which may serve as major premisses for the three
objects above specified, and may direct us to valid inferences, or
legitimate conclusions, in each of the cases supplied by Categories
of Experience. I propose then the following RULES, OB AXIOMS, OF
INDUCTION.

1. To find the right attribute of a subject.

"Whatever predicate may be substituted for the subject of the
same proposition, according to the established rule of defi
nition, in accordance with the conditions of objective reality,
(i. e. not depending upon any subjective and particular modes
of apprehension of the observer) — may be inferred to be a
right attribute."

Thus if it were asked, what is the right or essential property of
a circle? the question is readily answered by stating the usual defi
nition : " A circle is a continuous curved line, of which all the points
are equidistant from a point called the centre." But if it be further
inquired, what authorizes the definition and the reasoning which leads
to it ? then the foregoing rule may be adduced :— namely " a continuous
curved line of which all the points are equidistant from a centre " may
be substituted for "a circle," in accordance with the conditions of
objective truth ; therefore " a continuous curved line of which all the
points are equidistant from a centre " may be inferred to be " the right
attribute." Again it is proposed that " Man is rightly defined as a
rational, sensuous, and emotional being." We call in the aid of our
rule as the major premiss, and we adduce as the minor " the properties
rational, sensuous and emotional may be substituted for, or are equivalent
to the subject Nan ; therefore " they are the right attributes."

2. To find the right cause of an effect.

" Whatever, and what only, explains the unconditional dependency
of any change in a succession of phenomenal facts, is or may
be inferred to be a right cause."

Under this rule or major premiss, the minor premiss might be, for
instance, this :— " The attractive force of the moon, when exerted in the
same line as that of the sun, explains the unconditional dependency of

INDUCTION. 155

or theory, physicists have with great advantage PART i.
had recourse to the Analogies which may fre- subsectb.
quently he detected in the agencies of nature,
and which may he regarded as useful aids or
suggestions in following out to its completion
a process of Induction. Now " Analogy " is
said to exist whenever hetween things otherwise
different there is any circumstance in which
they agree or resemble each other; thus
learning is said to enlighten the mind, because
it is to the mind what light is to the eye,
enabling it to discover things before hidden.
And thus we use terms or words analogically,

the highest tides as the effect of their combined forces of attraction :"
That the combined attraction of the moon and suii does explain the
high tides, requires indeed a deduction from the universal law of gravi
tation, which may be exhibited in a subsidiary syllogism ; and it might
be said that this epichirerna would be the proof of the causal relation.
But, though it might or would establish the particular instance, this
" combined attraction " would not have been shown to be a case of the
legitimate attribution of cause under the universal rule a priori for
determining a right cause ; and we supply what is wanting in the proof
by the conclusion from the premisses above stated: — Therefore "the
attractive force of the moon, when exerted in the same line as that of
the sun, in explaining the highest tides, is or may be inferred to be the
right cause of those tides."

3. To find the right principle of the interdependence of the parts of a
ichole.

" Whatever, in any assemblage of phenomenal facts of the same
kind, determines what is common to all and distinctive in each
as a collective whole of parts, assigns to it a right principle
of interdependence as constitutive of Totality."

It will easily be seen that this rule is founded on the fundamental
distinction of Genus and Species, and that its use is systematic classifi
cation under the logical conditions which have been already in the
main explained and do not require here further exposition. (Compare
Thomson. Laws of Thought, p. 132, p. 100.)

156 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARTI, namely, such as signify no resemblance in the
Subsect.b. things themselves, but some resemblance which
we apprehend in the Relations under which we
conceive them : — the foot of an animal is the
lowest part, or that upon which it rests, and so
is the " foot" of a mountain with relation to
the mass, which rests upon the lowest part.
But here we have to deal with Reasoning or
Inference by Analogy in aid of Induction. And
it will be found that a very striking affinity,
or perhaps something more, exists between it
and the principle of reasoning by which
we form "generic conceptions," — as regards,
namely, the including in one genus or class all
things, however different, that agree in any one
attribute or property. And in this we find the
principle of reasoning or of drawing an inference
by analogy, of which the logical rule may be
thus stated : —

" All resemblances between any two or more
objects, or associations of phenomena or facts,
otherwise different, that may be brought under
one kind or generic conception, in respect of
some material circumstance, warrant the in
ference that the resemblance, or resemblances,
depend upon like conditions in both."

Thus in respect of the relation of Subject and
Attributes, or of a Thing and its Properties,
if we found an animal with horns we might
reasonably infer by analogy that it was a rumi
nant ; because the resemblance may be brought

INDUCTION. 157

under a generic conception, which involves like PART i.
conditions, namely, " all horned animals are Subscct.b.
ruminants." And in all cases we may say that
whatever property, or properties are like in
different subjects, under varying circumstances,
they indicate so far a similar nature of the
subjects; — and it may be added, the greater
the number of like properties, the greater is
the probability of the subjects being like to
which they belong. It must be allowed indeed
that analogy, as such, can never supply more
than a certain amount of probability ; — to obtain
the requisite inductive certainty or assurance
must be the result of appropriate tests of the
question at issue, and hence it is of the utmost
importance in the cause of truth not to push
the arguments of analogy beyond their just
limits, especially where more satisfactory evi
dence can be obtained. Another interesting
illustration under the above head is furnished
by Newton's celebrated anticipation that the
diamond is combustible, grounded upon the
fact of the very high refracting power of the
diamond comparatively to its density ; a pecu
liarity which had been observed to exist in com
bustible substances. And on similar grounds
he conjectured that water, though not com
bustible, contained a combustible ingredient.
This is perhaps one of the happiest instances on
record of reasoning by analogy ; and I can in
110 wise understand how J. S. Mill can call it

158 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. " a guess," when in the same sentence he asks
whether the "guess" was in truth a farsighted
" anticipation of a Law " afterwards to be dis
covered. (Logic, vol. ii. p. 99, footnote.)

So again reasoning by analogy is often of
singular service as a pioneer in detecting the
relation of Cause and Effect, such as we have
described it in its empirical significancy. I have
great pleasure in quoting here a passage from
Herschers Nat. Ph., p. 149, — the greater, that
it coincides with views which are strongly
opposed to the crass empiricism of able, though
misguided partizans. He says : — " Here then
we see the great importance of possessing a
stock of analogous instances or phenomena
which class themselves with that under con
sideration, the explanation of one among which
may naturally be expected to lead to that of all
the rest. If the analogy of two phenomena
be very close and striking, while at the same
time the cause of one is very obvious, it becomes
scarcely possible to refuse to admit the action
of an analogous cause in the other, though not
so obvious in itself. For instance, when we see
a stone whirled round in a sling, describing
a circular orbit round the hand, keeping the
string stretched, and flying away the moment
it breaks, we never hesitate to regard it as
retained in its orbit by the tension of the string,
that is, by a force directed to the centre ; for we
feel that we do really exert such a force. We

INDUCTION. 159

have here the direct perception of the cause.

When therefore, we see a great body like the Subsect.b.
moon circulating round the earth and not flying
off, we cannot help helieving it to he prevented
from so doing, not indeed hy a material tie, hut
hy that which operates in the other case through
the intermedium of the string, — a FORCE directed
constantly to the centre." In connexion with
this, see also the passage (Op. cit. p. 193) where
he says that "the agents" (i.e. causes) "em
ployed hy nature to act on material structures
are invisible, and only to he traced hy the effects
they produce." The student's attention is also
especially directed to Herschel's " ohservations
on the framing of theories," especially (at
p. 197) paragraph 209 and the following ones ;
though their length forhids quotation.

§ 56. I will take leave of my reader hy a
quotation from Vital Dynamics, p. 13 ;— " Again,
does the history of the grand discoveries of
science offer any sufficient evidence that they
were only the result of a laborious collection
of facts and ohservations of particulars? If
indeed that great master-piece of the generalizing
faculty, the Ptolemaic System of Astronomy, still
retained its authority, it might he held up as a
triumphant proof of the success of the method ;
hut, alas ! c its cycles and epicycles, orh within
orb,' have vanished like a summer morning's
mist before the piercing glance of him, who,
penetrating deeper than appearances, solem

160 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. dicere falsum ausus est, — have vanished before a
Subsect.b. reason, which can correct experience, and has
authority to annul the reports of the senses, and
the dicta of the faculty of judging according to
sense. e What could be apparently more unpro
fitable than the dry speculations of the ancient
geometers on the properties of the conic sections,
or than the dreams of Kepler, (as they would
naturally appear to his contemporaries) about
the numerical harmonies of the universe ? J
Yet (says Sir John Herschel, from whom I
quote) ' these are the steps by which we have
risen to a knowledge of the elliptic motions of
the planets and the law of gravitation, with all
its splendid theoretical consequences and its in
estimable practical results.5 The same high
authority tells us that cthe law of definite pro
portions (in chemistry), after the laws of me
chanics, perhaps the most important which the
study of nature has disclosed, was announced at
once by Mr. Dalton in its most general terms,
without passing through subordinate stages of
painful inductive ascent.'

"A dispassionate inquiry into the orgin of the
discoveries of science will convince us that, so
far from being in general the offspring of a
generalization from particulars, they oftener
originate in observations apparently trivial and
accidental, in occurrences sudden and unex
pected, frequently in the pursuit of fanciful
analogies, or in the trial and rejection of arbi-

INDUCTION. 161

trary hypotheses, and are the result of a mind PART i.
excited to react upon its experience, unsatisfied
with the hitherto adopted connexion of facts
and their want of unity, and having its inventive
and originative powers thereby roused to enlarge
its apprehension beyond the perspective which
its own mechanism implies : and hence the dis
covery of any great law of nature has uniformly
the character of felicity, and of a revelation, as
by a flash of divine light, of the legislative
wisdom of the Creator."

And without repeating all that I have there
written of the nature of divine laws in contra
distinction to the results of inductive generaliza
tion, let me here only bring again before the
reader this part of its philosophical doctrine : —
" Man recognises in himself, as the privilege and
need of a rational mind, the capability of en
larging his thoughts to the universe, infinite as
the omnipresence of God, c upholding all things
by the word of his power ; ' the capability of
raising his mind to the Supreme, as the Abso
lute Will causative of all reality in the eternal
plenitude of being. And it is in meditating
on the conditions and cause of this capability,
that man becomes conscious of an operance in
and on his own mind, of the downshine of a
light from above, which is the power of Living
Truth, and which, in irradiating and actuating
the human mind, becomes for it (reveals itself as)

VOL. I. M

162 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART i. Reason ; — yea ! which is the revelation of those
divine acts, at once causative and intelligential,
which man recognises as first principles or ulti
mate truths, Ideas for the human mind, and
constitutive Laws in nature."

PART SECOND,

OF FIKST PBINCIPLES IN PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY.

§ 1. IN the former Part of this work the PART n.
intellectual Forms of knowledge were exhibited -
and discriminated, as fully as the plan of a
"brief exposition" permitted. And whilst the
fundamental distinction of Reason and Un
derstanding was insisted upon, the Speculative
Reason was upheld as the proper organ of Phi
losophy. But we have now to show, and to aid
the student in apprehending, that the work of
philosophy is somewhat other and deeper than
the attainment of speculative knowledge; and
that the aim and business of the philosopher,
who is in earnest in the pursuit of truth, is to
construct a sound system of Realism, of which
the principle is not only light but life.

§ 2. It may be expected that every man, who
as a rational being is interested in the proposed
inquiry, will ask, "What is the end and aim
of Philosophy ? " And perhaps the most appro
priate answer, among many that might be offered,
is, that its object is to discover First Principles,

166 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. or in other words Ideas, or primary Truths of

Chap. I.

Reason.

In any and every department of human know
ledge we cannot be said to have a philosophical
insight of the subject in question, until we have
attained to the Principle from which all the
facts may be deduced as dependent truths. We
may have arrived at an orderly arrangement
of correct generalizations derived from accu
rately observed facts ; but philosophical insight
is first reached, when the Law, Principle or
primary Cause, has been satisfactorily esta
blished, so that we can anticipate and predict
what will and must happen in all similar
cases. " Intellectual unity is indeed supplied
by Science; but science can be predicated only
of any scheme of knowledge, connected as a
chain of necessarily dependent truths, so that
any link of the chain being given, any other
may be deduced as a necessary consequence of
the principle, which determines the relations
of all, and which gives to its possessor the
power of anticipating and predicting its results
in any given cases. And if the essential cha
racter of science consists in the necessary con
nexion and dependency of the links in any
scheme of knowledge, it will be equally evident
that, in order to complete and perfect it as truth,
the principle which serves as the staple to the
chain must itself be established and vindicated.
This, however, is the business of Philosophy ;

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY. 167

the object of which is to investigate and deter- PART n.
mine first principles, and to bring them into -
the unity of the rational mind and of truth
one and universal. Principles are the postulates
of Science and the problems of philosophy."
(Vital Dynamics, p. 8, note.)

§ 3. Thus, then, as before said, Philosophy in
its eminent sense and highest significancy is the
discovery and establishment of First Principles
or Ideas, — Truths, which, deriving their cha
racter from the Reason, vindicate their claim to
this primary rank by their intuitive self-evidence,
certainty, necessity, and absolute and eternal im
mutability. Nor can such truths be estimated at
less, if the Speculative Reason is, as we maintain
it to be, that power and condition of Unity,
by which we contemplate in the infinite mani
fold of the Universe, physical and moral, the
One in All and All in One. This statement is
not made in the expectation that sufficing
grounds have been yet laid for its acceptance :
but on one of the characters of such truths,
namely " self-evidence," it may be desirable to
say that it is not meant that they are at once,
and at a first and superficial glance, intuitively
apprehended as self-evident, but that they are
ultimate truths, which may be traced to, and
derived from, Reason as their source, and which
have no higher proof nor evidence. They
may be demonstrated^ but they are not to be
inferred, or logically proved ; and as the mind is

168 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAET ii. compelled to give its assent in recognising them,
when apprehended, by a direct beholding of
truth, the propositions, in which they are stated,
may be said to express " immediate judgements."
There will be abundant opportunity in the fol
lowing pages to illustrate and establish the
position advanced, especially in exhibiting Prin
ciples, which are Truths of Reason ; but we may
here, by way of example, remind the reader
of the mathematical axiom that, " A whole
must be greater than a part." It may be also
observed that Reason arms us with a test of
such truths ; for it will be found that when
ever we affirm the contrary of the proposition,
in and by which they are stated, we contra
dict ourselves. The principle, here appealed
to, is what has been called the " Principium
identitatis et contradictionis ; " for instance,
" What is all black cannot be all white." Comp.
Mansel.

§ 4. Having, at the commencement of the
first part of this work, enunciated the proposi
tion that " the aim and object of all philosophy
is to attain to the insight of First Principles or
Ideas — yea, to the insight of the Absolute First
Principle, from which whatever is must be de
rived, and in which whatever is must have the
intelligible ground of its Being;" (Part I. § 1)—
and having also referred this work to the Specu
lative Reason; — I feel it scarcely less than a
duty to my reader, before proceeding, to offer

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY. 169

to him some further explanations, that may aid PART n.
his progress in reaching that highest vantage -
ground of speculative philosophy, from which
he may be enabled to look back and comprehend
in one view all the steps of toilsome ascent
leading to the glorious pinnacle of ideal Truth.
Now if the Reason be contemplated merely as
" speculative," that is, merely in its intelli-
gential functions, and as the organ of philo
sophy, inclusively of science, then it is the
light, but the light only, by which man ap
prehends and comprehends divine and eternal
truths. But if, as the cause of truth urges us
to do, we are to regard the Reason not only
as Light, but as Life, not only as speculative
intelligence, but as a living and inexhaustible
source of reality, we must search for some
deeper and more vital principle than intelligence
— for some principle which shall at once enliven
and enlighten.

What this living principle is, which, whilst
it is itself enlightened, actuates and enlivens
the intelligence that directs and guides it, will
be made manifest by the investigation of the
facts of our own consciousness, as that ultimate
principle of our being which we call Will.
But we have here to consider this principle, in
connexion with the attainment of First Prin
ciples, with the attainment of insight of the
Absolute First Principle, regarded as the source
of all Principles and the fountain-head of Ideas ;

170 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. — we have here to consider this principle of
- living Light, or Reason, not as it exists in each
man, hut as necessarily to he accounted for as
existing universally in all men, and without
which universal presence it could not he the
one universal principle and power of Truth
which we require as the postulate of spiritual
philosophy. We shall, in short, have to vindi
cate as philosophical, the doctrine which is
revealed hy St. John : — " for, in truth, it is a
statement of the Christian doctrine, that the
"Word, the Logos, hy whom all things were
made, is essential light and life to his creatures ;

— Travra Bi avrov eryeveTO, KCU, XWPL9 CLVTOV eyevero

5^\«\«\ / JT-, » « o V ^ \ * t, \ ? >

ovoe ev o yeyovev. k>v avrw tyr} yv, /cat r) ^corj ijv r

$£$ TCOV avdpwirwv" (John, ch. i. v. 3, 4.)

This suhlime truth may he, cannot hut he,
and can only with adequate insight be, con
templated hy man with the aid of the specu
lative Heason — the downshine of the true light,
the <f>&s TO a\ri0wov, the light "which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world."
(Ibid. v. 9.) It is the business and duty of
speculative philosophy to raise itself to the
apprehension of this great truth, as the principle
and well-head of all truths, and as that which
gives the impress of unity to all mental con-
templamina. But that which confers on them
life and reality is the operance of the Divine
Word; and this will be duly acknowledged,
and then only, when we recognise philosophical

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY. 171

truth as the work of the divine Reason in PART u.
and on the Soul. And, although we do not -
wish to anticipate what may be better left
to its orderly development, we may add that
the recognition will mainly depend on the
moral and spiritual condition of the intelligent
Will.

As will be shown hereafter, God exists for us
in as much, and in as far, as we are consciously
impressed by His living presence, and willingly
submit ourselves to His gracious aid and ope-
rance ; — and the test and measure of the divine
work is to be found in the growth and develop
ment of an enlightened Conscience, that is,
the individual "Will, enlightened and enlivened
by the divine Reason, or by Him who is both
Light and Life to His creatures.

§ 5. Whether in the progress of the argument
I shall be able to convince my Reader of the
soundness of my doctrine will much depend
upon his spiritual tendencies ; but I venture to
affirm, in the fullest faith derived from patient
meditation and investigation, that it is only in
and by such a Principle or Idea that a Method
or System of Realism in Philosophy can be
established and secured ; — a method, namely, by
which our thoughts of things in the physical
and moral universe become identified with those
realities whereof they are only the reflections
and representatives; and by which they may
be traced to an ultimate ground which is at

172 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. once Supreme Intelligence and Absolute Power
- causative of all reality,

In support and illustration of this view, differ
ing as it does from the generally accredited
tenets of philosophical thought, I may here
quote a passage (pp. 57 et seq.) from the ap
pendix to my second Hunterian Oration, entitled
" Mental Dynamics."

" If it were asked what are the grand difficul
ties, which have opposed themselves to the
establishment of a sound philosophy, and to
the building up of a speculative system upon
the basis of Realism, — difficulties, implying doc
trines so incompatible with the natural expecta
tion, that philosophy is, or ought to be, the
complement of common sense, as to deter men
in general from the pursuit and to regard the
study as a mere waste of time, — I think it
would not be difficult to enumerate the main
errors, which have deflected philosophy from the
right course, and to point out the remedies for
the aberrations of speculative philosophers.

" One of the greatest difficulties, in the way
of a true philosophy and of a well-grounded
system of Realism, is and has been the position,
maintained by Hume and Kant, that we have
no proper Self-consciousness or Knowledge of a
Self, and that what we call Self-consciousness
is the cognizance only of the mental presenta
tions of that which we may infer indeed to be
a one mind, but of which we have no knowledge

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY. 173

beyond its manifestations in the consciousness — PART n.
its appearances or phsenomena. In other words — — -
that consciousness is a looking-glass in which we
may see ourselves reflected, hut only as the
images which the looking-glass presents ; or
that the conscious mind consists merely of a
multiform flux of thoughts, of the supporter,
substance, and inherent connection of which, we
are utterly ignorant. Thus all reality of a mind
or self, a substance or spirit, is at once destroyed,
and the soi-disant philosopher is left to deal only
with thoughts, with a representative shadow or
image of the thinker himself, or of a mind
which according to this view is beyond the limits
of knowledge. To this difficulty I have en
deavoured to supply a solution, which (whatever
its success) may have at least the value of call
ing the attention of the student of philosophy
to a problem worthy of the attention of all
lovers of truth.

" A second and no less pernicious error is the
view of the nature of Perception, which seems
to beset all attempts to overbridge the apparent
chasm between the mind of the percipient and
outward things or objects, and which has pressed
sorely on philosophy from the so-called Idealists
to the present time ; — the view, namely, that we
do not perceive external objects, but that we
are only cognizant of certain affections of our
own being, sentient and conscious, of the causes
of which we are ignorant ; that what we call

174 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. things and outward realities are really and truly
only modifications of the percipient subject.
And thus, as in the former instance the self
was removed, so here the outward world vanishes
into shadows, and in both cases the reality
eludes our grasp.

"A third important defect, common to all
schemes of philosophy, is the utter want of any
living, organic principle, any source of reality
causative of being. We are continually referred
solely to the Intellect, and the method of philo
sophy dwindles into Logic and logical processes.
Now the mere intellect, essential though it be
in constituting Forms and Relations, contains
in itself no life nor causativeness. This defect
has been supplied, and perhaps only it may be
said, by Coleridge in the fundamental principle
of his philosophy, Will as deeper than, and
inclusive of, Intellect.

" But the fourth grievous impediment to philo
sophy is the want of an adequate notion, and
in too many instances the utter ignorance, of
Reason, as contradistinguished in kind from
the Understanding and merely logical faculties,
as the peculiar gift to man constituting his
rationality, as the Light or influx common to
all men, manifesting itself in Ideas, or those
principles in which the proper humanity essen
tially consists. Reason is the potentiating force,
of which the spiritual or real man is the result.
It is the idealizing power ; — the power, instinct,

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY. 175

and inherent tendency of man to contemplate all PART n.
his thoughts, feelings and strivings, in their C/Mp' *'
perfection, integrity, unity, universality, totality,
absoluteness. It is the immediate revelation to
him of the spiritual image in which he was
created, and towards which he cannot but ac
knowledge himself bound to strive: — it reveals
to him law, moral and physical, and with their
absolute necessity, the absolute principle of free
dom, as identified therewith in the Supreme
Will, the absolute cause of all reality.

" Fifthly and lastly, we have to deplore
amongst the defects of philosophy, the sad for-
getfulness of the Oelov, of the divine Spirit in
all and through all. That this arises from too
exclusive attention to the senses and to the
faculty judging according to sense, and to the
interests arising out of them, can scarcely be
doubted ; and this defection from his spiritual
nature can scarcely be otherwise than expected,
so long as man remains the avdpwiros tyvxucos.
Something may likewise be attributed to the
erroneous schemes of theology, which on the
one hand confound God with the world, and end
in pantheistic atheism, and which on the other
separate God from the world, and by aiming at
a pseudo-monotheism resolve themselves into a
negative and lifeless abstract of spirituality, to
which there is no human correspondency. But
the main cause, I fear, must be attributed to the
too prevalent want of reverence — the neglect, in

176 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAET ii. the present day, of the sense of the superior,
and the absence of the habit of seeking and
contemplating in the higher that complement
to our own inferiority, which a just appreciation
of our manifold defects necessarily begets, to
gether with feelings which are the very opposites
to self-conceit, arrogance, and presumptuous
ignorance.

" The rightly understood doctrine of the Logos
will be found an effectual antidote against these
mischievous consequences, and the sublime views
of John and Paul will still guide us into all
truth. And I may be, perhaps, permitted to
say, without being suspected of derogating from
the authority of the Catholic Church, that the
doctrine of the Trinity found in the writings
of those divinely gifted men, and implied
throughout the Scriptures of the New Testa
ment, only needs to be apprehended in its full
and living import in order to claim its place as
a truth of Reason. It is not here the place to
carry out this all-important investigation : — but
conceive the doctrine as affirming that the Deity
must be contemplated in three Relations ; — that
these however are not mere Relations, but Reali
ties ; — not only Realities but the highest Reali
ties ; — and again that these are not dividuous
entities, such as three individual men, but one
and the self-same Spirit in distinctive self-
hypostatic acts; — and you may then at least
begin to acknowledge the value of a doctrine,

INTRODUCTORY AND RECAPITULATORY. 177

which preserves for us the idea of God in its PARTIL
integrity : — First as One, above and uncon- Chap' *'
founded with nature and the world, as the safe
guard against pantheism ; — Secondly, as the
Divine Alterity, the divine principle in all, and
through all, derivative being; the Humanity,
which worketh in all men ; as the effectual pre
ventive against degrading anthropomorphism,
and the misty and unintelligible fancies of
abstract theism; — Thirdly, as the divine Life,
which in preserving the distinctness of the Rela
tions unites and perpetuates them, as the neces
sary integration of the idea, and the corrective
to the possibility of contemplating God other
than as indivisible Unity.

" But the extreme value and high importance
of the doctrine of the Logos will be brought
nearer to human interests and be made more
apparent if we contemplate it as exhibiting to
us the idea of the Humanity. The instincts of
Ileason never permit us to rest until we have
evolved that perfect exemplar of man, which
exhibits him as the child of God. We become
conscious indeed of this high descent only under
the clear conviction of the degradation which
we have suffered, and in the conflict of the
double nature which the natural and spiritual
man presents : but as the doctrine above referred
to gives us the assurance of our heavenly descent
and birthright, so likewise it opens to us our
high destination, and the conditions under which

VOL. I. N

178 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. regenerate man may achieve his re-union with
hap' L God. It sets before him at once His spiritual
being, as the alone true reality, and as that
standard according to which the worth of all
things is to be judged : 6 Be ye perfect even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect/ The
education of the moral being and the develop
ment of the spiritual self, of which the end is
Holiness, are brought before us as the one thing
needful ; and as the Logos is the power, and
divine grace the condition, of effectuating this
living change in fallen man, so we have to pray
and strive to be made partakers of God's spirit
that we may finally become regenerate in Christ,
even in the image of God in which we were
created. Hence the fundamental idea of Chris
tianity is the salvation of the world by the
Logos.* Christianity alone sets forth the full
and clear doctrine of man as a fallen creature,
and the power and means of his restoration — the
key to history and the only safe foundation for
individual life and conduct."

* " Cerium propriumqiie fdei catholics fundamentum Cliristus est"
— August-mi Encliirid. § 5. Compare Nitsch Ckrutliche Lefire, p. 125.

CHAPTER II.

THE WILL, AS THE ULTIMATE FACT OF SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS.

§ 1. (PREFATORY.) The reader will, however, rART IL

Chap. II.

expect, and will be warranted in expecting, the -
fulfilment of the promise already given, that
the " causative power" which has been invoked,
shall, as far as the limits of this preparatory
essay permit, be shown to possess a sufficient
guarantee for its acceptance as a real principle,
the nature and intelligibility of wrhich is derived
from the fundamental idea of the Will. Nay !
I am willing to renew the promise, and to
renew it in terms which shall show how essential
I consider its fulfilment to be to the aim and
purpose of the Spiritual Philosophy. Adopting,
as the final aim and object of spiritual philo
sophy the -discovery of a Principle which shall
secure to it the reality of living Truth ; and
accepting as the Postulate (afterwards to be
vindicated) that the required principle of the
Unity of the Manifold of the Universe phy
sical and moral, shall be ONE, of all reality the
absolute cause, which, affirming and realizing
itself as its own abiding and self-sufficing ground,

N 2

180 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. utters and reveals itself in the infinite manifold
of Being, entire in All, and entire in Each ;
adopting, I say, this as the indispensahle postu
late of philosophy, when contemplated in its
utmost height, breadth, and depth, — I venture
to affirm, with the fullest confidence of establish
ing its evidence, that the Principle sought for is
WILL.

§ 2. Now, in order to enable the student who
is earnest in the investigation of truth for its
own sake, and who regards its possession as
its own exceeding great reward, — in order, I say,
to enable the student to scale this alleged, or
supposed, inaccessible and transcendent height,
I have to refer him to the Facts of Ms own Con
sciousness — sources of evidence, which are in
every respect open to his strictest scrutiny, but
in order to the due investigation of which, in
behoof of philosophical conviction, there can be
no substitute for the intellectual agent himself.
And I now invite his attention to the nature and
conditions of Self -consciousness.

In this work of Reflection on what is passing
in his mind, and in reviewing his thoughts,
feelings, and volitions, he will soon become aware
that in any and every act of conscious reflection,
he is under the necessity, in analyzing the pro
cess, of distinguishing in the Self two relations,
namely, subject and object, or the subjective and
objective relations. By the first, id quod jacet
sub, is designated that which may be inferred

THE WILL. 181

by the mind, but is recognised only in its acts PART n.
and results ; — by the latter, id quod jacet ob, -
or quicquid objicitur menti, are meant those
mental presentations by which the subject knows
its own states, and by which it is itself known
or inferred. But no sooner will the self-investi
gator have thus distinguished the thinking mind
from the thought which is the object of the
mind's thinking, than he unavoidably iden
tifies, and becomes aware that they are but
relations of a somewhat which he is conscious is
the Self.

§ 3. What then, he will ask, is the reality,
which appears in his consciousness, now as sub
jective, now as objective, and which though
either, or both, is yet one, namely the Self, or
what each man calls Myself. He will surely
put the question to himself: " Do we really
know no more of our own Self, substance or
being, than the thoughts, feelings and volitions,
which are its products and recognised in their
mental representations ? Do we only know the
Self or Soul in and by its conscious presentations
or psychical phenomena?' Now I apprehend
the very reverse of this will be apparent to the
unprejudiced student, if he needfully consider the
nature of Self-consciousness as disclosed by the
opposite yet correspondent relations subjective
and objective. Take the following example:
If I think of anything — say, for instance, that
I am engaged mentally with the. proposition

182 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. that man is mortal ; — or if I will any tiling, say
1 that I determine to visit a sick neighbour ; — or
if I am aifected in any particular way, say that
I am pleasurably affected by the sight of an old
friend; — in all these instances the act of con
sciousness may be simply that of contemplating
myself in the particular state or circumstance
specified of thinking, willing, or feeling, and this
objectively : — but in order to constitute it an act
of self-consciousness, of subjective apprehension,
I must be also distinctly conscious that it is I,
who am the Subject, I must know that it is
I, thinking, willing, feeling.

In order to solve this problem it is necessary
to turn our attention to the subjective relation ;
for here, if anywhere, will be the hope of dis
covering the true nature of that relation, and
of the reality which it may truly import. Now
is there, we may ask, any principle or source of
agency, which being removed I should neither
think, will, nor feel, but which being assumed
we find so essential, that it satisfactorily accounts
% for and explains the agency by which alone our
thoughts, volitions, and feelings can be realized ?
This, I apprehend, may be answered, by naming
the Will as the principle sought for? — if by
"Will" we mean as we cannot but do, a self-
determinant agency and the only source of
originative power.

§ 4. It is true that the reality of the Will
must be proved in and by every man as a fact

THE WILL. 183

of his own self-consciousness ; — and so primary PART n.

... ._ . Chap. II.

is the fact that if we resolve it into anything
else it ceases to he what we mean hy "Will. It
may be admitted doubtless that in willing an
act, or in any act of self-determination, I am,
or may be, induced by a variety of motives or
impulses; — my will may be moved:— but this
does not exclude the power of origination, for
the consent even to the outward inducement
or stimulus still requires this unique act of self-
determination in order to the energy requisite to
the fulfilment of the deed. The actuation of the
individual "Will not only does not exclude self-
determination, but implies it — implies, that
though actuated, but actuated only because al
ready self-operant, it is not compelled, or acting
under a law of outward causation. That it is so,
who shall doubt who is conscious of the power
of origination? And if he can bring himself
to the belief that he has not this consciousness,
his acts will soon belie his belief. Compare
Mental Dynamics, p. 54.

Without the Will any discussion of morals
would be idle and useless ; and hence it was that
Kant, notwithstanding his speculative convic
tions, commences his ethical inquiries by as
suming the human Will as the ground of man's
liberty and responsibility, and as a necessary
postulate of moral faith. It is easy to see that if
we have no cognizance of a Self, other than in
the changes which the self undergoes, we can

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. have no knowledge of the operative cause of
those changes, and the Will ceases to be a fact
for us : — if we only know that the self is changed,
and contemplated in a series of modifications
which can be regarded only as " psychical phae-
nomena," we have no knowledge of the subject
originant or of the cause of such phenomena :
— and this must necessarily be the case, if the
facts of consciousness only disclose to us the
" myself " in its objective relation. But the facts
of self-consciousness do disclose more than this ;
—they will be found by heedful scrutiny to reveal
to us the causative subject also. Taking our
former instance, the determination to visit a sick
neighbour, I am conscious of the determination
in myself, and that the act in question has been
willed. But if I proceed to inquire, how that
change has been wrought in myself, the only
satisfactory explanation of the fact is that it is
the result of an operance or agency in myself,
and that of this operance of the self I am con
scious as the subject willing it ; — in causing the
act I am conscious of being the cause of the
same, and in this unique instance of " spiritual
experience " I obtain a knowledge, otherwise
wholly incapable of authentication, of the causa
tive as Will, and of Will as the sole intelligible
ground of causation. Meanwhile, in stating the
result of our spiritual experience, the effect should
be carefully distinguished from the cause pro
ducing it, — that which has been willed, from the

THE WILL. 185

act of willing which preceded it, and which has PART 11.
been its antecedent condition. I may he con- -
scious of Myself in both relations, subjective
and objective ; but the result of the act should
be distinguished from the causative agency ; so
soon as the result becomes contemplated objec
tively, the originative or causative act acquires
a new relation, and passes .into the class of
psychical phenomena. Thus, as I have said
(Mental Dynamics, p. 52) " Macbeth nerves
himself to the murder of the royal Duncan ;
he resolves, and in resolving he is conscious of
the predetermination of his Will and of his being
therein the author of the premeditated deed;
but, so soon as it has become a resolve, he con
templates it objectively, as a mental presenta
tion or thought : — in the first instance he knows
himself as a noumenon, in the latter as a phse-
nomenon." In order to constitute a moral act
I must be conscious of deliberating and resolving,
that is, conscious of a causative act of Will,
antecedent to the manifestation, and the pre
condition of the result; — in other words I must
be cognizant of the Self as Will.

§ 5. " What a world of false philosophy is
thus got rid of can only be appreciated by those
who have been bewildered by the scepticism of
Hume and Kant. It is indeed a fact of con
sciousness, a truth of the inward man, which can
never be reached by those who wilfully exclude
the 'spiritual,' and contemplate the inward

186 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. world of thought as they do outward objects ; —
the outward husk can never exhibit to us the
6 spiritual,5 and if we regard the self only as an
outward object, we can never penetrate into that
which constitutes its essential and true being.
It is indeed a unique fact of the consciousness,
and one which each man must discover for him
self ; but, once seen, its light diffuses itself
over the whole sphere of mind and nature, and
the man, who has discovered this vital truth,
comprehends at once the spiritual being and
causative ground of all within and without
him.

" In relation to outward nature, if we mean
anything when we use the term ' Substance/ we
mean surely that which cannot be apprehended
by the senses ; — it is that which stands under, is
sub-posed, is only intelligible, and is the sup
porter of the phsenomenal by which it is revealed
to us. Take any outward fact or phenomenon
of sensible experience — we note its form and
changes; but we ask inevitably what has pro
duced this complex being, and what preserves it
ever the same amid its changing but regular
phases ? The only answer is, somewhat beyond
the power of our cognizance by the senses, and
we infer a somewhat deeper and beyond our
sensible experience — call it Life, Spirit, Cause,
or Law. Here we necessarily infer the causative
and conservative principle. But whence do we
derive the means of solving the problem ? It is

THE WILL. 187

by turning inward and reflecting on the facts of PART n.
our own consciousness. Within ourselves we _
become cognizant of a causative, an originative,
of a somewhat deeper and beyond that which is
the object of our thoughts; — it is the Subject,
the Will." *

§ 6. Let the student, then, attend to himself
resolving, determining, willing ; — he will surely
admit that he is conscious of a somewhat deeper
than the presentations which appear in his ob
jective consciousness; he will know himself as
originant and causative. He will have arrived
also at the knowledge of Substance, of "a Nou-
menon, and will confess that the only intelligible
conception of Substance is Will or Spirit, and
that he has obtained this knowledge in and by
an act of self-consciousness. But, in this primal
act of consciousness he will also have learnt that
we are cognizant of our Esse, call it Will, Sub
ject, Spirit, Substance, or (to use a phrase of the
Kantean philosophy) das Ding an sick. And he
will find no less that in this act we contemplate
the identity of Being and Knowing : — let him
enunciate the primal fact of his personal exist
ence, "I am;" — he cannot but recognise that
in this act he knows his own being, knows it
because what he is morally is his own act,
knows that it is by his own act that he affirms
and constitutes his own being, or sphere of
agency, as a moral and personal Will.

* Mental Dynamics, pp. 52 — 4.

188 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. Let me entreat the student to meditate ear-
- nestly on the subject, and I think he will be
convinced, as of a truth that reveals itself as
self-evident, that the individual Will cannot be
other than self-ponent in and by the act of
self-affirmation, conceived and expressed by "I
am," let the agent aim at or intend "to be"
whatever his inclinations may prompt, or his
sense of moral obligation dictate. This act of
self-ponency, made determinate only by a defi
nite purpose in a more or less persistent agency,
is the indispensable condition of all moral re
sponsibility, and of the freedom and autonomy of
the Will. " Moral" even in the larger sense of
the term, in which it means only that which
belongs, or must be attributed, to Will, with
out denoting, in the narrower or stricter sense,
what is regulated by the Conscience, — the term
"moral," I say, in any and every case where
used as the attribute, or mark, of Will, and
where implying only self- determinant power,
cannot but mean and implicitly assert the pri
mary and essential of the Will, by which it wills
itself, and is self- determinant of its self as a
moral agent, willing itself in and to its own
sphere of act and being. In short all Will must
primarily will itself as Will; and as all Will
implies self-ponency, so Will is inconceivable as
a reality, except as a self-ponent Causator. The
individual Will without aim, or predeterminate
purpose, implying as they do self-conscious in-

THE WILL. 189

telligence, would be no Will at all, and the very PART 11.
supposition of a Will without a purpose, as of
a purpose without the conscious intelligence of
a personal Will, contradicts itself. "Will"
would lose all meaning except as causative and
originant, and would not be conceivable as causa
tive except as constitutive of itself as Causator,
or as an originant Will, — would not be con
ceivable, I say, except as an individual, personal,
and self-conscious agent, self-constitutive by the
perpetual act by which it secures its identity of
being in its manifold change of agency. " In
philosophical grammar the verb substantive is
the first or parent word, and expresses that act
in and by which the individual affirms, and in
affirming knows, himself to be a Person, ' I
am.J In the nonage of individuality the child
speaks of himself in the third person ; — and how
few ever reach that epoch, at which the man
consciously affirms, that is, realizes by a conti
nuous act, his completed individuality as a moral
being ! " (Mental Dynamics, p. 16.)

§ 7. "Thus then in every complete act of
self-consciousness I not only contemplate my
thoughts, feelings, volitions, but I know that
they are the thoughts, feelings, and volitions
of myself. I know that I think, feel, will:-
but more than this I can abstract, from these
thoughts, feelings, and volitions, Myself as the
Subject :— I know Myself. Now in saying this,
What do I affirm? Clearly this:. I have at-

190 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. tained to the knowledge of Substance, of Spirit
ual Being, of a Noumenon, of my own being as
a Spirit or Will. I recognise in myself the
identity of Being and Knowing. I have reached
the point in which I find my personal being in
affirming, nay realizing, that ' I am.' ' (Mental
Dynamics, p. 52.) Herein then, in the facts of
self-consciousness disclosed by our spiritual ex
perience, we have secured the unmovable ground
of a philosophy of Realism, unassailable by the
sceptical position of Hume or of Kant. The
doctrine of these philosophers is, that we have
no proper Self-consciousness or Knowledge of a
Self, and that what we call Self- consciousness is
the cognizance only of the mental presentations
of that which we may infer indeed to be a one
mind, but of which we have no knowledge be
yond its manifestations in the consciousness, its
appearances or phenomena. On the other hand,
the Spiritual Philosophy offers to us a well-
grounded system of Realism ; — for in accord
ance therewith, as we venture to assert, we have
incontestably shown that, " as man, in affirming
his Personality by the verb substantive I am,
asserts, nay acquires the knowledge of his own
Substance as spiritual being, and thereby knows
what Substance truly and properly is, — so he
contemplates the outward, persons or things, as
subjects partaking of reality by virtue of the
same Substance of which he is conscious in his
own person, and meanwhile, under the sense of

THE WILL. 191

power which arises simultaneously out of the

depth of his inward being, he invests nature -
with life, action, causality, spontaneity. " (Ibid.
p. 16.)

§ 8. But it may be objected that, although it
be admitted that man is subject to a logical
necessity of finding, or attempting to find, the
unity of his manifold knowledges, and in every
instance the principle which combines and unites
mentally his empirical observations and the facts
of his experience, yet that I am here rather
evading than establishing the principle of " Causa
tive Power," although I have repeatedly insisted
upon it as the main element of sound philosophy.
I hasten therefore to reply to this objection, not
withstanding that my business here is to antici
pate evidences, reasonings, and results, and in
conformity with my plan rather to ask the
reader to accept as a postulate the solution of the
problem. I would say then — claiming the indul
gence of suitable brevity — in explanation of the
true and real meaning of " Causative 'Power," that
the notion infallibly presents itself when a change
of phenomena is impressed on our attention,
when the human mind is challenged to account
for a fact which had before no existence, whether
the fact had never been observed at all or only
not in the particular relation and connexion now
observed. Now two modes of view are possible.
The first regards the relation of Cause to EiFect as
merely that of an antecedent to a consequent, the

192 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. sequence having been the constant result of
— empirical observation. The second attributes
to the cause a power or efficiency, by which a
real connexion in rerum naturd between the
antecedent and consequent, an efficient and in
telligible condition of dependence of the latter
on the former, shall be unavoidably established.
According to the latter view, then, a change in a
subject, which we may call X, from the state A
to the state B shall imply a causative connexion
between A and B, or such condition of depen
dency, as that which causes A to become a B
which it was not before, and without which it
would have remained A. The whole gist of the
question evidently lies in the value and signifi-
cancy to be attached to the term Cause. The
Empiricist refers it solely to the empirical obser
vation of the invariable association of the phseno-
menon A with phenomenon B : — the Kantean
means that the connexion between cause and effect
is the result of a subjective law of the understand
ing, existing anterior to, and for the purpose of
acquiring experience : — while the Spiritualist, of
whatever grade or denomination, claims the
capability of the human mind to infer, beyond
sensible experience, a somewhat which under
the name of causative power is a real and efficient
agency in rerum naturd, which changes phgeno-
menon A to phenomenon B.

Now it cannot escape attention that the em
piricist repudiates the knowledge of any real and

THE WILL. 193

efficient connexion or influence, and gives up the PART 11.
explanation of the invariable association which
he assumes to he the test of the causal connexion.
He deprives himself even of the claim to infer a
connexion, except as the result of a habit of
association in his own mind, and must admit
that for aught he knows to the contrary there
may be no connexion, and B may be merely sub
stituted for A. But this view, it must be admitted,
can only be regarded as little less than a blank
contradiction of the conception of what a " Cause"
is ; since at least it is universally meant to imply
a connexion so far partaking of a necessary in
fluence, that an effect B must always be referred
to a cause A as the inevitable consequence of
some relation to A. And whether the Spiritu
alist, when the grounds for a satisfactory judge
ment shall have been laid before the reader, can
justify his claim to the possession of the idea so
conceived or not, thus much is at all events clear,
that he proceeds upon the clearly denned and
universally acknowledged problem of vindicating
the existence of causative power as the ground
of a real and efficient connexion, and as that
precondition, which is adequate to produce, ac
count for, and explain or render intelligible,
the agency itself, by which any change, of which
there may be question, shall have been effected.
Hence then the postulate in view may be thus
stated: — Whatever becomes other than it was
before and acquires a change of attributes, or
VOL. i. o

194 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAETII. whatever must be contemplated as, or traced
to, a beginning de novo, cannot but imply the
productive efficient, by which the change is
wrought and rendered intelligible, namely, the
"Causative Power," which is recognised in and
by the constant and unvarying character of
its effects.

CHAPTER, III.

IDEAS.

§ 1. ASSUMING that the distinction, hereafter PART n.
to be vindicated, between Understanding and c iap'
lleason be well founded, and that the latter
implies, as its inalienable object, Truth absolute,
conceived as eternal, immutable, self-evident, one,
and in its unity all- comprehensive ; it will be
found that the Reason, considered as Speculative
Intellect or Philosophy, in its search for abso
lute truth, combines three distinctive forms of
operation.

i. In the contemplation of the manifold events
and appearances, which under ceaseless change
challenge observation and scrutiny, the human
mind finds no rest until it has discovered the
Cause, or that which satisfactorily accounts for
any observed change, and which may he assigned
as the power and agency capable of producing
the effect, and invariably operative in order to
the result in question.

ii. Further, the mind seeks to discover that
which in any and every object, or collective
manifold, amid every variety and change of
attributes, properties and accidents, amid all
mutations or transformations of phenomenal

o 2

196 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. existence is itself permanent and abiding ; that
chap, ii L whicll may be accepted as the reality, in contra
distinction to the appearances, of things, and
constitutes their individual being ; that which is
the ground of the distinction between what a
thing is and what it has. It is obvious that the
distinction here intended is that recognised as
Subject and Attribute, Substance and Accident,
or whatever else may have been the mode of
expressing such relations ; but the only question
requiring solution, and the answer to which will
be found in the subsequent part of this essay, is,
whether the human mind legitimately affirms,
or unavoidably infers, that there is a substance
or subject, which in every ease underlies phse-
nomena or appearances.

iii. The third, or last operative form of the
"Reason, is manifested by the irrepressible desire
and striving after Unity 9 by the habitual effort
to bring whatever may be the object or objects
of knowledge and inquiry into the relation of
a Whole and its Parts. And if, as the Spiritual
Philosophy proposes, the totality is to be con
templated as a real and effective Unity, the
requisite interdependence of the integral Parts
must be derived from an antecedent and causative
energy, which, as intelligent power, having pro
duced a whole of parts, remains as its conserva
tive principle.

§ 2. "While the Reason, as the light of the
Speculative Intellect, has, for the interpretation

IDEAS. 197

of all our knowledges, the above-described three PART n.
operative forms, as the instruments and elements -
of philosophy, those three forms, in relation to the
real and effective Unity which is required, can
not but be regarded as the correlative elements
and exponents of the unity. For the principle,
which we have invoked in behoof of philosophy,
may be described as a Causative principle, which,
combining both power and intelligence, contains,
predetermines, and produces its actual result in
all its manifold relations; and which, whilst
abiding as the Substance and as the self-sub-
sistent and self-affirmed energy, is realized in a
Whole of Parts, wherein the same principle, as the
Constitutive energy, is evolved and set forth in its
unity, totality, finality and permanent efficiency.
§ 3. In the above description it may be said
that one of the main principles of the Spiritual
Philosophy and of the working of the Reason,
considered as Speculative Intellect, has been
offered to the student,— namely, what is meant
by an " Idea." For further light on the signi-
ficancy of this all but indispensable term to phi
losophical insight, the reader is referred to the
preface of the Vital Dynamics, where he will
find various examples of its application and uses.
Thus it may be said that the Reason in man, re
garded abstractly as speculative, prompts him to
search unceasingly for the Unity, insight of which
the Reason supplies for the comprehension of
his manifold knowledges ; and that, wherever this

198 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. is attainable by the discovery of a Principle ade-
: quate to account for the many as a Totality pro
ceeding from a One, and exhibited in an unity
of interdependent Parts, the human mind attains
to the possession of an " Idea." In saying this,
however, it is to be observed that the Speculative
Reason, considered as operant in and by Ideas,
implies somewhat more than the bare insight
of unity; — "it is the idealizing power; — the
power, instinct and inherent tendency of man
to contemplate all his thoughts, feelings and
strivings in their perfection, integrity, unity,
universality, totality, absoluteness." (Mental
Dynamics, App. p. 59.) For illustration compare
Pref. Vital Dynamics, p. xxiv. on the use of the
terms " Type, Pattern, Exemplar, Model, irapa-
Setyyua." And thus it may be added that the func
tion of speculative Reason in forming Ideas is In
tegration; and that every Idea may be expressed
as the Integral, " of which all the forms within
our experience are but approximations." (Ibid.)
§ 4. It may be further noted that, as far as
the speculative intellect has yet carried us, the
conception of what Ideas truly are has been left
in that imperfect state, in which indeed the Form
has been logically secured, but without any
adequate assurance of a Reality., apart from the
subjective form derived from the requirements
of the speculative intellect. Now it may be
safely averred that the grand difficulty, which
has opposed itself to the establishment of a

IDEAS. 199

sound philosophy has proceeded from the neglect PART n.
of building it upon the secure foundation of
Realism ; and perhaps no better occasion could
offer itself of vindicating the philosophical truth
of the doctrine of Realism, than the present one
of considering, so far as our purpose requires,
what are the grounds, upon which rests the
Reality of the conceptions of Cause, Substance,
Unity, and Totality in the speculative form of an
« Idea."

I now invite this discussion with particular
reference to the Idea which I have stated to be
fundamental in the Spiritual Philosophy. The
required principle of the Unity of the Manifold
of the Universe physical and moral, must
(I said) be ONE, of all reality the absolute cause,
which, affirming and realizing itself as its own
abiding and self-sufficing ground, utters and
reveals itself in the infinite manifold of Being,
entire in All and entire in Each. And regarding
that to be the indispensable postulate of phi
losophy, in its utmost height, breadth and depth,
I ventured to affirm with the fullest confidence
that the Principle sought for is WILL.

§ 5. Now, I claim at once the acceptance of
this principle, as a primary Truth of Eeason, and
as one which contains and rests upon its own
evidence. Eor, in order to that real and effective
unity, whereby the many, without ceasing to be
manifold, are constituted and contemplated as
One, we are under the unavoidable necessity of

200 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. referring to " a causative principle, which, com-
- Lining both power and intelligence, contains,
predetermines and produces its actual result in
all its manifold relations, in reference to a
final purpose, and is realized in a whole of
parts, wherein the principle, as the consti
tutive energy, is evolved and set forth in its
unity, totality, finality, and permanent efficiency."
Such principle (that is, a principle combining
power and intelligence) has been already in
troduced to the reader under the name of an
" Idea." But to what principle, other than
that of the Will, dare we attribute rational in
telligence, predetermining and achieving actual
results in the antecedent unity of a final aim
and purpose ? or how otherwise shall we con
ceive such Will than as a personal agent ? "In
the world do we not see everywhere evidences
of a unity which the component parts are so far
from explaining that they necessarily presuppose
the unity as the cause and condition of their
existing at all ? Every whole of parts, be it the
minutest crystal, a plant, an animal, the globe
which sustains us, the solar system of which it
is a part, or the universe itself, in the infinitude
of which that system is less than a mote, — every
Whole of Parts demands for its intelligibility
a cause or principle of each union, a power and
unity, antecedent in the order of efficiency, and
remaining present as the sustaining and con
servative energy; it implies a legislative act,

IDEAS. 201

predetermining the result, compelling implicit PART n.
obedience, and excluding all contingency; — an -
act combining the foresight of wisdom and the
power of irresistible will as immutable purpose
and persistent function; and that (saith the
judicious Hooker) " which doth assign unto each
thing the kind, that which doth moderate the
force and power, that which doth appoint the
form and measure of working, the same we term
a law." Vital Dynamics, p. 18.

It is true that we have in the above quotation
introduced what to some minds will appear the
unwarrantable assumption of " causative power"
and " Will," and that this may appear to them
unnecessary for the purpose of achieving the unity
which the human mind demands. And it may
be observed that if reliance is placed solely on
empirical knowledge, the value of the conceptions
of Unity, Substance, Totality, may be represented
merely as mental forms or subjective moulds of
the contemplant, and as such having no claim to
any objective validity in rerum naturd. On the
other hand the advocates of the spiritual philo
sophy affirm, and rightly affirm, that, in order to
any real and effectual unity, the conceptions of
causative power and Will are not only indis
pensable to the fulfilment of the conditions
under which the human mind can only con
template a real unity or organic whole, but are
securely attainable within the limits of human
consciousness.

202 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. § 6. Now I affirm that any Unity, in which
: the comprehended many, without ceasing to he
manifold, are constituted, or have the constitution
of, One, is inconceivable except as proceeding
from One, which already contains and pre
supposes its final purpose ; — for otherwise, being
without aim, the proceeding would be futile,
objectless, and nugatory, Further, this ante
cedent One, or potential unity of the manifold, is
inconceivable except as predeterminate in aim
and object, and this predeterminate we may call
the " Type" or that to which whatever may be
deduced from the original One is to be referred
for its intelligibility ; — since, without this typical
paradigm, that requisite element of Likeness,
the recognition of which constitutes every com
ponent of a whole a partaker of the pervading
One, will inevitably escape us. Thirdly, the
antecedent One must be conceived as realized
and existing in a Diversity of interdependent
parts and distinctive relations ; — for, without
such evolved and distinctive existence in all the
manifestation of being which the Type implies,
the parent One would have remained, or could
be conceived only, as an undifferenced, unintel
ligible potentiality, and not as a real and evolved
product.* Fourthly, the original and typical

* For the empiricist this essential condition of unity will have no im
portance, since he necessarily proceeds from the given manifold to the
principle., from which it is to derive its explanation and intelligibility,
and from which he may deduce it as fact or phenomenon.

IDEAS. 203

One must be present in each of the Manifold ; PART n.

Chap. III.

with a difference indeed, which constitutes the
particularity of each for itself, but still whole
and entire in each, so as to modify and adapt the
particularity of each to its position and relation
in the Whole of which it is a part : — since, with
out the full and complete participation of each
in the Type, i.e. the design, purpose, paradigm,
which constitutes all parts of One indivisible
Whole, no part could be an integral component
or adequate representative of the whole of which
it is intended to be at once a relative part and a
partial integer. Fifthly, the same One, which
has been the antecedent Type, must reappear as
the Unity, or totality of all the members, in
order to the organic whole contemplated from
the beginning in the constructive principle : — for
otherwise the diverse manifold of the evolved
product would not be conceivable as the Totality,
which had been primarily projected ; whilst, on
the other hand, so conceived, the resulting unity
will reappear in a Totality, in which each and
all of the members, whilst maintaining their
several places and distinctive offices, conspire to
the whole intended from the first, and bear the
impress each in its kind of one and the same
Type, which animates all in order to the per
manence and efficiency of the Unity aimed at.
Sixthly, whatever may be the nature of the
bond of unity in any such organic whole, or
whatever may be the real and effective character

204 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. of the pervading Type, it must ensure the per-
- manence of the assigned connexion ; and this we
can only represent to ourselves as a somewhat
which remains the same amid all change and
diversity : — since, without such effectual hond of
union, no totality would he conceivable, and the
uncemented parts would fall asunder, or remain
only as a heap of disjointed fragments. And it
is this indispensable unific somewhat, which the
human mind necessarily conceives as the Sub
stance or Subject, which underlies and supports
whatever attributes may be assigned to it by the
contemplant.*

§ 7. Under these six heads we venture to
present to the student what may be called the
moments of Ideal Construction, or of the integral
process. And it will be found that they cor
respond to, and are founded on self-evident
•truths, which may be called Axioms of National,
or Spiritual, Integration : — that is, Will, as
causative of reality, cannot be conceived or con
templated in its integrity, or inherent tendency
thereto, except under such conditions of inte
gration as are expressed in those axioms. It is
true, indeed, that we have to conceive Will in

* It was, in the spirit at least of this paradigm of ideal logic, that
the saying of Cuvier's, to which I referred at page 95, x*as uttered: —
" Celui qui possedemit rationellement les lois de Veconomie organique,
pourrait refaire tout F animal" (Revolutions du Globe, p. 99.) " For
what else does he assert, than that in the light of a law, or legislative
idea, acording to which the animated being was originally constructed,
we obtain insight into the forms and relations of organic structure, and
of their necessary interdependence." Vital Dynamics, p. 25.

IDEAS. 205

tlie Idea, or ideally; but abstracting, as this PARTII.
mode of conception obliges us, from all inci
dental circumstances and extraneous influences
which detract from its completeness or inherent
tendency thereto, we submit the following as the
Axioms of National or Spiritual Integration.

§ 8. Axiom 1st.* The postulate of all reality is
Will, as the principle, which is absolutely causa
tive of reality, and by which alone all causality
is rendered intelligible.

Axiom 2d. All Will must primarily will itself,
that is, assert itself to be a Will, or to have
being as a Will.t In our own consciousness we

* It is to be observed that in calling this and the following proposi
tions the " Axioms of Rational or Spiritual Integration/' we might have
equally named them "Ideas:" and as such they are dynamic truths,
which are a priori, that is, are originally, inherently, and often more or
less unconsciously, operative in the human mind by virtue of the light
of reason therein : and which, by reflection on the facts of his self-
consciousness, every man may discover for himself as the results of
" spiritual intuition."

f It is true indeed that this position will be conceded as an axiom,
conditionally only upon the assurance of the individual that he is con
scious of himself as a Will. That assurance, as has been observed,
must be his own act and derived from the exertion of his own Will ;— it
is by exerting his Will that he becomes assured of its reality, and of its
realization in himself. But if he has that assurance, it is manifestly
absurd to deny the truth of the above primary axiom ; since a Will can
not but will its own Will, and cannot be or have being unless by the
persistent and continuous act, which we have called self-ponency, and
which constitutes his personal individuality as a moral agent. The indi
vidual may, it is granted, deny that he is, or has a will, as the ground of
his being ; but in the very act of denial he contradicts himself, since in
the exertion of the will, which it implies, he asserts what he denies.
Again, should he profess a sceptical inability to decide for himself the
momentous question, which involves that of the moral nature of man, he
does but confess to his incapacity for sounding the depths of philosophy ;

and,

206 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. find this primary act in the Self-affirmation,

Chap. III. . J

- which is expressed by " I am," as signifying the
ground of the personal being of the individual
derived from the act of his own Will, and the
assertion of his personal identity ; — and no less it-
marks the identity of being and knowing, the
essential union of the "principium essendi " and
"principium sciendi" And thus as all Self-
ponency implies Will, so Will is inconceivable as
a reality except as a self-ponent Causator. If a
man is not what he is by his own act, in so
much he is not a Will, or free agent, in the ideal
sense of the term. Self-ponency is indeed con
ditional upon the assurance, derived from the
self-consciousness, of Will ; but, having the assur
ance, he cannot but affirm himself to be a Will,
and so begin his self-conscious existence by an
act of his own Will. This then is the first
relation. But, secondly, with the act of self-

and, whatever his professions may be, lie will always, as experience
abundantly testifies, act as if lie had, or were, a Will.

Thus, as before said, Whatever manifold has Unity, — whether it be a
product of nature, or art, or (as germane to our present subject) the
conduct of a man, who in all his manifold purposes and deeds evinces a
consistency of moral character which can only spring from unity of
principle, — Whatever manifold, I repeat, may justly claim to possess
unity, must proceed from a Causative One, and find its only and
adequate intelligibility in the Will. Our fundamental principle then
is that the postulate of all reality is Will, or that which is absolutely
causative of reality. And the arguments we have advanced, not indeed
as proofs, but as appeals to what every rational being may find in his own
self-consciousness, justify us in demanding from him' the concession of
the principle enunciated. This view will, however, receive additional
and clearer light as we proceed in the statement of the " Axioms of
Rational Integration."

IDEAS. 207

ponency, the Will cannot but will itself in TAUT 11.
Alterity, that is, in the manifold of act and re
cipiency, which constitutes its sphere of being
and agency in all its outward relations. For
Will, considered merely in the relation of Sub
ject, could be conceived only as a potential agency,
— such as would be an unevolved point under
the condition of a possible expansion, but still
awaiting solicitation from without and impulse .
from within to rouse its dormant capability to
become an actual sphere and objective reality.
Further, if, as we have asserted and now repeat,
the Will as the antecedent One is necessarily dis
tinguished in and by the opposite relations or
correlatives, Subject and Object, and is ever idem
et alter, we are under the like necessity of con
ceiving that under its distinctive relations it
remains the self-same Subject. We accordingly
must supply the third, combinatory and comple
tive relation, which, in preserving the distinction
of the correspondent opposites or correlatives,
secures their necessary Unity. Without the con
ception of this Unity, the correlatives would fall
asunder, and the idea of Totality would altogether
escape us ; and yet if we are to contemplate any
assemblage of multiform distinctions as compre
hended in One living individuality or organic
Whole, — say a plant, an animal, a community,
or any association of men formed with a definite
aim, — the idea of a constitutive unity is no less
than indispensable.

208 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

ii. We may say then, as the sum and substance

Chap. HI. _ . . . . . , .

— of the preceding axioms, that any attempt to
conceive or contemplate a Whole of manifold
parts otherwise than as proceeding from a Cau
sative One : which realizes itself in its self-affirma
tion, as the antecedent unity and typical paradigm
of the construction it proposes ; which, on the
other hand, exhibits itself in all the multiform
acts and products which constitute its sphere
of being- and which finally reappears, as con
summating the totality which had been proposed
and anticipated from the commencement of the
process: that any attempt, I say, to conceive
the genesis of a Whole except under these con
ditions will be vain and nugatory. And, it may
be added, these relative acts are not to be dis
severed as successive phases of agency, but to
be regarded as simultaneous, though distinctive
Moments of one and the same essential ope-
rance.*

* The reader will please to observe that the relations here described
are the universal and indispensable elements of the ideal construction
derived from Will as the principle of every genetic process. And it will
be seen that they correspond to the distinctions, which we were una
voidably led to in the account given in Chap. II. of Self-consciousness : —
Will is the ground intelligent and causative, which, as antecedent One,
distinguishes itself into the opposite relations, Subject and Object, and
into the combinatory relations which, in preserving the distinction of the
correspondent opposites or correlatives, secures their necessary unity.
To these distinctions we shall hereafter have to return in giving further
significancy to the paradigm of ideal construction thus enunciated ; not
forgetting however that the " Categories," which have been found to be
the " moulds of Experience," will be now seen to be the relations which
must be conceived as necessary to the realization of the Will as en
lightened by Reason ; — a truth, which cannot fail at once to strike the

IDEAS. 209

§ 9. In the previous section the fundamental PART n.
axioms of Rational Integration have been enun- -
ciated ; hut their importance in the philosophical
problem, which we have undertaken to solve,
will require that we should regard them in other
aspects not less requiring attention in order
to the estimation of their true value. I ask
then the admission of the following axiom, which
relates especially to the intelligcntial character of
the construction : —

3rd Axiom. The Will (in any proper sense)
cannot he conceived otherwise than as insepara
bly united with intelligence, and this ideally
as the Light of Reason; and, so conceived, the
Will is guided and governed by a Purpose, or
Final Aim, which as Antecedent Unity contains
prospectively and potentially the realization of
what it proposes. A will, that does not operate
from the beginning according to a certain law
or idea, and does not predetermine its final
result and intention, cannot but be, as far as it
falls short of such idea or final purpose, ineffi
cient and abortive in its acts.

This position involves the following corol
laries : —

A. The Self-ponency is a continuous and

reader, when he considers that the subjective relation expresses, or
rather implies, the category of Subject and Attribute or Substance and
Accident ; that the objective relation of the Will explains the category
of Cause and Effect ; and that the category of the whole and its parts is
founded on the antithesis and synthesis of these subjective and objective
relations.

VOL. I. P

210 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

IT. persistent act, implying throughout the unalter-
in. conviction of the truth, which directs it ; —

and this truth is to be conceived, not only as
final aim, hut as the ideal type and predeter
mined typical paradigm, of all that proceeds
from the act of self-ponency. That the self-
ponency must be conceived ideally as a con
tinuous and persistent act, in order to the
requisite unity of abiding Being, and this by
the light of self-conscious intelligence, is mani
fest; since otherwise the primary act of Will
would be fragmentary, disconnected into fits and
starts, disturbed by sudden and crossing resolves,
purposeless, unmeaning, and thereby incapaci
tated for achieving its individuality. It may be,
indeed, truly said : that " few ever reach that
epoch, at which the man consciously affirms, that
is, realizes by a continuous act his completed
individuality as a moral being!" (Mental Dy
namics, p. 16.) " Various, indeed, may be the
forms, which reveal the essential idea of our
common Humanity, various the causes of de
generacy, which render its growth imperfect or
abortive, various the forms of mental excellence
and of moral dignity, to which it gives birth :
but still it is the living and persistent energy of
the moral will, which gives the impress of cha
racter and of genial power to a Luther, a Dante,
and a Milton, and stamps an indelible unity on
their aspirations and acts, their works and their
aims." (Ibid. p. 10.)

IDEAS. 211

B. The original Type or Idea, impressed by PART n.
and derived from the self-ponency, shall be ever -
present and operative in the Alterity, — ever active
wholly and fully, tolus et integer, in each and
every diverse relation of the manifold in and by
which the idea is manifested iti actu ; so that, by
its light, each shall be adapted to each and to all,
in the unity of the first intention of a One-in-All.
This tendency to individuality in the parts
(arising out of the repetition in each of the total
idea which gave it birth, and though ever vary
ing the type yet representing it in alterity) is
manifestly indispensable to the true conception
of the Identity and Alterity of every ideal whole.
Were it otherwise, it must be supposed that there
were parts derived from a diverse intention to
that of the whole in which they appear. Such
parts, being alien and foreign, could not harmonize
with others in the projected unity; and the result
would be an assemblage of incoherent parts — no
whole, but a heterogeneous heaping of material
without community: — " inter heterogenea non est
communitas" That the act of the causative of the
whole should be total in each of the components,
is not only compatible with the greatest variety,
but implies it. Take any product of nature, say
a predaceous animal, — and though teeth, claws and
motive apparatus are widely different from each
other as component parts, yet they are evidently
results of the same intention and purpose in the
total organization to which they • contribute.

p 2

212 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. And the perception of this unity in diversity,
of this One-in-All, is vouched for hy such
expressions as "Ex unqiie leonem" "ex pede
Herculem" and the like. Not to mention the
scholastic maxim : — " Ubi anima est, tola est,
tota in toto, et tota in qudlibet parte"

C. But if in every organic Whole the final
aim appears in the process of construction or
genesis, it must reappear in the result as the
Totality, or All-in- One, which was contained in,
and projected by, the Will in the primary act
of Antecedent Unity; — the predetermined aim
and purpose is now to be contemplated in its
realized result and achievement. And this To
tality implies that each part of the organic
Whole shall be adapted to each other and to all
others in the unity of the first intention, in order
to the completion of the purpose which had
existed from the beginning. Without this result
it is manifest that the intention has not been
carried into effect, and that, so far as it has not
been accomplished, the act and process of the
Will, as originant, predeterminant, and operant,
is abortive and vain.

Thus the Axiom shows that in the realization
of any Totality or Diversity in Unity, an Idea,
as the Resolve of the Will or causative agent,
must have operated as antecedent unity or typical
paradigm, and that in the light of the same Idea
every component is adapted to each other and to
all, in order to the completion of the projected

IDEAS. 213

whole. The axiom affirms that the Will, in any PART n.
process of ideal construction, requires to be — — — '
throughout sustained and supported by the Idea
or final aim, which renders that process from
beginning1 to end one harmonious work of Reason.
Thus, — " every organic whole, from the polyp up
to man, indicates a higher and more effective
power of unity, and therefore of more perfect
individuality, in proportion as the parts are more
numerous, yet at the same time more various,
each having a several end ; while yet the inter
dependence of each on the other, the subordina
tion of the lower to the higher, and the intimate
of all to the constitution of One, shall be per
fected in equal proportion/' Vital Dynamics,
App. C. p. 59.

§ 10. But the former axioms would be de
fective in the exhibition of their character as
truths of Reason, were there not superadded
another not less essential Axiom of Rational or
Spiritual Integration, namely, that which affirms
for every ideal process the necessity of its Inte
gration. " Reason is the idealizing power — the
power, instinct and inherent tendency, of man,
to contemplate all his thoughts, feelings and
strivings, in their perfection, integrity, univer
sality, totality, absoluteness." (Mental Dyna
mics, p. 59). The 4th Axiom then might run
thus :— In the act of self-ponency, and in reali
zing whatever is potentially contained, purposed
or projected, therein, whatever is willed cannot
but be willed in its fullest integrity ;— for what-

214 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. ever falls short of its ideal integrity falls short of

Chap. III.

- its aim and true reality.

It may be true that absolute, or ideal perfec
tion, is unattainable, and that more cannot be
expected of human "Will than to strive ever to
approximate to that goal which from its very
nature cannot be reached. But to aim at imper
fection is absurd ; for it is virtually a resolve not
to accomplish what is aimed at. What, in every
construction or genesis, can be alone aimed at,
is the true reality ; and this true reality is ideal.
It is only by the aid of the Reason, that we are
enabled to discern the eternal Ideas, which are
the regulating types, standards and true causes,
of their approximate representatives in a nature
ever tending to lapse into the imperfect and arbi
trary. (See Vital Dynamics, Pref. p. xxviii.) To
this subject, namely, the relation of the perfect
types of Reason to their imperfect derivatives in
nature, in consequence of the pravity of the
latter, I shall have occasion to return. Mean
while if it were asked, what constitutes the true
being of any product of nature within our ex
perience, say a Rose, a Horse, a Tiger, a Man, —
we can only answer, amid the more or less
imperfect specimens offered to our notice, that
which most fully and completely corresponds to
its original design or ideal aim. This our ex
perience only furnishes us with approximatively .
It must be contemplated as Idea.

Under the head of the fourth Axiom, which

IDEAS. 215

to the essential conditions of ideal construction PARTII.
adds that of Integration, we have to supply the '
following Corollaries :—

A. The Will, in the case of its self-ponency
and self-affirmation in personal Being, cannot
but will itself in its perfect ideal integrity.
That every Will endowed with Reason should
aim ideally at its spiritual integration is mani
fest from the axiom under which this corollary
appears. But I forbear to do more here than
indicate a subject, which involves a consideration
of the Principles of Ethics, and of the problem,
which is to enlighten us on the essential cha
racter of the Humanity, and to determine the
relations of man to God as the eternal Idea of
absolute spiritual integrity and the moral In
tegrant of his fallen creature.

B. A second corollary offers the truth which
cannot be severed from the former, that the
perfect integrity which the Will affirms, or aims
at affirming, in the act of self-ponency, must be
affirmed or realized in the Alterity derived from
it, and this in all the diverse forms which ex
hibit the capabilities, potentially or ideally infi
nite, of a Will realizing itself outwardly in order
to achieve its sphere of being and agency.

This corollary is to be regarded under two
conditions ; one of which we may call particular,
and the other universal.

The first would relate to the life and conduct
of an individual Will,— as of a Man who mani-

216 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. fests in all his thoughts, deeds, and words, the
Principle, which, determining his self-ponency
and fixing his abiding " character " as a moral
agent, impresses itself on his every act, in due
order and proportion, and constitutes it a part
of his total sphere of agency. Loss of " cha
racter " was felt even by the Greek tyrant, who,
being moved to tears by a tragic scene, abruptly
left the theatre, exclaiming, "How scandalous
to yield to pity in witnessing one death, when
I have been accessory without remorse to the
death of thousands ! " But how little dare we
expect consistency of character, when even the
best and wisest of mankind fail in preserving
its integrity. How bitter must have been the
reflections of our great reformer Cranmer in the
weakness which led him to recant the cherished
principles of his life, redeemed though it was by
the noble retractation which brought him to the
stake.

But in order to the full conception of Indi
viduality in its integrity we have to regard the
Will in its universal as well as its particular
aspect : — since it will be found that true Indi
viduality contains and conciliates the opposite
relations of the Universal and Particular. We
cannot conceive them, except by abstraction,
as single and separate. In respect of actual
Being, a mere Particular, or we might say a
part which is no part of a real whole, a particle,
or atom, would be no "part" of any thing,

IDEAS. 217

and, if at all conceivable, not more distinguish- PART n.
able than the particular dust-atoms in a simoom
of the desert. On the other hand, the Universal,
in respect of any real existence, can only be
properly denned as a One-in-All : — without the
relation to an All of manifold distinctions, the
One becomes a mere abstract, and expresses a
One which is wholly " undifferenced," that is,
which, being contemplated without relations, has
and can have no real Being. But, as I have
said above,. Individuality in its appropriate sig-
nificancy partakes both of the Universal and
Particular. The " individual " is to be conceived
as a lesser Whole in the larger Whole of which
it is a Part : — the tendency to integration in this
lesser or relative Whole is partly the result of
the one and universal tendency to integration,
which, in pervading and giving unity to all,
tends to integrate each ;— partly, on the other
hand, it denotes in the Particular the common
tendency of all Will to integrate, and by its own
peculiarities to distinguish, itself. The first
tendency works to repeat in the Part what is
intended in the Whole, to make the lesser and
particular whole the reflex and representative of
the universal or larger whole; the second or
particularizing tendency, by opposite means,
though with similar aim, works to integrate the
self by diversifying and modifying the universal.
If illustrations were needed, the reader might be
referred to the personages devised by Shakspeare

218 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. or other writers of fiction : — without the uni
versal character of the humanity (and the super
natural beings of fiction form no exception) they
would be so alienated from the sphere of our
being that they could excite no interest; but,
without the distinctive peculiarities which mark
the particular in each, they would cease to be
individuals, and would become lifeless abstracts
of the universal humanity.

What has just been said may serve to throw a
further light on the preceding paragraph touching
the individual ; but we have to beg the reader's
attention to some further observations on the
universal factor. I repeat that the Universal,
defined as the One-in-All which gives unity and
connexion throughout, and contemplated in its
highest and largest sense, can be no other than
the Absolute Will causative of all reality ; and so
in every sphere of being, which constitutes a
relative whole in that larger Whole which com
prehends all, and can no longer be considered a
part of any larger whole, the Will-act is totus et
integer, whole and complete, in constituting its
sphere of being or Whole of Parts. To affirm
that the principle of all reality is other than
one, would be manifestly absurd; for if we
affirmed the reverse we should affirm the existence
of a plurality of discordant principles : — I say
discordant ; because if they were accounted to be
accordant, the principle, by which they were so,
would drive the reasoner back to the unavoidable

IDEAS. 210

admission of a source of unity, or of one fontal PART n.
principle. On the other hand, however, such a -
"One" can only be conceived as "differenced"
into a manifold of distinctive spheres of being ;
and (as before said) without relation to a manifold
of distinction, the One becomes a mere abstract,
which, conceived without relativity, can have no
real being. Hence then the Universe itself is to
be conceived as a Whole of Parts, but can only
be so conceived in its integrity as animated by
One Will or Spirit, present and operative every
where, and exerting itself totally in and to every
sphere of individual being : — if it were not opera
tive, totus et integer, in every and each part, that
part in which its energy and operation were
wanting must inevitably fail in being an integral
constituent of the Whole, and would want what
is essential to make it a part— namely, participa
tion in the character of a Whole, as derived from
one and the same operance.

After this digression, to which we have been
led in explaining the last corollary (that the
integrity of a Will-act shall be realized in the
Alterity] it remains that we state our third
corollary.

C. All Will cannot but will that the manifold
of its distinctive acts should constitute a Totality,
a full, complete, and perfect Whole :— for, with
out this consummation and unity of the All-in-
one, the result would not be tot us et integer, the
act of one "Will or Subject.

220 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. "Wherever then we contemplate Will in its
Idea (that is, as causative of reality, and therein
actuated by the light of Reason), the Principles,
above described as axioms of rational integration,
will be found to be operant. Every rational
Will must have a final aim or intention, and
must in realizing that intention resolve to carry
it into effect fully and completely. And, though
this view of the Ideal Will is only approxima-
tively realized in the agencies of the world, yet
no Will can act under other conditions than those
expressed in the axioms above cited; and any
Will which fails in fulfilling these conditions — as
especially to intend without a definite aim, and
to resolve without the intention of carrying into
effect a final aim — forfeits the character of Will
according to the Idea, and becomes abortive by
self-contradiction.

I venture to assume that we have now found
an adequate paradigm of the Ideal Will in actti
wherever it is causative of reality : but in order
to carry out the Idea of Integration in the Will,
of which the main features have been pointed
out in the axioms already enunciated, it will be
necessary to regard this principle of integration
under other aspects than those yet presented, and
I propose to bring these considerations before the
reader in the ensuing paragraph.

§ 11. 5th Axiom. Every Will tends to be
absolute, or aims at absolute ponency, in the act
of willing.

IDEAS. 221

The reader will be pleased to Lear always in PART n.
mind that the problem before him is, How to Chap' //7>
contemplate the Idea of Will, that is, of Will in
its full and complete perfection of aim and resolve
of causative act, divested of all failings and hin
drances in its purpose. I am speaking here,
however, of the Idea of the Will generally, and
therefore abstractedly ; that is, abstracted from
all incidental circumstances which detract from
its integrity or inherent tendency to integration.
For otherwise the term " absolute " could only be
affirmed of the Supreme and divine Will. And
of the human Will, as we actually find it, we can
only speak as of a Will in a state of "degeneracy."
The genus includes, it is true, Supreme Will as
one of its species, but does not designate it in
its highest specific instance as " Absolute Will
causative of all reality." But in all Will every
Will-act properly so called can be only truly
conceived as willing absolutely that which is
thereby willed ; for otherwise it would be an
imperfect and abortive act, and would want the
primary and essential condition of its own fulfil
ment. If we consider such an act under its
empirical conditions of time and place, and under
circumstantial agencies of obstructive interfer
ence and cumulative difficulties, the Idea may
escape us ; but abstract from these, and contem
plate the Idea in its integrity, and it will be seen
that the Will-act of even a horse in leaping a
fence must be totus et integer in resolve and

222 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. purpose — yes, absolute. How much more then
- that of a rational being, who, as a Columbus or
Howard, never swerves from the realization of
an ideal aim and from his one absolute purpose,
whatever may be the difficulties and dangers of
his enterprise. Moreover every spiritual act,
having its ground and precondition in that which
is antecedent and transcendent to the conditions
of being and existence, namely the Will, is by its
very nature " absolute," that is, under no other
conditions or relations than those of its own
ase'ity, or unconditioned originancy.*

But in the foregoing exposition I may perhaps
have incurred the risk of being misunderstood
by using the term " Absolute " in its ideal sense,
that is, as designating an object of conscious
thought* apart from the conditions and relations
which limit and detract from its ideal integrity,
though not excluding them as necessary elements
of the actual being of the object contemplated.
To apprehend an object of thought " absolutely "

* A pleasant illustration of the tendency of all Will to be absolute
will be found in the story told in Grimm's Kinder imd Haus-Marchen, of
the fisherman's wife, who, not content with having become successively
Baron, King, Emperor, and Pope, would needs arrogate to herself the
power of the Almighty. So true it is, as in this instance, that all the
great Ideas of our Humanity are found to be the widely-diffused inherit
ance and possession of "babes and sucklings," and transmitted from age
to age in nursery-tales and children's stories. In such too the timeless
character of all Will and spiritual act is finely illustrated by the circum
stance that the incidents and characters are of no age nor country,
though at home at all times and in every place ; — and this not as abstrac
tions, but as vivid realizations of the spiritual nature of our common
humanity.

IDEAS. 223

is to apprehend it in its idea ; but to apprehend PART n.
it in its idea is necessarily also to apprehend it —
"relatively;5' — it implies the whole scheme of
relations in and by which the idea is manifested
in actual being. " Absolute " and " relative "
are, in truth, relative terms, which imply, each
the other. To divorce them from their inse
parable union as correlatives and reciprocal cor
respondents, each throwing light on the other,
would be to reduce them to mere conflicting
abstractions, exclusive of each other. Neverthe
less, without setting aside their interdependence,
we may advantageously, nay in many instances
unavoidably, contemplate an object of thought
as absolved from all other conditions than those
which are essential to its integrity or ideal per
fection. Indeed we must do so if we are not to
resign the indispensable privilege of a rational
being in fixing a Standard of excellence by which
to judge and to measure whatever falls short of
it. Without the possession of such an ideal
standard or pattern of moral integrity, how
would it be possible for us to realize practically
and approximatively the divine command : " Be
ye perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect."

But, further, the use of the term " Absolute"
in the sense here assigned to it, namely, as the
opposite (not contrary) to the " conditioned " or
"relative," is not only sanctioned by our best
writers, but has obtained currency in general

224 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

ii. usage ;— and this not only in respect of super-
— sensuous objects, but of things within the sphere
of sensible experience. Thus a physicist would
not hesitate to speak of an " absolute " vacuum,
though he would be quite aware that it could
be only "relatively" produced. A pathologist
would find no difficulty in distinguishing " abso
lute" and "relative" health. And no difficulty
attaches to conceiving in a progressive develop
ment a terminus ad quern, as a goal, which though
it may never be reached except " relatively," is
yet the " absolute " and final aim of the progress
towards its achievement.

But a difficulty has been recently imported
into the subject under discussion, which does not
appear to me to be inherent in the solution of
the problem. I advert, namely, to the contro
versy, which has been raised by the doctrine of
Sir "W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel touching the
nature of the " absolute." They contend that
the "Absolute" is incogitable and incognizable,
and not subject to the conditions which alone
render consciousness possible. Their argument
may be thus stated in language which I quote
from a work entitled " Examination of the Prin
ciples of the Scoto-Oxonian Philosophy " : —
" It is urged by them that consciousness in every
mode of its exercise necessarily implies relation.
In order that it may take place there must be
two correlative factors, a conscious subject or
person, and an object or thing, of which that

IDEAS. 225

person is conscious. The absolute, on the other PAUF n.
hand, is directly opposed to, and exclusive of the -
relative. When therefore we affirm an absolute
thing or being to be an object of thought, or of
any mode of consciousness, we at the same time
affirm of that thing, or being, relation and the
negation of relation ; and thus our affirmation in
its very terms destroys itself."

Now I have no desire to mix myself in this,
or any, controversial discussion, which involves
principles of philosophical reasoning so wholly
different from mine as those in question; but,
for the sake of the principles which I uphold, I
deem it a duty to vindicate the doctrine of the
Absolute I have advocated, and therefore (so
far at least as the occasion requires) to impugn
the statement just quoted from its opponents.

Thus if it be admitted, as they assume, that
the Absolute is the " negation of relation" it
may be conceded that we could not conceive,
or have a conception of, what would be a non
entity, iio-thing, — that what had no marks
whereby to conceive it could be no object of
conscious thought. But though, as an object,
it would be inconceivable and a mere negation,
yet at the same time Hansel's opinion is more
than questionable; for a negation, even though
nothing more, is still an act of the mind, and as
such is an object of conscious thought. This,
indeed, is only so far material to the point at
issue that, if the negation of relation is equi*

VOL. i.

226 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. valent, as Mansel assumes, to the negation of

Chap. III. ...... rf , ,, , ,

limitation — [for he argues that we have no

power of conceiving what is otherwise than finite
and limited and that limitation is negation ; that
is, he adopts the erroneous view of the Germans,
derived from Spinoza, that all relation is limi
tation and therefore negation]— it would be the
denial of the thing, or object of thought itself;
that is, if we deny that in which the being
consists, we deny that being itself. But as the
reader will recollect, I have affirmed, and rightly
I apprehend, that the removal of limitations is
the very condition of contemplating the subject
under consideration in its ideal or highest in
tegrity. Here, however, it will be necessary to
moot another point, in which Hansel's reasoning
is erroneous. It appears to me at least that he
uses the term "Absolute" as a substantive de
noting a self-subsistent devoid of relations,
whereas it is clear that it should be used as an
adjective or attribute, meaning " absolved from
all limitations or conditions." When therefore
used as the designation of Deity, or when it is
said that God is the Absolute, it surely is to be
understood as meaning that Being which is per
fect and unconditional in respect of those attri
butes under which Deity is conceivable, such
as absolute power, wisdom, and righteousness.
Hence I am quite at a loss to understand how
Mansel can attach to the term " absolute " any
such meaning as exclusive or devoid of relations,

IDEAS. 227

seeing that the attributes specified designate the PART n.
highest relations in which God stands to man -
and nature, and without which any relationship
would he alike inconceivable and nugatory.

It is not indeed a difficult task to discover the
interest which has led Mansel into what I con
ceive to be an error in religious philosophy, —
the paramount interest, namely, of exposing the
abuse of the phrase " the Absolute " as the desig
nation by the pantheists of Deity according to
their godless conception. But even here Mansel
appears to me to have failed in his reasoning : —
for I apprehend, speaking of pantheists in genere,
that "the Absolute" is with them the ground of
all relativity, and, though in and of itself un-
differenced, yet the One which is being always
differenced and ever and only manifested in its
relations— the abiding substance or Proteus of
endless transformations.

It is no less easy to see that Hansel's aim
from the beginning is to establish the necessity
of a revealed religion ; and surely his incon
sistency of reasoning reaches its climax, when,
in order to prove the necessity of revelation, he
contends that we can be conscious of religious
truths only as finite relations, — that we can
believe but cannot conceive an Absolute God,—
that we can believe what transcends the con
ditions of consciousness and conception.

It is evident indeed that Ideas are wholly
beyond Hansel's sphere of thought, And that his

228 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. reasonings move only in the region of logical
— — — ' conceptions : but we quit the subject here, as we
shall have a fitter occasion for its discussion in
treating of the relation of speculative philosophy
to religion, and in vindicating the position that
God, as Idea Idearum, is the Supreme Object of
Speculative no less than of Practical Reason.

§ 12. 6th Axiom. The Will is ideally a prin
ciple of Absolute Freedom.

If the Will be not essentially originative and
spontaneously causative, it ceases to be what we
mean by " Will " properly so called. It will
be seen hereafter what limitations it will be
necessary to impose in considering even human
Will ; but meanwhile abstracting from the Idea
what interferes with its integrity, it will be seen
that to say the Will is free is only to say that
the Will is Will. It must, however be borne
in mind that, in conformity with the principle
of Spiritual philosophy, Will is only Will, avro-
VOJULOS and to itself a law, when enlightened by
Reason, — that Will can only be truly conceived
as Will under the condition of containing a prin
ciple which actuates, guides and directs it, — and
that this principle is the light of Reason which
enables it consciously to discern its final aim
and purpose.

But Reason, regarded as distinct from Will,
is the essential principle of Necessity; for Reason
is the principle of absolute, necessary and im
mutable Truth, and as such is the foundation of

IDEAS. 229

all Law, — is itself that eternal Law, lex Icgum, PART IT.
which universally defends the Right, sternly for- -
bids the Wrong, and is ever the implacable foe to
all transgression of statutes which continually
declare its unalterable justice and equity. Hence,
in order to a true conception of "Will enlightened
by Reason, it is incumbent on us to provide
for the conciliation of the opposite conditions of
Spontaneity and Necessity. And it is not difficult
to show that such a conciliation or interpene-
tration of these principles really exists, and that
in all Will or Wills there is so far an identity of
freedom and necessity, that the Will (say, the
human) obeys the moral law under the sense of
obligation arising from conviction of its excel
lence, and thus willingly and in freedom serves
the law which itself approves and would have
chosen. And, in a higher approach to the ideal
aim of this combination, we may expect that the
human Will would no longer need the conviction
of what is right, nor act from a sense of duty
or obligation, but that whatever indispensably
remains of the Necessity which attaches to Law
would be hidden in the spontaneous realization
of the Good.

In the Axiom which heads this paragraph
I have affirmed that "the Will is ideally a
principle of absolute Freedom:' But we have
learnt in. the preceding investigation that, in
order to realize the Idea in its integrity, the
Will ought to be conceived as so far partaking

230 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. of the necessary, immutable and inevitable, that

Chap. III.

in any proper sense of the term it cannot be
disunited from the Reason; — and we regard
Reason as the Truth, Truth absolute, sub
jectively the universal Intelligence and font of
Ideas, objectively the principle of all Being and
of the knowledge of all Being, contemplated in
its causes and laws. Thus actuated the "Will
cannot but will, and this willingly and spon
taneously, whatever is in conformity with the
eternal Truth contained in the divine Reason-
hereafter to be more fully shown as the Word
of God, " whose service is perfect freedom."

§ 13. 7th Axiom. The Will in its ideal in
tegrity cannot but will what is universal, that
is, what may and ought to be the will of all
Wills.

If the individual Will wills only that which
cannot be more than particular — that is to say,
wills only its own selfish whims and arbitrary
caprices, it foregoes its universality for its own
selfish particularity, and thereby forfeits its claim
to ideal integrity. In order to be truly a Will,
the individual Will must will that its Will be
as unbounded and limitless as the Universe —
nay, as universal as the Divine Will. Nor is this
language extravagant : — for thus universal the
individual Will may be, provided that in claim
ing (as it ought to claim) such universality,
it affirms itself as Will and subjective moral
being in and by the Universal and Absolute

IDEAS. 231

Will as the only ground of true Beine? and the PART n.

1 A +1 P 11 IN. C/w;,. ///.

sole Author of all reality.

§ 14. 8th Axiom. The Will in its ideal in
tegrity cannot but will that whi.h ever remains
the same under all change and diversity.

Essentially connected with the attributes of
Will already mentioned is its property, accord
ing to the Idea, that every Will-act must be in
principle continuous, permanent and abiding ; —
that is, in as much as it is essentially connected
with the act of moral self-ponency. It may be
asserted generally that the operance which is
not sustained until the final accomplishment of
whatever the Will proposes and resolves to effect
is merely the exposure of weakness and the
confession of inefficiency, — that the want of
persistency marks the collapse and surcease
of a Will which can only have pretended to
possess moral integrity. But in the highest
sense, not only should every act be adequate
to the achievement of its purpose, but should
partake of the moral and spiritual integrity of
the primary and abiding act of self-ponency ;—
and it is this moral consistency in thought,
word and deed, which marks the character of a
man of undeviating rectitude and reliable in
tegrity. We may indeed say that such a Will,
constituted according to its Idea, cannot but
will that which is Eternal. In using this
term I must however guard against any mis
apprehension of my meaning by stating that it

232 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. is intended to designate that which, as essen
tially " spiritual," transcends the conditions of
time and space, and of all the adventitious
circumstances with which they are associated
in the sphere of sensible and psychical expe
rience. The term " eternal," refers us to spi
ritual act and being, and to the laws of true
Being which, as spiritual, belong essentially to
Divine Being. And so conceived it may be
affirmed, that as every Will must will what
may be universal, so every Will, in aiming at
its integral perfection of spiritual being, cannot
but will that which is eternal, and eternal
because it is the Will of God.

But the Axiom enunciated at the commence
ment of the paragraph tells us that the ideal
Will must ever remain the same "under all
change and diversity." And in exhibiting the
perfections of such ideal Will, it is scarcely less
than evident that, although we justly require
the unvarying integrity of act which is ever one
and the same by reason of the constant unity
of its eternal principle, it will be demanded of us
to supply a correspondent and correlative factor,
in order to account for the multifarious diversity
of acts, which cannot but arise out of an essen
tially causative and originaiit Will, especially
when considered in its complete perfections.

This factor is supplied when it is affirmed
that All Will, according to the Idea, is in
finite. This attribute we can contemplate only

IDEAS. 233

•

as fully realized in the Absolute Will causative PART u.
of all reality. And hence in the Non- Absolute
Will we can only regard it as an infinite Po
tentiality of being dependent upon the actua
tion of the .Divine Will. Nevertheless, by the
presence and operance of the Divine Will in
His universal agency — (an iridividuation of the
Universal Will being the one and sole ground
of individual reality) — every individual Will in
its self-affirmation affirms its infinite, though
potential, capability of repeating in the totality
of its own distinctive acts the whole of that In
finitude of which it is itself a part. Every
Will, in order to be what it ideally aims to be,
must strive and resolve to manifest and exhibit
all that is necessary to the perfection of its spi
ritual being. Less than this would be an imper
fect willing, and a withholding from a defective
power of Will. Every Non-absolute Will is then
a process of endlessly realizing what is at once
and for ever contained in the Idea which it pos
sesses, consciously or unconsciously, in and by the
inherent power and operance of what we have
called Rational or Spiritual Integration.

§ 15. Hence then it may be affirmed upon d
priori grounds that, in the process of spiritual
integration, the Will (all Will and every Will)
inherently, and by the very nature of Will, tends
to realize a self-ponency which is at once free
and necessary, universal and individual, eternal
and infinite, and to be in all respects. absolute.

234 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. Thus it will appear, on a retrospect of the
- Axioms we have established, that we may com
prehend the truth they contain in a conclusive
Axiom to the following effect : — All Will cannot
but need and crave to be, or to fill a sphere of act
and being, and to integrate itself in that sphere,
that is, to integrate itself spiritually, or as Will,
in its absolute integrity of being.

And we shall hereafter learn that the "ten
dency" to absolute self-integration will have
been realized in proportion to the degree in
which the individual Will conforms itself to,
and concurs with, the Absolute or Divine Will.
And in discussing this momentous topic we
shall have occasion to consider the hindrances,
which, by reason of the actual pravity of human
nature, oppose themselves to the progress and
achievement of the process of spiritual inte
gration.

§ 16. But finally we invite a retrospect of the
foregoing disquisitions on the necessary rela
tions of the Will actualizing itself according to
the idea of its spiritual integration, for the pur
pose of exhibiting the grounds on which we shall
seek to establish a principle therein implied,
which is of paramount importance to the further
prosecution of our speculative reasonings. This
principle may be named Polarity ; and its defi
nition may be added as the conclusive Axiom
of Spiritual Integration : — "A One Power, which
manifests itself in opposite and correlative forces,

IDEAS. 235

or in distinctive relations at once opposite and TARTU.
reciprocally complemental, and which thereby
perpetuates itself in living reality and totality
by distinction in unity "

Now all " powers " derive their intelligibility
from Will; and the foregoing positions, esta
blished as Axioms in this chapter, testify to the
truth of the proposition advanced; si ace we have
found in the investigation of the Will the ground
and explanation of the relations here attributed
to all powers, and the derivation of these rela
tions satisfactorily accounted for by the nature
and conditions of self-conscious Will as the
norm and origin of the conception of power
causative.

The requisite element for the construction of
that ideal Paradigm of Relations which exhibits
the principle of Polarity may be easily col
lected from the Axioms already explained in
this chapter. And, in conformity with them,
we affirm as follows :— -

i. The postulate of all reality is Will, or that
which is absolutely causative. As such we have
to regard it as supra-relative, but as containing
potentially the relations in and by which Will
is manifested.

ii. The Will, namely, cannot but will its self-
ponency, that is, affirm itself as Will, — on the
one hand in Personal Being expressed in the
" I am," and 011 the other as the Type or Idea
of that which it is to realize: — and herein it

236 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. must act as indivisibly one, since a divided Will

Chap. III. . ^T...

- is no Will.

iii. Moreover, it must will itself in Alterity,
that is, in a diversity of acts ; for without
Distinctions or distinctive relations, it would
remain an undifferenced identity of forces with
out actual operance, and would be a mere and
unintelligible potentiality. But, in thus realizing
itself in an alterity of distinctive acts, the diver
sity must ever be counterbalanced by the Unity
of the type out of which it proceeds.

iv. Again, when manifested in a totality of
acts which may be regarded as Parts of a Whole,
these parts are made to constitute the Totality
by virtue of the one Will which manifests its
indivisible integrity therein; and the Type or
antecedent unity, which has been the One-in-All,
now takes the form of the All-in-One.

v. But, lastly, if the Will be entire in the act
constitutive of the Whole, it must, in the oppo
site relation, be entire in each and every Part ; —
that is, every Whole and each and every Part
must be actuated by the same one and undi
vided Will.

§ 17. Now it is by the combination of these
elements or factors, representing the necessary
or " polar" relations of Will actualizing, that
we are enabled to form a Paradigm of Ideal
Construction or genesis. And we will distinguish
these relations by the names Identity, Thesis,
Antithesis, and Synthesis.

IDEAS. 237

Of Will (1) contemplated, as if yet undiffer- PART n.
enced, in the identity of its elements, — and (2) of -
Will contemplated in the Alterity, or differenced
into its relations, as thesis and antithesis, namely
Subject and Object, — of these relations we have
spoken in the chapter on Self-consciousness. But
we have here to consider the Alterity of the Will
in a larger sense, as the necessary form by which
all Will realizes itself, causatively and produc
tively, in the construction or genesis of a Whole of
Parts— be it a work of art, a poem, a picture, a
piece of mechanism, the Universe itself, or any of
the organic wholes which are its component. Pur
suing then the topic of the Will in the relation
of its productive alterity, we have to assign to it,
as the principle of ideal construction, the " polar
relations" which constitute its factors or work
ing forces. These we are led at once to consider,
without anticipating any objection, are the op
posite, yet reciprocally complemental, factors of
Unity and Distinction ; — the former working in
the relation of the tendency to impress and
maintain throughout the process the identity of
the Idea which originates the construction ; the
latter working in the relation of the opposite
tendency to diversify and vary the constructive
Idea, by enriching it with all the possible forms
of being and modifications of agency which may
contribute to, without disturbing, the unity of
the primary purpose and final aim; — and thus
in the relations both of identity and diversity

238 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. these opposite, though correspondent, tendencies
work the same Will in and to a product, in
which the unity of the Whole and the distinc
tion of its component Parts are harmoniously
combined. And such may be regarded as illus
tration and application of the polar formula,
viz. Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. It will,
however, be proper to advertise the reader that,
in having before him the relations of the para
digm of ideal construction, he will find two forms
of Unity and two of Distinction, constituting
instead of a single polarity as above a double or
what may be called a bi-polarity ; — but thus ad
vertised he may best await the explanation until
the relations themselves have been exhibited.

Resuming then the consideration of Will in
its productive Alterity, and at the same time
reminding the student that the process about to
be described is only the explication of the self-
ponency of the Will, above considered in its
relations as Subject and Object, and now to be
regarded in its objective aspect, — I proceed to
designate and describe the opposite, yet corre
spondent, factors of ideal construction.

i. The first relation is one of the forms of
Unity ; and it may be described as the antece
dent unity, and designated as the Type of the
projected Whole now in process of construction.
Whatever the genetic Idea, considered both as
power and contemplamen, may be in respect of
its purpose and final aim, it operates in this

IDEAS. 239

relation as the factor or tendency which in- PART n.
delibly impresses the one and self-same Type on -
every part of the intended Whole, and ever main
tains the typical Unity of the ideal Whole amid
all diversity and every changing variety in its
evolution.

ii. The second and opposite Relation is one of
the forms of Distinction; and it may be desig
nated as the Principle of Diversity, or the ten
dency to re-produce the original type ever as
another, though the same, in all possible novelties
of form which are compatible with the retention
of the constructive Idea. Distinction implies
the explication and exhibition of all latent rela
tions of any yet undeveloped Subject : — and
hence, as the unbalanced tendency to Unity
could produce only a monotonous sameness, it
is counteracted in this conspiration and an
tagonism of forces by an equal tendency to
Distinction by diversifying the original Type.

iii. The third Relation, also a form of Distinc
tion, but claiming a characteristic difference from
the last-described, may be named the Principiwni
Individui. Its tendency, or the tendency thus
named, is to integrate each act of diversity into
an Integer, dependent indeed upon the whole of '
which it is a part, but claiming a relative self-
subsistency. It may thus become, or has the
capability of becoming, a Sub-Type of the original
Type, which it represents in a new form of exist
ence, and may thus be transmuted to a secondary

240 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii centre of a whole, which, repeats under varied

Chap. III. -, ., T n i

conditions its progenitor ; — and it may be added
that such successive cycles of being, ever another
though typically the same, alter et idem, may,
according to the Idea, be limitless.

In considering the function of the second form
of Distinction, it cannot but be seen that the ope
rative factor which has been described as the main
element in totalising or completing a whole, namely
the Unitive or Integrant, has here assumed the
form of the Distinctive, and works in the service of
Distinction. As we have had occasion to remark
in describing the second form of Distinction, the
Principium Individui (as we have agreed to name
it) operates as the tendency to integrate each and
every act of diversity into a relative Integer or
Whole in itself— in other words an Individual :
but in so doing the individualizing tendency
would, if not counteracted, produce the separa
tion of the individual from the whole of which it
is essentially a part, and thus convert the part
into a self-subsistent entity. The appointed and
adequate remedy for this illegitimate aberration
lies in the fourth relation of ideal construction,
to which we now invite attention.

iv. The fourth relation is again a form of
Unity, which, for want of a better name,
we may call the Principium or Lex Continui.
It is the tendency to counterbalance, or to
counteract any excess of, the tendency to diver
sity ; and this by the harmonious adaptation of

IDEAS. 241

every component part to the whole originally
projected, and contemplated in the antecedent
unity of the type out of which it proceeds. In
the primary relation we contemplate the Unity
as antecedent and prospective; in the present
relation as resultant, or operative to the resulting
totality. By the former we are enabled to
behold the unity of a causative type, which is
One-in-All; by the latter the unity, which is
derived from the achievement of the All-in-One.

But as, with reference to the antagonistic
relation, I had occasion to remark that, under
the influence of the Principimn Individui,
the Integrant or unific force becomes dis
tinctive and assumes the office of Distinction,
by potentiating the several diversities into
individualities, — so here, mutatis mutandis,
under the operation of the Lex Continui or
totalizing process, the Distinctive force becomes
Integrant, namely, by adjusting the relation of
each participant to each other, and of each to
all, according to the governing Idea which
regulates the rank and proportions the power
of the constituents. And thus the Lex Con
tinui, even while heightening the distinctive
individuality, promotes the union and balanced
conspiration of the several and manifold parts to
a compact and coherent Whole.

v. The fifth relation, if it can be properly
so called, is the result of the interaction and
balanced operance of the four above described

VOL. i. R

242 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. factors in the fourfold relation which con-

Chap. III.

^stitutes their bi-polarity of opposite forces ;
operative, as we have seen, by the ever present
unity of a Type, whose oneness is continually
counterbalanced by a perpetual generation and
profusion of distinctive forms, and by the modi
fying influence unceasingly exerted by the oppo
site yet correlative processes of individualizing
and totalizing ; in order to the Synthetic Totality
of the organic Whole, in which the Typical
Idea, as the exponent of a fontal and causative
Will, reveals itself as a living reality in perpetual
unity and exhaustive distinction.

§ 18. In a retrospect of the last paragraph it
will be acknowledged that the Paradigm of Ideal
Construction, such as we have exhibited it, is no
less a Paradigm of Spiritual and national Inte
gration ; — that is, it shows convincingly in what
the ideal perfection of causative Will consists, as
guided and directed by the perfect law of Reason
in respect of the necessary and absolute form of
its operance. What the life and substance of
this "form" or formula of speculative Reason
may be, will appear hereafter connected with the
reality of the idea of rational Will already re
cognised in and by the facts of self-conscious
ness. That the scheme in question is that of
the Relations of Integration will be manifest
when we consider :-- that the first is Integra
tion, by impressing an integral unity of Type
on every conceivable part of the whole pro-

IDEAS. 243

ceeding from it ; — that the second, or opposite PART n.
relation, is Integration, by the exhibition of the -
typical unity in the exhaustive diversity of Dis
tinction ; — that the third, or individualizing
process, is Integration by the absolute tendency
in each to become a self-subsistent whole, or
Integer; — -that the fourth, or totalizing process,
in retort of the individualizing or separative
tendency, is Integration by the absolute tendency
to reduce all distinctive diversities to propor
tional parts of the whole affirmed in the ante
cedent unity of the typical Idea ; — and thus it
will be acknowledged that the same Principle
of Integrity, which animates the genetic Type,
impels it to manifest itself in an exhaustless
progeny of Distinctions, and at the same time
is operative in each and all in order to achieve
and perfect the Totality, which is the counter
part and living product of the parent Idea from
which it proceeds.

It will be seen, moreover, that those several
relative acts are all in principle the same, — each
of them, namely, being a Will-act in order to
realize in the moments what is purposed in the
total process, unity in distinction and distinction
in unity. And it follows that each is thereby
rendered capable of becoming, or of being trans
muted into, its kindred other. In Distinction
Unity becomes objective, and in Unity Distinction
becomes subjective. And whilst in the moment
of Individuality Unity becomes a form of Dis-

R 2

244 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. tinction, in order to integrate the parts, in the

Chap. III.

corresponding moment of Totality, Distinction

passes into a form of Unity, which is but the
reflux of the Unity which gave birth to the
Totality. Thus ever " idem gignitur alter" and
the same Will, which appears differenced into
forms is recognised as the same abiding sub
stance under all change. And I close with
the remark that these acts or moments, whether
simultaneous or successive, are essentially above
the conditions of Time, and are necessary "forms''
of spiritual integration, alike in the fontal and
highest Idea, and in all the ideal constructions
that may be derived from the Idea Idearum.

CHAPTER IV.

DIALECTIC, Oil THE POLAR LOGIC, AND ITS OFFICE IN
THE CONVERSION OF CONCEPTIONS INTO IDEAS.

§ 1. IT may be assumed that the formula of PART u.
Polar Logic which we adopt from Coleridge's
statement (Common Place Book No. 3) is an
adequate description of the Relations, or ele
mentary factors, required in the Polar Logic in
order to the conciliation of Opposites and, in
perpetuating their distinctions to secure their
unity; viz: —

Identity.

Thesis. Indifference. Antithesis.
Synthesis.

It is true that in the preceding chapter the
full form of ideal construction has been pre
sented to the reader as a bi-polarity ; but all
such constructions are fundamentally uni-polar,
and become bi-polar only by differencing the
opposites, and it will be found that uni-polarity
is sufficient for most of the purposes of " polar
lo^ic." But it may be borne in mind that, in
the ideal construction which exhibits the ge
netic development of a Principle, every new
distinction may call forth a new opposite, and

246 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. therefore that which was primarily an uni-polarity
- is calculated to be a multi-polarity or system
of correlatives. We are here, however, only con
cerned with the opposition and conciliation of the
products of the understanding, which have been
designated as Conceptions.

And it may be added that the above formula,
as the Paradigm of Unity and Distinction, is
the universal principle of all relativity; for
however many the relations into which a One
may be differenced, all are but the modified
repetitions of the same original form. Compare
"Method of Spiritual Philosophy," MS.

§ 2. It may be stated generally that, as long
as we move in the reasonings ruled by the logic
of the understanding, Dialectic or a conflict of
positions is inevitable. It will be found that all
such truths of the understanding, or conceptual
truths, when considered by the light of ideal
truth, are but half-truths. Truth in its integrity
embraces two sides or relations; but if these sides
or relations, instead of being regarded as rela
tions complementary of each other, are assumed
to be exclusive opposites, the affirmation of either
of which is the denial of the other, we miss the
whole truth of which they are the components.
The Polar Logic is the instrument for disen
tangling the mind from this Dialectic, which is
imposed upon it by the inalienable mechanism
of the understanding, as the faculty judging
according to experience ; and we are only relieved

DIALECTIC. 247

from it by an appeal to the integral Idea in PARTII.
which the conflicting opposites have a ground
of reality.

And notwithstanding that it would be diffi
cult for a determined partizan to believe an
opponent, who holds views diametrically oppo
site to his own, to be otherwise than absolutely
wrong, yet instances may be easily adduced of
a conciliatory solution of party strife, as far as
conflicting opinions are concerned, whether in
politics or religion. Thus "Whig " and "Tory,"
" Liberal " and " Conservative," have been the
watchwords of parties engaged in perpetual
hostility ; but notwithstanding the apparently
extreme opinions (or "principles" as they would
call them) of both, it will be found, in tracing
the offensive watchwords to their ideal source,
that they really mean the two essential elements
or principles of every well-constituted state, and
which, each implying the other, are necessary
correlative factors of its weal and safety,— that
they represent, namely, the combined interests
of Permanence and Progress. Separate these
twin factors from their legitimate union, and
they become, to use an expression of Heraclitus,
"portals of death" in the forms of rigidity and
dissipation;— the one party perpetuating, or
tending to perpetuate, with what is excellent,
that which is perishable and worthless ; and the
other, if unchecked, tending to ceaseless inno
vation and to the restless chase of untried and

248 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. short-lived novelties. See the Idea further de-
— — ^ — - veloped in Coleridge's " Church and State."

§ 3. The principle, under which the union or
combination of Opposite Relations is effected,
is one of universal import. In looking to the
unintelligent powers of nature the law will be
found universal, that all powers manifest them
selves in Opposite Forces. Here, on the other
hand, we have to consider the like principle in
the form of intelligence itself, and as belonging
to self-conscious mind in the acts and process
of the Discourse of Reason. And, we might
designate the sort of logic now under considera
tion the Logic of Reason. It is the process for
disentangling the mind from the inevitable
Dialectic imposed upon it by the forms and
mechanism of the Understanding, — which, as the
faculty of reasoning by means of " Conception,"
is opposed to Reason, as the faculty of reasoning
by means of " Ideas."

So true is the principle here implied, that,
without any conscious appreciation of the aid
derived from polar or ideal logic, it has reached
and influenced, as we should say by the force
of common sense, the ordinary judgements of
mankind. Nay, it would seem as if a certain
gratification, akin to .the pleasure afforded by
a witty saying, attended the statement of a
truth as a paradox. Thus Fuller — a worthy
among " the worthies " he has so ably deline
ated, in describing " the good Wife," tells us

DIALECTIC. 249

" She commandeth her husband in any equal PART n.
matter by constant obeying him." He adds, •
" She never crosseth her husband in the spring
tide of his anger, but stayes till it be ebbing-
water." The mode of conciliating the contrary
conceptions of " command " and " obedience, "
so as to justify an unity of thought combining
both, is here sufficiently indicated. But it is
not difficult to conceive generally, that to op
pose one, who has the power and will to enforce
mandates, issued under the red-heat of a fit of
impetuous self-will, or sullenly maintained under
the sense of offended dignity, would be not only
vain, but likely to increase his resistance and
obduracy. And, on the other hand, it is to be
expected, that to wait patiently " till it be
ebbing waters," to bear meekly the insolent
provocations of fitful moodiness, and to culti
vate the habit of yielding even to unreasonable
assertions of supremacy, cannot fail to beget in
the lordly claimant a confidence that the pride
of power and the jealousy of authority will not
be encroached upon by rebellious resistance, and
may favour occasions of cooler and calmer temper
for the exercise of those winning arts of per
suasion which a loving wife knoAvs how to use
and profit by, especially if aided by the regret
of a fond husband consequent upon a sense of
his abuse of power. And thus " the good Wife,"
in learning to rule by submission, may teach us
to reconcile and unite the contrary .conceptions

250 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. of Command and Obedience, with the lust ex-

^A/V-M TV

— pectation of a marital peace perpetually ratified
by mutual forbearance and concession.

Again, it is put forth as a maxim that " Cre
dulity is the strength of a child." But to be
lieve everything is mere Weakness : — how then
without contradicting ourselves can we say that
Weakness is Strength? We may be reminded, how
ever, that to believe nothing would be analogous
to a case of congenital blindness ; — the faculty
either of sight or intelligence, would be deprived
of the very conditions, under which it attains to
the due performance of its appointed office. The
Child needs both the exercise and the materials
of thought in order to acquire vigour of intellect,
and the only conceivable mode of acquisition is
a belief, even to the excess of credulity, which
leads him to take on trust whatever is com
municated to him. Doubt is, or ought to be,
the after-process; for to begin by doubting is
to refuse our intellectual food, and to insist
upon intellectual inanition. But the polar logic
teaches us that, although Weakness as Credulity
is put in contradictory opposition to intellectual
Strength, the two opposite conceptions may be
united in the " Idea " of invigoration by indis
pensable submission to the influences of nourish
ment and excitants from without.

We may not unfitly introduce here by way of
illustration the dictum of Aristotle, that, Every
virtue is the mean of two contrary vices;

DIALECTIC. 251

ex. gr. : that courage is the mean of reckless- PART n.
ness and cowardice. It may be said generally -
that a mean partakes of two things, or attri
butes of things, opposed to each other, and
may supply a balance which tends to prevent
the excess of either. Over-daring easily passes
into recklessness of danger, and over-caution
into timidity ; but courage (when genuine, that
is) boldly confronts a danger, but duly counts
the cost of attack or defence, guards against
excess in either direction, and combines prudent
caution with unquellable daring. But it is to
be observed that the dictum of Aristotle is not so
to be understood, or so to be accepted if such
were his meaning, that courage (as the example
of virtue generally) is a combination of its
possible excesses; — it is not a " synthesis " of
recklessness and cowardice, but of two opposite
tendencies, each of which, if unbalanced by the
opposite and countervailing tendency, would
necessarily become the excess which is designated
as a Vice.

§ 4. Without entering further into the distinc
tion which Coleridge has drawn between Reason
and Understanding, it may suffice to quote
the following from his " Aids to Reflection;" —
"Understanding in its highest form of ex
perience remains commensurate with the notices
of the senses; "—[or rather, I should say, with
the notices of the inner and outer sense;]
— " Reason affirms truths which no sense could

252 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. perceive nor experience confirm. Yea, this is
- the test and character of a truth so affirmed,
that in its own proper form it' is inconceivable.
Por to conceive is a function of the Under
standing, which can he exercised only on
suhjects subordinate thereto. And yet to the
forms of the understanding all truth must he
reduced, that is, to be fixed as an object of
reflection, and to be rendered expressible. And
here we haye a second test and sign of a truth
so affirmed, that it can come forth out of the
mould of the understanding only in the disguise
of two contradictory conceptions, each of which
is partially true, and the conjunction of both
conceptions becomes the representative or ex
pression (= exponent) of a truth beyond con
ception and inexpressible. Examples : Before
Abraham was, I am. — God is a circle, the centre
of which is everywhere, and circumference no
where. — The Soul is all in every part." *

§ 5. In order to render the import of the
above quotation fully intelligible in its bearing
upon the whole argument, it will- be desirable
to recal the reader's attention to the truth
already stated, that the so-called " Categories of

* It may be right however to apprise the reader that, as I have shown
in greater detail elsewhere, I do not accept the latter part of the extract
without considerable qualification; for if it be in the main true that
spiritual truths cannot, strictly speaking, be " conceived" (i.e. that they
are not " generalizations ") yet it is scarcely consistent to say, as Coleridge
does, that such truths must be conceived and yet are " beyond concep
tion and inexpressible." (See foot-note at page 258, and also § 11.)

DIALECTIC. 253

the Understanding" are undeniably principles PART n.
of Speculative Reason. And the additional
evidence, which I propose to offer, will better
enable the reader to satisfy himself how the
Dialectic in question arises, and how the Con
tradictions, in which it consists, may be effectu
ally resolved into truths of Reason.

Our argument throughout assumes and implies
that the Reason, as the organ of spiritual truths,
is the opposite or countervailing power to the
Understanding, and by its inherent tendency
to Ideal Integration turns at once from the
merely empirical to those truths which tran
scend all experience sensible and psychical.
Reason contemplates, in that which is under
the conditions of Space and Time, that which
is boundless and eternal ; in a world of flux
and change, the permanent and immutable ; in
a world of relations, the supra-relative; in a
world of dependencies, the unconditional and
absolute; in a world of imperfections, the in
tegral and perfect.

It will not be out of place here to remark
that, in most of the above instances (and others
might be mentioned) the terms used are Nega
tions of the empirical forms from which they
are derived. Nor is it to be wondered at that
the human mind should thus afford evidence
of its struggles to release itself from the bondage
of the senses, and from the tyranny of appear
ances, in its aspirations after higher truth and

254 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. insight of true being. Thus in such terms as
-' eternal, absolute, infinite, ineffable, inconceiv
able, incomprehensible, and the like, as they
apply to spiritual truths, the Reason assumes
a negative character: — but in its proper and
positive character, though here still considered
as speculative or simply intellectual, it is the
power of Integration, of beholding the Absolute
and Perfect, and of integrating thereby the merely
relative and imperfect forms of Experience.

§ 6. It will be recollected that the so-called
Categories were introduced to the reader in
the first part of this essay as Concipiencies or
Forms of Conception, indispensable in the
acquirement of experience sensible and psy
chical. And though it was then suggested that
they were in truth Forms of Reason, and only
intelligible as supersensuous principles by its
light, we may now, after the investigation of
Will as the source of spiritual knowledge,
proceed with the confidence that the requisite
explanations will be fully comprehended. It
is then here again affirmed that the Categories
are really forms of Reason or speculative
truth; — that, when used in the service of the
understanding, they are only applicable to Con
ceptions, as generalized from the notices of the
senses, or as derived from psychical changes ;
but that under the dynasty of Reason, to which
they properly belong, they assume the higher
potence or power of designating the modes of

DIALECTIC. 255

conceiving Spiritual 'Realities and supersensuous PARTII.
Verities.

Thus Substance and Accident, as used by the
Understanding, is the concipiency of the co-
inherence of attributes or qualities, which we
attribute to any total impression conceived as
an Object and represented as an unity of thought
by means of a generic name. But, for the
Reason, Substance is a Noumenon, a spiritual
and abiding ova-la, opposed to its manifold and
changing Phenomena : and as we have found
in the investigation of self- consciousness it is
derived from the Idea of "Will," recognised
in ourselves as the essential condition of our
spiritual reality, and contemplated by the Reason
as the universal ground of Being.

Again, the category or concipiency of Cause
and Effect is used by the Understanding as
the indispensable mode of conceiving an invari
able connexion, dependency, or sequence of two
phenomena, of which one is described as the
Antecedent, and the other as the Consequent.*
But, for the Reason, the Causative, instead of
being the expression of mere antecedency or
primacy in order of thought, is the essential

* The notion of Time in the relation of Antecedent and Consequent
has produced an unnecessary difficulty even from the point of view of
the Understanding: for the designations of Antecedent and Con
sequent, properly conceived, are derived not from sequence in time but
from order of thought, that is, by assigning primacy to the antecedent,
and dependency to the consequent ;— it is a question of rank and not of
time.

256 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. Principle of Origination and absolute sponta-
- neity which we name " "Will," opposed to
" Effects" which are the objects of experience
and the outward signs derived from the super-
sensuous originant. It will be found then that
the Idea, indicated by "Cause" or the causa
tive, is but another aspect of the same idea,
which we contemplate in " Substance ; " and
that the spiritual truth, when ideally integrated,
is that which is enunciated in the position " Ab
solute Will as causative of all reality."

Thirdly, the category of WJiole and Parts is
conceived by the Understanding as a sensible
Whole, the sum of whose parts constitutes its
Totality. Eor the Reason, on the other hand,
a Whole is the result of a Power, or antecedent
Unity, which is productive and conservative of
the sensible sum total of parts, and is whole and
entire in each and every part.* It is for Reason
the great principle of Unity and Distinction, of
which we have exhibited the factors in the
Paradigm of Ideal Construction and genesis
(Chap. iii. § 17.) And here again it will be
found that we are really contemplating, though
in another phase, the same great Idea as before.
In " Substance" we regarded it as the per
manent and abiding ova-la, in "Cause" as the
genetic and originant. And now in the " Whole
and Parts," we regard it as manifested and

* As the schoolmen say, " Ubi anima est, tota est, tota in toto, et
tot a in qudlibet parte."

DIALECTIC. 257

realized in a sphere of organic being, in which PART n.

T, ,. ,.,. Chap. IV.

the Idea, as causative power, abiding substance, -
and constitutive energy, is evolved and set forth
in its unity, totality, finality and permanent
efficiency. Vital Dynamics, Preface, p. xxv.

§ 7. If then Reason is compelled to adopt the
language of the Understanding; — and such is
unavoidably the case ; for we have no other
language than that which consists of "Words
expressing Conceptions which are generalized
from the notices of the senses and from empi
rically observed psychical changes ; — and if the
meaning intended to be conveyed have reference
to supersensuous truths, of which the Under
standing can take no cognizance, except in its
own empirical forms, wholly unsuited to the ex
hibition of spiritual truths ; — then, I say, it can
not fail that, in the attempt to express what is
spiritual in language, which is suited only to
objects belonging to empirical cognition, contra
dictions will arise. "And yet," as Coleridge
truly says, " to the forms of the Understanding
all truth must be reduced, that is, to be fixed
as an object of reflection, and to be rendered
expressible;" — in other words spiritual truths
must be submitted to the categorical moulds of
the Understanding, but in undergoing the pro
cess "they come forth in the disguise of two
contradictory conceptions." The Reason strives
to express, or to obtain the exponent of an Idea ;
but the Understanding or logical faculty can

VOL. i. s

258 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. supply only conceptual forms ; and the Reason,

Chap. IV. , ii'

- in order to obtain the exponent it needs, uses -
conceptions, which, in contradicting each other,
suggest the ideal truth aimed at.

It may be remarked, however, that Coleridge*

* Coleridge's statement (that an " Idea " appears in the disguise of
two contradictory " conceptions/5 but is itself " inconceivable and in
expressible ") seems to require elucidation ; especially when coupled with
a previous assertion that ideas must be conceived in order to be objects
of reflection, i.e. of thought. Perhaps C.'s view might be more clearly
and correctly stated.

" To conceive " is a function of the Understanding, i.e. of the sub
jective mind: — it is the universal and necessary form of "thinking,"
of every intellectual act of conscious presentation : — to conceive is to
" generalize " and " name," that is, to refer to the proper genus or
kind whatever may be affirmed to be the result of experience.

The question to be considered is, in what relation does an Idea stand
to the Understanding so denned ? If we can only think by means of
" conceptions," it would necessarily include the thinking of Ideas and by
means of Ideas : but this implies that Ideas are " results of experience."
Is this so ? We have throughout repudiated the notion of an " idea "
being a result of experience, and have contended that it is a truth
of Reason a priori, and not empirical or a posteriori.

Now in order to obtain a sound view it must be borne in mind that if
every logical act be necessarily a " conception," and therefore would
include an " idea," and yet that an idea is not to be deemed a result of
experience, it may turn out that " experience " is here an equivocal
term, meaning, on the one hand, that which is empirically derived, and
on the other that which is spiritually derived. With this proposed dis
tinction empirical experience would consist of conceptions representing
the impressions of the outward senses and the notices of the inner
sense ; while spiritual experience would consist of conceptions, arising
from reflection on the forma formantes, the a priori powers, which are
original and inherent in our mental and spiritual constitution.

Now what is, briefly, an " Idea " ? It is a spiritual act of rational
Will, which may be described as genetic and integrant, and which
depends upon the power communicated by the Logos to enlighten and
enliven the human mind thereto. We may be said to be inspired by the
divine Reason in and by those specific acts which we call Ideas. They
are or operate in us, but are not derived from ourselves : but when they
act in us, we become conscious of their operance, they become objects of

DIALECTIC. 259

calls such a truth "beyond conception and inex- PARTII.

1 Chap. IV.

pressible ; " which sounds paradoxical, and seems -
inconsistent with the statement previously made,
that they must he "conceived" in order to be
objects of reflection: but although it is quite
true that such spiritual verities (Ideas) are in
their own form and proper force " inconceiv
able " and " inexpressible," - for they are
"spiritual truths spiritually discerned," and can

reflection, and this by being " conceived." We thus have, or form, a
conception of an Idea ; but the Idea is not itself a conception, but a
power of intelligence, which exists independently of the human mind
conceiving it and actuated by it.

That we do so conceive of an Idea is a fact. For we have had ex
perience of it ; and we refer its operance and forms of operance to their
appropriate sorts and kinds under an appropriate name or designation.
Thus we recorded our "conception" of the Idea KaT^oXr]v in the
Paradigm of Ideal Construction. But we have found that the forma
formanfes of this ideal construction present themselves in the so-called
Categories, enumerated under the heads Substantiality, Causality,
Unity and Distinction ; and therefore (when understood spiritually) that
ideas must be considered under one of these heads.

Thus when an Idea is conceived,' it is thereby referred to its right
genus or kind, and so with respect to all spiritual truths or experiences :
But, although we must have a conception of an Idea in order to
"understand" it, the conception or thought of a thing is not the thing
itself, not the reality, but the mental representative of that reality or real
thing. Hence, though we have a conception of an Idea, an Idea is not
a conception because a reality, and in this sense may be said to be " in-
conceivable." Though I cannot but think that the term is at least
equivocal, since not to conceive it would be the unavoidable mode of not
understanding it, or of its not being an object of thought at all.

But, according to Coleridge, when conceived, it comes out of
moulds of the Understanding in the disguise of two contradictory con
ceptions. True ! as our examples undeniably prove. That is, when
expressed as empirical conceptions, they conflict; but when understood
spiritually, or as conceptions derived from spiritual experience, they
become correlatives, or complements of each other. How this is to be
satisfactorily explained, is considered in a succeeding section. See § 9.

s 2

260 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. be only truly apprehended in and by the light

3. I- V .

of Reason, — yet, in as far as they are, and must
be, distinct objects of thought in the mind of
the subject reflecting upon them, they must be
"conceived," and they can be conceived only in
the forms afforded by the categories or concipi-
encies of the Understanding. But it is ever
to be borne in mind that the conflicting
conceptions so obtained are not real, that is,
irreconcileable contradictions. They are " in
the disguise" of contradictions; and as soon
as the categories are apprehended in their
spiritual significancy, the contradiction vanishes
under the influence of the intermediating
Idea, and the hitherto apparently antagonistic
factors are reconciled as correlatives of the same
truth.

Hence then it may be affirmed with truth
that, in this Dialectic, a truth of Reason, when
expressed in the forms of the Understanding
(and only such are available), must be conveyed
by contradictory " conceptions ; " and that we
reach the apprehension or obtain the "exponent"
of that which in its own form is inconceivable
and inexpressible, by means of Opposites, which
would exclude each other, were they not com
prehended in a higher truth which includes
them both. That the collision between con
ceptions and ideas should take place in the appli
cation and use of the Categories, is only what
might have been expected from the fact that

DIALECTIC. 261

they are the forms at once of spiritual intuition PART n.
and of empirical and mediate cognition, in and
by which (Concipiency being enlightened by
Reason) ideas become forms of conception, and
conceptions are converted into the ideas from
which they originated.

If then the Reason is compelled (and such, I
repeat, is the fact) to use the language of the Un
derstanding in conveying its meaning, and this a
meaning which is opposed to that of the under
standing, it cannot be otherwise than that con
tradictions arise, which it is incumbent on the
Reason to correct. Thus, to take two of the ex
amples which Coleridge has supplied, and which
relate to forms of Sense, namely, Time and Space.
The first is : — " Before Abraham was, I am :" —
in order to express in the language of Sense
that which is eternal, a-%povov, timeless and above
time, it must-be said, the Eternal is that which is
at once Past, Present and Future, or that which
is ever Present in the endless Past and the end
less Euture ; — a contradictory puzzle on which
the mind entangled in the mazes of the empirical
faculty might for ever muse, were it not for ideal
truths, which are under 110 conditions of time,
the same now, yesterday and for ever. The
second, to which I allude, relates to Space, and
is thus worded : — " God is a circle, whose centre
is everywhere and circumference nowhere."
Truly a magnificent account of an impossible
circle, were it not that thereby the idea is

262 SPIKITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. awakened of a Spiritual Omnipresence, whose

Chap. IV.

power and operance transcend the conditions of

space.

§ 8. Let us pass to the problems, which are
offered by the Categories. 1st. Substantiality. If
I have to state what " Substance " is for the
apprehension of Reason in the language of the
Understanding, I might say, " It is that in which
the properties which constitute the conception of
a sensible Object, coinhere, but which is itself no
possible object of sense or cognition ; or I might
say, " It is that which remains as the Object after
all that makes it an Object has been removed."
Contradiction can scarcely go further : but for
Reason there is no contradiction in positions such
as these ; for if, as I have contended, Substance
be essentially Will, or derivatively from it a
principle of life, or any self-hypostatic power, it
would remain as the counterpart or correlate of
all sensible manifestations, even although these
were abstracted. The category in its spiritual
, significance (see § 6) means that "Substance"
is a Noumenon, a spiritual and abiding Ousia,
opposed to its manifold and changing Phenomena;
and, as we have found in the investigation of
self-consciousness, it is derived from the Idea of
Will, recognised in ourselves as the essential
condition of our personal reality, and contem
plated by the Reason as the universal ground of
Being.

Hence the Idea of " Substance " in its spiritual

DIALECTIC. 203

significance, as the universal ground of Being, PART n.
reconciles the conflicting positions, in which
Noumenon and Phenomenon, Substance and Ac
cident, a Thing and its Properties, are put in any
exclusive opposition to each other : — for if the
Understanding says, " It is either," or "It must
be one or the other," Reason replies, " It is and
must be both." And thus too the often-quoted
adage "Alter et Idem" without offensive admix
ture with the creed of Pantheism from which
probably.it was derived, and although expressing
apparently the self-contradictory position that
" what becomes another remains the self-same,"
is perfectly justified in the eyes of Reason under
the Idea of a Spiritual Ground, which necessarily
implies both. In the philosophical use of my
thology, the God Proteus was aptly considered
to be the principle of all things, who under
ever-changing forms, remained in spite of all
mutations always one and the same self-modifying
base of being and existence. And without admit
ting the incontrovertible truth which is contained
in the adage " Alter et Idem" how could we
assure ourselves of our own personal Identity,
or affirm our consciousness that amid the cease
less change, corporeal and mental, in which we
are hourly becoming another Self, we yet pre
serve in unchangeable identity the Self, which
as it came from, so will be restored to, the
heavenly Father in whose image it was originally
created.

264 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. 2d. Causality. Relying upon empirical facts,

IV,

the human mind cannot avoid the conclusion that
every event is necessitated hy an antecedent con
dition, which we call "its cause." But, on the
other hand, the human Will, conscious of its
power, rebels against a doctrine so uncongenial
to its own nature, and under the sense of freedom
asserts the doctrine of its own spontaneity.
But in this assertion the Reason in man feels' the
contradiction, which it involves, between Liberty
and Necessity ; and, whilst clinging to the belief
in his free will, man is sensible of the evidence
both in the moral and physical world of the ope-
rance of laws against which he vainly contends.
How then is this contradiction to be solved ?
If actuated by the Idea, which is calculated to
remedy it, he may express the discovery in the
enigmatical language of the understanding, in
saying that " Necessity is the indispensable con
dition of Freedom ; " and the consideration, that
lawless spontaneity is the bane of rational free
dom, would aid him in removing the obscurity
of the problem. The Idea, in which the appa
rent contraries of Liberty and Necessity find
their reconciliation and unity and become veri
table complements of each other, is that of Will
enlightened by Reason. Law in its highest form
of Necessity is Reason, and Reason is Truth
intuitive, self-evident, necessary. And it is in
the identity and unity of causative Will and
regulative Reason, that we contemplate Will

DIALECTIC. 265

that is to itself a Law, that is, Freedom and PART 11.
Necessity identified.

Under the contemplation of this Idea all the
contradictions imposed by the Understanding
under this category may be satisfactorily solved
according to their order and degree. Through
out the vast chain of physical causation, in which
every link of dependency is rivetted to its ante
cedent, Liberty is relatively potential and latent;
but yet, as we have found, in interpreting
causality according to the Idea, we are com
pelled to assume the "idea of Power," as ren
dered intelligible by "Will ; and even in creatures
far below intelligence, the existence of spontaneity
must be assumed, as testified by their peculiar
susceptibilities, and by correspondent impulses
to act under the excitement which provokes the
agency. Everywhere we find an analogon of
Will, if not rather the evidence of a spontaneous
agency, which is derived from "Will as the uni
versal ground of living nature.

In order to convey truly what Causation is
for the Reason, though expressed in the lan
guage of the Understanding, I must say, where-
ever the question of the free agency of the Will
is implicated, and in order to rid myself of the
consequences of an invariable and necessitated
sequence, — I must say, that the sequence, though
considered as unalterable, must be conceived also
as a perpetual beginning de novo, that is, as a
necessity which is also a spontaneity.-

266 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. It is too in contemplating the universal con-

Chap. IV. . .

ditions of physical causation that the question
again meets us in the form of a First Cause, and
of the grounds of its assumption. The law of
causation in nature implies, as we have seen,
for the faculty judging according to expe
rience, a necessitated chain, an endless series,
without the possibility of integrating it by any
absolute beginning. The instincts of Heason
lead the human mind, however, to attempt the
solution of the problem by assuming a "First
Cause," originant and predeterminant. But
this primal Causative, being assumed only as the
first link in the chain of dependents, falls there
fore under the law of causation, which it was
intended to rectify and complete ; and unless
causation is something other and more than
necessitated concatenation, the assumption is
tantamount to the assertion that the Originant
is the first necessitated link in the chain. It is
no doubt a palpable contradiction in terms, de
rived from the language of the understanding,
and really says that the Antecedent is a Con
sequent, But the position, when measured by
the Idea represented by it, means not only what
is perfectly compatible with truth, but conveys
the profound principle of " The Absolute Will,
causative of all reality, and there inclusively of
its own;" — and the reader, undeterred by the
fresh contradiction contained in the phrase causa
sui, cause of itself, derived from itself, as it were

DIALECTIC. 267

saying that a father is his own son, will only PART n.
find the exponent of the Idea of Will in the act -
of self-ponency, and will see a striking illustra
tion of the Dialectic now under consideration.

In like manner, if we turn our attention to
moral causation, the links in any historical chain
of events may be explained by the historian as
each having its causes and conditions in the
preceding; but the links in this concatenated
series are truly moral agencies, and therefore
each link contains its own spiritual conditions
in the free will of the agent. Again in the
phrase, used in our Liturgy, "whose service is
perfect freedom," there is a contradiction in
terms ; but when it is shown that true freedom
can consist only with entire obedience to the Will
of God, or under the universal conditions which
divine Reason imposes, it becomes a self-evident
truth that he only is free who voluntarily sub
mits to these conditions, and that he who freely
wills is free.

In like manner it is only by an Idea that we
can reconcile the conception of the operance
of a Special Providence with that of Human
Tree- Agency. It is said, and said truly, that the
very hairs of our head are numbered, and that
not a sparrow falls without the permission of
the all-wise Disposer of events. But how, may
we ask, can a government, which extends to the
shaping of the smallest event, be compatible
with individual freedom of Will ? . Or on the

268 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. other hand, how could we conceive the perfect
- adjustment of a whole of moral agencies, in
order to a final purpose, unless guided and
governed by divine power and wisdom? In
proposing these questions we seem to be pressed
under the weight of a dilemma, which bids us
decide, under the penalty otherwise of self-con
tradiction, that the affairs of this world are the
results either of Divine or Human Will. And
from this dilemma we should not be able to
extricate ourselves without the healing influence
of an Idea, which may conciliate and preserve
the claims of both. Por let me ask the reader,
what is human Will unless it concur and co
operate with the Divine Will? And this it
may, by obedience to a Will which is revealed
and made known by the light of Heason in the
conscience. If man act in concurrence with
the divine Will, he cannot fail to carry into
effect the designs of Providence ; but if, on the
other hand, he should lift his own self-will
against the almighty Disposer of events, and
vainly strive against Omnipotence, what else
can be the result but the baffled vanity and no
thingness of the attempt ? Homo proponit, Dens
disponit.

I do not pretend to remove the many diffi
culties which are connected with this subject, in
volving, as it does, the momentous topics of the
state of man, as fallen and probationary, of the
conflict of good and evil, and of the final con-

DIALECTIC. 2G9

quest of the latter in the process of redemption PART n.

T . , .,, Chap. IV.

— topics, which will engage our attention in a

future stage of our inquiry. But I venture to
insist upon the Idea (although offered here only
in the w^ay of illustration) of Divine Will ;
which, as the "Providence" of the world, may
be regarded as the complementary fact or of
human Will ; but which otherwise could be con
templated only as an unalterable destiny of man in
the tragic colouring of a " fixed fate," irrespective
of his moral exigencies as an individual Will.

3rd and last, Totality. This, as exemplified in
Coleridge's position, " that the Soul is all in
every part," belongs to our third category, or
that of the Whole and its Parts. Now in the
case which Coleridge has adduced, or in any
similar instance in which an Idea is and must
be expressed in the language of the Under
standing, I am unavoidably under the necessity
of combining terms or conceptions which con
tradict each other . I should be obliged to say
that the Idea of a Totality, or that which com
bines Unity and Distinction, is " a Whole which
is entire in every part," It is evident that, for
the faculty judging according to experience,
this is a blank contradiction ; since it is tanta
mount to affirming that each part is equal to
the sum total of all the sensible parts. But
the light of Reason dispels the puzzle; for the
Idea of the Totality, which it reveals, is not an
empirical result, but an antecedent and living

270 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. ,

PART ii. Unity, which must act totally, in the whole
- which it projects, and in every part which it
produces and disposes, as the One and indi
visible Spirit, which pervades, and acts in, each
and all of the components.

Examples, suited to illustrate the principle
here in question, have been adduced elsewhere.
But let the reader bring before his mind the
familiar instances of constructive genesis which
daily meet his observation in the products of
living nature. In looking at the manifold and
interesting varieties of Plants and Animals, he
cannot but acknowledge that each various sort
is distinguished by its characteristic Type of
construction, and that this Type is, was, and
ever will be, the pattern according to which the
plastic agent works, both in the organic whole,
and in every component part ; — and he will as
little hesitate to confess that the unity of purpose
contained in the type or pattern, in fashioning
the whole, cannot fail to mould every part in
harmony with the whole of which it is a con
stituent, and that in so doing the same unity of
purpose must be whole and entire in each and
all. And thus, says the celebrated Cuvier : —
" Tout etre organise forme un ensemble, un
systeme unique et clos, dont les parties se cor
respondent mutuellement, et concourent a la
meme action definitive par une reaction reci-
proque. Aucune de ces parties ne peut changer
sans qiie les autres changent aussi : et par con-

DIALECTIC. 271

sequent chacime d'elles, prise se*pare*ment, in- PART n.
dique et donne toutes les autres." ReV. du -
Globe, p. 95.

§ 9. Thus, then, as we have endeavoured to
show, when an Idea is expressed in and by
empirical conceptions, these conceptions conflict ;
but when the same conceptions are understood
spiritually, or as conceptions derived from spi
ritual experience, they become correlatives or
complements of each other. In order to the
satisfactory explanation of this seeming paradox,
let the reader be advised, that the Categories
or Concipiencies, so often adverted to, are used
in a twofold sense, as moulds of the understand
ing, and as forms of Reason, viz : — 1st, in the
service and with the meaning of sensible and
psychical experience ;— and 2ndly, in the service
and with the meaning of ideal or spiritual ex
perience; that is, by minting conceptions re
presentative of the intellectual forma far-
mantes which are inherent and d priori in
the Speculative Reason as a constituent of the
human mind. In the first case the conceptions
conflict, when they are used to express or re
present truths which transcend the faculty
judging according to sensible or psychical ex
perience. In the second case (when these con
ceptions are derived from spiritual experience,
that is, from the reflection of the mind on its
own inherent and original powers) they are
reciprocally the complements of each other.

272 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. And it is to be observed that the polar relations,
which mark the character of this correlation of
opposite conceptions, arise not out of the Under
standing, but out of the necessary form of the
idea: — for Reason implies the Polar Form, for
the indispensable purpose of securing what is
essential to its nature, namely, Unity and Dis
tinction ; and this will have been accomplished
when a genetic One distinguishes itself into the
correspondent factors, Integral and Differential,
and produces a Totality in which the Distinc
tions are preserved whilst the Unity is ever
secured. And it may be added that, if we con
template the Idea eminenter or at its absolute
height, the genetic One obtains its full signifi-
cancy and intelligibility in the identity of Will
and Reason ; this identity manifesting itself in
its dynamic co-factors or correlatives, as Thesis
and Antithesis ; Reason in the form of Will, or
Distinction in Unity ; and correspondently there
to, Will in the form of Reason, or Unity in Dis
tinction : — or we might say as descriptive of the
first "Distinctio se cohibens in Unitate" and of
the latter " Unit as se exMbens in Distinctione : "
— whilst in the Synthesis or Totality, we con
template the living perpetuity of Unity in Dis
tinction, and of Distinction in Unity.

§ 10, But in thus claiming for the moulds of
the Understanding the prerogatives of Reason,
and in detecting in them (as we have shown here
and on former occasions) the unmistakeable aids

DIALECTIC. 273

which the light of Reason has implanted in man, TART n.
in order to enable him to behold and apprehend -
intuitively the necessary and self-evident truths
which are the great privileges and essential cha
racteristics of his Humanity, we may worthily
and fitly bring our investigation to the close
which our inquiries in this chapter may have led
the student to expect, by pointing out that the
Idea, which the concipiency of Substantiality
discloses, when interpreted in its spiritual sense
and significancy, is that of the "Will contem
plated as the absolute ground of all-being ; — that
the Idea, contained in the concipiency of Caus
ality, interpreted in like manner, is that of the
Will as absolute Causality; — that the Idea, in
which the concipiency of Totality or of a Whole
and its Parts is grounded, is that of the Will as
the Realization of absolute Unity and exhaust-
less Distinction. It will not be necessary again
to remind the reader that the Idea of Will, so
conceived, whether as the absolute ground of
all being, or as absolute causality, or as both in
absolute Unity and Distinction, is the same Will,
and has for its indispensable condition the in
separable union of causative and originative
Power with Reason as the highest form of in
telligence ; and that so conceived, and appearing
in the several phases above specified, there is
but one ultimate ground, namely the WILL, as
the absolute Idea, and the sole and fontal Prin
ciple, of Speculative Philosophy.
VOL. i. T

274 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. §11. Before concluding this chapter, I owe it
: to the reader to state explicitly that I cannot
acquiesce altogether in the view propounded by
Coleridge in the quotation introduced in § 4 of
this chapter. It may be - a question, indeed,
whether in comparing the statement with expla
nations offered at other places in his works, it
ought to be taken so absolutely as it is here
affirmed ; but, in saying that " to the forms of
the understanding all truth must be reduced,
that is, to be fixed as an object of reflection, and
to be rendered expressible," and in then adding,
" And here we have a test and sign of a truth
so affirmed, that it can come forth out of the
moulds of the understanding only in the dis
guise of two contradictory conceptions, each of
which is partially true, and the conjunction of
both conceptions becomes the representation or
expression (=exponent) of a truth beyond con
ception and inexpressible," — it can scarcely be
denied that the statement is at least paradoxical.
"With the aim, therefore, of rendering the state
ment more exact, if not more true, and of
avoiding the paradox that a truth, which is in
conceivable and inexpressible, must be conceived
in order to be expressed, and can only be con
ceived by means of two contradictory concep
tions, I have ventured to say, and have attempted
to show, that although an idea, or truth of
reason, must be " conceived " in order to be an
intelligible object of reflection and reasoning,

DIALECTIC. 275

yet. if conceived under the form of the categories PART n.

J Cluip. IV.

in their spiritual significance, such a truth may
be conceived and expressed without contradic
tion. I need not repeat that the contradiction
arises from the use of the categories to express
a spiritual truth by means of empirical concep
tions, and that the categories or concipiencies
have a twofold sense, empirical and spiritual.

There is another point, also, in which I have
ventured to offer a different account to that of
my honoured master, — that, namely, of the nature
of the distinction between reason and understand
ing ; though perhaps the difference does not
amount to more than respects the definition of
the logical term " kind." Fully agreeing with
him in the extreme importance of drawing a dis
tinction between .Reason 'and Understanding, yet
I hesitate to adopt unconditionally what he has
broadly stated in the " Aids to Reflection/*
that the Reason differs in kind from the Under
standing. Eor, although it may be true that
they do not fall under the same predicate, or
predicates, and may both be considered as species
of the genus "intelligence," we gain so little, if
indeed anything, by this merely logical treat
ment, that it appears to me greatly preferable to
consider the Understanding as the " Discourse of
Reason," and as the form of intelligence which
is adapted to the purpose of acquiring and
moulding empirical knowledge, and this by
means of forms (categories) borrowed from the

276 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART IT. Reason. And I dare hope that I have shown that
1 these forms are forms of Reason, and are essen
tially forms of spiritual experience, that is, of
knowledge derived from reflection on the inhe
rent powers of the conscious self, spiritual and
intelligent. Hence then it appears to me, that
the Reason is not to be opposed "in kind" to
the Understanding, but is far rather to be con
sidered as the supplement and complement of
the latter, and intended to correct the errors and
supply the deficiencies of the understanding, in
order to the integrity of human intelligence. If
we were to judge of supersensuous truth by a
faculty adapted only to sensible experience, and
were finally to rest on its decisions, we should
ignore and neglect the higher faculty of Reason,
which is intended to light us to the discovery
and contemplation of spiritual truths; and we
should reduce ourselves to a partial and abstract,
and consequently erroneous view, of those great
truths which it constitutes the essential cha
racter of our humanity to possess. We cannot,
indeed, in " reasoning " upon such truths, forego
the use of the understanding, as the form and
canon -of logical thinking; but, at the same
time we may convince ourselves of its inade
quacy by the partial and contradictory results,
which only we are enabled to obtain from a
faculty destined to serve, not usurp the office of,
Reason.

§ 12. In connexion with the foregoing, though

DIALECTIC. 277

perhaps enough has heen said on the subject, I PART n.
am tempted, before closing the chapter on Dialec- '
tic, to make some further remarks on the alleged

o

conflict of the attributes of being ; in respect of
which, especially when applied to the Supreme
Being, some grievous mistakes, arising from
neglect of the principles of our Dialectic, have
been committed, and these to the detriment of
philosophy and religion. The attention of the
reader has been already drawn to the subject,
ex. gr. on the use of the term " Absolute,"
Chap. iii. § 11 ; but its importance is a sufficient
apology for the additional notice here proposed,
even although some repetition may be unavoid
able. The source of the errors here mooted is
that in some philosophical schools it has not
been observed that a certain class of terms,
which are significant of, or meant to designate,
what is above or beyond " relations," are in truth
"relative terms," and have no intelligible mean
ing as applicable to realities, except when op
posed to, and conjoined with, a correspondent
and correlative term. Such are "Absolute" and
its correlative " Conditional," " Transcendent "
and its correlative "Immanent," "Universal"
and its correlative "Particular," "Infinite"
and its correlative " Finite," with some others of
like character. Nor is it difficult to see that it is
the faulty use of the understanding, to which the
error in question is chargeable ; namely, to treat
ing an abstract conception, intended only for the

278 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

n. use of the concipient, as the representative of a
- somewhat real and existing.

The foregoing observations will be, I think,
fully justified by a brief analysis of the con
ception of the "Absolute" or of that which is
conceived to be "absolved from," and raised
above, all conditions. It is scarcely necessary to
protest against the use of such a term as " the
Absolute ;" since grammar teaches us that, being
an adjective, it requires a noun substantive to
give it a consistent meaning. And yet when we
find in some schools of philosophy, of which the
Neo-Platonic and German are notable instances,
the attempt to conceive an absolute One Ground,
which transcends all possible distinction in itself
of being and intelligence, it induces the belief
that the term has been employed in a sense,
which can only suggest the straining after a
notion of something incogitable. Without enter
ing into details which are here unnecessary, but
referring to the "paradigm of ideal construc
tion " given in Chap. iii. § 17, I may remind the
reader that the Idea of Will (i.e. Will enlightened
by Reason) necessarily implies the process and
result of evolution into a living and organic
Whole at the utmost conceivable height and
perfection of Unity and Distinction. But the
height at which nothing higher can be con-
cived or imagined implies a One (principle)
which is absolute; both as antecedent unity,
containing and producing the absolute fulness

DIALECTIC. 279

of distinctions and distinctive relations, and at PARTII.
the same time as the absolute integrant or -
unific, throughout the process, of all the dis
tinctions which it produces ; — and thus absolute
in unity and distinction, the intensity of the
former is always and ever counterbalanced by
the exhaustless character of the latter. Nor is it
of slight importance for the student to bear
steadily in miitd the dynamic character of the
process, and that the factors are not to be con
ceived as mere results or unexplained data, but
as co-efficients and forces working always under
the condition of a balance; — for otherwise the
insuperable necessity of the correlation of the
factors, which we may call integral and differen
tial, would be inexplicable ; though, when the
factors are found to be forces, it is self-evident.
And thus, as I have said elsewhere, under the
idea of a necessary balance, "every organic
whole, from the polyp up to man, indicates a
higher and more effective power of unity, and
therefore of more perfect individuality, in pro
portion as the parts are more numerous, yet at
the same time more various, each having a
several end." Vital Dynamics, App. p. 59.

But if, 011 the other hand, neglecting the prin
ciple of ideal Dialectic, or ignorant of it, the
Understanding deals with the Absolute, it can do
no more according to its prescribed office than
form a conception or definition thereof, as that
which is wholly unconditioned, and beyond all

280 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. conditions and relations in respect of itself and
others. But should it impose this otherwise legi
timate conception on philosophy as a principle,
there may he readily anticipated what cannot
hut arise from the adoption of an abstraction
which is a mere counterfeit— that philosophy,
in taking for a principle what is wholly undif-
ferenced and without recognisable distinctions,
has embraced a shadow, a blank unreality, equi
valent to Null. Again, the understanding is no
doubt competent to deal with the distinctive
differences and relations which constitute the
conception of a Whole, as we have seen under
the category of a Whole and its Parts ; but here,
failing to discover the abiding substance and
connecting principle of the union, it leaves us
with the unanswered question, what is it from
which the manifold relations derive their meaning
and intelligibility.

Hence then it will be seen that a One without
distinctions is as unintelligible as distinctive dif
ferences without that which gives them unity3
and that the intelligibility and correspondent
reality of both depend upon the Idea which
combines them. Thus the "Absolute" becomes
or is a relative term, and only intelligible as the
correlative of the distinctive manifold of being
in which the undifferenced One is manifested.
And the "absolute," contemplated in this cor
relation, may signify the " supra-relative," as
raised above all finite relations of benis: and

DIALECTIC.

actual existence, and may designate that essen- PART n.
tial attribute or characteristic of Supreme Being
which expresses its transcendency to all forms
of relative being ;— every such form, under this
aspect, being considered a relative, conditional
and so far imperfect, representative of that
which, in the one Supreme Being, is absolute,
unconditional, and perfectly realized.

In connexion with the foregoing, it seems
obvious to inquire, whether a similar correlation
may not be found in the supposed antagonism of
"Immanent " and "Transcendent," as attributes
of Divine Being. In opposition to the doctrine
attributed to believers of the orthodox creed,
it has been strongly urged by German Pantheists,
that Deity is not " transcendent " but " imma
nent ; " — that is, that there is not a God, who,
as Creator and Legislator of the world, is to be
contradistinguished in personal being and attri
butes from His creatures ; but that Deity, as the
ever indwelling and abiding Ground of the Uni
verse, manifests itself wholly and perpetually in
an infinite succession of changing and varied
forms of being. Against the Christian whose
convictions above all lead him to contradistin
guish God from the world and not to confound
Him with it, the Pantheist urges that God's
transcendent operance would be an extraneous
element, incompatible with the required unity
of work and power, cause and effect. His doc
trine is that the Universe is only 'a process of

282 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. self-evolution, of which what is called Deity is

Chap. IV. *

- the indwelling power and principle. The origin
of Pantheism is uncertain, and it has assumed
various forms ; but for its influence on modern
thought we need seek probably no further than
the powerful philosophy of Benedict Spinoza.
He, guided by the category of Substance and its
Accidents, explains the universe, moral and phy
sical, upon the assumption that it consists wholly
of an unica substantia, whose attributes, Thought
and Extension, are adequate to account for all
modes of being and existence. To enter into
the controversy between Christian Monotheism
and Pantheism would involve the consideration
of Pantheism in its moral aspects, which we are
not prepared here to discuss. But it may be
observed that the controversy presents a case in
which truth requires the intervention of an Idea.
"Transcendence " and " Immanence " are terms
which, as regards God's relation to the world,
not only do not exclude, but (as will hereafter
appear) essentially require and imply, one
another, and find their reconciliation as correla
tives in the Idea of that supreme relation.

CHAPTER V.

THE SOUL, AS THE TOTAL SPHERE OF BEING OF
THE WILL.

IF the student shall have convinced himself that F ART n.
the Will is the essential primary and living -
principle of Man's conscious heing, intelligent
and moral, he may not at once see, or bring into
unity of conception, in accordance with the de
mands of a consistent philosophy, the conditions
of the total and actual sphere of heing and
agency, which the principle contains, compre
hends, and animates. Now in the preceding
chapters we have spoken of Thoughts, Volitions
and Peelings, as distinctive states of the Will
considered in its individual sphere of act and
heing. These distinctions will (somewhat modi-
fied) answer our present purpose. Of Thoughts
it will he unnecessary to speak, since it is evident
'that the -Will in any proper sense would cease to
he what we mean, unless conceived as indissolu-
hly united with intelligence. But I may here
ohserve that as the Will cannot he conceived
without intelligence, so neither can the opera-

281 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PAKT JL tions of the mind be dissociated from acts of the
Will : — witness the indispensable co-presence of
Will in all acts of Attention, Recollection, Judge
ment, and in our Convictions of general truths.
And confessedly, as I need hardly observe,
Volitions are acts of Will.

But, in connexion with our present object,
we desire to draw the attention of the student
to the remaining distinction, namely the Feel
ings ; — and if we consider these, in a general
sense, to be affections in which " the living sub
ject must at least so far know as to find or feel its
own state," * we may conveniently conjoin with
their consideration that of the corresponding
Impulses, in which the living subject is induced
or roused to more or less conscious and deliberate
acts of volition. Xow in connecting Peelings
and Impulses with the Will, as the causative
ground of the sphere in which they operate, let
me observe as a preliminary caution that we
dare not conceive even human Will as absolutely
originative of its sphere of being and agency, or
capable of originating any act unconditionally,
that is, except under the conditions imposed
by man's creaturely dependence. Without this
indispensable reservation, we might be justly
charged with elevating man falsely and impiously
into the dignity of the Creator. Man can only
occupy a sphere of which the limits are prede
termined. And hence, as the conditions under

* Vital Dynamics, p. 31.

THE SOUL.

which he exerts the relatively causative or ori-
ginant Will hy which he asserts and maintains
his sphere of act and being, we have to assign
to his "Will, in its self-ponency and agency, at
least these, — that, on the one hand, it requires
solicitation from without, and on the other, im
pulse from within. We may extend this position
far beyond what human psychology requires : —
In every grade of being in that scale which
culminates in, and is throughout rendered intel
ligible by, will and mind, the existence of the
living subject "must begin from itself — I do not
say caused by itself — and depends upon an appe
tence to be, or to fill a predetermined sphere;
— in other words, living existence implies a
subject, or power, which, actuated and directed
by the law or idea, becomes a causative agency
formative and productive; and this under the
condition of being excited to act, and at the
same time of resisting the excitant, as long as

v O O

it remains an alien power, either by repelling or
appropriating the same." (Comp. Vital Dyna
mics, p. 30.)

I have elsewhere ventured to characterise these
tendencies, under the names Excitability and
Resistance, as the correlative forces or factors
of life, — that is life psychical, and organic
as far it is psychical and for want of a better
name may be called " somato-psychical." In
pursuing the investigation of these tendencies
in their psychological aspect we find the intel-

286 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

ii ligible ground of the distinction of Desires and

L/iap. V .

- Aversions. Desire, excited by the sense or pro
mise of gratification, is the disposition to appro
priate, to have and to hold as its own, that
which the soul likes and lusts after : but if cupi
dity by its temptations leads the soul so far out
of itself, that it begins to apprehend the loss
of the self by outward dissipation, resistance
assumes the form of Aversion, and as it were by
a retractive effort recals the subject to its centre
in order to secure its being. But in this an
tagonism another is implied, namely that of
Susceptibility and Eepellence. Susceptibility is
the disposition which tends to give force to the
impress of the outward excitant, but at the same
time tends to secure the self; since, under any
excess of excitement threatening danger, it ra
pidly passes into fear of the hostile and alien,
and calls forth the reaction, which we have called
Bepellence, in order to resist or defeat the foe
or supposed assailant. Comp. " Pacts of Con
sciousness," p. 42. And if such be a true
account of the dispositions and tendencies of the
Psyche, we may sum up the preceding by say
ing : — That the "Will, contemplated in its essen
tial character as the tendency to realize itself,
having been traced to its root as the Appetence
to be, we have found that the Feelings and Im
pulses, by which the Appetence is necessarily
manifested, appear and may be best expressed
in the more general characters of Excitability

THE SOUL. 287

and Resistance ; and that these unavoidably take TAUT n.
the fourfold form designated above as Desire and -
Aversion, Susceptibility and Repellence. That
these are modes or forms of Will, as the source
of causative agency, can scarcely be doubted.
We recognise Will in its inalienable disposition
to realize itself, to be self-ponent ; — but this
self-ponency cannot be realized except in relation
to an Outward ; for which relation the only con
ceivable conditions are the condition of willing
to appropriate that which is congenial and has
excited the longing thereto, and the condition of
willing to resist or avoid that which threatens
or endangers the psychical sphere of agency. It
is true that, guided by spiritual experience, we
contemplate the Will no longer in its ideal free
dom of agency : but we do no more than con
sider it in its relatively active and passive states,
and this in consonance with data furnished by
facts of our conscious experience.

But having now explained, so far as our
present purpose renders necessary, under what
conditions we have to regard the Will as self-
ponent and constructive of its individual sphere
of being, I have to warn the student that he
must pursue this process of self-investigation by
a double method, which, we may name or distin
guish as the ideal and the empirical methods :—
that is to say, he will have to consider the
individual Will, or self-ponent Subject in respect
of the Will, as the principle of his Spiritual
being in its ideal integrity, divested of and

SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

"' attracted from all the hindrances and imper
fections which practically obscure and limit,
though they do not obliterate, its essential
character ; and, on the other hand, he will have
to consider the Will under the actual psychical
conditions, which detract from the purity and
integrity of its ideal excellence, but still are
essential constituents of the actual sphere of
being. "What we call the " Soul "is not perhaps
a term capable of very accurate definition, but
we generally understand by it, the immaterial
part of man, as contradistinguished from his
material and bodily part, which immaterial part
may survive the death of the corporeal and now
existing organism. But we have here to dis
tinguish in the "Soul" so considered, at least
two states or spiritual conditions which, though
correlative, are opposed to each other. The one,
is that which derives its character from the life
and light infused by the Divine Spirit, and this
state of moral potentiation and dignity we may
name the Spiritual. The other state, not less
essential, is that which man has by nature —
including understanding, the passions, feelings
and affections, which are common to man ; and
this state we may call the Natural. And we
may admit that the distinctions intended are
those which the Apostle Paul has happily
characterised under the terms " irvev^aTLKos " and
" iftvxiicot" or, as translated in our version of
the scriptures, the spiritual and the natural

THE SOUL. 289

man. It may be however remarked in making PAU-HI.
these distinctions, that we do not forget that the -
corporeal, or merely vital, is an essential element"
of man's existence, and cannot be disjoined from
the Soul, when considered in a sphere of actual
living agency. Hence says St. Paul, with great-
propriety, it is raised " in power," that is, with
the living principle of corporeal self- construc
tion ; and if we consider the living body in
its manifold inter-agency with the mind and
soul, we may add to the former the designation
somato-psychical, as marking the blending of cor
poreal life and mind.

Thus then, without attempting here either
proof or corroboration, we say that the Soul
is a Will, self-affirmed and self-ponent in its
individual sphere of agency. And although we
are not under the necessity of considering tho
Soul or Spirit as incorporated, we have yet un
avoidably to contemplate it in the two aspects
above mentioned. On the one hand, there is
the Spiritual or ideal mew, furnished by contem
plating in its ideal integrity the subject of our
self-consciousness, and presenting to us the Will,
when enlightened and enlivened by the Divinr
Spirit, as the individual Conscience and as the
principle of moral Freedom, that is, of acting
in unison with the Will of God. On the other
hand, we have to contemplate the same Will
under the empirical aspect, derived from the
conditions of its present actual and temporal

VOL. i. r

290 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

exis^ence; and this aspect discloses to us the
Will, under its impulses and affections, its desires,
passions, and propensities, as self-ponent in the
particularity of a self and its selfish particularity,
and hence in principle always, and in practice
ever more or less, at variance with, and in oppo
sition to, the Divine Will.

Now if we turn our attention, in this all-
important distinction between the Spiritual and
Natural Man, to the state and condition of the
latter in respect of his moral or spiritual cha
racter, it will he confessed that man by nature
(that is, as warranted by universal experience
of his present or temporal state of being) has
unmistakeably a propensity or proclivity to Evil
—a natural tendency to sully, alloy, or even
frustrate, the disposition to purity and goodness
which is no less implanted in him, and is de
rived from a higher and better source — a
tendency and radical impulse to assert and
realize his self-will with all the unhallowed
desires of its selfishness. What the causes and
conditions of human pravity may be it is not
my purpose here to determine. Sufficient for us
now that it is a fact, deplorable indeed, but uni
versally acknowledged ; and though we have
appealed to the authority of St. Paul in the
distinction drawn between the avQpcoTros ^vx^os
and TrvevftaTiKos, the pravity in question is not
only a Christian doctrine, but has been equally
accepted by the thinking part of the Gentile

THE SOUL. 291

world; — nay, in this distinction we recognise

the foundation of the religious philosophy which -
was one of the earliest growths of the human
Reason, namely the Zoroastrian, and which vin
dicated its power not only in its influence on
Judaism and on the Gnostic perversions of
Christianity, but retains its hold on heathen
worship to this day.

To some it may sound plausibly that vice and
moral corruption are the results and products
only of deteriorating influences acting on a
moral disposition originally pure and untainted
by evil. But a reflective mind will ask with
reason, what is then to account for the fact
of the contamination, and to explain the uni
versal tendency to the pravity in question?
More logical, indeed, is the denial of the exist
ence of evil and wickedness conceived in any
sense as real efficients ; and such denial is
doubtless more convenient to those who are
disposed to resolve the principles of moral good
and evil into mere statutory ordinances of the
Will of God, into human maxims of Utility,
into the results of human Peeling, or into
inevitable antagonisms in a scheme of pan
theistic Optimism, all, however, under the im
pression that there is nothing right or wrong,
just or unjust, by its own nature, and in and of
itself, according to the inviolable and eternal
principles and laws of the moral universe. The
sifting of the theories of Morals, or principles of

292 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PARS MI. ethical science, forms too large a subject for

Chap V. ...

- adequate discussion at this place, and could con
tribute little to the establishment of the facts,
which here press for admission. Meanwhile, in
vindication of the existence of natural pravity,
alleged to be capable of verification not only in
the conduct of mankind, but in the breast of
every individual who has the honesty and re
quisite discernment to put himself to the test,—
I venture to affirm, in aiding* the student to the
self-investigation here proposed, that, taking the
Will as the primal agent and source of agency,
he will be at no loss to discover, from the conduct
of others interpreted by reflection on himself,
that whenever man makes his own mere self-ivill
the sole arbiter of his conduct, and thereby
assumes the power and privilege of gratifying
his selfish lusts, he throws oif all moral restraint
and gives loose to his natural pravity. For taking
the extreme case as we are entitled to do, if the
propensity to the gratification of self be admitted,
it is impossible not to see that the selfish lusts,
in their various aspects of fraud, rapine and
violence, would acknowledge no bounds, and
could only end by producing an internecine
strife destructive of human society itself. Thus
then the conclusion, warranted by observation of
others and by self-examination, is, that the root
of human pravity is Selfishness, and that, whether
in the individual or in mankind at large, the un
restrained tendency thereto is, in respect of the

THE SOUL. 2DJ3

necessarily social conditions of human life, abor- I'AKT n.
tive and self-destructive.

On the other hand, the student in pursuing
his meditations, will no doubt consider, that
should the human Will submit to the condition of
willing only that which under like circumstances
may be universally willed, or, in other words, to
the condition of conforming his individual Will
to the universal Will, that is (as we shall here
after show) to the Divine Will and to God's
moral laws, it cannot but follow that the human
Will, eschewing all inordinate desires, evil pas
sions, and vicious propensities, will cultivate
peace, meekness, moderation, humility, patience,
justice, charity, and the virtues which tend to
preserve society and maintain social harmony.

These considerations naturally suggest the
survey of man in his spiritual aspect. But, be
fore proceeding to this necessary part of our
investigation, I may observe in this preliminary
account of the problem and results of Spiritual
Philosophy, I do not wish to go farther into the
question here mooted than to insist on the dis
tinction between the natural and spiritual man,
as the opposed tendencies which will be found
in every man;— on the one hand, the tendency
of the Will to assert its own particularity as
absolute; and on the other, the tendency to
spiritual integrity, as the disposition of the
human Will, when enlightened and enlivened
thereto, to conform its selfish particularity to

291 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART ii. the absolute and universal Will of the supreme

Chap. V.

- moral Governor of the world. And I offer the
foregoing and following observations as a satis
factory exposition of the distinction proposed with
a view to the safe interpretation of the facts of
consciousness. I shall not however hold myself
excused from a more searching inquiry into the
nature of Good and Evil, calculated to show
that the former is the principle of spiritual
health and life and integrity, the latter as the
principle of spiritual corruption, disintegration,
and death, whether in this world, or in that to
come.

According to the order which I have prescribed
for myself, I have now to direct the student's
•attention to a survey of Man in his Spiritual
Aspect ; and as I have said (pp. 287-8, ante) in
making this deliberate survey he will have " to
consider the individual Will, or self-ponent sub
ject in respect of the Will, as the principle of
spiritual being in its ideal integrity, divested
of and abstracted from all the hindrances and
imperfections which practically obscure and
limit, though they do not obliterate, its essen
tial character." It will be evident that in the
investigation before us, we shall have to move
in the region appropriated to the Speculative
Reason as the source of Ideas, And (as the
next part of this work will show) I do not de
spair of placing before the reader a Series of
Propositions, in which the main truths of Ideal

THE SOUL. 295

Integration arc exhibited by the Hylit of their PAIU n.
own evidence, and by means of which the un
avoidable demands of the speculative intellect
and of the rational mind may he satisfactorily
fulfilled and gratified.

END OP VOL. T.

LONDON : PRINTED BY
R. CLAY, SON, AMD TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL.

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