A student's history of philosophy

GDFT OF
Mrs. F. M. Foster

A STUDENT'S HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

A STUDENT'S HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

BY
ARTHUR KENYON ROGERS, PH.D.

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BUTLER COLLEGE

NEW EDITION, REVISED

Nefo gorfc
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1908

All rights reserved

•0**-

COFYKIGHT, I90Iy 1907,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and elect retyped. Published September, 1901. Reprinted October,
1909; July, 1904; July, 1905; January, October, 1906.
New edition June, 1907 ; May, 1908.

Nottoootf

J. 8. Gushing & Co. — Berwick A Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

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PREFACE

I HAVE tried in the present volume to give an account
of philosophical development, which shall contain the most
of what a student can fairly be expected to get from a
college course, and which shall be adapted to class-room
work. What I have attempted to accomplish will be
sufficiently covered in the following statements : —

i. The chief aim has been simplicity, in so far as this
is possible without losing sight of the real meaning of
philosophical problems. In summing up the thought of
any single man, I have left out reference to the minor
points of his teaching, and have endeavored to emphasize
the spirit in which he philosophized, and the main prob-
lems in connection with which he has made an impression.
Similarly, I have passed over many minor names without
mention, unless some literary or historical interest creates
the presumption that the student is already acquainted
with them in a general way. Of course, the relative space
that can most profitably be given to different topics is a
matter of judgment, and I cannot hope that my choice will
always be approved. But it is clear, I think, that the same
principle can hardly be used in an introductory work that
would suit more advanced students. I have tried con-
tinually to keep in mind the results that can reasonably
be hoped for from a college class. So, for example, the
mediaeval period is intrinsically of great importance. But,
from the standpoint of an introductory course, it has also
marked disadvantages, and I have, accordingly, only given
it a brief space. Similarly, I have not attempted to trace

M636393

vi Preface

the more technical lines of influence from one philosopher
to another, as they are almost impossible for the student
to grasp.

Whatever the success of the present attempt, I think
there is a place for a book with this selective purpose,
alongside such a volume as, e.g., Weber's. The attempt
to give a summary of all the important facts which a stu-
dent with a more technical interest in philosophy would
find useful, serves a valuable end, and an end with which
the present volume does not pretend to compete; but it
seems to me that the two aims are not altogether com-
patible in the same book. The wealth of material is
bound to confuse the beginner, no matter how clearly it
is put. I have attempted rather to create certain broad,
general impressions, leaving further details to come from
other sources.

2. Whenever I could, I have given the thought of the
writers in their own words, particularly where the literary
interest can be made to supplement the philosophical. In
this way it is possible to give the exposition an attractive-
ness which no mere summing up could have, and it will
often supply, I think, by its suggestion of the personality
back of the thought, a needed clew for the understanding
of the thought itself. I hope also it may be the means
of arousing an interest in the masterpieces of philosophy
at first hand, and may suggest that they have a really
human and vital side. The desirability of a considerable
amount of such reading at first hand it is hardly necessary
to insist upon. The literary interest is also responsible
for my giving one or two things an amount of space which
is perhaps not entirely proportionate to their philosophical
importance.

3. I have assumed that the study of the history of phi-
losophy will centre about the systems of individual men ;

Preface vii

but I have tried also to bear in mind the need of relating
these to the more general history of civilization. This
I have attempted through the medium of a somewhat
mild reproduction of the Hegelian philosophy of history.
Doubtless this might have been made much more attrac-
tive and illuminating; but I do not think that, given the
concrete knowledge that can be presupposed in the aver-
age student, it would be wise to attempt to make this
aspect of the study otherwise than subordinate in a text-
book.

In the lists of references which are added to nearly
every section, the aim has been to give such as the stu-
dent is likely to find helpful. The list might have been
enlarged indefinitely, especially by the addition of French
and German books ; but these can so seldom be made use
of by the college student to advantage that a reference to
them did not seem necessary. I have to acknowledge my
own obligation to very many of these volumes, perhaps to
Windelband most of all.

Acknowledgments are due to the following publishers
for their permission to utilize various translations of philo-
sophical works : Macmillan & Co. ; Geo. Bell & Sons ;
A. & C. Black ; Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. ; Cambridge
University Press ; Henry Holt & Co. ; Chas. Scribner's
Sons ; G. P. Putnam's Sons ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. In
several cases acknowledgments are due also to the authors
for a personal permission.

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION

IN the present revision I have corrected some errors of
fact, and a large number of mistakes of judgment and
infelicities of expression. In several cases the exposition
has been in greater or less part rewritten. I have also
added references in connection with passages quoted, and
have brought the bibliographies down to date. I have in
the revision tried to profit by the criticisms that have come
to my notice. I have not considered it advisable, however,
to add essentially to the fulness of the treatment, even in
the case of matters which in themselves are well worthy
of greater emphasis. Any number of things of interest
could have been brought in, but it seemed unwise to
increase the bulk of the volume. Of course the teacher
who uses it as a text will naturally in any case supplement
it to a greater or less extent. In the concluding sections
only has there been a slight expansion.

Most of my critics have recognized what were intended
to be the limitations of the book, and have not blamed me
too severely for failing to do what I have made no pre-
tence of attempting. That there was a legitimate field for
a work of the sort would appear to be indicated by the
kindly reception which has been given to it; and I trust
that it is now a little more adequate to its purpose.

CONTENTS

PACK

INTRODUCTION i

§ i. The Nature of the History of Philosophy. Primitive Con-
ceptions of the World i

I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY
THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD

§ 2. The Origin of Greek Philosophy 8

§ 3. The Milesian School Thalcs 12

§ 4. Heracleitus . . 14

§ 5. The Eleatic School. Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno . . 20
§ 6. The Mediators. Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus and

Democritus 24

§ 7. The Pythagoreans 33

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. TRANSITION TO THE
STUDY OF MAN

§ 8. The Sophists '.'.'.'. ... . .37

§ 9. 'Socrates '.'...'.'. . ' . . . 49
§ 10. The Schools of Megara and Elis. Aristippus and the Cyre-

naics. Antisthenes and the Cynics 59

• THC SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHERS

§11. Plato. The Academy 67

1. Ethical Philosophy 69

2. , Social Philosophy . . 82

3. .The.Nature oftKnowledge. The Theory of Ideas . 86
§ 12. Aristotle. The. Peripatetics 101

I. , Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology .... 102

2. Ethics, Politics, Esthetics 109

xi

xii Contents

THE LATER ETHICAL PERIOD

MM*

§ 13. Introduction ng

§ 14. Epicurus and Epicureanism 122

§ 15. Zeno. The Stoics 137

§ 16. The Sceptics . 160

§ 17. The Scientific Movement. Eclecticism. Philo . , .165

THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD

§ 18. Introduction . . 170

§ 19. Plotinus and Neo-Platonism 174

§ 20. Christianity. The Church Fathers. Augustine . .184

II. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE TRANSITION
TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY

THE MIDDLE AGES

§ 21. Introduction 197

§ 22. The First Period. Scotus Erigena, Anselm, Abelard . 202
§ 23. The Second Period. The Revival of Aristotle, Thomas

Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam . . .213

TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY

§ 24. The Renaissance. Bruno 223

§ 25. Bacon . » . 231

§ 26. Hobbes 242—

III. MODERN PHILOSOPHY
§ 27. Introduction • « . , 251

SYSTEMS OF RATIONALISM

§ 28. Descartes. The Cartesian School 257

§ 29. Spinoza ...» 278

1. Spinoza's Metaphysics 283

2. The Doctrine of Salvation 294

§ 30. Leibniz 305

Contents xiii
THE GROWTH OF EMPIRICISM AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PACK

§ 31. Locke 322

1. The Source of Knowledge 325

2. The Nature and Extent of Knowledge . . . 339

§ 32. Berkeley 346

§ 33. Hume 365

§ 34. The English Enlightenment. Deism. The Ethical Devel-
opment 386

§ 35. The French Enlightenment. Voltaire and the Encyclo-
pedists. The Materialists. Rousseau. Lessing and

Herder 395

GERMAN IDEALISM

§ 36. Kant 412

§ 37. The Idealistic Development. Fichte and Schelling . . 440

§ 38. Hegel 445

1. The General Nature of Hegel's Philosophy . . 446

2. The Stages in the Development of Spirit . . . 452

PHILOSOPHY SINCE HEGEL

§ 39. Schopenhauer 468

§ 40. Comte and Positivism 479

§ 41. Utilitarianism and Evolution. Spencer .... 487

§ 42. Conclusion 501

INDEX 507

A STUDENTS HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION

§ I. The Nature of the History of Philosophy. Primi-
tive Conceptions of the World

i. WHEN we at the present time first begin to think
about the world in a conscious and systematic way, we
discover that our thought already has a tendency to fol-
low certain general lines, which seem to us natural, and
sometimes almost inevitable. We find ourselves familiar,
e.g., with the conception of a world of nature — a world
wherein lifeless and unconscious bits of matter group them-
selves according to unvarying laws. There are a multitude
of words which we use in speaking of this material world
— thing or substance, cause and effect, force, law, mechan-
ism, necessity ; and we suppose, ordinarily, that these words
convey a well-defined and obvious meaning. In like man-
ner, there is the very different world of the mental or con-
scious life, described by such terms as will, intellect, feeling,
sensation. This also has laws which it follows ; only they
are what we call psychological, or logical, or ethical laws,
in opposition to the physical laws of the outer world.
Finally, while there is no general agreement in our ultimate
religious or philosophical attempts to sum up the facts of
reality, here too there are a few main attitudes, or types of
theory, within which our choice is confined, and which go
by such names as dualism, theism, idealism, materialism,
pantheism, agnosticism. We do not find it very difficult

2 A Student's History of Philosophy

to understand in a general way what these words mean,
even if we do not accept the theories for which they
stand.

These concepts, then, or notions which we frame to serve
as shorthand expressions for certain facts, or aspects of
reality, come to us with so little labor on our part, that
we often are tempted to regard them as self-evident, and
certain to present themselves as the manifest points of
view whenever men stop to think. But a little examina-
tion will show that this is a mistake. We are the heir of
all the ages in our intellectual life, and so can utilize the
results of those who have gone before us. In their origin,
however, these results were reached in no such simple way
as their obviousness to us would seem to suggest, but were
wrought laboriously with pain and travail. It is a com-
mon experience, after we have arrived at the solution of
some problem that has been engaging us, to be struck
with wonder that we should so long have been baffled by
it, when in reality the matter is so plain ; yet, as a matter
of fact, it did baffle us. Now every point of view from
which man regards the world, is thus at some period of his
history a hard-won acquisition. It may stand for a truth
— an obvious truth even — when it comes to be recog-
nized. But the mere existence of a truth is nothing to us,
until we have brought it into connection with the current
of our own experience and knowledge ; and this requires
special circumstances and conditions.

The History of Philosophy attempts to give an account
of the more important and comprehensive of these concep-
tions, in terms of which we are accustomed to think of the
world, and to trace the mental and social conditions out of
which they took their rise. It is an account of the growth
of man's power to formulate the universe. To give some
connected view of this growth is the object of the present
volume. But now, when we consider the field which it
covers, it will not be strange if there are to be found in
the History of Philosophy no such clearly visible lines of

Introduction 3

development as certain other branches of human knowledge
seem to reveal. When the subject-matter of investigation
is so enormous, we can only expect to approach the goal
by zigzag courses, hitting now upon one aspect of
the world, now upon another. In two obvious ways,
nevertheless, we may look for an advance. It may con-
sist simply in bringing to light some new point of view
which before had been neglected, in abstracting some
aspect of things which had not hitherto been clearly iso-
lated from the rest of experience. Or, instead of striking
out such a new conception, we may try to combine more
organically those which the past history of philosophy has
already succeeded in elaborating. Now, while progress in
philosophy follows no single well-marked path, and we are
very likely to lose our way on account of the infinite com-
plexity of the material, yet in both these directions it is
possible to discover a real development. The very con-
fusion of many points of view, which makes the introduc-
tion of order and unity so hard a task, is itself evidence of
the fact that a real development has taken place. Each of
these standpoints represents some significant feature which
the world presents ; and it is not till all the manif oldness of
the world has been distinguished, and grasped in an intel-
lectual form, that we are in a position to sum up our
knowledge so that it shall fairly represent the truth. And
in the other way, also, philosophy has progressed. Ideas
get a richer and more adequate content, systems become
more comprehensive, as thought proceeds ; and while they
may go by the same names as former systems, in reality
they mean something very different. In spite of its being
so frequently asserted, it is untrue that nothing definitive
has been the result of so much pains and labor. Many
opinions which were once dominant are now finally super-
seded, and no one but the amateur in philosophy would
think of going back to them. They are superseded, how-
ever, not in the sense that they have been proved entirely
false, and rejected, but in that they have taken their place

4 A Student's History of Philosophy

as a subordinate factor in a larger conception, and have
been interpreted in accordance with this.

2. If, now, we throw off the prejudices which we have
inherited from a long past of intellectual effort, and at-
tempt to look at life through the eyes of one who comes
fresh to its problems, we shall find ourselves in a new and
strange world. We get some notion of what this would
be, when we look at uncivilized man as he exists at the
present day. The sharp lines of cleavage into which, for
us, the universe divides, melt away into a vague whole of
indistinctness and intermixture. That fundamental sepa-
ration of the universe into dead matter, and living, con-
scious soul, has not yet been brought about, and this alone
makes necessary an entire reconstruction of our notions.
What the primitive man is conscious of is not a material
body, and an immaterial mind, but rather an acting, feel-
ing, thinking body. And if such phenomena as dreams
and ghost-seeing made him conceive the possibility of a
separation of himself from his earthly body, yet this con-
ception never took the form of anything we should call
immaterial. The inner self, the soul or ghost, is still only
a thinner and more tenuous body.

And as no clear separation was made between the man's
own body, and the life and consciousness which inform it,
so neither could this separation be carried over into the
outer world. Knowing his own body as a living thing,
which acts according to desires and purposes, other things
also are interpreted by him after the same pattern. Stones,
trees, and streams are living creatures, animated by the
same vital impulses that dwell in men and animals. This
animistic view of things is universal among primitive peo-
ples. Of course it carries with it an absence of that con-
ception of the reign of law, which is so familiar at the
present day. The world is an anarchic world, a world of
miracles, in which anything whatever may be expected to
happen. Gods, spirits, and demons inhabit it. These act
after their own arbitrary will, which can never be predicted

Introduction 5

with certainty; and they must, therefore, be won over
with bribes, or forced into acquiescence by charms and
magic.

This indistinctness in the lines of objective nature is,
however, counterbalanced by a sufficiently exact marking
out of the limits within which man's own personal and
social life moves. Here there is little of the freedom
which is sometimes attributed to the savage life, but an
all-pervading spirit of regulation. From birth to death,
the life of the savage is ordered for him by custom and
tradition. There is no free play of the mind about the
sanctions of conduct, no sense of proportion in it, and of
the relative importance of things. In every department
of life, custom attaches to itself the sanction of a religious
rite, and any deviation from it carries the stigma alike of
religious impiety, and social treason. Of course there is a
reason for this. Savage customs are, normally, survivals
which become fixed because they stand in some utilitarian
relation to the needs of economic life or tribal organiza-
tion. And since men are not yet in a position where they
can be trusted freely to use their reason, and to discrimi-
nate and choose, their habits have to be riveted upon them
mechanically and irrevocably for their own salvation. Of
course, in such an atmosphere, there can be none of that
sense of individuality, or personality, which marks the
modern conception of selfhood. The man is swallowed
up in the tribe. So, also, the intellectual side of his life,
as represented in his beliefs about the world, and his reli-
gious conceptions, is bound down so closely to the lowest
and most pressing needs of his nature, that it lacks entirely
the freedom and disinterestedness of spirit, the largeness
of view, which the acquisition of solid truth demands.
There is in it, morever, no possibility of self-directed
growth. This cannot come about until the individual is
emancipated from his bondage to custom and tradition,
and recognizes himself as a free agent, with rights and a
value of his own, who can freely question accepted dogmas,

6 A Student's History of Philosophy

and freely modify his social actions to meet new de-
mands.

This, then, will suggest the general course which the his-
tory of civilization is to follow. Things can be changed
for the better, only as man ceases passively to acquiesce in
the dogmas and institutions that come to him from without,
on authority external to him. He must become himself the
centre of initiative, who can trace all these objective crys-
tallizations of thought and conduct back to their source in
his own nature, and control and modify them accordingly.
This, however, necessitates an intervening period of stress
and change. Existing beliefs and social forms have to be
disintegrated to give room for the expanding spirit ; and
for a time there will be chaos and anarchy, until man has
learned how to use his new-found liberty. Of this progress
of civilization, the history of philosophic thought is one
aspect ; and this is the third and more ultimate way in
which we can took to find a unity in it. Thought is but an
instrument by which man attempts to bring himself into
harmony with life ; and therefore the inner spring of
thought's movement will be found in that underlying pro-
cess of life, which we know as history. The final goal, on
the philosophic side, is such a statement of the world as
shall enable man to feel at home in it, and see himself as a
unified and harmonious being in all the expressions of his
nature. On the side of life itself, or history, trie goal con-
sists in realizing this unity practically, — a unity, not of
mere confused feeling, as in the beginning, but of clear
and conscious knowledge, which grasps the principles of
its own action, and so can direct it freely to rational ends.

GENERAL LITERATURE
WHOLE PERIOD:

Erdmann, History of Philosophy, 3 vols.
Hegel, History of Philosophy, 3 vols.
Lange, History of Materialism, 3 vols.
Lewes, Biographical History of Philosophy.

Introduction 7

Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, 2 vols.

Schwegler, History of Philosophy.

Weber, History of Philosophy.

Windelband, History of Philosophy.

Turner, History of Philosophy.

Sidgwick, History of Ethics.

Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, 2 vols.

Hunter, History of Philosophy.

Davidson, A History of Education.

Janet and Se'ailles, A History of the Problems of Philosophy.

Articles in Encyclopaedia Britannica.

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY:

Benn, The Greek Philosophers,.?, vols.

Benn, The Philosophy of Greece considered in Relation to the

Character and History of its People.
Burt, History of Greek Philosophy.
Grote, History of Greece.
Ferrier, Lectures on Greek Philosophy, 2 vols.
Mayor, Sketch of Ancient Philosophy from Thales to Cicero.
Windelband, History of Greek Philosophy.
Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy.
Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy.
Gomperz, The Greek Thinkers, 3 vols.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (Bohn's Library).
Bussell, The School of Plato.

Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers.
Hyde, From Epicurus to Christ.

MODERN PHILOSOPHY:

Hb'ffding, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols.

Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy.

Burt, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols.

Falckenberg, History of Modern Philosophy.

Cousin, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols.

Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism

in Europe, 2 vols.

Adamson, The Development of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols.
Levy-Bruhl, History of Modern Philosophy in France.
Dewing, Introduction to the History of Modern Philosophy.

I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY

THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD
§ 2. The Origin of Greek Philosophy

I. THE beginnings of philosophy are commonly attrib-
uted to the Greeks. Of course before the time of the
Greeks, men had thought about the meaning of things ; but
the conditions had been lacking which were necessary to
precipitate their thought into sufficiently well-defined con-
cepts to serve as effective intellectual tools. The task of
forging the intellectual framework, in the shape of abstract
ideas or generalizations, by means of which it should be
possible to analyze, and bring into order, the incoherency
of the world as it makes its first impression upon us, fell
to the Greek mind. And for this task it had special quali-
fications. Its sanity, its healthy human interest, its clear-
ness of vision and hostility to confusedness of every sort,
its sense of measure, and the single-heartedness with which
it confined itself within the field of concrete fact where
it felt at home, enabled it to leave behind, as no previous
race had done, an articulate objective expression of itself
which survived its own existence, and could enter into the
spiritual history of mankind. All these qualities relate
themselves closely to the artistic temperament of which
Greece is pre-eminently the type, and between which and
the philosophic spirit there is an intimate connection. The
same sense for form and proportion which enabled the
Greek to originate the art types that have stood as models
ever since, kept him within the bounds of clearly defined
ideas in his philosophical thinking, and prevented him from
losing himself in the realm of vague feeling, and adumbra-

8

Greek Philosophy 9

tions of the infinite, which have brought shipwreck to so
many attempts at philosophizing, and which, whatever their
meaning to the individual, have no objective significance,
until a foundation at least of clear conceptions has first been
acquired. The Greek frankly moved within the realm of the
finite, where definition and order reigned, and he could
know just what he was talking about. The infinite was to
him the region of chaos, and stood on a distinctly lower
plane of reality.

So also, along with its feeling for form, the artistic spirit
involves a certain disinterestedness of mood. Beauty, as
Kant has said, gives us pleasure in the mere contemplation
of itself, apart from the vulgar thoughts of possession and
use. And this quality, too, enters into the philosophical
attitude. Long before the time of the Greeks, there had
been a very considerable development of knowledge in the
Orient, particularly in Egypt and Chaldaea ; and the Greeks
were able to presuppose and to build upon this. But the
attitude which they adopted toward this knowledge was
their own. Previous science had been on the empirical and
rule of thumb order, not based on essential principles ; it
had remained largely bound down to the concrete particu-
lars, and to the practical uses from which it had sprung.
Geometry, e.g., was cultivated in Egypt, whence the Greeks
derived it ; but it was cultivated as little more than a set
of approximate rules for use in land measuring. We do
not have philosophy proper until we can get clear of the
entanglement of special cases, and practical utility, and
take a disinterested delight in principles on their own
account; and this the Greek temperament was able to
accomplish. It could find pleasure in the free play of
ideas for their own sake, could treat them as a work of art,
apart from their immediate practical bearing; and the
existence of this attitude is marked by the rise of Philoso-
phy, or disinterested love of wisdom as such.

It was not, however, in Athens, which stands to us as the
centre of Greek culture, nor in any other of the cities of

io A Student's History of Philosophy

Greece proper, that the new intellectual movement began.
It was rather in the Greek colonies, which the mother
country had from very early times begun to throw off, —
first in the Eastern colonies of Asia Minor, and then in
Southern Italy. Athens itself, even at the height of its
power, never took very kindly to freedom of philosophic
speculation, and was inclined to treat its prophets with a
full measure of the traditional severity. The political
fickleness incident to a popular government, and the reli-
gious intolerance on the part of the masses, resulted in
more than one act of injustice, of which the judicial mur-
der of Socrates is of course the most famous instance.
"Then I must indeed be a fool," Socrates is made to
say to Callicles in one of Plato's dialogues, " if I do not
know that in the Athenian state any man can suffer any-
thing."

In the cojonies, however, tendencies were at work
which already had greatly weakened the force of these
unfavorable conditions, long before the breath of the new
spirit had touched Greece itself. The transplanting of
Greek life to a new home, necessarily resulted in a gen-
eral shaking up of former habits of thought. Ceremonial
observances, and the religious beliefs embodied in the na-
tional mythologies, could not fail to lose something of their
rigidity and inevitableness, as their roots were torn from
the local environment, and the concrete spots and objects
to which they were attached ; and the further adjustment
that would have continually to go on, as they came into
competition with more or less antagonistic traditions, would
tend still further to beget a temper of openness and flexi-
bility. In Asia Minor, moreover, the colonists were brought
in contact with the highest culture and learning of the day.
The new knowledge of the world, which was open to them
in their character as a race of seafarers and traders, was
also continually enlarging their ideas, and breaking down
the superstitions of mythology. Their active and adven-
turous life gave them a versatility and alertness of mind,

Greek Philosophy n

which was as yet wanting to their less enterprising kins-
men ; while the rapid fortunes which were thus built up in
trade by the merchant princes, offered the possibility of
the leisure which the intellectual life demands. It was at
Miletus, the wealthy and active Ionian capital, on the coast
of the ^Egean, that the new intellectual movement found its
centre ; and accordingly the earliest school of Greek phi-
losophy is known as the Milesian School.

2. Our knowledge of the beginnings of Greek philosophy
is very fragmentary, and it is only with difficulty that it
can be pieced together to form a connected whole. Still it
is possible to read into it a certain amount of unity. At
any rate, it is clear that, within this century and a half,
there gradually emerged the more fundamental of those
distinctions and terms, by which the mind attempts to intro-
duce order and connection into the processes of the world.
They were grasped in a definite, even though rudimentary
way, and were consciously employed in attempts to build up
a comprehensive view of the universe. This took place,
however, within certain limits, which need to be kept in
mind continually. It is necessary to recall, once more, that
the fundamental distinction between consciousness and
matter has not yet been clearly attained. Mental qualities
and physical qualities are still more or less mixed up
together. There is, consequently, as yet no conception of
a strictly immaterial existence. Real existence is that
which lies outside us in space, which we can see and touch ;
and nothing else is real. It is true that this material and
spatial existence is not wholly identical with the modern
conception of matter, for it has to find room within itself
for qualities which we call conscious and mental. But if
matter was not regarded as dead and unconscious, at least
there was no way of separating mind, or thought, from its
spatial embodiment. To attempt to think of anything that
was not material in its nature, and so space-filling, was to
think of nothing. Within the limitations of this inability
to conceive of anything as real, which did not have tangible

12 A Student's History of Philosophy

and visible reality, the first period of philosophical thought
moved. Arid the outgrowing of the assumption which this
involves, may be regarded as one of the main results, for
the development of thought, of the entire period. The
speculative difficulties which philosophy meets on the
basis of this assumption, pave the way to a recognition, in
Plato, of the possibility that a thing may be real, with-
out being identical with spatial reality ; and when this
point is reached, an entirely new field is opened up to
thought.

§ 3. The Milesian School. Thales

I. The first attempts at philosophy, then, are occupied
with the only world which men can present clearly to them-
selves — the world of nature. In general, these attempts
take the shape of a search for some unitary principle for ex-
plaining the wojld, some one kind of real existence out of
which the diversity of the universe has sprung, some per-
manent ground lying back of the never ending process of
change. The decisive step is attributed to Thales, a mem-
ber of one of the leading families of Miletus, and a man
apparently versed in the learning current at his time.
He is said to have predicted the eclipse occurring in the
year 585 B.C., which put an end to the war between the
Lydians and the Medes.

All that is known of Thales1 answer is this : that he
found the ultimate substance in water. In the light of
modern science, this may seem to be absurdly inadequate
as a statement of the universe ; but the new attitude which
it involves, gives it a real significance. There had been cos-
mologies from time immemorial, which attempted to ac-
count for the origin of the world by all sorts of fancies, and
which had gathered about them the sanctions of religion.
Thales broke from the sway of religious tradition, and from
its whole method, by adopting what was essentially a scien-
tific, as opposed to a mythological, point of view. Instead

Greek Philosophy 13

of a supernatural, he attempted a natural explanation ;
instead of telling a mythical story of what might have hap-
pened in the past, he looked to the world of fact as it actu-
ally lay before his eyes, in order to find there his principle
of interpretation. And it is possible to see reasons why he
should have hit upon the answer which he did. Water has
that mobility which might seem to go along with the power
of universal transformation. It is easily changed to steam,
and solidified to ice. It is essential to growth and genera-
tion everywhere. The process of transformation might
appear to be taking place visibly in nature. The sun draws
water, which then is given back in the form of rain ; and
the rain, in turn, sinks into the ground, where it completes
the process by turning into earth, and the manifold prod-
ucts of the soil. Of Thales' followers, it is enough to men-
tion the names of Anaximander and Anaximenes. The
school as an organization came to an end with the destruc-
tion of Miletus by the Persians in 494 B.C.

2. In their beginnings, philosophy and science are thus
identical. The Milesians are physicists and astronomers,
bringing their hypotheses to bear, first of all, upon the natu-
ral processes which constitute the subject-matter of science;
and the same interest continues also to play a large part
in the work of their successors. Each has his more or less
novel theories to propound concerning the general course
of the world's development, and the explanation of the
phenomena which it presents; particularly of such facts
as might naturally be expected to interest a seafaring peo-
ple— meteorological phenomena, and the movements of
the heavenly bodies. It would only be confusing to give
an account of these theories here ; but it should never be
forgotten that we are dealing throughout with what is essen-
tially a physical and scientific philosophy.

But also there begins, at this point, a development with
a more purely philosophical interest. This development
occupies itself, not only with the explanation of concrete
physical processes, but also with the ideas which are

14 A Student's History of Philosophy

presupposed in the intellectual formulation of these pro-
cesses, and with the logical and metaphysical implications
of such ideas. These ideas, it is true, are not yet fully ab-
stracted from their physical embodiment, and looked at
wholly apart from the physical processes which imply them;
but the interest is in the ideas, nevertheless. And the
centre about which the controversy turns is the concept of
change, a concept which involves one of the most funda-
mental problems with which metaphysics has to deal.
The Milesians had assumed the fact of change as some-
thing self-evident, and they had assumed, too, that there
must be an underlying unity to this changing world. But
here are two ideas which are sure to make trouble as soon
as they are distinctly recognized. The reality which
changes must all the time be one and the same reality at
bottom, or there is no meaning in the statement that it
changes. Nothing changes, except as it becomes different
from what it was before ; and there is no " it," no "something
which changes," unless there is an identity, or sameness,
which persists through the successive moments of change.
And yet if it changes, it must be different from itself, and
so not one reality, but more than one; it must at once
persist, and pass away. How are these seemingly very op-
posite notions — the one and the many, sameness and dif-
ference, permanence and change — to be reconciled and
combined ? The next step in Greek philosophy, was to
bring about a clear recognition of this problem. In Her-
acleitus, and in Parmenides, the two opposing factors re-
ceive each a formulation, one-sidedj indeed, but for that
reason all the more impressive and influential. Later on,
in the mediating schools which succeeded, the attempt is
made to bring about a reconciliation.

§ 4. Heracleitus

The side of multiplicity and change was championed by
Heracleitus, one of the profoundest thinkers of ancient

Greek Philosophy 15

times. Heracleitus was an Ephesian, of aristocratic fam-
ily and high position, who lived about 536-470 B.C. There
was much, indeed, in the political condition of the cities
of Asia Minor, to force the stern reality of change upon
men's notice. This shows itself in the lyric poetry of
the period, with its graceful melancholy, and its fond-
ness for dwelling upon the endless vicissitudes of fortune,
and the uncertainty of human life and happiness. Apart
from the perils which grew out of external relations to the
great Oriental powers, there was also, within each city, an
ever present danger from civil strife. The aristocratic gov-
ernments which had replaced the monarchies of Homeric
times, were themselves now in conflict with the people ;
and everywhere tyrants were springing up, who made use
of the popular favor to overthrow existing authority, only
to retain in their own hands, by force, the power they were
thus enabled to usurp. Heracleitus was among those who
had suffered from these conditions, and it was his con-
tempt for the democratic tendencies of his day which
turned him from public life to philosophical pursuits. His
reputation for gloomy misanthropy gave him in antiquity
the title of the Weeping Philosopher; while the Delphic
character of his writings — they require, says Socrates, a
Delian diver to get at the meaning of them — caused him
to be designated as Heracleitus the Obscure.

Heracleitus gets rid of the difficulty of reconciling per-
manence with change, by the simple denial that any such
thing as permanence exists at all. There is no static Be-
ing, no unchanging substratum. Change, movement, is
Lord of the universe. Everything is in a state of becom-
ing, of continual flux (Trdvra pel). " You cannot step twice
into the same rivers, for fresh waters are ever flowing in
upon you."1 Man is no exception to the general rule ; he
is "kindled and put out like a light in the night-time."
Heracleitus formulates this conception by saying that —

1 This, and succeeding quotations from the earlier philosophers, are taken
from Burnet's "Early Greek Philosophers" (A. & C. Black).

1 6 A Student's History of Philosophy

not Water or Mist, but — Fire is the ultimate ground of
the world. " All things are exchanged for Fire, and Fire
for all things, as wares are exchanged for gold, and gold
for wares." This is not intended to be figurative ; Hera-
cleitus means literal fire, just as Thales meant literal
water. But it is fire as embodying primarily the fact of
change; that is why he chooses it, rather than earth or
water. Nor could his thought have found a better embod-
iment than in the all-transforming, shifting flame, ever
passing away in smoke, ever renewing itself by taking up
the substance of solid bodies, which are undergoing destruc-
tion that it may live. We have the appearance of perma-
nence, just as the flame seems to be an identical thing ; in
reality, however, its content is every moment changing.

Now this doctrine — that everything, as Plato mali-
ciously puts it, is in a flux like leaky vessels, that there
is no rest or permanence anywhere in the universe, no
solid foothold which is not, the very moment we try to
occupy it, silently shifting beneath us — seems at first to be
paradoxical and unwarranted. We are not satisfied to give
up all identity and permanence in things. If what we
call a white object, e.g., has already come to be something
different before we can give a name to it, how are we to
make any articulate utterance at all? When we reflect,
however, we see that, in spite of the difficulties, this is
very similar to the doctrine of modern science. For sci-
ence, too, there is nothing that stands still. The stone
that seems to lie unchanged and motionless is, on the
one hand, whirling through space along with the planet
which bears us with it on its surface, while, on the other
hand, it is itself a little world of quivering molecules, a
battle-ground of struggling forces, where the most intense
activity reigns. Our own bodies, likewise, are changing
every moment of our lives, and our minds are changing
with them. There is no such thing as stopping the flow
of consciousness, without blotting it out altogether. Hera-
el eitus has, accordingly, emphasized a very important fea-

Greek Philosophy 17

ture of reality, which will need to be taken account of in
every future attempt at philosophizing.

Is there, then, no unity at all to the world ? If so, how
can we account for even the appearance of permanence ?
Heracleitus does not deny that there is a unity, and here
also he anticipates the conception of modern science. For
the unity is not one of unchanging substance, but of law.
The process of change does not take place in an un-
regulated and lawless way, but it is rhythmical change,
kept within the bounds of definite proportions, and ruled
by an immutable law of necessity. As the heavenly fires
are transmuted successively into vapor, water, earth, so a
corresponding series of transformations ascends upward to
fire again, only to start once more on the same ceaseless
round. The universe is, therefore, a closed circuit, in which
an ascending and a descending current counterbalance
each other. It is this opposition of motions, and the
measured balance between them, which produces the de-
lusive appearance of rest and fixity.

Nothing in the world, then, is self-contained and self-
complete. Everything is forever passing into something
else, and has an existence only in relation to this process.
" Fire lives the death of earth, and air lives the death of
fire ; water lives the death of air, earth that of water."
We have, accordingly, in Heracleitus, the first philosophic
statement of the famous doctrine of relativity, which, in
one form or another, has played an important part in sub-
sequent thought down to the present day. Heracleitus'
conception of the two contrary currents of change, enables
him to formulate his doctrine more precisely ; not only is
everything passing into something else, but it is forever
passing into its opposite. All reality is born of the clash
of opposing principles, the tension of conflicting forces.
" Homer was wrong in saying : Would that strife might
perish from among gods and men ! He did not see that
he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for,
if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away."

1 8 A Student's History of Philosophy

Strife is "father of all, and king of all." This relativity,
and union of contrasts, Heracleitus is never weary of trac-
ing out. Organic life is produced by the male and the
female ; musical harmony by sharp and flat notes. " The
sea is the purest and the impurest water. Fish can drink it
and it is good for them ; to men it is undrinkable and de-
structive." " God is day and night, winter and summer, war
and peace, hunger and satiety ; but he takes various shapes,
just as fire, when it is mingled with different incenses, is
named according to the savor of each."

The same thought enabled Heracleitus to round out his
philosophy by a suggestive treatment of the ethical life.
Just as the light and the heavy, the warm and the cold,
plenty and want, are relative terms, so likewise are good
and evil. " Physicians who cut, burn, stab, and rack the
sick, then complain that they do not get any adequate
recompense for it" " Men would not have known the
name of justice if there were no injustice." "It is not
good for mep to get all they wish. It is disease that
makes health pleasant and good; hunger, plenty; and
weariness, rest." Good implies evil to be overcome, con-
quests to be made, a life of unremitting endeavor. It is no
gift that we may sit and wait for with folded hands, but
an achievement. So also the bad has no existence, except
in relation to a possible better. Were either of the related
terms wanting, the moral life would cease to exist.

One other problem begins faintly to emerge in Hera-
cleitus— the problem of knowledge. Since the vulgar notion
is that the things which the senses reveal to us are more
or less solid and permanent, a distinction has to be drawn
between sense knowledge, and the higher thought knowl-
edge which is open to the philosopher. True knowledge
is no easy transcript of popular opinion, but the scanty
gleanings of hard intellectual labor : " Those who seek for
gold dig up much earth, and find a little." Sense experi-
ence is fallacious, and the source of all sorts of illusion ; it
is only by thought that we can rise above the realm of

Greek Philosophy 19

changing appearance, and attain to true reality — the gov-
erning Law. But it is not at all apparent how we are to
account for this difference of value. Knowledge is due to
the response between the inner Fire which constitutes our
rational nature, or soul, and the outer Fire which is the re-
ality of the world. But since the two can only commingle
by the pathway of the senses, there is no means as yet
of drawing a psychological distinction between sensation
and thought. The objectivity and necessity of knowl-
edge is given, however, a certain explanation. Man can
know objective truth, because in essence he is identical
with that truth ; he is no mere separate individual, but a
part of the all-comprehending Fire which constitutes the
universe.

The answer which Heracleitus gave to the problem of
philosophy, is one which is likely to grow in force the more
one thinks of it. But can we ever be really satisfied with
it ? Can the fact of law furnish all the unity and perma-
nence that we require? Will not the conception of law,
in connection with the material world, only raise new ques-
tions ? What is a law, over and above the multitude of
particular facts and changes, each distinct and unrelated ?
If it is only an ideal fact in our minds, it has no relation to
the material world without; and if it is a material fact,
does it not furnish simply another element to be brought
into unity, and not a unifying bond at all ? At any rate, it
hardly satisfies our first feeling of what the situation de-
mands. We instinctively require a solid and permanent
background for this universal flow of events, an unchanging
subject of change, which shall bind the multiplicity into a
real whole, and give us a definite something to grasp and
rest upon, that shall not be forever slipping from us. This
factor of permanence, of static Being, which Heracleitus
denied, is brought into an equally one-sided prominence by
an opposing group of thinkers, whose connection with the
city of Elea, in Southern Italy, has given them the name
of the Eleatic School.

20 A Student's History of Philosophy

§ 5. The Eleatic School. Xenophanes. Parmenides. Zeno

I. The reputed founder of the Eleatic school was Xenoph-
anes (570-480 B.C.), a native of Colophon, whence he fled
in consequence of the Persian conquest of Ionia. He
maintained himself as a wandering poet, or rhapsodist, and
finally settled down in Elea, where he died at an advanced
age. In spite of his place among philosophers, Xenoph-
anes seems to have been not so much a metaphysician,
as a poet turned satirist and reformer. As a satirist, he
sets himself against the somewhat florid culture of Magna
Graecia, with its luxuries, its purple garments, its fops
" proud of their comely locks, anointed with unguents of
rich perfume," in favor of an ideal of plain living and high
thinking, of Greek simplicity, moderation, and artistic good
taste. He ridicules the exaggerated athleticism of the day,
the preference of muscle to brains, " strength to wisdom,"
the immaturity and affectation of the intellectual interests.
"There is nothing praiseworthy in discussing battles of
Titans, or of giants and centaurs, fictions of former ages,
nor in plotting violent revolutions." In opposition to this,
he strives to exalt the true intellectual life; and the very
modern tone which pervades his conception of what such
a life is, shows clearly how far Greek thought has already
advanced. It is modern in its sceptical caution, and its
feeling for the necessity of sober truth-seeking and in-
vestigation. "There never was nor will be a man who
has clear certainty as to what I say about the gods and
about all things ; for even if he does chance to say what
is right, yet he himself does not know that it is so.
But all are free to guess." "The gods have not shown
forth all things to men from the beginning, but by seeking
they gradually find out what is better." It is especially
modern in its thorough naturalism. And here Xenophanes
comes in contact with religious beliefs, in connection with
which his influence was to tell most directly on the future.
At the start, philosophy had grown directly out of reli-

Greek Philosophy 21

gious speculations. It was not the independent work of sin-
gle men, but rather of schools, or guilds, which had, and
continued to have for some time, a religious or semi-reli-
gious organization. There will be occasion to notice again
the close connection of religion and philosophy in the
Pythagorean school. But when the change to the scientific
attitude was once effected, the tendency was necessarily
away from the religious dogmas. The whole philosophical
movement was, from the religious standpoint, a scepti-
cal one. Within the schools, belief in the old polythe-
istic mythology was quietly dropped, as suited only for the
masses ; and in its place were set up more or less purely
naturalistic explanations. Xenophanes was not content to
leave this as a mere esoteric doctrine. His impatience
of the intellectual futility, and low moral grade, of many
of the old beliefs and stories about the gods, leads him to
a fierce polemic against the popular theology. " Homer
and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are
a shame and a disgrace among men, thefts and adulteries
and deceptions of one another." " But mortals think that
the gods are born as they are, and have perception like
theirs, and voice and form." "Yes, and if oxen and lions
had hands, and could paint with their hands and produce
works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of
the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen. Each would
represent them with bodies according to the form of each."
" So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed ;
the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes." Let us
rid ourselves, then, of the paltry notion of a multitude of
gods made after the likeness of man, and subject to the
same ignoble passions : " There is One God, the greatest
among gods and men, comparable to mortals neither in
form nor thought." This is evidently not a statement of
monotheism, in the ordinary religious sense, for the One
God of Xenophanes is expressly said to exclude all anthro-
pomorphic elements. Besides, he is declared to be ' great-
est among gods,' so that other gods seem also to have a

22 A Student's History of Philosophy

certain reality. What Xenophanes is trying to assert is, not
that the reality of the universe is God, as the religionist
uses the term, but, rather, that what we name God is the
one immutable and comprehensive material universe, which
holds within it and determines all those minor phenom-
ena, to which an enlightened philosophy will reduce the
many deities of the popular faith. The conception is not
unlike that of Spinoza in later times : God is the world of
nature, regarded as absolutely one, eternal and unchanging.
2. This conception of the identity and permanence of
reality, which with Xenophanes was largely the result of a
poetic insight, becomes, with Parmenides of Elea (about
470 B.C.), a clearly defined philosophical doctrine, with
important consequences. Of all philosophical systems,
that of Parmenides is, perhaps, the most paradoxical. It
is based on the absolute denial of change and multiplicity
in the world, and their reduction to pure illusion. Only
the One exists, and that One is eternal, immutable, immov-
able, indivisible. Now the practical refutation of this,
by facts, is perfectly easy ; it does not describe the
world as we actually know it, and if the world really were
such a world, then all philosophies, and their reasonings
about Being, would immediately be wiped out, along with
everything else that is partial. The illusions which philosophy
attempts to correct would be impossible, even as illusions.
Parmenides' philosophy, however, does not pretend to be
based upon facts ; it declares that facts themselves must
be subjected to the laws of thought, or logic, and, if they
prove to be self-contradictory, must be rejected. If we can-
not think them, we have no right to say that they are facts.
Now, to Parmenides the idea of change is unthinkable.
That a thing should arise out of that which is different
from itself, seems to him a contradiction. Even that form
of change which apparently is most simple — change in
place, or motion, Parmenides declares is inherently impos-
sible. Motion implies the validity of a certain concept
— the concept of empty space, within which the move-

Greek Philosophy 23

ments may take place. But is empty space thinkable ? Is
it not mere emptiness, mere absence of being — Not-being,
in a word ? And so long as thought is true to itself, can
any effort make the being of Not-being intelligible ? And
if it is not intelligible, if it is incapable of being thought, it
does not exist. Only Being exists ; and since Being is still
thought of as identical with body, the absence of Being, or
empty space, has no reality. Hence Being is a solid block,
immovable and unchanged. "Being cannot be divisible,
since it is all alike, and there is no more of it in one place
than in another to hinder it from holding together, nor less
of it, but everything is full of what is." There can be no
break between its parts ; if such a break is real, it is itself
Being, or body ; and so body is continuous after all. It is
without motion ; for it could only move in space, and space
either is or is not. If space is, it is Being, and Being
moves in Being, which is equivalent to saying it is at rest.
If space is nothing, it does not exist, and so nothing can
move in it. If sense perception tells us the contrary, then
the testimony of the senses must be rejected.

3. The paradoxical arguments of Parmenides, appear-
ing as they did at a time when the human mind was first be-
ginning to taste the delights of metaphysical inquiry, had an
immense influence. Among his adherents, the best known
were Melissus of Samos, a politician and general who gained
a victory over Athens in 442 B.C., and Zeno of Elea (about
490-430 B.C.). Zeno undertook to strengthen his master's
position by showing, on the negative side, that the diffi-
culties which it involves in the eyes of common sense, are
matched by difficulties quite as great in the views of those
who assert the reality of change and motion. Of his argu-
ments, which became famous, it will be enough to mention
the two which are known, respectively, as the flying arrow,
and Achilles and the tortoise. In order that an arrow fly-
ing through space should reach its destination, it must suc-
cessively occupy a series of positions. But at any moment
we may choose, it is in a particular place, and therefore is

24 A Student's History of Philosophy

at rest ; and as no summing up of states of rest can result
in motion, it can never move. The other argument involves
the relation of two different motions. Achilles never can
overtake the tortoise, because, while he is reaching what at
any moment is the starting-point of the tortoise, the latter
will have gained a certain amount of ground ; and as
Achilles always must reach first the position previously
occupied by his competitor, the tortoise will forever keep
just a little ahead.

Of course the character of the Eleatic conclusions ren-
dered it impossible that they ever should produce any great
advance in substantial knowledge ; and in Gorgias of Leon-
tinum (483-375), whom we shall meet again as a Sophist,
the same style of reasoning that had proved so destructive
was turned against the Eleatic doctrine itself, and made to
prove the non-existence of Being as well. Indirectly, how-
ever, this later development of the Eleatic doctrine had
certain valuable results. The polemical interests of Zeno
and his associates caused them to direct a good deal of at-
tention to the processes of argument and refutation ; and in
this way a beginning was made of what afterward was to
be one of the special divisions of philosophy, namely, Logic.

§ 6. The Mediators. Empedocles. Anaxagoras. Leucippus
and Democritus

i. Empedocles, the first to be mentioned of the more
independent successors of Parmenides, was a native of
Sicily (490-430 B.C.), and a man of note and political
influence. He sided with the popular party, and was
offered the leadership of his city, but refused the honor,
perhaps from a just estimate of the value to be placed
upon popular favor. His extensive knowledge, and his
skill in medicine, caused him to be regarded as the pos-
sessor of supernatural powers, and he may himself have
helped to foster this belief ; according to tradition, he met
his death by throwing himself in the crater of Mt.

Greek Philosophy 25

that the mysteriousness of his disappearance might give
rise to the belief that he was a god. A mixture of char-
latanism, with what is essentially a true scientific spirit, has
not been uncommon at periods when new possibilities of
knowledge are beginning to dawn upon men's minds ; Par-
acelsus is a more modern illustration. At such times, there
seem no limits to what science can hope to accomplish.
" And thou shalt learn," Empedocles says at the beginning
of his great philosophical poem, "all the drugs that are a
defence against ills and old age, since for thee alone shall
I accomplish all this. Thou shalt arrest the violence of
the weariless winds that arise and sweep the earth, laying
waste the cornfields with their breath ; and again, when
thou so desirest, thou shalt bring their blasts back again
with a rush. Thou shalt cause for men a seasonable
drought after the dark rains, and again after the summer
drought thou shalt produce the streams that feed the trees
as they pour down from the sky. Thou shalt bring back
from Hades the life of a dead man." If science has not
done precisely these things, it has actually enabled men to
perform wonders almost as great in the way of controlling
natural forces. It is only the desire to reach these results
by short cuts, and the failure to perceive that they require
a long process of patient investigation, that turns men's
thoughts in the direction of magical and occult powers, in
the manipulation of which they are partly self-deceived,
in part conscious deceivers.

The significance of Empedocles, however, depends upon
his real perception, underlying all this, of the value and
necessity of true scientific knowledge. Man is by nature
weak, ignorant, and self-deluded. " For straitened are the
powers with which their bodily parts are endowed, and
many are the woes that burst in on them, and blunt the
edge of their careful thoughts. They behold but a brief
span of a life that is no life, and, doomed to swift death,
are borne away and fly off like smoke. Each is convinced
of that alone which he has chanced upon as he is hurried

26 A Student's History of Philosophy

to and fro, and idly fancies he has found the whole. So
hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by
the ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind ! "
Man's only salvation, his only road to freedom, is knowl-
edge, or science.

" Mind is the spell which governs earth and heaven ; "
and in his own philosophy, Empedocles thinks that he has
found the key to the true explanation of things.

It would seem that Empedocles had known the reason-
ings of Parmenides, and been strongly impressed by them.
But he could not rest content with their one-sidedness.
Change and generation undoubtedly exist, and have to be
explained. Now, even if Parmenides' proof of the non-
existence of empty space be allowed, one possibility of
motion still remains. The parts of this solid mass might
conceivably change their position with reference to one
another, without the need of empty space between them ;
one slipping continuously into the place left vacant by its
neighbor, just as to the ordinary vision the parts of water
seem to do. There would, indeed, be no gain in this, if
each part were exactly the same as every other. But if
we conceive a primitive difference in the nature of the
parts, then their shiftings of position with regard to one
another might be utilized to account for the changing
phenomena of the sensible world. This is Empedocles'
new thought : generation is merely change of composition.
" There is no coming into being of aught that perishes,
nor any end for it in baneful death, but only mingling, and
separation of what has been mingled." " When the elements
have been mingled in the fashion of a man, and come to
the light of day, or in the fashion of the race of wild
beasts or plants or birds, then men say that these come
into being ; and when they are separated, they call that, as
is the custom, woful death." "Just as when painters are
elaborating temple offerings, men whom Metis has well
taught their art, — they, when they have taken pigments
of many colors with their hands, mix them in a har-

Greek Philosophy 27

mony, more of some and less of others, and from them
produce shapes like unto all things, making trees and men
and women, beasts and birds and fishes that dwell in the
waters, yea, and gods that live long lives, and are exalted
in honor, — so let not the error prevail over thy mind,
that there is any other source of all the perishable crea-
tures that appear in countless numbers."

This, accordingly, marks out the path by which the rec-
onciliation of change and permanence was to be attempted.
If reality is One, as Parmenides had assumed in common
with all previous philosophy, then, indeed, his arguments
are irrefragable, and the world of generation has no exist-
ence. But if reality is Many, and not One, then we can
account for both factors; permanence belongs to. the ele-
ments in themselves, change to their shifting relations.
So by setting up four separate elements, — Earth, Water, Air,
and Fire, — Empedocles thought that he could explain,
through their varying combinations, all the apparent differ-
ences in the world of individual objects, which Parmenides
had left himself no way of accounting for even as illusion.
It was not until, in Plato, the idea of Being had been freed
from its materialistic implications, that the unity of reality
could be reasserted in an intelligible way.

In another direction, also, Parmenides' influence seems
to have been felt. Heretofore it had been assumed that
matter is itself alive, and that it possesses in its own na-
ture the principle of movement. But Parmenides, by his
doctrine of the absolute immobility of Being, had detached
the quality of motion from the conception of matter. Em-
pedocles, accordingly, finds it necessary to have recourse
to a separate principle, in order to get bodies to moving
again. So he is led to postulate, in addition to his four
elements, two other agencies to manipulate them. He
gives to these agencies the names of Love and Hate.
Love acts in a way to bring about a complete intermixture
of the different elements, "as a baker cementing barley
meal with water." Hate breaks up this intermixture, and

28 A Student's History of Philosophy

brings elements of the same kind together. The history
of the universe is thus an oscillation to and fro between
complete discord, and complete harmony. It is difficult
to interpret this obscure conception of Love and Hate with
any great precision. In modern terms, it perhaps stands
most nearly for what we should name the forces of attrac-
tion and repulsion, with which, however, certain elements
of the ethical and rational life are confusedly intermingled.
But at any rate, we are not to look upon these forces as
strictly immaterial. Empedocles is still unable to think of
anything as real which does not occupy space; and so,
when he tries to define Love and Hate more closely, he
makes them, after all, as material as his other elements.

One other problem, which had already appeared in Her-
acleitus, receives a somewhat fuller treatment at the hands
of Empedocles — the problem of knowing. We can know
everything, because we are ourselves compounded of every-
thing. All the elements enter into our make-up — earth to
form the solid' parts, water the liquid, air the vital breath,
fire the soul. We perceive any particular thing, then,
because we are that thing ; like is known by like. " For it
is with earth that we see earth, and water with water ; by
air we see bright air, by fire destroying fire. By love do
we see love, and hate by grievous hate." In its materialis-
tic form, it is impossible to make this really intelligible.
Knowledge is not, and cannot be, a spatial and material
function. In the thought, however, that it is our ultimate
kinship with the world we know, which makes the bond of
knowledge possible, there is the germ of an insight which
later on has a fruitful development, and finally breaks
down the materialism which conditions its first appearance.

2. With the name of Anaxagoras, we come for the first
time into connection with the city of Athens. Anaxagoras
(500-429 B.C.) was a native of Clazomenae in Ionia, but
about the middle of the fifth century he emigrated to
Athens. There for a number of years he was one of the
most prominent figures in the brilliant circle which raised

Greek Philosophy 29

Athens to its position as the intellectual centre of Greece.
He became the intimate friend of Pericles, the leader of the
new movement, and of such men as Euripides, Thucyd-
ides, and Protagoras. Popular feeling, however, was
aroused by the naturalistic and sceptical tendencies which
Pericles and his friends represented. This feeling, accen-
tuated by the growing political bitterness between the
democracy, and the aristocratic few within whose ranks
alone the new learning was affected, chose Anaxagoras as
a victim. His natural explanation of the sun as a red-hot
stone — not, therefore, a divine being — was made the pre-
text for an accusation of impiety. He was thrown into
prison, and forced to save his life by leaving the city.

Empedocles had thought that by the admission of four
distinct elements, the infinite variety of the world could be
explained. He does not seem, however, to have attempted
seriously the difficult task of showing how this could be in
detail. And it appeared to Anaxagoras that the task was
impossible. How one substance can change into another,
how, i.e., there can be a change of quality, it is impossible
to conceive ; all that we can understand is change in position.
Since, therefore, the qualities revealed in the world are in-
finite in number, we cannot stop short with four elements,
but must postulate an unlimited multitude of them, as
many as there are distinct qualities. This may be called a
qualitative atomism, as distinguished from the quantitative
atomism to be mentioned presently. Reality consists of a
countless number of "things," or qualitatively simple ele-
ments, representing every distinguishable aspect of the
world. These elements are infinitely divisible, and are
everywhere diffused in the universe ; so that in each indi-
vidual particle of matter all elements whatsoever are rep-
resented,— everything is in everything else, — and objects
are not separated strictly, or "cut off from one another
with a hatchet." Nevertheless, the varying proportions in
which the elements appear, and the fact that in any par-
ticular object some of them are present in such infinitesi-

30 A Student's History of Philosophy

mal quantities as to be unrecognizable, render possible the
apparent differences that meet the eye. The only change
is change of spatial position, by which the qualities are
intermingled in varying proportions.

Along with this atomistic hypothesis, Anaxagoras is
celebrated in antiquity as the originator of another concep-
tion, which was to play a very important part in the devel-
opment of philosophy. Parmenides' arguments, which
resulted in stripping matter of every principle of change
or motion, had left Anaxagoras, as it had left Empedocles,
in a position where he needed some outside source of move-
ment. Now Anaxagoras was impressed by the fact that
the movement of the elements has not taken place in a
purely haphazard way, but has given birth to an ordered
and harmonious world. In the motions of the heavenly
bodies, in particular, there had long been recognized an
inner law and rhythm. This had brought about, indeed,
the rise of science ; and to the harmony-loving mind of the
Greek it was Especially impressive. But law and order is,
to unsophisticated thought at any rate, a product of intelli-
gence ; and when it is considered, further, that only things
possessing life or consciousness have the power of self-
movement, it will not appear strange that Anaxagoras
should have been led to identify the moving and ordering
principle of the universe with intelligent Mind. In this
way a dualism was set up. On the one hand are the ele-
ments, entirely inert; while over against them stands Nous,
or Reason, which alone is self-moved, and which is the
cause of motion in everything else.

This is the first conscious separation of the rational
life of mind, under its own proper name, from its en-
tanglement with the rest of the universe; and as such,
it marks an important step. It gives an intimation of
that view of the world which subordinates material pro-
cesses to a conscious rational purpose, and which, under
the name of teleology, has ever since been contesting
with the mechanical theories of science the right to the

Greek Philosophy 31

supreme place in the interpretation of the universe. With
Anaxagoras, indeed, the conception still remains confused
and obscure. In spite of his separation of reason from
the material elements, Anaxagoras cannot get clear of the
limitations of his predecessors ; and when he comes to a
description of the Nous, it still retains among its rational and
ideal qualities others that we should have to call material.
So, too, he fails to put his principle to any practical use in
explaining natural phenomena ; it serves only to give the
initial fillip which sets the elements in motion. Socrates,
in one of the Platonic dialogues, tells of the disappointment
he met when he came to the study of Anaxagoras' system.
He had been told that here everything was accounted for
by Mind. Accordingly, he had expected to have the pur-
pose of things pointed out to him — the reason for the
earth's shape, e.g., or the motions of the planets, explained
by reference to the end they serve. And instead of this,
he found Anaxagoras having recourse to just the same ele-
ments of air and earth and water, in mechanical interaction,
which were to be met with in other philosophers. What-
ever we may think of Anaxagoras' consistency, however, it
was a significant thing merely to have asserted the suprem-
acy of Reason in the universe. It was left for others to
point out more clearly what the assertion meant.

3. Meanwhile atomism took a different, and what was
afterward to prove a more fruitful direction, in Leucippus,
and in his greater pupil, Democritus of Abdera. Leucippus
denied the differences in quality among the elements, which
Empedocles and Anaxagoras had supposed, and went back
to the Eleatic conception of Being as mere body, stripped
of all qualitative characteristics. As he did not go further,
however, and give up the reality of change, he had to have
some explanation of the apparent qualitative facts which
make up the phenomenal world ; and the only agency
open to produce them was change in spatial position. But
this made it necessary to admit what the Eleatics denied
— the real existence of Not-being, or empty space. Ac-

32 A Student's History of Philosophy

cordingly, the solid lump of existence, which for Parmen-
ides had constituted reality, was broken up into an infinite
multitude of reproductions of itself in miniature, or atoms.
These atoms, too infinitesimal to be visible to the eye, and
differing from one another only in shape and size, are
eternal and unalterable, and possess, indeed, individually,
the characteristics of Parmenides' Being, except its im-
mobility. They, and their changing relations, alone are
real ; all else is appearance, which is explained ultimately
by these real movements in space.

In Leucippus, we have the first clear statement of phil-
osophical materialism — the reduction of true reality to
what afterward came to be known as the primary qualities
of body. This proved to be a point of view of the greatest
value for scientific thought ; by its reduction of qualitative
to quantitative differences, it opened the way for the
mathematical treatment of phenomena, which belongs to
scientific method. The same result flows from its rejec-
tion of teleology and final causes, in favor of a mechanical
explanation. Since all reality alike is qualitatively indif-
ferent, there is no room for a special kind of existence
which shall impart motion and direction to the rest;
motion, therefore, has to be restored to each atom as its
original possession. And as thus all the data necessary
for understanding the world are immanent in the notion
of matter itself, it is not necessary to appeal to purpose,
or intelligence, or to anything except the necessary laws of
mechanical interaction. Mind, or soul, is no exception
to the rule ; it is composed of the fire atoms, which are the
finest and most active of all. These soul atoms exist
everywhere ; but they are only endowed with sensation
when they come together in certain quantities, as they do
in the human body. Consciousness, therefore, disappears
with the dissolution of the body.

The scientific elaboration of this standpoint at the
hands of Democritus (about 460-360 B.C.), was one of the
great philosophical achievements of antiquity. Democritus

Greek Philosophy 33

is to be classed, indeed, not with the earlier philosophers,
but rather with Plato and Aristotle, whose older contem-
porary he was, and whom he rivals in the comprehensive-
ness of his system. In particular, he goes beyond his
predecessors by the more elaborate treatment which he gives
to the philosophical doctrine of knowledge. His whole theory
compels him to insist upon a difference between our ordi-
nary perception, which gives us the unreal appearance of
things as qualitatively distinct, and thought, which discloses
their true atomic structure ; and it only is in thought terms
that science deals. On the other hand, his materialism
forces him to explain knowledge in terms of contact, and
so to reduce it ultimately to the form of touch. He does
this through the theory of effluxes, or images, a theory
which remained influential even down to the time of
Locke. External objects shed minute copies or images
of themselves. These enter the sense organs which are
fitted to receive them, and, by setting in motion the soul
atoms, give rise to perception. How, then, does false
knowledge differ from true, sensation from thought?
This question, which the earlier philosophers had been
unable to answer, Democritus seems to have solved with-
out admitting any difference in kind between them.
Thought is caused by those finer images which copy the
atomic structure of things, and which, as they give rise to
a gentler motion of the soul, are able to affect us only as
more violent disturbances are prevented. Sensation, on
the contrary, being due to the larger and coarser images,
which aggregates of atoms give off, throws the soul into
the violent commotion which results only in confused per-
ceptions, i.e., in subjective and phenomenal appearance.

§ 7. The Pythagoreans

I. At the same time with the development which has just
been traced, another interconnected movement was gain-
ing numerous adherents. The originator of this movement
is the semi-mythical figure of Pythagoras, a native of

34 A Student's History of Philosophy

Samos, who lived about 580-500 B.C., and who, after many
travels, finally settled down at Crotona in Italy. The
facts about Pythagoras are not easy to discover, but it is
apparent that, besides being a philosopher, he had also
certain practical aims. He was the founder of a religious
society, in which more or less ascetic ethical and social
ideals appear to have been at least as important as scien-
tific doctrines. The school was a brotherhood, bound
together by common beliefs and rules, and common intel-
lectual pursuits. Some of the rules of the order have
come down to us, and they throw an interesting light on
its character. Apart from the injunction of celibacy and
ascetic practices, of meditations, devotions, and the social
virtues, there are other requirements of a more ambig-
uous nature. Do not sit on a quart measure ; do not eat
the heart ; do not stir the fire with iron ; do not look in a
mirror beside a light ; when you rise from the bedclothes,
roll them together and smooth out the impress of the
body : these are a few that are sufficiently characteristic.
So, also, the prohibition of animal sacrifices, of the use of
wool, of the eating of beans. Most of these rules seem
so trivial, that the later Pythagoreans were driven to inter-
pret them metaphorically, and to find in them all sorts of
hidden wisdom. But anthropology throws a different
light upon them, and makes it plain that they are simply
survivals of primitive savagery, based on the notion of
taboo, and similar customs and superstitions. They seem
to have appealed to Pythagoras as a suitable instrument
for bringing about a reform of the widespread luxury and
license which marked the age, and which have made the
neighboring city of Sybaris a byword for self-indulgence.
There are other indications that a wave of religious revival
had been passing over Greece, marked by a deepened
sense of guilt, and of the need of expiation. Such a
revival always tends to turn back to the authority of
ancient customs, with which the religious feeling is deeply
implicated, particularly on its more gloomy side. This

Greek Philosophy 35

sense of guilt shows itself in the doctrine of the trans-
migration of souls, which plays a large part in the Pythag-
orean teaching, and which has its chief attraction in its
emphasis on the fact of moral retribution. The rapid
growth of the new society, its inner coherence, and its
possession of scientific knowledge, soon gave it a pre-
ponderating political influence in Crotona, and other Ital-
ian cities. Its exclusiveness, however, and its rather
supercilious and self-righteous attitude, gave strength to
its opponents, and finally resulted in its overthrow at the
hands of the popular party.

2. Deprived of political power, the movement continued
to exert a more permanent influence through the medium
of those philosophical and scientific aspects which probably
had been present to some extent from the start. The doc-
trine of the Pythagoreans is summed up in the statement
that the reality of things consists in number. If we take
number in the modern sense, as distinguished from the
concrete objects to which it applies, this is too abstract a
conception to mean anything, even to us ; and it certainly
would not have been intelligible at so early a period. It
is necessary to interpret it, therefore, if it is to be made
consistent with the rest that is known of Greek thought ;
and the most probable interpretation seems, briefly, to be
this : It is the common presupposition of the Greek type
of mind, that the real is the definite. It is only as Chaos
takes on ordered and harmonious form, that we have any-
thing deserving to be called a world. But if existence is
spatial and material, then such regularity is most obvi-
ously to be found in the geometrical forms to which space
lends itself. With the Pythagoreans, this takes shape in the
doctrine that the Cosmos is the result of bringing together
two factors — the Unlimited, or infinite and formless empty
space, and the Limit which is given to this. The result is
the world of definite forms, which partake of the character-
istics of both. They are spatial in their nature, but it is
limited space. It was with this ascending series of geomet-

36 A Student's History of Philosophy

rical forms — regarded, however, not as abstractions, but as
concrete physical facts — that the number series seems to
have been identified, and so to have got its entrance into the
theory. Thus, the number one is the point, two the line,
three the surface, four the cube, and so on. The interest
of the Pythagoreans in musical theory, and their discovery
of the numerical relations of the length of the strings, may
have helped to emphasize this identification.

Of course, the actual scientific results which they had to
show from their investigations, were scanty. The inquiries
just mentioned, concerning the numerical relations involved
in musical harmony, had some value ; but the extension of
the same idea to phenomena on a larger or a different scale
— for example, their fancy about the " music of the spheres,"
and their theory that the soul is merely the harmony of the
body, as a melody is the harmony of the lyre — led them
into the realm of pure guesswork, or poetic imagination.
For the most part, their procedure consisted in attempting
to discover, through the use of more or less fanciful analo-
gies, a special number for every sort of existence. Thus,
opportunity is represented by the number seven ; marriage
by the number five — the first harmony between the male
(odd) and the female (even). The triviality of these results
should not lead us, however, to ignore the real value of
their fundamental thought. The recognition that the aim
of scientific inquiry is the discovery of numerical relation-
ships, was destined, under more favorable conditions, to
be taken up again, and, in connection with the atom-
ism of Democritus, to.be made the basis of all modern
science.

LITERATURE

Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers.

Blackie, Horae Hellenicae, p. 255.

Grote, History of Greece.

Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece.

Symonds, Greek Poets, Vol. I.

Zeller, The Pre-Socratic Schools, 2 vols.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. TRANSITION
TO THE STUDY OF MAN

§ 8. The Sophists

i. The Growth of Critical Inquiry. — So far, the
powers of the Greek mind have been directed chiefly to
the theoretical solution of the objective, cosmological
% problems that are connected with processes in nature.
And along this line the results have been somewhat re-
markable. In the space of a few generations, a concep-
tion has been elaborated which is strikingly similar to what
has been, up to within a short time at least, the hypothesis
of the most modern science. The reduction of qualitative
to quantitative differences, the connection of mathematics
with scientific method, the resolution of all phenomenal
bodies into a multitude of minute moving particles, or
atoms, of all change into change of position on the part
of these- atoms, and all efficiency into mechanical impact,
is expressed with a definiteness that leaves little to be de-
sired. Nevertheless, this development now stops abruptly,
and for nearly two thousand years the course of human
thought takes, in its dominant aspects, an altogether dif-
ferent line. How does Greek atomism differ from modern
science, that the one should be so barren, and the other
so rich in results ?

Evidently the most far-reaching difference consists sim-
ply in this : that modern science is no mere guess at the
ultimate nature of things in general, but an experimental
investigation of the way in which things really act in de-
tail. It is this which gives it its immense influence on
modern life. To know the actual laws of things is to con-

37

38 A Student's History of Philosophy

trol them; and this practical service which it renders, is
what has made of science one of the most powerful instru-
ments of growth in civilization that has ever been devised.
The Greeks, on the contrary, had not reached the point
where they could master the concrete behavior of objects.
Their atomism is less a science than a mere philosophy, in
which the chief interest is the theoretical one of reducing
all the complexity of life to a single formula. And as such,
it has no great contribution to make to the concrete human
ends, out of which the larger movements of human thought
always flow. It is not far enough advanced to touch human
life on the practical side, like modern science ; and in rela-
tion to the more spiritual interests of man, it is plainly
inadequate. The mechanical view of the world tries to re-
duce things to a statement which ignores all reference to
the facts of conscious life, of spiritual value, of aesthetic,
and ethical, and social ideals. And because it is such an
abstraction, it has no real interpretation to give of the as-
pects which it leaves out. But philosophy cannot long
ignore what interests men most; and as the physical
theories of the early period had thus no great contribution
to make to the good of human life, it was natural that
they should be laid aside for the time being, and attention
directed to the more concrete facts of individual and social
conduct, i.e., to Ethics. It was only when this more press-
ing problem had to some extent been worked out and
formulated, that philosophy was able to come back with
profit to the mechanical and physical aspects of the uni-
verse.

Meanwhile, in a negative way, the theories of the phys-
ical philosophers had helped prepare for this subsequent
movement — a movement which represents most characteris-
tically the genius of Greek thought, and of which the
Sophists were the immediate precursors. At first, philoso-
phy had directed its criticism only against such ideas as
were primarily theoretical in their nature, and had left com-
paratively untouched the realm of conduct. Any real

Greek Philosophy 39

tampering with the foundations of social life would, indeed,
at the start have been vigorously resented. A society
which is still based upon the morality of custom and tradi-
tion, cannot afford to allow too free an examination of its
foundation and sanctions, if it does not wish to disinte-
grate. Indirectly, however, philosophy had served seri-
ously to weaken these sanctions. Morality and the social
life always stand for the mass of men in close connection
with religious ideas and practices, and this is particularly
true of early society, where religion is still intimately bound
up with every detail of life. The physical philosophy had
thoroughly shaken the hold of the popular religion for a
multitude of educated men. The stories of the gods, offen-
sive alike to the scientific and to the moral sense, were
rationalized and explained away; and while philosophers
might not go to the length of denying outright the gods'
existence, — even the materialist Democritus supposed that
the interplay of atoms had given rise to beings, not immor-
tal indeed, but far more perfect than ourselves, whom we
call gods, — still the clearly defined conceptions of the
past were all the time being attenuated into a vague
naturalistic pantheism, which lost all grip on the concrete
conduct of life. The growth of naturalism, and the decay
of an active belief in the old mythology, shows itself plainly,
e.g., in the Greek historians. Instead of the Homeric gods,
who concern themselves with the smallest details of human
life, and are called in to explain even that which obviously
needs no explanation, there is already in Herodotus a fair
development of the historical spirit, which tries to get at
true causes, and which stops to weigh the evidence even
in the case of stories that are sacred. In spite of a good
deal of native piety, Herodotus is glad to rationalize when
he sees his way to it. So, e.g., he explains the legend of
the rape of Europa, as perhaps growing out of what was
historically a capture by pirates. And when we reach
Thucydides, we have a thoroughly modern historian, whose
narrative has become purely secular, and who has nothing

40 A Student's History of Philosophy

to do with anything except human and natural motives.
When, therefore, the ideas of conduct came themselves in
turn to be criticised, they had already lost a large measure
of their sacredness and solidity.

There had already been a certain amount of ethical
reflection among the Greeks. The writings of the so-
called Seven Wise Men, e.g., were largely moralistic. The
early moralists, indeed, had been content for the most part
with the enunciation of disconnected ethical and prudential
maxims — of which moderation is the key-note — on the
basis of the customary morality ; while their social and
political applications were partisan, rather than theoretical
and fundamental. Nevertheless, the mere fact that such
a literature was called forth, indicates a growing unrest,
and a feeling of the insecurity of the foundations of con-
duct which demanded counteracting forces. In particular,
the appearance everywhere in the Greek cities of the
Tyrant, usually a vigorous personality, who, from the r61e
of a popular "hero, ended by setting up his private will as
superior to the whole state, had impressed a stamp of
egoism and individualism upon the age. A new literary
movement gave expression to this individualism ; it was
fostered especially at the courts of the new rulers, and its
characteristic was the personal note of lyric poetry. The
tendency to make criticism more thoroughgoing, was par-
tially checked by the Persian wars. The pressure of a
national crisis, and the wave of moral enthusiasm called
forth by the heroic way in which it was met, lent a new
life to traditional institutions and beliefs. But as the dan-
ger passed, and Greece, especially Athens, entered upon
a career of prosperity unknown before, the tendencies
already present in the Greek life became more and more
insistent.

This result was inevitable. The tacit acquiescence in
the status quo, the unquestioning acceptance of law as
divine and obligatory, the merging of one's individual life
as a matter of course in the community and civic life, and

Greek Philosophy 41

the recognition of the superior claims of the latter, could
not long remain unchallenged under the conditions which
marked Greek political life during the fifth century. The
constant revolutions and changes of government growing
out of the struggles of the popular party with the aristoc-
racy, and the wide extension of democratic principles, made
it impossible that the old attitude should be persevered
in. No one could permanently preserve a feeling for the
divinity and inviolability of laws which were changed from
year to year, laws which he had seen his neighbors tinker-
ing at in the popular assembly, under the influence of
prejudices and passions, and which he himself had had a
hand in constructing. In this turmoil of social conditions,
when the old ideals, based on the life of custom, were
slowly yielding to new circumstances, it could not fail to
come about that there should be an effort to discover the
real basis of social life as such, of law, and justice, and
morality, and to justify at the bar of individual reason the
institutions which hitherto had been accepted on authority.
It is the sense of this conflict between the new and the old,
which gives rise to some of the characteristic problems of
the drama. The old tribal conceptions of guilt and retribu-
tion, comparatively unmoralized and external, are being
undermined by the new feeling for the worth of the in-
dividual, and the need that his acts should be grounded in
his personal will and choice to become ethically signifi-
cant. In ^Eschylus the old ideals still largely maintain
themselves; it is only when we get to Euripides, with
his pervasive scepticism, and individualism, and modernity,
that we realize how far thought has advanced from its
primitive caution.

2. The Sophists. — It was largely the class of men known
as the Sophists, who were responsible for bringing this
change of attitude to clear consciousness. The Sophists
were an outgrowth of the peculiar political conditions of
the time. For the young man of good birth, who had to
keep up the rdle of "gentleman," the natural, almost the

42 A Student's History of Philosophy

only, career to look forward to, was connected with the
political life of his city. Now for this, the most obvious
and indispensable qualification was the ability to speak well
and persuasively. In the small states of Greece, where
each citizen had an immediate voice in determining public
policy, political preferment, success in carrying one's meas-
ures, and even self-preservation against the attacks of op-
ponents, depended directly on one's skill in carrying his
audience with him. A demand arose, accordingly, for
teachers who should train men for public life; and the
Sophists came forward to meet this demand. The repre-
sentatives of the higher education of the day, they made,
like the modern university professor, the teaching of wis-
dom a profession. As there were no settled seats of
learning, they wandered from city to city, picking up their
pupils, mostly the sons of rich men, wherever they could
find them, and supporting themselves by the fees they re-
ceived. The basis of their work was apt to be rhetorical,
but with the abler Sophists, this was broadened out to cover
the field of an all-round and liberal culture. Any knowl-
edge that was available of the workings of the human
mind, of literature, history, language, or grammar, of the
principles underlying the dialectic of argument, of the
nature of virtue and justice, was clearly appropriate to
the end in view. And so in the case of the greater Soph-
ists — Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, and Gorgias are the
names best known to us — we meet with men possessed of
a varied, in some cases of an encyclopaedic, learning, and
able to present this systematically and skilfully.

Now all this seems to be innocent enough, and to supply
no justification for the extreme hostility and suspicion with
which the Sophists were regarded by the populace, and by
such reactionary upholders of tradition as Aristophanes.
In reality, however, there were some grounds for this sus-
picion. On the practical side, merely, there always was a
danger lest the Sophistic skill be prostituted to unsocial
ends. In Aristophanes' Clouds, the worthy Strepsiades,

Greek Philosophy 43

driven to his wits' end by the debts in which his son has
involved him, is represented as turning to the Sophist Soc-
rates, for the means to extricate himself by cheating his
creditors. And when, after he proves too stupid himself
to master the new learning, his son takes his place, and
ends by winning his suits in the court, the latter shows
himself a proficient disciple by ill-treating his own father
in turn, and then justifying his actions in true Sophistic
style. Apart, however, from such chances for abuse,
which no doubt were often taken advantage of, there was
a more fundamental reason for the popular distrust. The
habit of unrestricted inquiry and discussion which was crys-
tallized by the Sophistic movement, the free play of the
mind over all subjects that interest men, meant the over-
throw of much in the existing civilization. But men do
not like to have the foundations of their lives shaken; and
when these foundations have never been rationalized, and
have no better warrant than unthinking custom, the mere
motion to examine them critically, seems to be risking the
solidity of the whole social structure, and is resented
accordingly.

Nor, indeed, was there very much in the thought of the
Sophists to counteract this disintegrating tendency. In
so far as their teaching implied a criticism of existing
things, it was negative in its effects. Thought had not
yet been exercised sufficiently to discover a rational stand-
ard, to take the place of the standard of authoritative tra-
dition which was being destroyed. Just the admission
that each man has the right to test the truth of anything
whatsoever, by referring it to his own private judgment,
seems at first to do away with the possibility of an abso-
lute criterion, and to resolve society into a mass of ele-
mentary units, each recognizing no principle of authority
outside himself. This was strengthened, as has been said,
by the practical aim of the Sophistic teaching. The goal
of the politician was not so much truth, as victory. This
made it necessary that, like the modern lawyer, he should

44 A Student's History of Philosophy

be nimble-witted enough to take any side, to seize any
loophole of argument, to be able, if need be, to make the
worse appear the better reason — a procedure likely to
obscure rather than clarify the ultimate principles of truth,
if any such there be.1 On this basis, it was easily possible
for a conception to arise which should reduce society to a
mere complex of individual men, each looking out primarily
for his own private interests, — a conception which had its
counterpart in that atomism in the outer world, with which
the theories of the physical philosophers had already fa-
miliarized men's minds.

In the case of the earlier and greater Sophists, there is
no evidence that there was any intention thus to under-
mine the foundations of society, or to promote an extreme
scepticism and individualism. For the most part, these
were men of excellent moral ideals, who honestly meant
to train their pupils to a life of virtue and usefulness in
the state ; the famous Choice of Hercules by Prodicus, and

1 This, for Aristophanes, is all that the Sophist stands for, and no doubt in
many cases the emphasis in their teaching looked sufficiently in this direction
to give grounds for his strong dislike. Cf. the following lines from the Birds
(Frere's translation) : —

" Along the Sycophantic shore,
And where the savage tribes adore
The waters of the Clepsydra,
There dwells a nation, stern and strong,
Armed with an enormous tongue,
Wherewith they smite and slay :
With their tongues, they reap and sow,
And gather all the fruits that grow,
The vintage and the grain;
Gorgias is their chief of pride,
And many more there be beside
Of mickle might and main.
Good they never teach, nor show
But how to work men harm and woe,
Unrighteousness and wrong;
And hence the custom doth arise,
When beasts are slain in sacrifice,
We sever out the tongue."

Greek Philosophy 45

the eloquent discourse of Protagoras, in Plato's dialogue of
the same name, are examples of what their teaching could
be at its best. Nevertheless, the forces which they set in
motion inevitably led beyond their own position. The first
step had been to abandon the na'fve acceptance of the
obligatoriness of law as such. The growing recognition of
the great diversity in the practice of different communities,
and the habit, which democracy fostered, of setting up the
citizen himself to judge the laws, gradually tended to break
down their sanctity. As, however, men were not ready
all at once to give up their old feeling about law, there
resulted an important distinction. This was the distinc-
tion between merely statute law, and those ultimate prin-
ciples on which the moral life and society rest ; or, as it
came to be expressed, between what is right only by cus-
tom or convention, and what is right by nature. This
latter was at first found somewhat vaguely in the law of
the ethical life, or " justice," which thus was still taken
largely for granted.

But the same criticism which had destroyed the abso-
luteness of ordinary law, was presently extended to the
conception of moral law as well. The almost universal
assumption which lay back of moralizing reflection and
ethical exhortation in early times — that virtue and justice
are the only safe way of getting on in the world, and
should be sought as a matter of far-sighted prudence —
became less obvious the more it was pondered over. Such
an assumption needs, perhaps, to be made by the majority
of men, if they are to remain held by the traditional
virtues ; but does it approve itself to reason ? To the
intelligence enlightened by the casting off of unthinking
habits of moral judgment, as to the writer of the book of
Job, it does not seem evident that the righteous always
prosper, and the wicked come to grief. Injustice has its
full share, if not more than its share, of the good things of
life, and apparently enjoys them none the less for the
crimes that have been committed to procure them. If,

46 A Student's History of Philosophy

then, the motive of conduct is our own advantage and
happiness, — and what other end can maintain itself ? —
and if the fear of the gods, whose very existence is in
question, is no longer before the eyes of the emancipated
man, have virtue and justice themselves any other title to
our respect than mere convention ? It may be advisable
often to yield to the prejudice in favor of these things ;
but if we can disregard them safely, and it clearly is to our
interest to do so, it is only folly to allow mere words like
"right" and "good," "injustice" and "evil," to stand in
our way.

There were not lacking men to draw this final conclu-
sion. In the last resort, might is right. The law of nature
is to satisfy, if we can, those appetites which nature has
implanted in us, in common with the rest of her creatures.
Moral terms, with their implication of praise or blame, are
only conventional, either the invention of the many to
restrain the more powerful few, or of rulers who wish
thereby to rivet the chains of their subjects. " For nature
herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more
than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker, and
in many ways she shows among men as well as among
animals that justice consists in the superior ruling over and
having more than the inferior. If there were a man who
had sufficient force, he would trample under foot all our
formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws, sinning
against nature ; the slave would rise in rebellion and be
lord over us, and natural justice would shine forth." J

The outcome of such a tendency was bound to be fatal
to the welfare of Greek society ; and the perception of the
danger is one of the main things which justify us in
separating Socrates and Plato from the Sophists in the
narrower sense. It is true that these conclusions were not
often expressed so nakedly; but they were in the air.

1 Plato, Gorgias, 483. This, and the subsequent quotations from Plato,
are from Jowett's translation. (Oxford University Press. American ed. by
Chas. Scribner's Sons.)

Greek Philosophy 47

Their real source lies, not in any group of individual
thinkers, but in the whole state of political life, in " that
great Sophist, the Public," as Plato expresses it. The
utter unscrupulousness and rapacity which had invaded the
relations of the different Greek states to one another, could
not fail to be carried over into the realm of private morals ;
it is no Sophist, but a practical politician and man of the
world, a despiser of all philosophy, who stands in Plato
as the most extreme and outspoken representative of the
gospel of force. The Sophistic movement was not a cause,
but a symptom ; its danger lay in its stimulation of pre-
cisely those tendencies which needed control. " The Soph-
ists do but fan and add fuel to the fire in which Greece,
as they wander like ardent missionaries about it, is flam-
ing itself away." J

If, now, we attempt to estimate the value of the move-
ment, it may be said that, in spite of its failings, it represents
an important stage in the growth of human intelligence.
The attitude which accepts without question the moral and
social obligations of the society into which a man is born,
avoids a vast amount of friction and unrest, but it has its
drawbacks as well. In such a society, there is no inward
principle of conscious and self -directed growth. Because
men have simply inherited the forms of their belief and
conduct, and have not been accustomed to ask why these
are accepted, and whether they really perform the service
that would justify the tenacity with which they are held,
there is no way of going to work consciously to change
conditions. And when changes are forced upon society
through the stress of outward circumstances, men are
helpless to adapt themselves to the new situation. This
power of adaptability, which is so necessary to progress,
implies that the individual man is no longer swallowed up
in his tribe or state. It implies that he has recognized his
own individuality, his right to appeal from the bar of mere
authority, and justify to himself the grounds on which he

1 Pater, Plato and Platonism.

48 A Student's History of Philosophy

is to believe and act. So long as primitive social condi-
tions are fairly satisfactory, and maintain themselves in
a reasonable degree of integrity, the positive advantages
which they offer, as the safeguards of a settled life, are of
too much value to be lightly trifled with. But as soon as
this stability begins to weaken, as it was commencing to do
in Greece, a change of attitude is a necessity of self-pres-
ervation. Men can no longer rest upon the traditional
forms that have served their day ; and so they have to
fall back upon themselves, and upon their ability to strike
out paths in a measure different from the old. And the
first step is, to recognize their independence of the old ; to
recognize that there is at least a sense in which man is
greater than society, and has the right to make society,
with all its creeds and institutions, subservient to his own
needs and wishes.

But in coming to recognize this, there is great danger
of swinging to the other extreme, which itself stands in
need of correction. Let it be granted that no mere author-
ity of gods, or king, or fellow-citizens, has, as such, any
absolute claim on the individual man ; that he is essen-
tially free, and in his freedom can demand that every-
thing claiming authority over him, should first approve
itself to his reason. In what, nevertheless, does this reason
and this freedom consist ? Is man the measure of all
things, in the sense that each man has his own private
reason, incommensurable with that of any one else ? And
is freedom, similarly, the mere right to do as one individ-
ually pleases? It is to this that the Sophistic thought
tends to swing ; and in so doing, it opens up one of the
central problems of philosophy. What, namely, do we
mean by the Individual ? Is he simply the self-centred
unit which at first glance he seems to be ; a body distinct
from all other bodies, with its private appetites and desires,
seeking to compass its own preservation and gratification,
without reference to any one else ? Is he a reality quite
outside his relation to society as a whole, whose existence,

Greek Philosophy 49

therefore, is immaterial to him, except as it serves to further
his individual and sensuous interests ? Or, is man's nature
to be taken as something wider than this ? Is it possible,
without falling back upon the purely external restraints of
custom and authority, to find in man's own self the laws
that shall connect him again with the larger life of the
world, and enable him to establish securely once more the
concrete institutions of society and the state ; not now as
something impressed upon him from the outside, but as an
outgrowth of his own needs, and an expression of his own
inmost being ?

In opposition to the growing individualism of the
age, Socrates is the starting-point for another tendency,
which became more clearly conscious in his successors,
Plato and Aristotle. This is the tendency to emphasize
the more universal and objective sides of man's life and
knowledge. Socrates is, in the large sense of the word,
himself a Sophist. He is as convinced as any one, of the
necessity of subjecting the grounds of conduct to a rational
examination, instead of accepting them uncritically on the
basis of tradition. And so Aristophanes, as an adherent of
the Old School, selects him as the arch-Sophist, to pillory
in his comedy of the Clouds. But Socrates also is fully
and consciously possessed of the unwavering conviction
that morality and society can stand the test of this inquiry.
Far from landing us in scepticism and ethical anarchy,
criticism will establish all the more firmly the subordina-
tion of the individual man to the larger social order. In
his dawning perception of the way in which this result is
to be brought about, Socrates is the forerunner of some of
the most important philosophical tendencies of the future.

§ 9. Socrates

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the son of an Athenian
sculptor, but early abandoned his father's profession for
the more congenial pursuit of philosophy. There is no

50 A Student's History of Philosophy

more picturesque figure in the history of Greece. In per-
sonal appearance the very opposite of the Greek ideal,
with protruding eyes, thick lips, and snub nose, all this
was forgotten when one came under the charm of his per-
sonality and his conversation. And conversation was the
one business of his life. Living in the most frugal man-
ner, his meat and drink of the cheapest sort, without shoes
to his feet the whole year round, and clinging to a single
threadbare cloak that served for summer and winter alike,
he spent his time in the market-place, or wherever men
came together, satisfied if only he could find some one with
whom to discourse upon the questions in which he took a
perennial interest. " I have a benevolent habit," he says
jokingly in one of Plato's dialogues, " of pouring out my-
self to everybody, and I would even pay for a listener if I
couldn't get one in any other way."

It is to no lack of seriousness, however, on Socrates'
part, that we^ are to attribute this mode of life. It is rather
due to a genuine moral purpose, which he followed consist-
ently from beginning to end. As he tells the story in
Plato's Apology, the report had come to him- that Chaero-
phon, a friend of his, had put to the oracle at Delphi the
question : Is any man living wiser than Socrates ? and the
reply had been, that Socrates was indeed wisest of man-
kind. Unable, in the consciousness of his own ignorance,
to understand this, and yet not wanting to doubt the word
of the god, Socrates had gone from one man to another
who was reputed wise, that he might test this wisdom;
and in every case he had found a conceit of knowledge,
with nothing in reality back of it. A little questioning
had quickly brought to light that each man was as igno-
rant as he of all the higher concerns of human life ; the
only difference lay in the fact that all the rest supposed
themselves to be very wise indeed, whereas Socrates,
though he was as ignorant as they, at least knew that he
knew nothing. He concluded, therefore, that it was this
consciousness of his own ignorance to which the oracle

Greek Philosophy 51

had been referring, and that, by thus commending him,
the god had chosen him out as an instrument for pricking
the bubble of universal self-deception. Convinced pro-
foundly that knowledge alone is salvation, he saw that the
first and the essential step toward getting rid of the con-
fused mass of opinion going by the name of knowledge,
was to make its inadequacy apparent. He was the divinely
appointed gadfly given to the state, " which is like a great
and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his
very size, and requires to be stirred into life."

This condition of ignorance was to Socrates, however,
always to be a prelude to something better, not an end in
itself. In spite of his insistence upon his own ignorance,
no one can be more thoroughly convinced that there is
truth, and that this truth is attainable by man. It is moral
truth, however, not scientific or metaphysical. " This is
the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in
general, and in which I might, perhaps, fancy myself wiser
than other men — that whereas I know but little of the
world below, I do not suppose that I know. But I do
know" — and this suggests the positive side — "that in-
justice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man,
is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a
possible good rather than a certain evil." * As regards
the problems with which the physical philosophers had
been busy, he is as sceptical as any one. But if we cannot
know the movements of the heavenly bodies, or the number
of the primitive elements, at least we may console our-
selves with the thought that such knowledge would be of no
use to us if we possessed it. All that man really needs is
the knowledge of himself, his own duty and end : yv&Oi,
ffeavrov.

It was of the things, therefore, that lie nearest to man's
human interests, that he was all the time questioning and
debating — piety and impiety, the beautiful and the ugly,
the noble and the base, the just and the unjust, sobriety

1 Apol.t 29.

52 A Student's History of Philosophy

and madness, courage and cowardice, what a state is, and
what a statesman, what a ruler over men. Of anything
whose practical bearing was not at once manifest, he was
openly impatient. All that really concerns man is how to
live — to live his concrete life as citizen in a state. So long
as there is ignorance almost complete on this all-important
point, we have no energy to spare for guesses about non-
essentials. The carpenter, the smith, the flute-player, the
pilot, each knows his own business. He trains himself for
one definite thing, and he can tell you just what that thing
is, and what purpose it serves. For citizenship alone, in
spite of its being vastly more complicated, and vastly more
important, there is no special training, and there is no defi-
nite formulation of the end in view. Here every man is
supposed to be competent by nature to pronounce on the
most abstruse questions. If a man were to imagine that
his mere inclination to be a physician, was a sufficient
qualification Jo justify him in hanging out his sign, he
would be laughed at. But men will aim at an important
office in the state, on no more solid grounds than that they
desire the office, and think they can get enough of their
friends to vote for them to secure it. If we need knowl-
edge, then, for the simplest and humblest pursuits, most
of all do we need it for that pursuit which is the supreme
end of man's life. And given adequate knowledge, nothing
else is needed. No man will voluntarily do that which is
against his best interests ; since, then, right, or justice, and
these best interests of his nature, are identical, man has
only to know the right, and he will do it freely. Virtue is
knowledge — this is, of all the doctrines that go back to
Socrates, perhaps the most characteristic.

Socrates' mission is, therefore, in his own eyes, funda-
mentally a moral and religious one. " Men of Athens, I
honor and love you ; but I shall obey God rather than you,
and while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from
the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting every
one whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him,

Greek Philosophy 53

saying : O my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the
great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much
about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor
and reputation, and so little about wisdom, and truth, and
the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never
regard or heed at all?" * He aims at knowledge, accord-
ingly, not on its own account, but that it may be put in
practice ; and since, in the field of ethics, there is no break
between knowing and doing, in making men wise, he is at
the same time making them good. Such a close connec-
tion between knowledge and action may seem, indeed, to
overlook certain obvious facts — the many times we see
and approve the better, and yet choose the worse. Per-
haps there is more truth than we commonly admit in the
answer, that such knowledge is no real knowledge, and
that, when knowledge is truly vital and realized, it always
carries action with it. But at any rate, there is one point
which stands out with sufficient clearness. The statement
that virtue is identical with knowledge has at least this
meaning : that virtue does not merely consist in following
the customs of our forefathers, but is rationalized conduct.
And so it has nothing to fear, on the contrary it has every-
thing to hope, from the most thorough scrutiny of reason.
The method by which Socrates attempted to secure these
results, had a twofold aspect. He begins by shaking the
foundations of a false assurance of knowledge. Starting in
with an appearance of agreement, and a depreciation of his
own wisdom, as compared with that which his interlocutor
undoubtedly possesses, he induces the latter to offer a defi-
nition of the matter in hand. Then, by a series of skilful
questions, he develops the most contradictory conclusions
from this, until, as Euthyphro says, "somehow or other
our arguments, on whatever grounds we rest them, seem to
turn round and walk away ; " and the one with whom he is
arguing is compelled to confess that he has never carefully
considered the subject, and that his notions about it are

29.

54 A Student's History of Philosophy

indefinite, and based on mere confused opinion. This is
the famous Socratic irony. For example, Euthydemus is
very certain that he knows what an upright and righteous
man is. I see, he says, you are afraid I cannot expound
the works of righteousness ! Why, bless me, of course I can,
and the works of unrighteousness into the bargain. Very
well, replies Socrates, let us write the letter R on this side,
and the letter W on that; and then anything that appears
to us to be the product of righteousness, we will place to
the R account, and anything that appears to be the prod-
uct of wrong-doing, to the account of W. Where, then,
shall we place lying ? Euthydemus is quite confident that
this will go under W ; and so also will deceit, and chicanery,
and the enslavement of freeborn men. It would be quite
monstrous to put these on the side of right and justice.

But now, says Socrates, suppose a man to be elected
general, and suppose he succeeds in enslaving an unjust
and hostile state ; or he deceives the foe while at war with
them, and pillages their property : are we to say that he is
doing wrong ? And if he is not, shall we not be compelled
to set these same qualities down also to the account of R ?
As Euthydemus is forced to admit this, it becomes neces-
sary to change the definition ; we will say now that it is
right to do such things to a foe, but it still is wrong to do
them to a friend. But stay a moment, Socrates goes on ;
suppose a general invents a tale to encourage his demoral-
ized troops, or a father uses deceit to get his sick child
to take some medicine under the guise of something nice
to eat, or you rob a friend of a knife which he is liable to
use against himself ; are these things wrong too ? Is a
straightforward course to be pursued in such cases, even
in dealing with friends ? Heaven forbid ! the young man
exclaims ; if you will let me, I take back my former state-
ment once more. And so Socrates continues, until Euthy-
demus comes to the conclusion that it is high time for
him to keep silence altogether, or he will be proved to
know absolutely nothing; and he goes off with his self-

Greek Philosophy 55

confidence entirely shattered, though for that very reason
in a much more teachable spirit than at the start.1

Along with this negative aspect, however, there was a
more positive side. Socrates' method rests on the assump-
tion that every man has within him the possibility of knowl-
edge. If the elements of knowledge did not exist down
below the surface of opinion, he would have no standard by
which to correct his first thoughts. Socrates' questioning
serves only to disentangle what implicitly is there already ;
he is an intellectual midwife, to bring truth to its birth.
This is noteworthy by reason of the fact that it brings
to the front the value of clear and exact definition, in
opposition to the confused, self-contradictory, altogether
loose and popular character of most that goes under the
name of thinking, — faults belonging not merely to com-
mon opinion, but even to such pretenders to scientific
knowledge as the Sophists, with their fondness for florid
rhetoric and exhortation. But, furthermore, this emphasis
on definition had other and far-reaching results. It has al-
ready been noticed that the earlier philosophers were com-
pelled to make a distinction between ordinary opinion, and
philosophic thought, without, however, being able to define
this very clearly. Since there was often a complete contra-
diction between their own views, and the popular beliefs, the
two evidently could not be on the same plane. The method
of Socrates supplied a way of conceiving in what the dis-
tinctiveness of thought consists. If knowledge is possible,
then down beneath the unessential differences due to in-
dividual prejudices and opinions, there is something in
which all men agree, or can be led to agree. The method
of philosophy will consist in stripping off these outer
husks, and laying bare the common, universal element
which they conceal. Thought, i.e., deals with what we
call the concept, or general notion. This gets away from
mere special cases and illustrations, and sums up the
essential nature of the thing, which marks its point of

1 Memorabilia, IV, 2.

56 A Student's History of Philosophy

identity with other things of the same sort, and without
which it would cease to be what it is. Instead, then, of
taking our terms for granted in a dogmatic way, we need to
criticise and test them, and find out what we really mean
by them ; only when we have brought out this universal
and essential element have we anything that can be called
science, or true knowledge. It was left to Socrates' suc-
cessor, Plato, to recognize the full importance of this
idea. But even in Socrates it clearly points away from
the sceptical and individualistic tendency. Instead of
finding man's essential nature in those private desires,
feelings, and sensations, which in a way separate him
from other men, Socrates looked rather to the rational and
universal elements in him, which bind all men together in
the bonds of a valid knowledge, and in subjection to the
dictates of an authoritative conscience.

Socrates himself was never able fully to justify this view
of man in a theoretical way. His surety rather took
the form of ,f aith — a faith that in obedience to the laws
of conscience and of society, man's true life would be
found to consist. It was in large measure this unswerving
confidence in the truth of the ethical ideal, which does not
tolerate the least paltering with duty, even while our
theoretical inquiry is still incomplete, that gave Socrates
his great influence. He himself was a living and most
impressive embodiment of the ideal which he preached,
— simple in his manner of life, unflinching in his courage,
exercising the most rigid self-control over his desires and
appetites. "It must have been," so he declared, "by
feeding men on so many dainty dishes, that Circe produced
her pigs." In consequence of this moderate and abste-
mious life, his powers of endurance were remarkable. On
military campaigns, besides showing great bravery in bat-
tle, he had an extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue,
and going without food ; " and when during a severe winter
the rest either remained indoors, or, if they went out, had
on no end of clothing, and were well shod, and had their

Greek Philosophy 57

feet swathed in felts and fleeces, in the midst of this
Socrates, with his bare feet on the ice, and in his ordinary
dress, marched better than any of the other soldiers who
had their shoes on." * His courage was shown in peace as
well as in war. When acting as president of the prytanes,
he had declined, in face of the popular clamor, to put to
vote illegally the resolution condemning the generals at
Arginusae ; and once again, in the perilous times under
the Thirty Tyrants, he had, at the risk of his life, refused
to act contrary to the laws at their bidding. This combi-
nation of rectitude of character, with striking intellectual
gifts — a combination which his personal peculiarities
served rather to heighten than obscure — gave to Socra-
tes an influence on the thought of his day equalled by that
of no other man.

It is not strange, however, that he should have raised
up enemies as well as friends. Few people can bear
with equanimity the public exposure of their own igno-
rance ; and Socrates' conception of his moral mission made
him careless of the hard feelings he might excite. He
fell, too, under the public suspicion which the sceptical
and irreligious tendencies of the Sophistic movement had
aroused in the minds of lovers of the old way of things,
although he was himself of a deeply religious nature, and
an observer of the customary forms of worship. Not long
after the overthrow of the Thirty, therefore, he was pub-
licly accused of denying the gods of the city, and of
corrupting its youths, and was brought to trial. If he had
been willing to adopt a conciliatory tone, he probably
would have escaped ; but he refused to lower himself by
flattering the people, when he was conscious of no guilt,
and by a narrow vote, he was condemned to drink the
hemlock.

" And Crito made a sign to the servant ; and the ser-
vant went in, and remained for some time, and then
returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Soc-

1 Symposium, 220.

58 A Student's History of Philosophy

rates said : You, my good friend, who are experienced in
these matters, shall give me directions how I am to pro-
ceed. The man answered : You have only to walk about
until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the
poison will act. At the same time he handed the cup to
Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without
the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at
the man with all his eyes, as his manner was, took the cup
and said : What do you say about making a libation out
of this cup to any god ? May I, or not ? The man an-
swered: We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we
deem enough. I understand, he said ; yet I may and must
pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that
other world — may this, then, which is my prayer, be
granted to me. Then holding the cup to his lips, quite
readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And
hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow ;
but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he
had finished J:he draught, we could no longer forbear, and
in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast ; so that
I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I
was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own
calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the
first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain
his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed;
and at that moment Apollodorus, who had been weeping
all the time, broke out into a loud cry which made cowards
of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness : What
is this strange outcry ? he said. I sent away the women
mainly in order that they might not offend in this way,
for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be
quiet, then, and have patience. When we heard that, we
were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked
about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he
lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man
who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet
and legs ; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and

Greek Philosophy 59

asked him if he could feel ; and he said, No ; and then his
leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he
was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said :
When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end.
He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he
uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and
said (they were his last words) — he said: Crito, I owe a
cock to Asclepius ; will you remember to pay the debt ?
The debt shall be paid, said Crito ; is there anything else ?
There was no answer to this question ; but in a minute or
two a movement was heard, and the attendant uncovered
him ; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and
mouth.

Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I
may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all the
men whom I have ever known." 1

LITERATURE

Plato, esp. Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Ion, Meno, Euthyphro, Protago-
ras, Gorgias, Apology, Crito, Phcedo, Symposium.
Xenophon, Memorabilia, Apology, Banquet.
Grote, History of Greece, Vol. 8.
Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools.
Forbes, Socrates.

§ 10. The Schools of Megara and Elis. Aristippus and
the Cyrenaics. Antisthenes and the Cynics

The influence which Socrates left behind him, while
it was widespread and profound, was not so much the influ-
ence of a definite philosophical doctrine, to which, indeed,
he never wholly attained, as of an impressive personality.
There are, accordingly, a number of distinct schools trac-
ing their origin to him. In addition to the more impor-
tant development of Socrates' teaching in Plato, there were

1 Phado, 117.

60 A Student's History of Philosophy

also the relatively unimportant schools of Megara and Elis,
founded respectively by Euclides and Phcedo; and the more
striking tendencies represented in the Cynics and Cyrena-
ics. In these latter, we meet the first definite formulation
of the two great types of ethical theory, which ever since
have been contending with each other in the history of
thought. Both of them profess to go back to Socrates. As
we have seen, Socrates' own conception of the true end of
human life was vague in its outlines. That virtue is the
highest good, and that virtue is intimately bound up with
the possession of knowledge or insight — of this he was
assured. But virtue, or insight, is good for what? For
its own sake ? That leaves no content to virtue. To say
that the supreme good is virtue, and that virtue is insight
into the good, seems to be going in a circle ; good for what ?
we ask again. Now the one obvious and seemingly unam-
biguous answer to this is : pleasure, or happiness. This
gives at last a definite content. All men will agree that
pleasure is a good in its own right, needing no justification
by reference* to a more remote end ; and it is the only good
about which they would so agree.

i. The Cyrenaics. — Socrates himself had had a leaning
toward this solution, although he had not been altogether
satisfied with it ; but with Aristippus of Cyrene, it is elevated
to the position of a central doctrine. Pleasure is man's sole
good — pleasure in the most concrete form, and so, first of
all, the more intensive pleasures of the body, although not
such pleasures exclusively. If we could live from moment
to moment, filling each with the fullest delight that sense and
mind alike are capable of receiving, that would be the ideal
of life. Unfortunately there are difficulties — practical diffi-
culties — in the way of this. Our acts have consequences
that we do not intend, and so in our well-meant pursuit of
pleasure, we are apt — nay, we are sure — continually to be
blundering upon pain and loss. Here, therefore, is the
place for the Socratic insight. Only the wise man can be
truly and permanently happy, — he who does not let him-

Greek Philosophy 61

self be carried off his feet by the rush of his passion ; who
can enjoy, but at the same time be above enjoyment, its
master. Wisdom is thus no sober kill-joy. It means
simply the ability to weigh and compound our pleasures
well ; the ability, while we seize the fleeting moment, at
the same time, in full possession of ourselves, to look be-
yond the moment, foresee the consequences our acts will
entail, and choose accordingly. Since, then, it is the part
of wisdom to avoid pain, as well as to win pleasure, the
life of purely sensuous enjoyment will have to be checked
and moderated in some degree, in favor of the less intense,
but safer, joys of the mind. We are not to suppose that
there is any shame attaching to the life of the senses as
such, or any higher law to which this is subordinate;
" nothing is disgraceful in itself." The necessity is based
merely on prudential grounds, because to the abuse of such
bodily pleasures, more definite penalties are attached.

This conception of the end of life is known as Hedonism,
and it never has been formulated more consistently and
forcibly than in this statement of it first given by Aristip-
pus. It is true that it affords no room for the play of those
finer sentiments about the good and the just, the beauty of
righteousness, the nobility of duty. But in compensation,
it offers a well-defined view of life, with no nonsense about
it, which lends itself to what is intellectually the simplest
and most clear-cut of theories, and which, besides, appeals
powerfully to the natural man. Naturally, this cutting
away of the roots of the moral sentiments also carried
with it religion. Theodorus is known as the Atheist ; and
Euhemerus is the originator of a philosophy of religion on
a naturalistic basis, in which the stories of the gods are
carried back to historical events in the lives of human kings
and heroes, misinterpreted by tradition — a theory which
had great notoriety in ancient times.

Evidently, in all this, the really characteristic element in
Socrates' thought has been lost. The universal factor
in human life and knowledge, on which Socrates had so

62 A Student's History of Philosophy

strongly insisted, has no place in the Cyrenaic scheme. Pleas-
ure is essentially an individual matter, and the Cyrenaics
were too logical to try, as more modern Hedonists have done,
to make it yield as a result the desirability of the common
good — the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
The pleasure which each man should seek for is, of course,
his own. He is an individual looking out for number one,
and beyond this has no obligations to society or the state.
Society, in consequence, breaks up into a bundle of indi-
vidual units. It is a mere name, with which the wise man
will not concern himself. " I do not dream for a moment,"
says Aristippus to Socrates, " of ranking myself in the class
of those who wish to rule. In fact, considering how serious
a business it is to cater for one's private needs, I look upon
it as the mark of a fool not to be content with that, but to
further saddle oneself with the duty of providing the rest
of the community with whatever they may be pleased to
want. Why, bless me, states claim to treat their rulers pre-
cisely as I treat my domestic slaves. I expect my attend-
ants to furnish me with an abundance of necessaries, but
not to lay a finger on one of them themselves. So these
states regard it as the duty of a ruler to provide them with
all the good things imaginable, but to keep his own hands
off them all the while. So, then, for my part, if any one
desires to have a heap of pother himself, and be a nuisance
to the rest of the world, I will educate him in the manner
suggested ; but for myself, I beg to be enrolled amongst
those who wish to spend their days as easily and pleasantly
as possible." x So also Theodorus : " It is not reasonable
that a wise man should hazard himself for his country, and
endanger wisdom for a set of fools."

The difficulty of this is, that the universe does not seem
to be arranged for the purpose of enabling gentlemen to
avoid all disagreeable duties, and live " as easily and pleas-
antly as possible." It is this logic of experience, which
leads the Cyrenaics to a recognition of the impossibility of

1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, II, I. Dakyn's translation. (Macmillan & Co.)

Greek Philosophy 63

getting pleasure unmixed with pain, and so to a growing
tendency to substitute mere freedom from pain, for posi-
tive happiness. This reaches its issue in the open pes-
simism of Hegesias. Hegesias feels so strongly how
ill-calculated life is to yield even a balance of pleasure,
except for the favored few, that he denies to it all value :
" Life only appears a good thing to a fool, to the wise man
it is indifferent." He finds his only comfort in the utter
painlessness of death ; and he presents this thought so per-
suasively, that he is known as Treia-iQdvaros — the inciter to
death, or suicide.

2. The Cynics. — In opposition to Aristippus' one-sided in-
sistence on pleasure, Antisthenes and the Cynics fastened on
another aspect of Socrates' doctrine, which might be taken
to represent his real spirit more adequately ; although in their
hands it becomes equally one-sided. It has been seen that
while Socrates is quite sure that man's chief good is virtue,
and that virtue is bound up with knowledge, this leaves the
content of virtue undetermined, and, consequently, gives
no practical guidance for the direction of our lives. But
another hint also had been offered by Socrates to supply
the deficiency. When Socrates is taunted by Antiphon
with his frugal way of living, and with the absence of all
pleasures from his life, Socrates concludes his reply in
these words : " Again, if it be a question of helping our
friends or country, which of the two will have the larger
leisure to devote to these objects ? he who leads the life
which I lead to-day? or he who lives in the style which
you deem so fortunate ? Which of the two will adopt a
soldier's life more easily ? the man who cannot get on with-
out expensive living, or he to whom whatever comes to
hand suffices ? Which will be the readier to capitulate and
cry mercy in a siege ? a man of elaborate wants, or he who
can get along happily with the readiest things to hand ?
You, Antiphon, would seem to suggest that happiness con-
sists in luxury and extravagance ; I hold a different creed.
To have no wants at all is, to my mind, an attribute of

64 A Student's History of Philosophy

godhead; to have as few wants as possible, the nearest
approach to godhead. And as that which is divine is
mightiest, so that is next mightiest which comes closest to
the divine." 1 Now if virtue, as the rational conduct of life,
is to be an end in itself, and bring satisfaction quite apart
from all external aids, it follows that the course of our life
must be freed as much as possible from the chances of the
outer world, which are constantly liable to interfere with
our happiness, if this is dependent upon them. It must
be freed, that is, from everything which does not lie wholly
within the power of the mind itself. And this can only
be done by suppressing the desires which make things
attractive or fearful. According to Antisthenes, then, that
is the truest, and the only rational and virtuous life, which
has the fewest possible wants, and which is thus, in so far
as may be, self-centred, and independent of all external
vicissitudes.

Such an ideal as this might be interpreted in a way to
make it decidedly inviting to a mind with any tinge of
moral enthusiasm. As it is exemplified in Socrates him-
self, e.g.y it possesses a high degree of charm. Socrates
does not inveigh against the pleasures of life as such ; in-
deed, he commends his own life as in reality yielding more
solid pleasures than the self-indulgent man ever can attain.
The zest of a healthy appetite will give a relish to the
coarsest and most moderate fare, which no spices can
afford the jaded palate. But the wise man never will fall
a slave to his appetites, and let them become necessary
to his existence ; he estimates the worth of his own man-
hood too highly for that. And he will find his main de-
light rather in those higher pleasures which belong more
intimately to his nature as a man — friendship, conversa-
tion, the joys of the intellect, and of service to the com-
munity. His independence of the world is not the casting
away of all obligations to his fellow-men, but rather the
steadfast pursuance of duty regardless of its consequences.

1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, 6.

Greek Philosophy 65

But this, again, implies a concrete and positive content
to virtue. If virtue is really made to consist in a purely
negative freedom from wants, it loses at once its inspiration,
and lands us in the same individualism that had resulted
from Aristippus' doctrine of pleasure. The ideal of the
Cynic is to rid himself, not only of those artificial wants
which complicate and enervate life, but of all ties whatso-
ever that relate him to the rest of the world. He places
himself deliberately outside the current of the world's life,
but it is not because, like the early Christian, he finds here
no abiding city, and so looks for another and a heavenly.
He breaks all national and civic bonds, not to enter into
some higher life, but to be free from bonds altogether.
Like the Cyrenaic, he is a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the
world; but in neither case does this term stand for any
enthusiasm for humanity, but only for a negation of social
duties. In the midst of civilized society, he tries to live in
a state of nature, and lead the existence of a savage. Diog-
enes wanders about Greece with no other shelter than a
tub, and throws away his cup as a last useless luxury, on
seeing a child drink from his hands.

This attitude might call for sympathy as a somewhat
ostentatious acceptance of an enforced exclusion from the
goods of civilization. Cynicism was, indeed, essentially
the philosophy of the poor man, who already knew what
it was to feel wants unsatisfied, before he made a virtue
of his necessity. But the Cynic did not stop here. Decency
itself he places among the conventions of which he prides
himself on being rid ; and even such doctrines as the com-
munity of women, and the harmlessness of eating human
flesh, are propounded in the most offensive way. Under
such conditions, ethical and intellectual ideals cannot long
survive. When the human relationships which constitute
the central fact of the ethical life are torn away, it is not
strange that there should have resulted a moral temper,
which sometimes approached the grossness of the animal ;
and with no content for the intellect to feed upon, it, too,

66 A Student's History of Philosophy

could have no healthy growth. The dominant characteristic
of the Cynic came to be a Pharisaic pride in his own
spiritual poverty, which showed itself in a flaunting of his
peculiarities in the face of every one, and in sneers at the
practices which he condemned. The independence which
he prized almost more than anything else, was the freedom
of a sharp tongue, which held no man in reverence ; and
his apparent self-abasement was only the mask for an arro-
gant criticism of others. I see your pride, says Socrates to
Antisthenes, through the holes in your cloak. The typical
figure of Cynicism is Diogenes in his tub, ordering Alex-
ander to stand out of his sunlight. The truth in Cynicism
passed over to the later Stoics, as the Cyrenaic philosophy
was revived in Epicureanism ; but in Stoicism this is so
much more impressively formulated, that we may postpone
any further consideration of it for the present.

LITERATURE

Watson, Hedonistic Theories.

Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates.

Seth, Study of Ethical Principles .

Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools.

THE SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHERS

§ ii. Plato. The Academy

For the history of philosophy, however, the movements
which have just been considered represent only by-paths;
the main development from Socrates passes through Plato
and Aristotle. Plato, who stands among the supreme men
of genius that the world has produced, was born in 427 B.C.
He was a thorough aristocrat, alike by birth and in his
whole temper of mind. He has a profound contempt for
the opinions of the masses, and a true aristocrat's dislike
of any taint of the shop or the workman's bench. Accord-
ingly, in spite of exceptional opportunities for a political
career, he never entered public life in Athens, choosing
not to sacrifice his own freedom of thought and action to
an ambition which must make him the servant of a fickle
and Philistine democracy. In Plato, consequently, phi-
losophy begins to take on that character of remoteness
from practical concerns, and absorption in the affairs of
the pure intellect, which, save in certain exceptional periods,
it has had a tendency to retain ever since.

This is very different from the spirit of Socrates. Soc-
rates, himself a man of the people, was, in spite of his own
disinclination to meddle very much in matters of practical
politics, all the time looking toward the practical life of
citizenship in his speculations. It is the end of life in its
most concrete sense that he is endeavoring to formulate.
This end is attained, not in the philosopher who stands
aloof from the world, absorbed in transcendental dreams
and abstractions, but in the citizen and man of affairs, who
has something definite to do in the actual life about him,

67

68 A Student's History of Philosophy

and needs to do it in the best way. This, however, implies
a confidence in the ability of social institutions to meet
the strain to which they were being subjected; and this
confidence became less easy to maintain as time went on.
The growing revelation of the insecurity of a civilization
founded on custom, and the signs that the Greek states
were already beginning to break down, are registered in
this difference of attitude in the case of Socrates and of
Plato. Plato still holds, in a way, to the Greek conception
of true life as essentially a life in the state, although this
already is being hard pressed by the opposing ideal of dis-
interested philosophic contemplation, which finds salvation
in the kingdom of the mind alone. But at least he no
longer expects to find the conception realized in actual
conditions in Greece, and turns instead to an ideal state, a
Utopia, a pattern laid up in the heavens, which there is
only a faint hope will ever be embodied upon earth.

Plato came under the influence of Socrates when he
was about twenty, and remained with him until Socrates'
death, eight years later. We have little knowledge of him
during this period, though he seems to have been within
the inner circle of Socrates' disciples and friends. After
his master's death he left Athens, and spent ten years in
travel. During this time he became acquainted with
other philosophical tendencies of the day, particularly at
Megara, and among the Pythagoreans in Southern Italy.
These influences tended to modify and broaden his own
thought, and to lead him away from the exclusively ethical
interests of the Socratic philosophy. In Sicily he came
in contact with the celebrated tyrant Dionysius, and got
along with him so ill, that he is said to have been sold into
slavery, from which he was ransomed by a friend. On his
return to Athens, a group of disciples gathered about him,
and he became himself the founder of a school. This took
the name of the Academy, from a gymnasium just outside
the city, where Plato had a small estate, and where the
members of the school were accustomed to meet. Here

The Systematic Philosophers 69

he spent an uneventful life as a teacher, broken — if we
can accept the accounts that have come down to us — by
two more visits to Sicily. Dion, the brother-in-law of
Dionysius, had become an ardent disciple of Plato's.
After the tyrant's death, he induced Plato to come to
Sicily, and undertake the education of the weak and dis-
solute Dionysius the Younger. Here was an opportunity
such as Plato had looked forward to : the combination of
the supreme power in a state, with the possibility of a
true philosophical training, might conceivably result in
the philosopher-king of Plato's imagination, and the con-
sequent establishment of the ideal government which
should regenerate men. At first he was measurably suc-
cessful, and made an impression on the better side of the
young king's nature. For a time philosophy was the
fashion in the Sicilian courts ; the floors were strewn with
sand, and the courtiers suspended their revels, and busied
themselves tracing geometrical figures. But Dionysius's
nature was too feeble, and court influences too profoundly
opposed to a reign of virtue and reason, to allow the
experiment a very long life ; and Plato finally returned to
Athens. He died in 347 B.C.

I. Ethical Philosophy

i. The Problem of Ethics. — Perhaps we can best get
hold of the spirit of Plato's thought, by starting from the
ethical problem which he inherited from Socrates, since the
ethical conception of the ultimate end of life, the highest
good, is closely bound up with even his more purely meta-
physical speculations. Now, when we begin to ask what con-
stitutes the end of human life, the most obvious suggestion
will be, once more, that it consists in happiness, or pleasure.
There is, however, a difficulty here at once, unless we guard
ourselves ; for no one will deny that pleasure may quite as
well be an evil as a good, and may even be the most serious
of evils. A moment of enjoyment may bring in its train a

70 A Student's History of Philosophy

swarm of disastrous consequences, which vastly overbalance
it ; and that pleasure is rare indeed, which has not some
attendant ill. " How singular a thing is pleasure," says
Socrates, as his leg is released from the chain, before he
takes the poison, " and how curiously related to pain, which
might be thought to be the opposite of it ; for they never
come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of
them is generally compelled to take the other. I cannot
help thinking that if Esop had noticed them, he would have
made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and
when he could not, he fastened their heads together ; and
this is the reason that, when one comes, the other follows,
as I find in my own case pleasure comes following after
the pain in my leg which was caused by the chain."1 We
need, then, to modify our first unqualified statement that
pleasure is the good, and at least restrict it to such pleas-
ures as are regulated by wisdom. There is nothing which
men call desirable — money, position, beauty — which may
not, if it fall into the hands of a fool, bring about his ruin,
and so be the greatest of evils to him ; of what avail is it to
possess a gold mine, if we do not know how to use our
wealth except to bring harm on ourselves ? We are all the
time misjudging thus what is best for us. A pleasure
close at hand looks larger than far weightier ones in the
distance, and so, misled by passion, we choose to our own
hurt. Pleasure, then, apart from wisdom, has no right to
be exalted to the place of the supremely good.

Can we, then, say that wisdom is the good, to the
exclusion of pleasure ? Evidently not, if wisdom is to be
accompanied by positive pain. About a state of wisdom
that is neither pleasurable nor painful, there might be more
chance for debate. Such we may deem the felicity of the
gods to be ; and Plato evidently feels a drawing toward such
an ideal. But he is ready to admit that to the natural man
the thought has no attractions, and that wisdom, divorced
from the feeling side of life, is as little to be set up to

^Phcedo, 60.

The Systematic Philosophers 71

strive after, as pleasure unregulated by judgment. The
supreme end, therefore, will combine the two. " Here are
two fountains that are flowing at our side ; one, which is
pleasure, may be likened to a fountain of honey ; the other,
which is a sober draught in which no wine mingles, is of
water pure and healthful. Out of these we may seek to
make the fairest of all possible mixtures." 1 But how is the
mixture to be made ? Are we to let in all pleasures on the
same footing ? And if not, on what principle are we to
draw a distinction ?

Now it is clear that pleasure is a word which applies to
a very wide diversity of facts. " Do we not say that the
intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has
pleasure in his very temperance ? that the fool is pleased
when he is filled with foolish fancies and hopes, and that
the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom ? and may not
he be justly deemed a fool who says that these pairs of
pleasures are respectively alike ? " 2 Roughly, then, we
may make these two divisions — Plato adds still another :
pleasures that belong to temperance, and wisdom, and
virtue ; and those so-called lower, bodily pleasures, which
appeal to the ordinary sensualist. We feel instinctively
that these do not stand precisely on a level ; the pleasure
of the saint in sacrificing himself for others, is not an
equivalent of the pleasure of the debauchee, although
they may go by the same name. But how are we to decide
between the two ? Plato makes the suggestion, which has
been repeated in modern times, that we are bound in
reason to accept here the judgment of the expert, the man
who knows them both. The sensualist and the fool know
nothing of the pleasures of self-control and of the mental
life, and so their preference for the bodily pleasures stands
for nothing. To the philosopher, however, the joys of the
body are open equally with the joys of the mind ; and if he
chooses the latter rather than the former, this means that
the higher pleasures are the greater.

, 61. 2 Philebus, 12.

72 A Student's History of Philosophy

And the more we examine into the nature of pleasure,
the more we see this judgment verified. How poor a
thing, indeed, is that which we call pleasure of the senses,
how fleeting in its existence, how compounded with pain.
In truth, there is some reason to believe that it is noth-
ing at all outside this relation in which it stands to pain.
When our bodily functions have gone wrong, we feel a
relief when the equilibrium is restored ; but this relief is
only pleasant, in contrast with the pain which has preceded.
Indeed, how can we conceive that that has any positive
value, whose whole existence depends upon desires, and so
upon the longing for something which we lack ? If the
want is removed, the pleasure ceases; and if it is still
present, we are still unsatisfied, and in pain. He, then,
who thinks to satisfy himself with a life of bodily indul-
gence, is like one who, as his ideal, should desire that he
might be ever itching and scratching. The act of scratch-
ing gives pleasure, but only as it affords relief to a positive
evil behind it.

The wise man asks, therefore, not merely for pleasures,
but for pleasures that are pure, i.e., unmixed, so far as
possible, with pain. As a little pure white is whiter and
fairer than a great deal that is mixed, so man would do
well to seek in his pleasures, not quantity, but quality.
The so-called greater pleasures, by their very vehemence
and lack of restraint, entail upon us all sorts of irremedi-
able ills ; " a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure
except that of the wise is quite true and pure, all others
are a shadow only." * If, then, neither pleasure alone, nor
wisdom alone, is to be admitted as the final good, at least
wisdom is far nearer to this than pleasure. Pleasure can
only be admitted as it is tempered and controlled by wis-
dom ; and the highest pleasure is not of the bodily appe-
tites, but of the mind. Those who enslave themselves to
the former never know what real existence means, nor
do they taste of true and abiding pleasure ; " like brute

1 Republic, 583.

The Systematic Philosophers 73

animals, with their eyes down and bodies bent to the
earth, they fatten and feed and breed, and in their exces-
sive love of these delights they kick and butt at one
another with horns and hoofs that are made of iron, and
they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust.
For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial,
and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsub-
stantial and incontinent." 1

But after all, if we leave the matter here, and agree
that the life of philosophy and virtue should be chosen in
preference to the sensual life, because, after taking every-
thing into account, it turns out to be the pleasantest life,
we have not reached the goal for which Plato is striving.
If pleasure continues to be our final term, and it is but
one pleasure balanced against another that turns the scales
in the end, we are still at the mercy of a purely individual
taste in morality. The philosopher may prefer the joys
of the mind to those of the body, temperate pleasures to
immoderate indulgence ; but how if other men have a
different taste ? And they surely do have a different
taste, or we should all be philosophers and virtuous. If,
then, they claim the right to gratify this taste, who is it
that shall say them nay ?

Now Plato evidently feels, not simply that the life of
reason is on the whole the most pleasurable life, but that
it is our duty to prefer this life, whether in point of fact we
do prefer it or not. Above pleasure, i.e., there is a higher
principle by which pleasures are to be judged. One pleas-
ure is purer and truer than another, not merely in the sense
of being greater in quantity, or of being less intermixed with
pain, but by reason of an absolute qualitative difference,
which carries with it the obligation to prefer the one to the
other. It is just as in the case of aesthetic taste. The excel-
lence of music may be measured by pleasure, but the pleas-
ure must not be that of the chance hearer; " the fairest music
is that which delights the best and best educated, and espe-

1 Republic^ 586.

74 A Student's History of Philosophy

daily that which delights the one man who is preeminent
in virtue and education." 1 It is not, accordingly, the great-
ness of the pleasure which constitutes what is best. It is
knowledge of the best, which decides what judgment we
are to pass on the various pleasures. In such a contest, the
numbers of the contestants, or the quantity or intensity of
their feelings, are as nothing when compared with worth.
Pleasure, then "ranks not first, no, not even if all the
oxen and horses and animals in the world in their pursuit
of enjoyment thus assert, and the many, trusting in them,
as diviners trust in birds, determine that pleasure makes up
the good of life, and deem the lust of animals to be better
witness than the inspirations of divine philosophy." 2 Ulti-
mately, we cannot express the highest good in terms of pleas-
ure at all, although no doubt happiness, or felicity, in some
sense enters into it. Pleasure is subordinate to the good,
and, far from forming the one end of existence, is often a
thing which we have resolutely to fight against and subdue.
But now, again, there comes up the question : How are
we to define the good, if not in terms of pleasure ? Men
say, e.g., that justice, which is the typical virtue, is honor-
able and good ; what is their ground for such a statement ?
In point of fact, unless they simply take it for granted on
the evidence of a general moral agreement among man-
kind, they always go to work to substantiate and to
recommend it by an appeal to consequences, and to self-
interest. It is assumed that a just life is counselled by
the dictates of prudence, and an enlightened regard for
one's own welfare. The just man will get along better,
get rich faster, attain more surely to positions of honor
and trust in the state, than the unjust. And if for any
cause these results seem to be delayed, the gods stand
ready to restore the balance by dispensing punishments,
either in this life or another. " Parents and tutors are
always telling their sons and their wards that they are to
be just; but why? Not for the sake of justice, but for

1 Laws, 658. 2 Philebus, 67.

The Systematic Philosophers 75

the sake of character and reputation, in the hope of ob-
taining some of those offices and marriages and other
advantages that Glaucon was enumerating as accruing to
the just from a fair reputation ; and they throw in the good
opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of
blessings which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the
pious. And this accords with the testimony of the noble
Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says that for the
just the gods make

" * The oaks to bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle,
And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their own fleeces.'

And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of
one whose fame is

" ' As the fame of some blameless king, who like a God
Maintains justice, for whom the black earth brings forth
Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit,
And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish.*

Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and
his son offer the just; they take them down into the world
below, where they have the saints feasting on couches with
crowns on their heads, and passing their whole time in
drinking; their idea seems to be that an immortality of
drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. But about the
wicked there is another strain ; they bury them in a slough,
and make them carry water in a sieve ; that is their por-
tion in the world below, and even while living they bring
them to infamy." 1

But now what if one sees fit to doubt the cogency of
this appeal? What if, as he looks about the world, he
sees the wicked triumph and the righteous man despised,
injustice seated in high places tyrannizing over the just,
and making their lot miserable ? What if his reason tells
him that the gods of whom the poets sing are only
myths, or, if they exist, have no concern with human
affairs; and so men can look beyond the grave, with

1 Republic, 363.

7 6 A Student's History of Philosophy

no fear of meeting there with any punishment for their
misdeeds ? Is there still any reason why a man should
follow justice rather than its opposite? Doubtless the
reputation for justice passes current in the world for a
certain value ; but if one could keep the appearance, with-
out being hampered with the reality, would he not be so
much better off ? Suppose we take the most extreme case
imaginable: an unjust man who possesses all the things
that men call blessings, and who, in spite of his inner
corruption, contrives that every one should deem him
righteous, and passes to his grave full of years and honors ;
and, over against him, the just man, who has no reward
whatever beyond his own consciousness of rectitude, who
goes through life a prey to every kind of wretchedness and
misfortune, brought on him by his very righteousness, and
who, moreover, has the reputation everywhere of being
actually unjust. Can we still say in such a case, that the
life of the just man alone is truly blessed, or that justice is
anything but an evil ?

Yes, says Plato; in spite of all, it is only the just life
that has any real worth. The consequences in the way
of pain or pleasure make not the slightest odds. The
good man who suffers unjustly, is still more to be envied
than the tyrant who persecutes him. The wrong-doer who
enjoys his ill-gotten gains unmolested is not the happier
for his immunity ; nay, rather, he is the more miserable, if
he be not made to meet with retribution. This, then, is the
paradox which Plato's theory of the good must establish :
how will he go about it ?

2. The Psychology of the Soul. — Clearly it will be
necessary to know, first, what it is we mean by justice, and
the just life ; and the necessity of answering this, leads
Plato to make the first serious attempt at an adequate psy-
chology of the human soul. For if virtue is an attribute
of man's nature, we must be able to define in what this
nature consists.

The beginnings of a science of the soul, or of psychol-

The Systematic Philosophers 77

ogy, had already been made along two separate lines. On
the metaphysical side, there was the primitive conception
of the soul, or ghost, as a sort of fine matter, which in Ho-
mer may be seen separating itself from the body like a
smoke at death, and about which there centred such vague
notions as the Greeks possessed of immortality, and future
retribution or rewards. Closely connected with this strain,
is the modern idea of a soul substance — a something, pos-
sessing faculties, which underlies the conscious life. But
the soul in this sense is of very little account as an expla-
nation of the concrete processes that make up our actual
consciousness. Toward a psychology in this latter sense,
also, the Greeks had made some progress in an unsystem-
atic way. It had been a necessity, indeed, of their politi-
cal life. When political affairs are carried on by free
discussion, and influence won, not by arbitrary force, but
by persuasion, a certain rough knowledge of the workings
of the human mind is indispensable. The successful
orator must to a certain extent have classified men in
types, and made himself familiar with the sort of motive
that is likely to appeal to each ; and thus there had
grown up a considerable body of practical wisdom that
dealt with psychological processes. A union of the two
tendencies, and the beginnings of a more scientific treat-
ment of both, had likewise been attempted by the philoso-
phers, but hitherto without any great insight into the
actual complexity of the conscious life. They had singled
out the more obvious fact of sensation, and assumed, rather
than proved, that everything was reducible to this. Plato's
ethical motive compels him to dissent from this sensational-
ism, and, consequently, to undertake a more complete
analysis of the real nature of the mind.

The method of psychology is still, however, too little
developed to permit him to go at his task directly, by an
examination of the individual consciousness; and so he
approaches it in a roundabout way. What we are after, is
to get an understanding of what virtue, or justice, is, as

78 A Student's History of Philosophy

applied to the human soul. But the word "justice" is also
used in an objective sense, in connection with the life of
the state. If we turn first, then, to the study of justice
as it is writ large in the state, we shall make our task an
easier one ; afterward, unless the two are quite distinct,
we can transfer our results to the more obscure problem,
or, at any rate, can get a clew for its solution. What, then,
is justice in the state ?

Without going into detail, it is enough to say that Plato
finds the essence of justice in order. The end of the state is
the common good, and injustice makes this unattainable.
It sets men at variance with their neighbors, and renders
harmonious action for the welfare of the state impossible.
Justice, then, is the condition in which each man has his
own work to do, and does it without trying to go outside
his proper sphere, and take on himself the function which
some one else is better fitted to perform ; it is " minding
one's own business." Now in any self-sufficing state, there
will be three classes of citizens needed. First there is the
working class, the farmers and artisans, on whose shoulders
rests the burden of providing the material goods without
which life and civilization are impossible. The special
virtue which belongs to this class is obedience, self-control,
or temperance. Above them is the warrior class, on whom
devolves the defence of the state against attack ; and their
chief virtue is, of course, courage. And, finally, there are
the rulers, who must be possessed, first of all, of wisdom,
since upon them rests the decision as regards the policy of
the state. Justice will consist in the proper coordination
of these separate classes, each with its characteristic virtue.
When each attends to its own business, and does not try
to step outside the sphere which belongs to it, we have an
ordered and harmonious whole, in which all the parts work
smoothly together, not in the interests of one individual, or
of one class only, but for the common good of all the citi-
zens alike. And such a state is what we call a just state.

When we take this clew, and apply it to the individual

The Systematic Philosophers 79

soul, we find that an analogy exists. To the lower class
there corresponds, we may say, that more ignoble part of
man's nature, the sensations, desires, and appetites. These
have in themselves no principle of order, and are only tol-
erable as they are brought under the sway of some foreign
and higher faculty, which shall rein them in, and subject
them to the rule of temperance. This higher power is the
mind, or reason, wherein wisdom resides, and as it is the
function of the appetites to obey, so it belongs to the mind
by divine right to rule. Between these, and corresponding to
the warrior class in the state, there is a third faculty, which it
is less easy to define. This is the forceful, energetic side
of man's nature, which Plato calls spirit (as we use the
adjective " spirited "), and which we may think of as active
impulse, or will. This is not in itself evil and ignoble,
as are the sensations and appetites. It is the basis of
certain very admirable virtues — the heroic virtues, as
opposed to those that are due to wisdom ; and, when
properly directed, it is the instrument of great achieve-
ments. Since, however, it is in itself unintelligent, and
liable to turn into blind passion, it stands on a lower level
than reason ; it also is the servant of mind, but a servant
which is meant to be used for taming the unbridled desires
of the lower nature, and which thus is an ally rather than
a hindrance. The seat of the lower faculty is in the breast
below the midriff ; that of the mind is in the head ; while
between them, just below the neck, is the abode of the spirit,
which thus is in a position to help restrain the appetites,
and still be under the control of the mind. These three
faculties are, according to Plato, in a real sense distinct.
If man's nature were a unity, it would be impossible to
explain how it comes to pass that the reason often
has to fight with all its strength against the sensuous
desires. It is the mind which constitutes what properly
may be called the soul; the senses, on the other hand,
are mere functions of the body. Still we are not to think
of them as entirely unrelated. " We are not Trojan horses,

8o A Student's History of Philosophy

in which are perched several unconnected senses," Jbut our
lower faculties are intended to be subject to and used in
the service of the higher ; the body is for the sake of the
soul.

3. The Ethical Ideal. — This relation Plato expresses in
the famous figure of the charioteer and the winged horses.
One of these is of noble origin, and the other of ignoble ; and
so naturally there is a great deal of trouble in managing
them. The noble element is striving continually to mount
to the region of the heavens, where it may look upon the
images of divine beauty and wisdom that are proper to its
nature ; but the body is ever dragging it down to the earth
and earthly delights. Now just as, in the state, justice con-
sists in the proper subordination of the different classes, so
the just soul is one in which a similar subordination of parts
exists ; where the charioteer has got control of his steeds, and
can guide them to the heights of heaven ; where the body
submits itself to the sway of the soul, the beast in man to
that in him which is truly human. " For the just man does
not permit the several elements within him to meddle with
one another, but he sets in order his own inner life, and is
his own master, and at peace with himself ; and when he
has bound together the three principles within him, and is
no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and
perfectly adjusted nature, then he will begin to act, if he
has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treat-
ment of the body, or in some affair of politics, or of private
business ; in all which cases he will think and call just and
good action, that which preserves and cooperates with this
condition, and the knowledge which presides over this,
wisdom; and unjust action, that which at any time de-
stroys this, and the opinion which presides over unjust
action, ignorance."2

Why, then, is virtue honorable and to be desired ? Just
because man is man, and not a brute ; because he cannot
win any true and lasting satisfaction, except as he realizes

1 Theatetus, 184. 2 Republic, 443.

The Systematic Philosophers 81

his own essential nature, that which constitutes his truest
and deepest manhood. What advantage is it to a man if
he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " How
would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the
condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him
to the worst ? Who can imagine that a man who sold his
son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he
sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be
the gainer, however large might be the sum which he
received ? and will any one say that he is not a miserable
caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most
godless and detestable, and has no pity. Eriphyle took
the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is
taking a bribe to compass a worse ruin." J Mere life is in
itself of no account; it is only the good life which pos-
sesses any worth. Virtue is the health of the soul ; with-
out it there is nothing but disease and deformity. "If
when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer en-
durable, though pampered with every sort of meats and
drinks, shall we be told that life is worth having when the
very essence of the vital principle is undermined and cor-
rupted, even though a man be allowed to do whatever he
pleases, if at the same time he is forbidden to escape from
vice and injustice, or attain justice and virtue?"2 The
wicked man vainly imagines that his is the life of liberty.
It has neither order nor law, and this he deems joy, and
freedom, and happiness. He does not know that he is in
reality a slave — a slave to his passions, and no longer
master of himself. In spite, then, of appearances, and all
that men may say, it is only the virtuous life that brings
true happiness. The wicked man may start out well, but
he never reaches the goal ; only the just can endure to the
end, and receive the crown of victory. Such is Plato's
ideal of character, the statement of which may fittingly be
brought to a close with the beautiful prayer of Socrates at
the conclusion of the Ph&drus : —

Republic, 589. Republic, 445.

G

82 A Student's History of Philosophy

"Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place,
give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward
and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be
the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as
none but the temperate can carry. Anything more? That
prayer, I think, is enough for me."

2. Social Philosophy

I. It is clear that in such an ideal, individualism and
scepticism in the moral life have been transcended. In-
deed, they are transcended so completely, that we run the
risk of losing the element of value which they contain.
The individuality of a man, in the interpretation which
Plato goes on to give, has all the time a tendency to be
thrust into the background by that universal, rational
element, which he has in common with other men, and
which makes him first of all a member of the state, and a
part of the universe. It is, indeed, no longer the purely
traditional order of society which Plato exalts to a position
as arbiter of man's life. His Republic is an ideal fashioned
by reason, and differing widely in many respects from any-
thing that history has to show. But when the ideal has
once been set up, it is to rule with a rod of iron. Instead
of the conception of man as a mere unit complete in
himself, we have what appears sometimes to be at the very
opposite extreme. Man has no real life at all apart from
his direct participation in the life of society and the world ;
and, therefore, it is the state which logically is supreme,
rather than the individual. Why should man prate of his
rights and his liberty ? the right to forfeit his birthright as
a man, the liberty to do things to his own hurt. Since,
then, men cannot be trusted always to know their true
rational interests, and to prefer them to those which are
more specious and evanescent, the state must have the
authority to compel them to the ways of righteousness, to
weed out all tendencies and desires that are merely private,

The Systematic Philosophers 83

and to enforce the interests of the whole, as against those
of the individual.

All this goes to intensify his natural aristocratic dis-
like of democracy. Of all the forms of government that
are not entire perversions, a democracy is the worst.
Its liberty is only license. " No one who does not know
would believe," he says, with a touch of satire, "how
much greater is the liberty which animals who are under
the dominion of men have in a democracy than in any
other state. For truly the dogs, as the proverb says, are
as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses
come to have a way of marching along with all the rights
and dignities of free men, and they will run at anybody
whom they meet in the street, if he does not get out of
their way, and everything is just ready to burst with lib-
erty."1 With this talk of liberty and equality, Plato has
no sympathy. Men are not equal, and it is but a perver-
sion that the worst should rule the best. The mass of
men have not the brains to know what is for their own
good, and inevitably they will make shipwreck of the
attempt. Accordingly, they will be vastly better off if
they cease bothering their heads about affairs of state, and
turn over the conduct of their lives to those whose wisdom
gives them the right to rule — the philosopher, or the
" hero " of Carlyle. Then only, with a philosopher-king
who knows what is best, and a state that will submit
itself to wise direction, shall we have a remedy for the ills
of the world, and a chance for man to realize his highest
life.

The ideal of such a state Plato sets forth in the Republic,
and also, in a less Utopian form, in the Laws. Based as
it is upon the thought that the claims of the state come
first, and that the mass of men are not of themselves ca-
pable of living the true life of reason, Plato's Republic
represents the carrying out, in the strictest and most logi-
cal way, of paternalism in government. Everything must

1 Republic, 563.

84 A Student's History of Philosophy

bow to the supposed interests of the whole. We have
already seen that the citizens are to form three classes, or
castes : the artisans, on whom the material foundations of
the state rest ; the warriors or guardians ; and the rulers.
These castes are not, however, entirely hard and fast;
according to the promise which children show, they are to
be advanced or degraded with reference to the caste in
which they happen to be born. The lower class receives
least attention ; its duty is to obey the rulers blindly,
and perform its work faithfully. No free citizen is
allowed to earn his living by an illiberal trade. The in-
dustrial life is for Plato, as for ancient thought generally,
a degradation, and renders attention to the true art of
living impossible; and, consequently, society has neces-
sarily to be built up on the basis of a large class of men,
who fail to share in its spiritual benefits.

To produce the right kind of citizen, there is devised a
most elaborate social machinery. In the first place, chil-
dren are to be examined at birth, and those who do not ap-
pear physically strong and perfect are to be put out of the
way, with due regard to decency and order. The survivors
are then to be subjected to the most rigid system of state
education, whose provisions, when once established, are not
to be altered by a hair. Even the playthings for children
are carefully selected, and no innovations are to be allowed
under severe penalties ; for if change once begins even
in small things, no one can set limits to it. The same
paternal supervision follows the citizen throughout his life ;
for it is of no avail, so Plato thinks, to make laws concern-
ing the public relations of men, unless we regulate their pri-
vate life also. In the case of the warrior class, especially,
extraordinary precautions are to be taken. " In the first
place, none of them should have any property beyond
what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have
a private house, with bars and bolts, closed against any
one who has a mind to enter ; their provisions should be
only such as are required by trained warriors, who are

The Systematic Philosophers 85

men of temperance and courage; their agreement is to
receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to
meet the expenses of the year and no more, and they will
have common meals and live together, like soldiers in a
camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have
from God ; the diviner metal is within them, and they have
therefore no need of that earthly dross which passes under
the name of gold, and ought not to pollute the divine by
earthly intermixture, for that commoner metal has been
the source of many unholy deeds ; but their own is unde-
filed. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch
or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with
them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will
be their salvation, and the salvation of the State." * Ideally,
even wives should be held in common, and children should
be brought up by the state, and kept in ignorance of their
real parents. By doing away with private interests in this
wholesale fashion, and by compelling men to have their
pleasures and pains in common, Plato hoped to eliminate
those occasions of discord, which grow out of separate and
clashing aims among the citizens. The history of the
Roman Catholic priesthood shows how powerful an instru-
ment it is actually possible to create in this way.

So in every direction, the state was to be guarded carefully
from all influences that might seem in any way harmful.
It was to be isolated as much as possible from foreign trade
and foreign intercourse. Amusements and the arts were to
be under strict supervision. All music that was emotional
and exciting in its nature was to be prohibited, and the theatre
to be put under the ban. So in the case of poetry, a strict
censorship was to be preserved, and everything whose
moral tendency was not immediate and apparent, was ruth-
lessly to be rejected, no matter what its artistic excellence.
The poet was to be confined to singing the praises of vir-
tue, and hymns to the gods. The suggestion that the
way of vice might have its attractions, or that virtue some-

1 Republic, 416.

86 A Student's History of Philosophy

times proves a thorny road, was not to be tolerated. And
of course religion is, likewise, absolutely under the control
of the state.

3. The Nature of Knowledge. The Theory of Ideas

I. The World of Ideas. — In the conception of human
life which has thus been briefly sketched, we may notice,
once more, two aspects in particular, that will serve as a
transition to Plato's more general theory of knowledge and
of reality. Plato has been concerned throughout with the
search for ends, or ideals; and this same thing it is which
continues to guide him when he comes to his wider and
more fundamental problems. The real continues always
for him to be in terms of the Good. We know reality in
its essence only as we grasp its meaning ; Ethics is the
starting-point of Metaphysics, and suggests the form which
a final philosophy is to take on.

But now, furthermore, the ideal can be regarded as no
fleeting, shifting matter of individual preference. By the
very nature (5f an ideal, it seems to claim universality,
coercive validity. The entire search has been for that
which shall rise above the world of particularity and rela-
tivity, for something which is authoritative and abiding.
How, then, are we to make the transition ? How, in the
world of change in which we are immersed, are we to
grasp the truth that is eternal ? To answer this question,
we need to turn to Plato's theory of knowledge.

The starting-point of the theory, as has been said, lay
in Plato's certainty that truth, particularly ethical truth,
exists, and that truth is steadfast and abiding. There were
theories current in Plato's day which denied this. Such
theories, which usually related themselves more or less
closely to the " flowing philosophy " of Heracleitus, empha-
sized the thoroughgoing relativity of knowledge, to the
exclusion of any absolute standard of truth. Such a
theory Plato connects, probably without historical warrant,
with the name of the Sophist Protagoras. There was a

The Systematic Philosophers 87

famous utterance of Protagoras', that " man is the measure
of all things." This Plato interprets in the sense that each
individual man is the measure of all things, that that is true
for each man which seems to him to be true, and that for
the opinions of different men there is no common meas-
ure. This pretty certainly was not Protagoras' meaning ;
but, as has been said, some of Plato's contemporaries,
and particularly Aristippus the Cyrenaic, had been led to
just this position as the outcome of an attempt to reduce
all knowledge to the changing and subjective facts of
sense perception.

Now to such a philosophy Plato was unalterably op-
posed. In denying the existence of absolute truth, the
theory is suicidal. Let us retort upon Protagoras with
the argument ad hominem. " If truth is only sensation,
and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and
each man is to be the sole judge, and everything that he
judges is true and right, why should Protagoras be pre-
ferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve
to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to
him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom ? " 1
Why should the "truth" that all truth is relative, be more
true than its opposite ? It is true to the man who thinks
it so, and that is all. "The best of the joke is, that Pro-
tagoras acknowledges the truth of their opinion who be-
lieve his opinion to be false; for in admitting that the
opinions of all men are true, in effect he grants that the
opinion of his opponents is true."2 We cannot, then, give
up our belief in knowledge; even the sceptic assumes
some truth — the truth of his scepticism. A consistent
scepticism would have to be completely speechless. And
knowledge implies fixity, an abiding nature somewhere ;
for it would no longer be knowledge, if a transition were
going on in it continually.

Now already Socrates had pointed out where this fixity
is to be found. It is present, not in the flux of sense ex-

1 Theatctus, 161. 2 /£*</., 171.

88 A Student's History of Philosophy

perience, but in thought, or the concept. Philosophy, ac-
cording to Socrates, has to do with the common nature
which makes a thing what it is; with those essential
characteristics which are present in individuals, and which,
when detected, go to form what we call the concept, or
general idea. If we want to know what a man is, or what
is virtue, it is not enough to name this or that man, or to
enumerate a string of virtues ; different men are not dif-
ferent in kind, but each is a man by reason of certain char-
acteristics which belong to man as such.

Such fixed and universal ideas, then, constitute the
" truth " of which the scientist and the philosopher are in
search. But, now, if they are true, may we not naturally
ask — true of what? Where is the object to which they
refer, of which they are valid ? In the sense world we
can find no such object ; there everything is ephemeral,
in constant process of change. Is, then, the Idea a mere
fiction ? Does it point to nothing in the world of reality ?
This would be intolerable. Are there to be real objects
corresponding-" to our sensations, and nothing real to cor-
respond to thought, whose dignity is so much greater, and
to which we bring our sense perception to be tested ? No,
over against the world of perception, with its change and
unrest, there must be another realm. This is the realm of
Ideas, of concepts, of true and abiding existence. Accord-
ingly, instead of the one world of previous philosophers,
the universe has fallen apart into two sections. On the one
hand is the world of individual things, which we see when
we open our eyes ; and this is given over without reserve
to change, multiplicity, relativity, the Heracleitean flux.
To this sense world belongs all the uncertainty that the
individualist and the sensationalist had found in knowl-
edge. It is in very deed a perpetual process of change,
as Heracleitus had said, and there is no such thing as
absolute truth or fact in its shifting play of appearances.
It will not stand still long enough to give rise to the possi-
bility of an authoritative standard. But for just this reason

The Systematic Philosophers 89

it can be only a phenomenal world, and not the world of true
being. This latter is the world of the Idea — absolute, abid-
ing, without variableness or shadow of turning, which sensa-
tion never can attain to, but thought alone. " Over against
that world of flux,

" < Where nothing is, but all things seem,'

it is the vocation of Plato to set up a standard of unchange-
able reality, which in its highest theoretic development be-
comes the world of eternal and immutable ideas, indefectible
outlines of thought, yet also the veritable things of experi-
ence ; the perfect Justice, e.g., which if even the gods mis-
take it for perfect injustice, is not moved out of its place ;
the beauty which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for-
ever. In such ideas, or ideals, eternal as participating in
the essential character of the facts they represent to us,
we come in contact, as he supposes, with the insoluble,
immovable granite, beneath and amid the wasting torrent
of mere phenomena."1 The ordinary man may be con-
tent to dwell in this lower world, and put up with mere
empirical knowledge of things as they come to him in their
particularity. He is ready to stop with virtuous actions,
and beautiful objects, and not bother his head about Virtue
or Beauty as such. But not so the philosopher. " He who
has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succes-
sion, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive
a nature of wondrous beauty, not growing and decaying,
or waxing and waning, not fair in one point of view and
foul in another, or in the likeness of a face, or hands, or
any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech
or knowledge, nor existing in any other being ; but Beauty
only, absolute, separate, simple, everlasting, which with-
out diminution and without increase, or any change, is im-
parted to the ever growing and perishing beauties of all
other things. He only uses the beauties of earth as steps

1 Pater, Plato and Platonism.

90 A Student's History of Philosophy

along which he mounts upward for the sake of that other
Beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair
forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair
actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at
the notion of absolute Beauty, and at last knows what the
essence of Beauty is."1

In knowing, then, this supersensible world, we are in pos-
session of ideas that go far beyond the mere data of sense
experience — ideas that are perfect and immutable. The
very fact that we can judge particular things to be imper-
fect, shows that we already have a standard with reference
to which they fall short. Take an instance from geometry :
We never have seen a perfect circle, and yet we know that
any given circle comes short of perfection ; how can we
know this, except as we can compare the circle which we
see, with the idea, or ideal, of the circle which it calls up,
and which we never can see with the bodily eye ? If, then,
such ideas are not revealed to us through the channels of
sense, how do we attain them ? The answer which Plato
gives takes the form of the famous doctrine of thought as
recollection. Since the idea is nothing that can come origi-
nally from sense experience, and since, again, it evidently
has not been consciously present in our minds from birth,
we can only conjecture that thought represents the traces
left upon our souls by a previous existence. Before that
union with the body which has immersed it in the world of
sense, the soul lived in the realm of true reality, and beheld
with unveiled eyes the changeless Ideas which constitute
this realm. Such a former vision may even now on occa-
sion be restored ; and the process of recalling it to con-
sciousness, is what we know as thought. Perhaps Plato
does not intend his statements here to be taken too literally.
But what is thus expressed in more or less mythical form
adumbrates, at any rate, an important truth, which is taken
up again and again in later philosophy. Somehow or other,
the mind by which we think the universe is the source of

^Symposium, 21 1.

The Systematic Philosophers 91

an interpretation of things which cannot be reduced to any
mere collection of sense particulars.

2. Interpretation of the Theory. — What, now, are we to
think of the stand which Plato has taken ? Can we actually
suppose that man is more real than men, beauty than beauti-
ful objects, equality than things which are equal ? A man I
can see, and hear, and touch ; but what is man in the ab-
stract ? What can beauty be like which is not embodied in
some beautiful form, but which is just beauty, and nothing
else ? Well, Plato says, people find a difficulty in this,
simply because they are so enamoured of the senses, and
because they have not trained the only organ by which the
Idea is to be attained — the organ of conceptual thought.
For the outer barbarians, who "believe in nothing but what
they can hold fast in their hands," the Idea may be unreal,
but this is only because there is lacking in them the sense
through which it is perceived ; for the philosopher, the
object of thought is the most real thing in the world.

But still, from our modern standpoint, we are compelled
to ask again : How can that exist which is nothing in par-
ticular, but only something in general ? Is the concept
"man" anything more than the abstraction of a certain
number of characteristics, which we have seen in individual
men, and which now are held together in the mind ? The
thought of man is real, indeed, as my thought ; but has it
any other reality, except as we go back again to the par-
ticular men from whom the qualities were abstracted?
How, indeed, are we possibly to conceive of that as having
any actual existence, which is neither an inch, nor a foot,
nor a yard long, nor possessed of any definite length, but
which is only length in general ? To us there seems to be
but little meaning to the statement that it is beauty which
makes things beautiful, or duality which makes them two
in number. What is this beauty or duality, apart from the
concrete individual objects themselves ?

But now, on the other hand, when we try to go a little
deeper, it seems clear that Plato's problem was by no means

92 A Student's History of Philosophy

a wholly artificial one. Do we not constantly assume that,
through the thought which transcends particular objects, we
are getting nearer to the truth ? For whom is the tree or the
flower more real, the child who sees it barely in its separate-
ness in space, or the naturalist, to whom it epitomizes the
history of ages dead and gone, and sends forth lines of
relationship to all living things ? And yet it is in
terms of " ideas " that this wider knowledge is embodied.
We are stating more and more adequately what "kind" of
a thing it is, interpreting it in terms of general notions.
That our ideas are valid of reality, we cannot possibly get
away from, without destroying the worth of thinking alto-
gether. And if valid of the real world, must they not some-
how be represented in that world ? We come closer to the
real force of Plato's thought, if, instead of such a concept
as "man," we substitute the notion of a scientific law.
Put in such terms, we find ourselves even at the present
day led naturally to think of the "idea" as something real,
something actually belonging to the world beyond us, and
not a mere fact in our private minds. The law of gravita-
tion is a " universal," an unchanging truth, which we distin-
guish from the particular events which are the expression
of the law. And yet we hardly feel satisfied, ordinarily,
to suppose that the law has no reality beyond our mere
faculty of generalization, that it represents nothing in the
outer world over and above the separate events themselves.

Or, again, we may turn back to the aspect of Plato's prob-
lem, to which reference has already been made. Plato's Ideas
are also " ideals." Now for our ideals, too, we tend to claim
objective validity, and not a mere particular and subjective
existence. Ideals are, or pretend to be, universal, superior
to bare phenomenal fact, exercising sovereignty over our
present and fleeting desires. And unless we can find some
place for them in reality, their whole function would seem
to fall away.

We may, then, interpret, somewhat broadly, Plato's em-
phasis on the world of universals, of Ideas, as fundament-

The Systematic Philosophers 93

ally the demand for an ethically significant world, as
against a reduction of reality to nothing save a string of
particular events. Is the universe no more than a col-
lection of individual things, in which alone reality inheres ;
or do these things depend on the more ultimate reality of
the one world to which they belong, and which has its
final interpretation in ethical terms ? Is the world a mere
world of particular facts, or is it a whole of meaning, by
reference to which the particular facts get their significance?
In opposition to the individualism of the later Sophists, and
the materialistic atomism of the scientific philosophers,
Plato asserts, with all the strength of a profound conviction,
that the truth of the world lies in its universal and abiding
significance, — in the Idea, or the Good; and that no
particular thing retains for a moment any validity apart
from this all-embracing whole. " The ruler of the universe
has ordered all things with a view to the preservation and
perfection of the whole, and each part has an appointed
state of action and passion. And one of the portions of
the universe is thine own, stubborn man, which, however
little, has the whole in view ; and you do not seem to be
aware that this and every other creation is for the sake of
the whole, and in order that the life of the whole may be
blessed, and that you are created for the sake of the whole,
and not the whole for the sake of you." * In its highest
aspect, the world is not mechanical, but ideological. Every-
thing comes within the compass of an end or meaning,
which is at once the supreme fact, and the highest good,
and perfect beauty.

3. Diffictdties of the Theory. — But now in the form in
which Plato has cast his theory, there are serious difficulties.
And the great difficulty is this, that, as he conceives it,
there is altogether too sharp a distinction between the
Ideas, and the particular facts. Plato's tendency has been
to think that within the same world there is no way of rec-
onciling the One and the Many, Permanence and Change,

1 Laws, 903.

94 A Student's History of Philosophy

Sameness and Otherness. And the result is, that in at-
tributing to the Ideas only the first terms of these pairs of
correlates, he has to thrust into the outer darkness all the
concrete matter that makes up the stuff of experience as
we actually know it. But this is suicidal. We demand,
for knowledge, that which will explain things, not that
which leaves them inexplicable. And the more the lower
world is cut off from the Ideas, the more impossible it is
to understand even its partial and derivative reality. The
Good, instead of being the concrete whole of life, which trans-
forms all the desires and facts of sense by bringing them into
connection with a worthy end — this is what Plato is feel-
ing after — is, instead, hardly more than a name, which in
the nature of the case he finds it impossible to define, and
fill out with a real content. Such a content could only come
from the particular facts which he has rejected. In
the human soul, again, a parallel division is made neces-
sary between the organs through which these different
realms are apprehended, — between thought, i.e., which
is the soul proper, and the senses, which are the organs
of the body.

Accordingly, there appears in man's nature a cleft, which
to all appearance is impassable. Not only when man turns
to true knowledge, does he get no help from the senses ;
they are an actual hindrance to him. To behold the Idea,
he must get rid, so far as he can, of eyes, and ears, and the
whole body, and rely solely upon the pure light of the mind.
To the body are due only our aberrations and failures to see
the truth : " it draws the soul down into the region of the
changeable, where it wanders and is confused : the world
spins around her, and she is like a drunkard when under
their influence. " x "For the body is a source of endless
trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food, and
also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in
the search after truth, and, by filling us so full of loves, and
fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, pre-

79.

The Systematic Philosophers 95

vents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought.
For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions ? whence
but from the body, and the lust of the body?"1 We
are shut up behind the bars of a prison, whence we can
only catch an occasional glimpse of the fair sights which
our soul desires. This conception of the sense world as
a mere appearance, which only serves to veil the reality
behind it, Plato expresses in the famous figure of the
Cave: —

" After this, I said, imagine the enlightenment or igno-
rance of our nature in a figure : Behold ! human beings
living in a sort of underground den, which has a mouth
open toward the light, and reaching all across the den ;
they have been here from their childhood, and have their
legs and necks chained so that they can only see before
them. At a distance above and behind them the light of a
fire is blazing, and between the fire and the prisoners there
is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall
built along the way, like the screen which marionette players
have before them, over which they show the puppets. And
do you see men passing along the wall carrying vessels,
which appear over the wall ; and some of the passengers, as
you would expect, are talking, and some of them are silent ?

" That is a strange image, he said, and these are strange
prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only
their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which
the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.

" True, he said ; how could they see anything but the
shadows, if they were never allowed to move their heads ?

" And if they were able to talk with one another, would
they not suppose that they were naming what was actually
before them ? And suppose, further, that the prison had
an echo which came from the other side ; would they not
be sure to fancy that the voice which they heard was that
of a passing shadow ? And now look again, and see how
they are released and cured of their folly. At first, when

i Phado, 66.

96 A Student's History of Philosophy

any one of them is liberated, and compelled suddenly to
go up and turn his neck round, and walk, and look at the
light, he will suffer sharp pains ; the glare will distress
him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in
his former state he had seen the shadows. And then im-
agine some one saying to him, that what he saw before
was an illusion, but that now he is approaching real being;
what will be his reply ? Will he not fancy that the shad-
ows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects
which are now shown to him ? " *

By practice, however, he can accustom his eyes to the
new conditions. First he will perceive only the shadows
and reflections in the water ; then he will gaze upon the
light of the moon and the stars; and at last he will be able
to see the sun itself, and behold things as they are. How
he will rejoice then in passing from darkness to light; how
worthless to him will seem the honors and glories of the den
out of which he came! And now imagine further that he
descends into his old habitations. In that underground
dwelling he will not see as well as his fellows, and will not
be able to compete with them in the measurement of the
shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes about the
man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes ; and
if those imprisoned there find any one trying to set free
and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to
death if they can catch him. Of course philosophy is
the means through which this enfranchisement is to be
attained. ''When returning into herself the soul reflects,
then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and
immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred ;
and with them she ever lives, and is not let or hindered.
There she ceases from her erring ways, and being in com-
munion with the unchanging, is unchanging ; and this
state of the soul is called wisdom."2

Only partially, indeed, can we reach this in our present
life, for we are still clogged by the weights of the body.

1- Republic, 515.

The Systematic Philosophers 97

But we shall reap the perfect fruits of wisdom in another
and truer life. The immortality of the soul thus enters
into Plato's philosophy, and he supports it by a number
of proofs, most of which seem to us rather fantastic. It
is, however, not easy to say to what extent Plato has
in mind an individual immortality in the ordinary sense,
or indeed to sift out, in his whole treatment of the matter,
what is intended to be mere 4myth and poetry, from the
philosophical truth that underlies it. After the separation
of the soul from the body, the former undergoes various
adventures, which Plato describes in a mythical vein in the
Phcedo. Only the soul of the philosopher may pass at
once to the realm of the Ideas, and be purged completely
from the taint of earth ; others, after undergoing purifica-
tion, are subjected to a new incarnation, in which they
take on the body for which their previous life has made
them most fitted.

It will be apparent that such a conception carries with
it a decided disparagement of the body, and of the world
to which the body belongs. This, no doubt, is due in part
to. the wise man's perception of the futility and worthless-
ness, when judged by the true standard, of many of the
interests which seem so important to us, when our immer-
sion in trivial things deprives them of their true perspec-
tive. " Political ambition and office-getting, clubs and
banquets, revels and singing maidens, do not enter into
the philosopher's dreams. Whether any event has turned
out well or ill in the city, what disgrace may have
descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female,
are matters of which he no more knows, than he can tell,
as they say, how many pints are contained in the ocean." *
And even when this attitude passes to the extreme of
asceticism, it has a sufficient justification in the facts of
life, to give it a certain measure of plausibility. " Each
pleasure and pain is a sort of nail, and rivets the soul to
the body, and engrosses her, and makes her believe that

^Thecetetus, 173.
H

98 A Student's History of Philosophy

to be true which the body affirms to be true ; and from
agreeing with the body, and having the same delights, she
is obliged to have the same habits and ways, and is not
likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below,
but is always saturated with the body." *

But, also, there are serious consequences which flow
from such an attitude. It implies that the philosopher
is isolated from the common joys and common activities
of his fellow-men. Occupied with the high things of
the mind, absorbed in the beatific vision, he has no real
interest left even for the political assemblies, the laws
of the state, or " what has turned out well or ill in the
city." "He is like one who retires under the shelter
of a wall in the storm of dust and sleet which the
driving wind hurries along, and when he sees the rest of
mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can
live his own life, and be pure from evil or unrighteous-
ness, and depart in peace and good will, with bright hopes."2
It is evident how far this has travelled from the Greek
ideal — accepted without question by Socrates — of man's
life as essentially a social life, a part of the state. With
the separation that Plato makes, everything that pertains
to this world becomes logically a matter of indifference.
" The truth is, that only the outer form of him is in the
city ; his mind, disdaining the littleness and nothingness
of human things, is flying all abroad, as Pindar says,
measuring with line and rule the things which are. under
and on the earth, and above the heaven, interrogating the
whole nature of each and all, but not condescending to
anything which is within reach." 3

It is this very marked dualism, then, between the world
of Ideas and the world of things, the thought life and the
life of the senses, the realm of moral activity and that of
the natural desires and passions, the state and the indi-
vidual, which is the greatest difficulty for Plato's philoso-
phy as a system. How are we to bring the two sides into

, 83. 2 Republic, 496. 3 Tkeatetus, 173.

The Systematic Philosophers 99

relation ? for clearly they must have a relation of some
sort. There is no being satisfied with a theory which
calmly denies the validity of the larger part of our nature.
Why were senses and desires bestowed upon us? just
in order that they might hinder us, and prevent us from
attaining our true destiny ? And if we carry the difficulty
back to the more ultimate problem, and lay the blame on
the inherent depravity of matter, why should there be a
material world at all alongside the world of Ideas, and
what is their connection ? If the Ideas alone have a true
reality, why should anything else exist ? What is the na-
ture of that which is not real, and yet is real enough to
furnish a problem.

4. Plato's Later Philosophy. — It is not to be supposed
that these difficulties did not appeal to Plato himself. It
is, indeed, not wholly fair to attribute outright to him the
theory which leads to them. On the whole, his tendency
is toward a dualistic separation. But to some extent he
feels its unsatisfactoriness all along ; and he constantly is
coming back to a tardy recognition of the rights of concrete
experience.

In the later years of his life, this recognition led Plato,
in the opinion of some modern scholars, to at least a par-
tial recasting of his theory. At any rate, it is clear that
he saw its difficulties very plainly. In the Parmenides,
he marshals these objections against his own philosophy.
The connection between the Ideas, and things, on the sup-
position of their essential duality, is shown to be unin-
telligible. To say, as Plato has done, that things " imitate,"
or "participate in," the Idea, is to convey no concrete
meaning. How, e.g., can the Idea of man be spread out to
form the essence of a multitude of individual men, unless it is
divisible ? and if it is divisible, where is its unity as an Idea ?
Nor, again, is the knowledge of the Ideas by the human
mind conceivable, if they exist thus in a realm apart;
whatever they may be for God, they are beyond our reach
entirely, and so they help us not at all in explaining things.

ioo A Student's History of Philosophy

Whether, or to what extent, Plato has succeeded in over-
coming the defects of his earlier standpoint, is a matter on
which there is a difference of opinion. There is some
ground for thinking that in his later works, influenced
very possibly by his pupil Aristotle, he has attempted to
get away from his previous dualism, to remove the Ideas
from their isolation and bare self -identity, and make them
give an account of themselves as actual principles for ex-
plaining things. So, in the TimcBus^ Plato takes in hand
for the first time the problem of the physical world of
science, though, again, in a more or less mythical form.
By postulating over against the true and positive exist-
ence of the Ideas, a second principle, with at least a nega-
tive sort of reality, Plato attempts, through its union with
the true reality of the Idea, to explain the phenomenal
world, which we could not explain as coming from the
Idea alone. This relationship is expressed as a timeless
act of creation, by which God, the Demiurge, informs
the chaos of Not-being with order and harmony, after the
pattern which is represented in the Idea. Through the
relation of the world of phenomena to this pattern in
which it participates, the explanation of facts is ultimately
teleological, as opposed to the mechanical explanation of
the Atomists. Things exist for the sake of the whole ;
and since this whole is in the form of reason, and so of
meaning, they can only be accounted for by being placed
in their relation to the idea which represents the End, or
Highest Good. In other dialogues, Plato deals more di-
rectly with the problem of knowledge as such. Since,
however, his later theory, if he has one, is decidedly un-
certain, and at any rate did not determine the direction of
Plato's historical influence, we shall perhaps be justified in
not considering it further.

5. The Academy. — The school which Plato founded,
and which was called the Academy, continued in existence
several centuries after his death, although it passed through
a number of vicissitudes. At different periods of its exist-

The Systematic Philosophers 101

ence, it represents different tendencies, and is known suc-
cessively as the Older Academy, the Middle Academy, and
the New Academy. Plato's real successor, however, and
the one who succeeded in developing his thought in a
genuinely significant way, is not found among the more
orthodox followers who formed the Academy, but rather
in Aristotle, the originator of a new and rival school.

LITERATURE

Plato, Dialogues, esp. Protagoras, Gorgias, Phcedo, Phcedrus, Re-
public, Euthydemus, Parmenides, Theatetus, Timcsus.
Van Oordt, Plato and his Times.
J. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles.
Nettleship, Philosophical Lectures and Remains, 2 vols.
Nettleship, Theory of Education in Plato* s Republic (in HelUnicd).
Bryan, The Republic of Plato.
Bosanquet, A Companion to Plato^s Republic.
Zeller, Plato.

Pater, Plato and Platonism.
Ritchie, Plato.

J. S. Mill, Essays and Discussions.
Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory.
Martineau, Essays.
Grote, Plato, 3 vols.
Grote, History of Greece.
Collins, Plato.
Shorey, The Unity of Plato'1 s Thought.

§ 12. Aristotle. The Peripatetics

Aristotle was born at Stagira, in 386 B.C. His father
came of a family of physicians, and was himself physician
to the king of Macedon. Aristotle received his philosoph-
ical education at the Academy in Athens, but owing to
certain differences of standpoint, he ceased later on to call
himself a disciple of Plato, and became in a way his rival.
He was, however, profoundly influenced by the teachings
to which he had listened, and perhaps is inclined, in the
interests of his own originality, to exaggerate the real ex-
tent of the difference between himself and his former mas-

IO2 A Student' s History of Philosophy

ter. In 343, he became the tutor of Alexander, afterward
to be called the Great — a position which he held for three
years with marked success. In 335, he founded a school,
in the walks of the Lyceum at Athens. After the death
of Alexander, he was accused by the patriotic party of fa-
voring the political pretensions of Macedon, and was com-
pelled to go into exile on the island of Eubcea, where he
died in 322 B.C.

In passing from Plato to Aristotle, we are conscious of
a marked change of atmosphere. Instead of the deeply
poetic temperament, which sees all things in relation to a
unitary ideal, fuses them to form a single picture, and en-
deavors, by all sorts of partial lights, to adumbrate the infi-
nite and unspeakable, we have what is more closely allied
to the scientific type of mind, parcelling out the universe
into its several spheres, untiring in its search for facts, fer-
tile in explanations which are marked by practical good
sense, and which are based on historical and scientific con-
siderations. However, this does not mean that Aristotle
is no metaphysician. Indeed, he combines in himself, as
few other philosophers have done, the scientific and the
metaphysical interests. And we may, accordingly, turn
first to his more general point of view for regarding the
universe, since this makes itself felt in all his other work.

i. Metaphysics, Logic , Psychology

I. The Conception of Development. — Aristotle's philo-
sophical system grows out of the problem which he had
inherited from Plato, and is presented most systematically
in a number of writings collected under the title of Meta-
physics. The name is probably derived from the fact that,
in the collection of Aristotle's works, this volume came
after the writings on physics (pera ra <f>vcriica). Plato had
left his two worlds — the world of the Idea, and the world
of matter — standing in strong opposition, and practically
separate. How is it possible, now, to get rid of this dual-

The Systematic Philosophers 103

ism? Aristotle's answer is technical in its nature, and
when arrayed in the special terminology which he uses, it
is apt to seem rather formidable. Perhaps, however,
the essential part of his thought may be simplified, to make
its bearing more obvious.

To begin with, Aristotle recognizes clearly the impossi-
bility of setting up Ideas apart from things. We could
not prove the existence of such Ideas, if they were wholly
separate from the world in which we have our being, and
to which our knowledge extends ; nor, if they existed, should
we be able to explain by reference to them, anything what-
ever in this lower world, since we have so carefully removed
the two from contact. The statement that things partici-
pate in the Idea is, if the Idea has a separate being, only a
metaphor, which conveys no intelligible meaning. But it
does not follow that the Idea has no existence, and that
the only reality is the world of individual objects. The
Idea does exist, and it forms a very essential part of real-
ity ; only it exists in the world, and in things, not outside
of and apart from them.

The best way to gain a clear notion of what Aristotle
means by this, is to take a concrete illustration. We shall
find such an illustration in what we call an organism. What
is it we mean, e.g., by an oak tree ? Is it merely a collec-
tion of the particular parts which go to make it up as an
object in space? But where shall we start to make such
an analysis ? If we take the acorn — and there surely is a
sense in which the oak already exists in the acorn — we
shall get one result ; if we wait till the tree is full grown,
we shall get another and a very different one. The idea of
the tree i.e., evidently includes more than can be summed
up in any one moment of the tree's existence ; all the pro-
cesses by which it changes from one stage to another —
from the acorn to maturity, from maturity to decay — also
belong to the complete notion of what a tree is. Nor is
this all. The mere description of the parts, misses com-
pletely the unity of the organism, that which makes it a

IO4 A Student's History of Philosophy

single object ; we must also bring in the use which each
part serves, in relation to the other parts, and to the entire
organism — to the Idea of the tree as a whole. If there
were no Idea, if the particular facts were everything, there
would be no tree, but only a series of molecular changes.

There are two things especially to be noticed in this con-
ception. In the first place, the reality becomes a process
of development. Any complete definition of the tree, will
have to include in some way the whole course of its life; for
only by reference to this entire process can the particular
stages and organs be placed and understood. It is by means
of this notion of development, that Aristotle overcomes
the dualism of Plato. Just as long as reality is regarded
as something unchanging and complete, we are obliged to
separate it from the material world, where there is no such
perfect fulfilment, but only approximation. But, further-
more, this process is no mere series of disconnected
changes ; it is a real development, or growth. Looked at
from the standpoint of physical science, the tree can be
reduced to a succession of molecular changes, entirely
continuous with all the other changes in the universe.
But a tree is, for our knowledge, more than this ; it is a
single process, possessing as an organism its own peculiar
unity of end. Only, again, it is not an end which comes
literally at the finish — such an end is but the end of death ;
nor does it exist in any sense outside the life of the tree.
That life process is itself the end. The tree fulfils the
purpose which it embodies, in the very act of growing.

Now this is essentially what Aristotle means. As the
tree is nothing outside the whole process of growth and
decay, regarded as bound into a unity by its relation to
the type or Idea of the tree, so the concept in general
does not exist separate from the material world of gen-
eration, but only in that world. Matter, and concept,
or Idea, are relative terms, neither of which has any real
existence apart from the other. Matter is the organic pro-
cess looked at from the side of potentiality, of what as yet

The Systematic Philosophers 105

is unrealized, as the acorn is the material from which the
oak will spring. It is the possibility of the realization of
the Idea. There is no such thing as pure matter ; it
always has some definite characteristics, or form. Form,
or the concept, is the same process on the side of
actuality, fulfilment. It is the inner meaning expressing
itself concretely in material form ; the end which governs
the series of particular changes. It is only as it thus em-
bodies the Idea, that anything becomes an object of knowl-
edge. The transition from the potential to the actual is
motion, or evolution, or development. True existence is
thus not something apart from the phenomenal world, but
realized in it ; it is possibility made real, the potential
actualized, Aristotle's entelechy.

Such a conception involves, if it is taken seriously, an
important change in philosophical standpoint ; it substitutes
a changing, or dynamic, reality, for the purely static and
all-complete perfection with which ultimate existence had
been identified by Plato. Heracleitus, indeed, had sug-
gested the same thought, when he made reality a process
of Becoming; but by introducing the concept of end, or
purpose, into the process, Aristotle succeeded in giving
it a unity beyond anything that Heracleitus had been
able to formulate. There is, however, another side to
Aristotle's theory, which would seem to prevent our taking
this too strictly. A different type of illustration will sug-
gest the point more clearly. Instead of taking his examples
from organic life, where matter and form are in truth only
distinguishable, and not separate, Aristotle also turns fre-
quently to illustrations from human workmanship, especially
in artistic creation. Take a statue, e.g. : the reality of the
statue is the marble shaped to body forth the sculptor's
ideal. Here evidently we have two sides again — the
material which furnishes the conditions for the artist's
work, and the idea in his mind which represents the cause
of his activity, and the end toward which it is directed.
But there is a separation here which did not exist in the

io6 A Student's History of Philosophy

organism. From the standpoint of the statue, the two
things are related, it is true. The marble is not mere
brute mass, for the sculptor sees in it, even in the rough,
the possibility of the realization of his ideal; his ideal,
too, is not a mere dream, but something to be actualized
in the marble. Still, in the illustration, the idea, or
form, and the matter, are two distinct things, before
they meet in the statue ; and the idea exists in a certain
degree of completeness, or it could not guide the artist's
hands.

Now if we apply this to the world at large, it leads to the
conception of a graded series of realities. Each step in
this series reveals more and more those universal relation-
ships which go to render it intelligible, an object of true
knowledge. In the actual world of generation, we have
not, indeed, anything more than -a relative purity of the
formal element. Everything is alike matter and form —
matter to what lies above it in the scale, form to what is
lower down. The marble is matter to the statue ; but it is
not pure matter. It also has definite characteristics, and
so, in relation to a lower grade of matter, it stands itself as
form. The tree is form in relation to the elements that
are taken from the soil to further its growth, matter in rela-
tion to the house which is made from its timber.

But now, from another point of view, the Reason which
reveals itself in the world process is not, for Aristotle,
actually generated by the process as such. Rather, it is
eternally implied as the necessary condition for the world's
intelligibility. At the end of the series, therefore, lies that
which no longer is relative merely, but absolute. It is pure
form, the pure Idea, since there is nothing beyond it to
which it can stand in the relation of matter. God is thus
absolute Spirit, with no touch of the corporeal. His is the
life of pure thought, which has as its content no foreign
matter, but only thought itself. Unmoved himself, he is
the mover of the universe, not as an active agent, but as
the final end of all, the ideal toward which the whole

The Systematic Philosophers 107

creation moves by an inner necessity, as the beautiful and
the good stir up. our endeavor to realize them, not by
anything they themselves do, but by the appeal they make
to our desires as worthy of being realized. Whether,
in this final outcome of his philosophy, Aristotle has wholly
escaped the difficulties that beset Plato, may be ques-
tioned. But the entire conception is in any case a remark-
able achievement, to which the modern philosopher may
still return with profit.

2. Logic. — Leaving his general standpoint, we may turn
next to an examination of some of the details of Aristotle's
system. And we are struck, first of all, by the great ad-
vance which has been made in the distinction of problems,
and their accurate definition. Even with Plato, the various
different aspects of the world are still largely bound up
together ; in Aristotle, however, this gives place to a divi-
sion into separate fields, each with fairly well-defined boun-
daries. Logic, Ethics, Metaphysics, Physical Science,
Psychology, Political Science, Rhetoric, ^Esthetics, — all
are thus subjected to treatment by themselves, in an essen-
tially modern way.

Aristotle's most perfect achievement is his Logic, found
chiefly in the collection of writings called the Organon.
Of course there had been, before his day, some isolated
treatment of logical details, especially among the Sophists ;
but there was no connected body of logical doctrine.
Aristotle not only succeeded in creating such a science,
but he did his work so thoroughly that, in the field which
it professes to occupy, it has remained practically un-
changed ever since. The so-called Formal Logic, the
analysis of the processes of deductive argument as this is
taught to-day, does not differ essentially from the formu-
lation which Aristotle gave it over two thousand years ago.
But while, with us, this Logic is regarded as in truth
purely formal, and as representing a somewhat abstract
method of proof or argumentation, rather than the actual
process of scientific inquiry and explanation, in Aristotle's

io8 A Student's History of Philosophy

mind it had no such restriction. We have seen that, for
Aristotle, all changes are determined by reference to the
realization of an end — the Idea or form. The form is
thus also a cause ; and the form is ' equivalent to what we
call the concept. Scientific procedure, then, consists in
bringing about a proper subordination of concepts ; the
logical process, instead of being only a method of proof,
constitutes a scientific explanation as well.

Logic, accordingly, centres about the syllogism — the
process by which there is deduced the relation of two con-
cepts, in the way of logical subordination, through the
medium of two premises and a middle term. This latter,
by standing in a relation to each concept separately, dis-
covers their relation to one another. Aristotle worked out
the different forms which it is possible for the syllogism
to assume, in practically an exhaustive way.

3. Natural Science and Psychology. — With Aristotle,
Logic was not so much a special science, or branch of
knowledge, as an introduction to all sciences, a determina-
tion of the form of the mind's action, which might be
applied to every subject-matter alike. If we turn now
to these special branches to which Aristotle's encyclo-
paedic activity directed itself, it will be sufficient merely
to notice those writings, which to-day we should class
under the head of science in the strict sense. Most im-
portant, from the philosophical point of view, is the
relation of this mass of knowledge, to his metaphysical
doctrine of matter and form. Since every two successive
grades of complexity in the world process stand to each
other in the relation of matter and form, the result is a
well-knit theory of teleological evolution. As we pass
upward from purely mechanical changes, to chemical
changes of quality, and thence to organic life, involving
growth and decay ; as, in organisms, we advance from the
vegetative life of the plant, to the animal soul, capable of
sensation and motion ; and from the animal soul to man,
from sensation to reason : we find each step governed by

The Systematic Philosophers 109

an upward impulse toward the succeeding step, which
constitutes its perfection, or entelechy — the goal toward
which it is striving. The whole world is moving toward
the realization of the Idea ; reason is everywhere present
and working in it. The lower reality is not destroyed in
the higher, but is utilized. Mechanical and chemical
changes still take place in the organism ; but a new form is
impressed upon them, which causes them to realize the
organism's life. The vegetative soul — the mere life prin-
ciple— is not lost sight of in the animal, but, again, is
directed and utilized for something higher.

The most significant application of this conception comes
out in Aristotle's treatment of psychology, a treatment
which, though somewhat slight, is very interesting and valu-
able. By considering the human soul as the entelechy of
the body, in whose service the whole body is enlisted, Aris-
totle is in the way of getting rid of the dualism of the two,
and attaining the modern position, which takes the whole
psycho-physical man as the subject-matter of psychology,
not mere mind by itself. Man is still an animal ; the
vegetative and animal souls still exist in him. But they
exist now for the sake of the higher life of reason ; and so
mere impulses, and mere sensation, become transformed,
and take on the specifically human character of knowledge
and will. The different aspects of the soul thus form a
real unity, and do not simply exist in juxtaposition, as with
Plato. In detail, Aristotle's treatment of the conscious life
is in general very suggestive ; and many of the things he
has to say about memory, desire, the processes of sensa-
tion, the unity of consciousness, the association of ideas, are
striking anticipations of modern psychological doctrines.

2. Ethics, Politics, ^Esthetics

I. Ethics. — It is, however, Aristotle's treatment of Ethics
and Political Science, which is of greatest interest to the
modern reader. Here, again, we start from the same ques-

no A Student's History of Philosophy

tion which Plato had raised : What is the highest good, the
end of life ? If we were to ask the opinion of men in
general, we probably should find most of them agreeing,
both that happiness, and virtue, enter into the composition
of the good. But what is the content of these terms?
Here Aristotle's metaphysics helps him out. The end of
a thing is the fulfilment of its Idea, the realization of the
potentialities of its own peculiar nature. If, then, we are
able to define that which constitutes a man as such, we
can determine what is for him the Summum Bonum.

" Perhaps it seems a truth which is generally admitted,
that happiness is the supreme good ; what is wanted is to
define its nature a little more clearly. The best way of
arriving at such a definition will probably be to ascertain
the function of Man. For as with a flute player, a
statuary, or any artisan, or in fact anybody who has a
definite function and action, his goodness or excellence
seems to lie in his function, so it would seem to be with
Man, if indeed he has a definite function. Can it be said,
then, that while a carpenter and a cobbler have definite
functions and actions, Man, unlike them, is naturally
functionless ? The reasonable view is, that as the eye,
the hand, the foot, and similarly each several part of the
body, has a definite function, so Man may be regarded as
having a definite function apart from all these. What,
then, can this function be ? It is not life, for life is appar-
ently something which man shares with the plants, and
it is something peculiar to him that we are looking for.
We must exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and
increase. There is, next, what may be called the life of
sensation. But this, too, is apparently shared by Man
with horses, cattle, and all other animals. There remains
what I may call the practical life of the rational part of
Man's being. But the rational part is twofold ; it is
rational partly in the sense of being obedient to reason,
and partly in the sense of possessing reason and intelli-
gence. The practical life, too, may be conceived of in two

The Systematic Philosophers 1 1 1

ways, but we must understand by it the life of activity, as
this seems to be the truer form of the conception. The
function of Man, then, is an activity of soul in accordance
with reason, or not independently of reason. Again, the
functions of a person of a certain kind, and of such a
person who is good of his kind, e.g., of a harpist, and a
good harpist, are in our view generically the same, and
this view is true of people of all kinds without exception,
the superior excellence being only an addition to the
function ; for it is the function of a harpist to play the
harp, and of the good harpist to play the harp well. This
being so, if we define the function of Man as a kind of
life, and this life as an activity of soul, or a course of action,
in conformity with reason, if the function of a good man
is such activity or action of a good and noble kind, and if
everything is successfully performed when it is performed
in accordance with its proper excellence, it follows that the
good of Man is an activity of soul in accordance with vir-
tue, or, if there are more virtues than one, in accordance
with the best and most complete virtue. But it is necessary
to add the words 'in a complete life.' For as one swal-
low or one day does not make a spring, so one day or
a short time does not make a fortunate or happy man." *

Virtue, then, or the supreme end of man's life, con-
sists in the unobstructed realization, or exercise in
conscious and voluntary action, of his rational nature.
And since pleasure is but the accompaniment of suc-
cessful activity, and the pleasure is better in proportion
to the excellence of the faculty exercised, the highest
virtue is, by that very fact, the greatest happiness.
Aristotle, with his characteristic love of common-sense
opinions, is careful not to depreciate the importance of
happiness. " Happiness is the best and noblest and pleas-
antest thing in the world, nor is there any such distinc-
tion between goodness, nobleness, and pleasure, as the
epigram at Delos suggests : —

1 Ethics, I, 6. Welldon's translation. (Macmillan & Co.)

U2 A Student's History of Philosophy

" < Justice is noblest, health is best,
To gain one's end is pleasantest.' " l

But this of course does not refer to any and every pleasure.
" Pleasures are desirable, but not if they are immoral in
their origin ; just as wealth is pleasant, but not if it be
obtained at the cost of turning traitor to one's country ; or
health, but not at the cost of eating any food however dis-
agreeable." 2 Nor are we speaking of purely trivial pleas-
ures. " Happiness does not consist in amusement. It
would be paradoxical to hold that the end of human life is
amusement, and that we should toil and suffer all our life
for the sake of amusing ourselves."3 Aristotle tends to
confine the term " happiness," to the activity of what seems
to him the best part of our nature. " It is reasonable not
to speak of an ox, or a horse, or any other animal, as happy
— even of a child. For happiness demands a complete
virtue and a complete life." 4

By reason, however, of the division in man's soul between
the pure intellect, and the lower desires and impulses, which
are only capable of acting in subjection to reason, without
being rational in their own nature, virtue becomes sub-
divided into intellectual and moral. The highest virtue,
since reason is the esssential element in man, is the life of
philosophy, of purely rational insight, or contemplation.
The pleasure of speculation is of all pleasures the highest,
the most continuous, the purest, the most self-sufficient.
" If, then, the reason is divine in comparison with the rest
of man's nature, the life which accords with reason will be
divine in comparison with human life in general. Nor is
it right to follow the advice of people who say that the
thought of men should not be too high for humanity, or
the thought of mortals too high for mortality ; for a man,
so far as in him lies, should seek immortality, and do all
that is in his power to live in accordance with the highest
part of his nature, as, although that part is insignificant in

*I,g. 2X, 2. 3X,6. * 1, 10.

The Systematic Philosophers 1 1 3

size, yet in power and honor it is far superior to all the
rest." * Moral virtues are human ; this one is godlike. " Our
conception of the Gods is that they are preeminently happy
and fortunate. But what kind of actions do we properly
attribute to them ? Are they just actions ? But it would
make the Gods ridiculous to suppose that they form con-
tracts, restore deposits, and so on. Are they, then, coura-
geous actions ? Do the Gods endure dangers and alarms
for the sake of honor ? Or liberal actions ? But to whom
should they give money ? It would be absurd to suppose
that they have a currency, or anything of the kind. Surely,
to praise the Gods for temperance is to degrade them ;
they are exempt from low desires. We may go through
the whole category of virtues, and it will appear that
whatever relates to moral action is petty and ^unworthy of
the Gods. Yet the Gods are universally conceived as liv-
ing, and therefore as displaying activity ; they are certainly
not conceived as sleeping like Endymion. If, then, action,
and still more production, is denied to one who is alive,
what is left but speculation ? It follows that the activity
of God, being preeminently blissful, will be speculative,
and, if so, then the human activity which is most nearly
related to it, will be most capable of happiness." 2 " Again,
he whose activity is directed by reason, and who cultivates
reason, and is in the best state of mind, is also, as it seems,
the most beloved of the Gods. For if the Gods care at all
for human beings, as is believed, it will be only reasonable
to hold that they delight in what is best and most related
to themselves, i.e., in reason ; and that they requite with
kindness those who love and honor it above all else, as
caring for what is dear to themselves, and performing
right and noble actions.",3

But also the ordinary individual, who is not a philoso-
pher, is capable of leading a life of moral conduct, or of
virtue in the secondary sense, as opposed to pure specula-
tive activity. And here Aristotle tries to overcome the

iX.7. 2X,8. *X,9.

i

H4 A Student's History of Philosophy

dualism which Plato left standing between the sensuous
and the higher nature ; and to find an ideal, even if not
the highest ideal, within the realm of common experi-
ence. Such virtue goes back- to man's natural impulses,
but not as they are exercised in a purely impulsive, and
so spasmodic, way. Aristotle continually insists that vir-
tue is no mere natural gift of disposition, but a result
of doing. " It is neither by nature, nor in defiance of
nature, that virtues are implanted in us. Nature gives
us the capacity of receiving them, and that capacity is
perfected by habit." 1 As builders learn by building, and
harpists by playing the harp, so it is by doing just acts
that we become just. "As in the Olympian games, it is
not the most beautiful and strongest persons who receive
the crown, but they who actually enter the list as comba-
tants, so it is they who act rightly that attain to what is
noble and good in life." 2 Even philosophy will not make
a man virtuous, till it is put into practice ; those who
imagine otherwise, are like people who listen attentively
to their doctors, but never do anything that their doctors
tell them. Virtue, then, stands for a definite habit of mind,
brought about by a continual repetition of acts, in which
the impulse is directed by voluntary and intelligent effort,
in such a way as to express man's essential nature. It is
thus not the suppression of the natural impulses, as with
Plato, but their regulation.

The necessary rational principle, Aristotle finds in his
doctrine of virtue as a mean. An impulse has in it the
possibility of giving rise to a virtue, by taking the middle
course between excess and deficiency, and then by being
repeated until it becomes a second nature. " The first
point to be observed is, that in such matters as we are con-
sidering, deficiency and excess are equally fatal. It is so
as we observe in regard to health and strength; for we
must judge of what we cannot see by the evidence of what
we do see. Excess or deficiency of gymnastic exercise is
^i, i. M,9.

The Systematic Philosophers 115

fatal to strength. Similarly, an excess or deficiency of
meat and drink is fatal to health, whereas a suitable
amount produces, augments, and sustains it. It is the
same, then, with temperance, courage, and the other vir-
tues. A person who avoids and is afraid of everything,
and faces nothing, becomes a coward; a person who is
not afraid of anything, but is ready to face everything,
becomes foolhardy. Similarly, he who enjoys every pleas-
ure, and never abstains from any pleasure, is licentious ;
he who eschews all pleasures, like a boor, is an insensible
sort of person." 1 In like manner, liberality lies between
avarice and prodigality, modesty between impudence and
bashfulness, sincerity between self-disparagement and
boastfulness, good temper between dulness and irascibil-
ity, friendly civility between surliness and obsequiousness,
just resentment between callousness and spitefulness, high-
mindedness between littleness of mind and pompousness.
Put in a somewhat less mechanical way, moral virtue is
the sort of action which adequately meets the situation
that confronts us. It consists in accepting the conditions
of life, not resting content, on the one hand, with less than
the full possibilities, nor, on the other, neglecting the pos-
sible for unattainable ideals.

2. Politics. — Man, however, is more than an individual.
By nature he is a political animal, who can attain his high-
est good only in society ; and so Ethics is subordinate to
Politics. Society arises out of the physical needs of man,
who is not self-sufficing, but has to cooperate with his fel-
low-men in order to be sure of subsistence ; but this is not
its sole ground. Originating in the bare needs of life, it
continues for the sake of the good life. The state, there-
fore, and the science which deals with the state, have the
highest ethical aim. " Political science is concerned with
nothing so much as with producing a certain character in
the citizens, or, in other words, with making them good,
and capable of performing noble actions." 2

1 II, 2. 2 T> Ia

n6 A Student's History of Philosophy

Aristotle goes on to discuss various problems relating
to the theory of government, and the different forms
which the state assumes, with a good deal of sound sense,
and frequent appeal to history ; but the absence of any
one illuminating point of view renders his treatment a
little confused, and robs it of the peculiar interest which
attaches to Plato's Republic. Plato's ideal state is, indeed,
criticised by Aristotle with more or less effectiveness, par-
ticularly in its communistic features. Aristotle sees that
no machinery of government will be of much avail, so long
as human nature remains what it is ; it is not the institu-
tion of property alone which is responsible for all our
ills. In particular, the abolishing of family life, by de-
stroying the roots of natural affection, would work quite
contrary to Plato's purpose. Aristotle himself refuses to
be content with setting up a single ideal. He has his own
notion of what is abstractly the best form of government
— the absolute rule, namely, of a single man, provided we
could find one preeminently wise and good. But a politi-
cal treatise also should recognize actual conditions ; and
practically the " best " government is a relative term, and
will differ with the degree of development of the people who
are to be governed. In general, there are three types of
government, according as the state is ruled by one, by the
few, or by the many — monarchy, aristocracy, and constitu-
tional republic. When one man stands out preeminently
among his fellow-citizens, a monarchy is, as has been said,
the natural form ; when a few men are obviously superior
in virtue, an aristocracy. It is not to be forgotten, however,
that mere numbers give a certain stability and massive
wisdom in affairs of government ; while, accordingly, the
individual members of the multitude may be inferior to a
chosen few, yet, taken collectively, their wisdom may con-
ceivably be superior, since they supplement one another.
In particular, they may be the best judges of what affects
themselves, as a guest is a better judge of a feast than the
cook who prepares it ; though they may not possess the

The Systematic Philosophers 117

constructive skill to bring about what they want. So, also,
a mass of men is apt to be more incorruptible than a single
man.

Each of the three types of government may be perverted,
when the ruling class ceases to aim at the common interest,
and, instead, keeps its own advantage in view. For the
average state, a mixture of the types is advisable, since
this cements the interests of the different classes ; and for
the same reason, a state in which the middle class is strong,
is likely to be more permanent than where either of the
extremes predominates. Of course, to a large extent, the
reasonings of Aristotle apply to conditions very dissimilar
to those which any modern country has to meet. Greek
society was founded on the institution of slavery — an in-
stitution which Aristotle justifies theoretically, on the ground
that some men are not fitted to guide themselves by reason,
but find their whole life in bodily action, and, consequently,
are slaves by nature. Another important difference is to be
noticed, in his attitude toward the worker in general. No
man can practise virtue, he says, who is living the life of a
mechanic or laborer; and the assertion that greatness is
impossible to a state which produces numerous artisans, but
few soldiers, reveals a social condition far removed from
our modern industrial society. So, again, the fact that
the principle of representative government lies beyond his
point of view, renders it inevitable that the state of which
he speaks, should be very limited in size; a democracy
in the modern sense, as distinct from the city-state of the
Greeks, he is unable to imagine. Still, the Politics is
interesting even at the present day, and in spite of differ-
ences in detail, the modernness of tone and of method is
very noticeable.

3. Aesthetics. — The Poetics is rather slight in nature,
but as the first attempt to treat in a separate way that side
of philosophy which, in its larger aspect, is now known as
^Esthetics, it deserves some mention, and I will borrow
the brief summary which Mayor gives: —

n8 A Student's History of Philosophy

" In the Poetic, Aristotle takes Plato's view of poetry
as a branch of Imitation, and divides it into three parts,
Epic, Tragic, and Comic. All imitation is a source of pleas-
ure, but the imitation of the poet or artist is not simple rep-
resentation of ordinary fact, but of the universal or ideal
which underlies ordinary fact; whence poetry is more
philosophical than history. This is most conspicuous in
Tragedy, where the characters are all on a grander scale
than those of common life ; but even Comedy selects and
heightens in its imitation of the grotesque. Tragedy is
not, as Plato thought, a mere enfeebling luxury ; rather it
makes use of the feelings of pity and terror to purify simi-
lar affections in ourselves, i.e., it gives a safe vent to our
feelings, by taking us out of ourselves, and opening our hearts
to sympathize with the heavier woes of humanity at large,
typified in the persons of the drama ; while it chastens and
controls the vehemence of passion by never allowing its
expression to transgress the limits of beauty, and by rec-
ognizing the righteous meaning and use of suffering."1

The schooi which Aristotle founded was known as the
Peripatetic school. It maintained an existence alongside
the Academy for many years, but produced no new doc-
trines of any great importance.

LITERATURE

Aristotle, Chief Works : Organon, Metaphysics, De Anima, Nicho-
machean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Rhetoric. Translations: Welldon
(Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric) ; Jowett (Polities') ; Wallace {Psychology} ;
Hammond (Psychology} ; Wharton {Poetics}. Also translations in
Bohn's Library.

Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics, 2 vols.

Grote, Aristotle, 2 vols.
* Wallace, Outlines of Aristotle }s Philosophy.
* Lewes, Aristotle.

A. Grant, Aristotle.

Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals.

Bradley, Aristotle's Theory of the State (in Hellenicd).

1 A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy. (Cambridge University Press.)

THE LATER ETHICAL PERIOD

§ 13. Introduction

WITH Aristotle, the period of great speculative systems
comes to a close. In his successors, the course of philoso-
phy takes a new turn, which it is to follow for several
centuries.

The reason for this new departure, there has already
been occasion to notice ; it is due to the breakdown of
Greek political and social life. From Socrates to Aristotle,
Philosophy had made an attempt to stem the current of
dissolution, and to set up again, on a rational basis, that
ideal of a corporate life which, resting originally on the
foundation of a customary morality, had begun to totter
when this morality was attacked, alike by political corrup-
tion and by philosophical scepticism. But the attempt
was not successful; and from one philosopher to another,
we see the recognition of its hopelessness in the grow-
ing prominence assigned to the theoretical life, and the
substitution of philosophy for active participation in social
interests. After the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War,
and the fall of Athens, things went from bad to worse in
Greece. Feuds and jealousies increased among the numer-
ous petty states into which the country was divided. Per-
sonal ambitions led to the solicitation of foreign interference,
especially from Persia ; and the employment of mercenaries
still further threatened the existence of freedom. With the
loss of Greek independence, and the supremacy of Mace-
don, the failure of the Greek civilization became a settled
fact, however much the attempt might be made to nurse
the forms of freedom. The appearance of isolated

119

I2O A Student's History of Philosophy

patriots only brought into clearer relief the disintegration,
and incapacity for united action, on the part of Greece as
a whole ; so that the final loss of all chance of indepen-
dence, by the intervention of the Roman power, was a real
blessing to the country. After the capture of Corinth by
Mummius, in 146 B.C., Greece became a Roman province,
under the name of Achaia.

It is not strange, therefore, that philosophy turned from
the -ideal of man as an organic member of a social order
that no longer had any true existence, and occupied itself
instead with the individual man, and the way in which
he might obtain such satisfaction as he could, in the
troublous times in which his lot was cast. A new social
ideal with any vitality in it, could only come into being as
history prepared the way, by giving rise to a form of society
more adequate than that of the Greeks, and possessing
those elements through lack of which Greek civilization
had failed. Meanwhile, however, men must have some-
thing as the guiding principle in their lives, to take the
place of that "which formerly had been supplied by the
traditional duties of citizenship, and the authoritative sanc-
tions of the state religion. And to get this, they turned in
one of two directions. On the one hand, there begins now
to some extent that frantic running after Oriental cults,
which forms so striking a feature in the life of the Empire
later on. Belief in the old gods and the old religion, was
undermined by scepticism, only to be replaced by a super-
stition which grasped at every novelty.

The more sober minds, on the other hand, turned to
philosophy for guidance and comfort. For the next few
centuries, then, philosophy assumes an intensely practical
aspect ; it aims to be nothing more nor less than a complete
art of living. You pretend that you are not calculated for
philosophy ? says Diogenes ; why then do you live, if you
have no desire to live properly ? " Philosophy," writes
Seneca, "is not a theory for popular acceptance and
designed for show ; it is not in words, but in deeds. It is

The Later Ethical Period 121

not employed to help us pass the day agreeably, or to
remove ennui from our leisure ; it forms and fashions the
mind, sets in order our life, directs our action, shows what
ought to be done and to be left undone ; it sits at the helm
and guides the course through perplexities and dangers.
Without it none can live fearlessly, none securely ; count-
less things happen every hour which call for counsel, and
this can only be sought for in philosophy. Whether fate
constrains by an inexorable law, or God is judge of the
universe and arranges all things, or chance without reference
to any order impels and confounds the affairs of men, phi-
losophy ought to be our safeguard. It will encourage us
to obey God willingly, to obey fortune without yielding ; it
will teach us to follow God, to put up with chance." 1

Furthermore, in all its various tendencies, the philoso-
phy of the next few centuries is practically agreed in this :
that if there is any good attainable at all, it must be found
by each man within himself. Circumstances have passed
beyond man's power of control ; but if he cannot remedy
the ills of the outer world, or find in the life which sur-
rounds him a worthy field for his endeavor, he can at least
make himself independent of this world, cultivate that
philosophic calm and poise which finds all the elements
of happiness within the mind itself, and thus be put be-
yond the power of chance to harm. Both of the two more
original philosophical currents of the period have primarily
in view this practical end. Although they are reached by
very different roads, the airdOeia (freedom from emotion)
of the Stoics, and the arapa^ia (imperturbability) of Epi-
cureanism, have, superficially at least, a close resemblance.

The same thing is true of another characteristic ten-
dency of the time, viz., Scepticism. A distrust of the
powers of reason naturally succeeds a period of great
speculative activity. As the ideals which give rise to
systems of thought in such a period lose their freshness,
the theoretical gaps in the arguments on which they have

1 Letters, II, 4.

122 A Student's History of Philosophy

been based, begin to monopolize attention. And since be-
lief always is at bottom a matter of faith, rather than of
demonstration, and no new enthusiasm has yet appeared
to bind knowledge into a unity again, and back it with
conviction, a sceptical distrust of the possibility of knowl-
edge is the result. But here, also, the interest was not
primarily theoretical. Scepticism, like its rivals, is only a
discipline to prepare the mind for assuming such an atti-
tude toward life as will enable it to secure what satisfac-
tion it may. Such disinterested intellectual curiosity as
remained, directed itself largely to the investigation of
literary, grammatical, and historical details, where no great
theoretical principles were involved.

The same lack of intellectual grasp, which showed
itself on the one hand in the sceptical abandonment
of the possibility of knowledge, and, on the other, in
a mere painstaking collection of facts, gave rise also to
the tendency to Eclecticism. Unable to deal with fun-
damental principles, there was a growing disposition to
settle the disputes of philosophy by an uncritical combina-
tion of the various systems, brought about on the basis of
no deep insight, but, again, to meet practical needs. The
intensely practical nature of the Roman mind, and its dis-
inclination for metaphysical thinking, gave a special im-
pulse to this tendency. And, finally, as the inability
of Philosophy, as mere ethical doctrine, to satisfy men,
became more and more evident, a union of the two move-
ments— that toward philosophy, and that toward reli-
gion— was gradually brought about, culminating in the
religious metaphysics of the Church Fathers, and, espe-
cially, of the Neo-Platonists. We shall consider these
tendencies in their order.

§ 14. Epicurus and Epicureanism

i. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) was an Athenian, who was
born, however, in Samos. About 306 he founded his

The Later Ethical Period 123

school, which was held in his own gardens at Athens.
Here he gathered about him a group of enthusiastic dis-
ciples, including among their number even women and
slaves. Bound together by the closest ties of intimacy
and friendship, they formed a group which was famous
in antiquity, as furnishing an ideal of friendly intercourse.
In this group Epicurus reigned supreme. His followers
regarded him with the utmost veneration — a veneration
which is expressed in the words of Lucretius in later days :
" For if we must speak as the acknowledged grandeur of
the thing itself demands, a God he was, a God, most noble
Mummius, who first found out that plan of life which is
now termed wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued life
from such great billows and such thick darkness, and
moored it in so perfect a calm and in so brilliant a light." 1
His teachings were memorized by his pupils, and accepted
without change, down to unimportant details. So rigidly
did he impress his views upon them, that, in spite of the
long life which the school enjoyed, its speculative opinions
scarcely altered to the end. Partly for this reason, the
names which represent the later history of the school are
only of very secondary importance ; Lucretius, among its
Roman adherents, is indeed famous, but rather as a poet
than a philosopher.

Epicurus' philosophy is a combination of the Hedonism
of the Cyrenaics, with the Atomism of Democritus. First
of all, however, it is Hedonism — a theory of the end of
life, the highest good. Like Aristippus before him, Epi-
curus found in pleasure the one obvious and undeniable
good. Even when we speak of virtue as a good, as no
doubt we do and may, it is really the pleasure which ac-
companies the exercise of virtue which we have in mind,
not virtue on its own account. But here begin certain
complications. When Aristippus had said these same
things, he had been pretty clear what he meant ; pleasure
stood to him for the same positive content that it does to

1 Lucretius, V, 1. 7. Munro's translation. (Geo. Bell & Sons.)

124 A Student's History of Philosophy

the ordinary man. Nor could Epicurus very well deny
that such pleasure is a good. He makes the declaration,
indeed, that no conception of the good is possible apart
from bodily enjoyments ; while Metrodorus, one of his
followers, even asserts baldly that everything good has
reference to the belly.

But philosophy is more sophisticated now than it had
been in Aristippus' time ; the stumbling-blocks in the way
of pleasure-getting are more clearly recognized. And in
endeavoring to take account of this in his theory, Epicurus
goes farther than he would seem to be justified in doing. In
part, he lays stress on the necessity of selecting our pleas-
ures, of avoiding those unregulated impulses which bring
evils in their train, of preferring simple and natural joys to
the questionable delights of luxury and extravagance ; and,
so far, there is no inconsistency with his starting-point.
But when he goes on, also, to disparage all positive pleasures,
in favor of a philosophic poise of mind (ataraxy), a quiet
and undisturbed possession of one's faculties free from
pain of body -and trouble of spirit, it is not easy always to
distinguish his position from that of his opponents, the
Stoics ; and he is led to adopt an attitude toward sensuous
satisfaction, hardly to be expected of a Hedonist. He even
takes up the theory that positive pleasures but represent
the relief that results from the removal of a pain. And there-
fore they are only the preliminaries of a true satisfaction,
which, in itself, is nothing but the freedom from pain that
leaves the mind without craving, and without agitation, and
which, once attained, is incapable of quantitative increase.
" The end of our living is to be free from pain and fear.
And when once we have reached this, all the tempest of
the soul is laid. When we need pleasure is when we are
grieved because of the absence of pleasure ; but when we
feel no pain, then we no longer stand in need of pleasure." 1
This calm of mind may even render a man contented in
spite of physical tortures, if he will only assert his inde-

1 Diog. Laertius, Life of Epicurus, § 27.

The Later Ethical Period 125

pendence of adventitious aids to happiness, and refuse to
let himself be disturbed ; torn on the rack, the philosopher
may exclaim, How sweet ! So far have we travelled from
the conception of happiness as a mere agreeable excitation
of the senses, with which Hedonism started out.

But whether or not Epicurus is logically consistent in his
position, at any rate he created an ideal which appealed
powerfully to a certain type of mind, and which even to-
day, as a working theory of life, exerts a wide influence.
It is not a strenuous ideal ; it calls for no heroism or sacri-
fice; but this very fact constitutes its charm -for certain
moods, which to few men are wholly unknown. And the
attitude of opposition which, in the interests of an aes-
thetic simplicity, it assumes toward the more flagrant vices
and follies, gives it a sufficient moral flavor to hide its more
ignoble aspects. What — so its burden is — does man's fret,
and ambition, and busy toil, after all avail him ? Does all
the boasted advance of civilization add one real pleasure
to his life ? Does it do anything, indeed, but plague him
with added cares, and weary him with war and strife ? He
longs to be rich, and famous, and powerful, and is dragged
hither and thither by his ambition, only to expose himself
to envy, and the daily risk of ruin, and win nothing in the
end; a frugal subsistence joined to a contented mind alone
is true riches. " If any one thinks his own not to be most
ample, he may become lord of the whole world, and will
yet be wretched." The wise man will not despise pleasure
when it comes to him, but he will not be dependent on it.
He will be able to get along contentedly with little, finding
his satisfaction in the common things and incidents of life,
and getting an added zest from the very consciousness of
his ability to go without. " He enjoys wealth most who
needs it least. If thou wilt make a man happy, add not
unto his riches, but take away from his desires."

Epicureanism is, then, in one aspect, like the message of
Rousseau in modern times, a summons to return from the
complexities of civilization, to nature and natural pleasures;

126 A Student's History of Philosophy

to take life easily and artistically, and cease to worry over
trifles ; to depend for happiness less on highly spiced foods
and elaborate banquets, than on a good digestion, and the
company of friends. This ideal was fully exemplified in
the life of the early Epicureans. " When," says Seneca,
" you come to the gardens where the words are inscribed :
Friend, here it will be well for you to abide ; here pleasure
is the highest good : there will meet you the keeper of the
place, a hospitable, kindly man, who will set before you a
dish of barley porridge, and plenty of water, and say : Have
you not been well entertained ? These gardens do not
provoke hunger, but quench it ; they do not cause a
greater thirst by the very drinks they afford, but assuage
it by a remedy which is natural, and costs nothing. In
this pleasure I have grown old." a " For myself," writes
Epicurus to a friend, " I can be pleased with bread and
water ; yet send me a little cheese, that when I want to be
extravagant I may be ; " and he boasts that while Metrodo-
rus had only reduced his expenses to sixpence, he himself
had been able to live comfortably on a less sum.

The parallel with Rousseau extends also to Epicurus'
estimate of science, and human learning. Although he
finds his chief joys in the mental world, he is very far from
commending the strenuous intellectual life which for Plato,
e.g., constitutes man's highest good. He is quite as easy-
going here as in the rest of his theory. Intellectual enjoy-
ment means refined conversation, pleasant intercourse
between friends, and not any anxious and soul-disturbing
inquiry after the hidden truth of things. For what com-
monly goes by the name of learning and culture, Epicurus
has little respect ; he was himself not a trained thinker, and
he did not require more than the rudiments of education for
his disciples. If they were able to read and write, they had
all that was essential ; mathematics, logic, and rhetoric, the
theory of music and art, the researches of the grammarian
and historian, were disparaged by him, as contributing noth-

1 Letters, II, 9.

The Later Ethical Period 127

ing to human happiness, and so as a mere waste of time.
" One need not bother himself," says Metrodorus, "if he has
never read a line of Homer, and does not know whether
Hector was a Trojan or a Greek." How does it happen,
then, that the scientific explanation of the universe, as
represented in the theories of Democritus, plays so large a
part in the Epicurean teaching ? Why does Epicurus in-
sist upon this as an essential part of his philosophy, and
impose it in the most dogmatic of ways upon his followers ?
2. The primary reason is not that Epicurus had, like
the modern scientist, a feeling for positive and concrete
facts, in opposition to the verbal subtilties of logic, gram-
mar, and metaphysics ; it is an entirely practical reason.
Physical science is, for Epicurus, a mere instrument for
making possible that calm of mind, in which the end of
life consists. And it does this because it rids us, once for
all, of that which is the greatest foe to inward peace, and a
contented acquiescence with the world — namely, religion.
"Will wealth and power," writes Lucretius, "avail anything
to cause religious scruples scared to fly panic-stricken from
the mind, and that the fears of death leave the breast un-
embarrassed and free from care ? But if we see that such
things are food for laughter and mere mockeries, and in
good truth the fears of merr^and dogging cares dread not
the clash of arms and cr^iel weapons, if unabashed they
mix among kings and kesars, and stand not in awe of the
glitter of gold nor the brilliant sheen of the purple robe, how
can you doubt that this is wholly the prerogative of reason,
when the whole life is withal a struggle in the dark ? For
even as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick
darkness, thus we in the daylight fear at times things not
a whit more to be dreaded than those which children shud-
der at in the dark, and fancy sure to be. This terror, there-
fore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the
sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law
of nature." *

MI, 1.43-

128 A Student's History of Philosophy

Religion, then, is the great bugbear of the Epicureans.
The evils that have attended religious belief and practice
have filled their minds, until it seems to them the one cause
of wretchedness in the world ; and it is the chief merit of
philosophy, and of Epicurus, that the reign of religion has
been brought to an end. "When human life to view lay
foully prostrate upon earth," says Lucretius, "crushed
down under the weight of religion, who showed her head
from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering
upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his
mortal eyes to her face, and first to withstand her to her
face. Him neither story of Gods nor thunderbolts nor
heaven with threatening roar could quell ; they only chafed
the more the eager courage of his soul, filling him with
desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of nature's por-
tals. Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day ;
on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world,
and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasur-
able universe, whence he returns a conqueror to tell us
what can, what cannot come into being, in short, by what
principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set
boundary mark. Therefore religion is put under foot and
trampled upon in turn ; us his victory brings level with the
heavens." *

Accordingly, this is the function of science : to sweep
aside the chimeras and religious scruples which enchain
men, and make them slaves to their own diseased fancies ;
which upset the calculations of life, trouble all the future
with superstitious fear, and put repose and happiness
beyond their reach. And it does this by substituting a
purely natural and mechanical explanation for events, and
so making religion superfluous. Men have imagined that
the world is made and ruled by Gods, whose favor, there-
fore, they must secure, and whose wrath they must propi-
tiate. These Gods are continually interfering in the affairs
of men, punishing and rewarding, hurling the thunderbolt,

11,163.

The Later Ethical Period 129

and sending plagues and earthquakes. The soul, more-
over, is immortal, and so we must still look forward to
possible vengeance in the future, and the woes of Tartarus.
Doubtless such stories had, with the rise of science and
philosophy, long since come to be more or less discredited
in the eyes of educated men. But now that everything in
the world was in a state of change, and the landmarks
which had guided men were disappearing, the need for
something to which to cling began to manifest itself, in a
return to the superstitions which it was supposed had been
outgrown.

Against this tendency, Epicurus resolutely sets himself
in opposition. Only by finally ridding oneself of the
vague hopes and fears which tear and distract the mind,
and prevent it from finding its satisfaction in the present,
can the true end of life be attained ; and hence the value
of science. Only our ignorance lets us imagine that events
are brought about by supernatural interference ; true rea-
son tells a very different story. Given atoms and the
space in which they move, and we have the data for ex-
plaining everything. Is it said that we have no reason
for supposing such atoms, which are forever invisible and
intangible ? But so is the wind invisible, and yet it has
the force to stir up the sea to a fury, and overwhelm great
ships; to sweep the plains and the mountains, and tear up
the trees of the forest by their roots. And countless facts
go to show that it is of such minute particles that things
are made. A ring on the finger is thinned by wearing;
the dropping from the eaves hollows a stone ; the iron
ploughshare imperceptibly decreases in the fields ; the
stone-paved streets are worn down by the feet of the
multitude.

And granting such a vera causa, what use have we
for any other explanation, beyond the chance impact
and combination of these ultimate seeds of things?
How should Gods have the power to frame the mighty
fabric of the world? or why should they trouble them-

130 A Student's History of Philosophy

selves to do it if they could ? Is this the sort of world
a God would make, with all its evils and imperfections ?
" In the first place, of all the space which the vast reach
of heaven covers, a portion greedy mountains and forests
of wild beasts have occupied, rocks and wasteful pools
take up, and the sea which holds wide apart the coasts of
different lands. What is left for tillage, even that nature
by its power would overrun with thorns unless the force
of man made head against it, accustomed for the sake of
a livelihood to groan beneath the strong hoe, and to cut
through the earth by pressing down the plough. Unless
by turning up the fruitful clods with the share and labor-
ing the soil of the earth we stimulate things to rise, they
could not spontaneously come up into the clear air. And
even then sometimes when things earned with great toil
now put forth their leaves over the lands and are all in
blossom, either the etherial sun burns them up with exces-
sive heats, or sudden rains and cold fronts cut them off,
and the blasts of the winds waste them by a furious hurri-
cane. Again, why does nature give food and increase to
the frightful race of wild beasts dangerous to mankind
both by sea and land ? why do the seasons of the year
bring diseases in their train ? why stalks abroad untimely
death ? Then, too, the body, like to a sailor cast away by
the cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, speechless,
wanting every furtherance of life, soon as nature by the
throes of birth has shed him forth from his mother's womb
into the borders of life. He fills the room with a rueful
wailing, as well he may whose destiny it is to go through
in life so many ills." *

It is idle, then, to look for anything in the world which
shows an intelligible end. " For verily not by design did
the first-beginnings of things station themselves each in
its right place by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain,
sooth to say, what motions each should assume; but
because the first-beginnings of things, many in number,

1 Lucretius, V, 1. 200.

The Later Ethical Period 131

in many ways, impelled by blows for infinite ages back,
and kept in motion by their own weight, have been wont
to be carried along and to unite in all manner of ways
and thoroughly to test every kind of production possible
by their mutual combinations ; therefore it is that, spread
abroad through great time, after trying unions and mo-
tions of every kind, they at length meet together in those
masses which suddenly brought together become often the
rudiments of great things, of earth, sea, and heaven, and
the race of living things." a

Accordingly, all those events in which men in their igno-
rance have seen the finger of God, must be deposed from
their high place. There is the lightning e.g., the dreaded
thunderbolt of Jove; it is a purely natural fact — fire, it
may be, struck out by the chance collision of the clouds.
Who, indeed, can see a divine judgment in that which
strikes down the innocent and guilty alike; which buries
itself harmlessly in desert, and forest, and sea ; which does
not even spare the holy sanctuaries of the Gods, and the
images of Zeus himself ? And if we do not have to fear
the vengeance of the Gods in this life, no more is there
any reason why we should look forward to punishment in
another world. This fear of hell seems to the Epicurean
one of the greatest evils which religion brings in its train ;
not only is it a source of mental disquiet, but it is an actual
provocative of crime. But for hell, there is no place in
the world which science knows. " No Tantalus in a lower
world fears the huge stone that hangs over him ; the true
Tantalus is he who vexes himself by a baseless dread of
the Gods, and fears such fall of luck as chance brings to
him." 2 Eternity, indeed, for anything, except for the ulti-
mate atoms, is a vain imagination. All things are for-
ever changing; and just as even stones are conquered by
time, huge towers fall, and rocks moulder away, so this
whole visible universe has within it the seeds of decay,
and one day shall come to naught, and give place to a

1 Lucretius, V, 1. 420. 2 III, 1. 980.

132 A Student's History of Philosophy

wholly different world which the never-tiring atoms will
construct.

Still more mortal and unenduring is the soul of man.
Born with the body — else we should remember something
of its prior life, — changing with the body's changes, thrown
into disorder by the most trifling sickness or accident — how
are we to imagine that this subtle breath, which is so light
and airy that its loss at death makes not a particle of dif-
ference to the body's weight, is to continue to exist when,
deprived of the body's protection, it must battle by itself
against the fierce winds and tempests ? Or in what could its
life consist, bereft of all the senses through which we get
our knowledge of things ? If, then, death for us ends all,
why should we fear it ? There are no evils it can bring
us, for there is no life or consciousness in the grave to
which we go. As in time gone by, before our birth, we felt
no distress when the world was convulsed with wars, so
at our death dust will return to dust, and there will be
an end of all our cares. " Where we are, death is not yet ;
and where death comes, there we are not." " Now no
more shall thy house admit thee with glad welcome, nor a
most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be the first
to snatch kisses and touch thy heart with a silent joy. No
more mayest thou be prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard
to thine own. One disastrous day has taken from thee,
luckless man, in luckless wise, all the many prizes of life.
This do men say, but add not thereto : And now no longer
does any craving for these things beset thee withal. This
question therefore should be asked of this speaker : What,
then, is in it so passing bitter if it come in the end to sleep
and rest, that any one should pine in never-ending sorrow ?
This too men often, when they have reclined at table, cup
in hand, and shade their brows with crowns, love to say
from the heart : Short is this enjoyment for poor weak
men ; presently it will have been, and never after may it be
called back. As if after their death it is to be one of their
chiefest afflictions that thirst and parching drought is to

The Later Ethical Period 133

burn them up, hapless wretches, or a craving for anything
else is to beset them. What folly ! no one feels the want
of himself and life at the time when mind and body are
together sunk in sleep ; for all we care this sleep might be
everlasting, no craving whatever for ourselves then moves
us." i

In spite, however, of thus rejecting alike the threats and
the consolations of religion, Epicurus does not deny alto-
gether the existence of the Gods. His theory of knowledge,
adopted from Democritus, which requires for perception
and thought alike an objective cause, in the shape of filmy
images which objects continually are shedding, leads him
to accept the real existence of divine and glorious forms,
to account for man's belief in them. But such Gods are
neither to be feared nor loved. Living a calm and unruffled
life in the interspaces of the heavenly regions, away from
the whirl and jar of stars and worlds, " where neither winds
do shake nor clouds drench with rains, nor snow congealed
by sharp frost harms with hoary fall, an ever cloudless
ether overcanopies them, and they laugh with light shed
largely round. Nature supplies all their wants, and noth-
ing ever impairs their peace of mind." 2 Enjoying perfect
felicity, they feel no concern for human things ; the good
and ill of the world alike fail to move them ; wrapped in
eternal repose, in want of nothing from us, they are
neither to be gained by our prayers, nor stirred by us to
anger.

Accordingly, notwithstanding the way in which Epicu-
reanism allied itself with the scientific view of the world, it
was lacking in the genuine scientific temper, and was devoid
of fruitful results. Its attitude was throughout dogmatic.
Its interest lay, not in getting at truth for its own sake, but
in bolstering up the particular view of life which it wished
to adopt. In consequence, it lays but little stress on the
details'of scientific explanation. Certainty is not attainable,
or even very much to be desired. A phenomenon might

1 Lucretius, III, 1. 907. 2 III, 1. 19.

134 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

very well be explained in more ways than one, and it makes
little difference which explanation we choose to adopt, so
long as it enables us to exclude the supernatural. One
point in particular shows that Epicurus had not the purely
scientific interest at heart. The essential thing in Democri-
tus' theory is his conception of the atoms as rigidly subjected
to mechanical law. But it is just the element of the su-
premacy of law, which Epicurus fails to retain, and which is
actually repellent to him, because it seems to put a barrier
in the way of individual freedom. " It would be better to
believe the fables about the Gods, than be a slave to the
fate taught by the physical philosophers ; for the theologi-
cal myth gives a faint hope of averting the wrath of God
by giving him honor, while the fate of the philosophers is
deaf to all supplications." * Accordingly, as the centre of
his ethical theory is the individual, with the full right and
liberty to do as he pleases, so he feels that he must find
the basis for this freedom in the nature of things them-
selves. And when, therefore, he comes to account for the
beginning of the world process, he introduces a feature
which is inconsistent with Democritus' conception. For
as all things naturally fall downward in a parallel direction,
and fall equally fast so long as there is nothing to oppose
them, they never would come in contact, were it not for an
original deviation from a straight line, which must have
been voluntary and uncaused. The result of this is, that
certain atoms clash, and so set up the world process.
This notion of freedom, or free will, as something entirely
uncaused and unmotived, due solely to an arbitrary fiat,
later came to play a rather important part in the history
of thought.

3. Some of the reasons for the success which Epicurus'
teaching met, have already been suggested. It offers a
clear-cut conception of life, which is intelligible to the aver-
age man, in his average moods. It is easily formulated,
is free from mystical and transcendental elements, and

1Diog. Laertius, Life of Epicurus, § 27.

The Later Ethical Period 135

calls for no flights of moral or intellectual enthusiasm.
But this constitutes also its limitation. The charges of
sensuality and loose living, frequently brought against
Epicurus himself, were certainly far from being true ; and
while, in later times, many who called themselves Epicu-
reans made his doctrine an excuse for an unregulated
pursuit of pleasure, this is by no means characteristic of
the stricter members of the school, nor is it countenanced
by the words of the founder. Pleasure and virtue are
synonymous with Epicurus ; it is impossible to live pleas-
antly, without living wisely and well and justly ; and it is
impossible to live wisely and well and justly, without
living pleasantly. It may be argued, it is true, that there
is really nothing in Epicurus' premises, which can fairly
be opposed to any indulgence in pleasure, provided it be
pursued judiciously, and with due regard to consequences.
T]hat all pleasure is in so far a good, Epicurus cannot
deny ; and therefore a man is bound to get as much as he
can, without prejudice to the future course of his life. Nor
are there any barriers of right and wrong which he can
oppose to the pursuit of pleasure, apart from this same
criterion of expediency or prudence. To be sure, acts of
injustice are opposed to certain prejudices on the part
of mankind at large, and so, if they are detected, will
meet with punishment. But these moral prejudices are,
for the philosopher, theoretically a matter of convention.
What if one can commit a crime, and reap the benefits
without discovery; is there any reason why he should
refrain from gratifying his desires in the unconventional
way ? All that Epicurus can answer is that, even if
the criminal is not found out, the possibility of detection
will always be present, and, by rendering him continually
uneasy, will destroy that peace of mind in which happiness
consists.

It is not, however, the flagrant abuses to which it may
lead, which constitutes the great weakness of Epicurean-
ism, but rather the flabbiness of moral fibre which it

1 36 A Student's History of Philosophy

reveals, even when it is at its best. It is, as Cicero calls it,
a bourgeois philosophy ; the very virtues which it calls for
have only to be turned at another angle to seem common-
place. Cheerfulness of mind, pleasant conversation, a life
ordered by good taste and aesthetic moderation, are good
in themselves ; but they are won at the expense of the
more positive and manly qualities. Heroism, self-sacrifice,
an honest enthusiasm for the noble and true in conduct,
or even in art — for these things Epicureanism has no
place, if it does not actually disparage them. It sets its
face against ambition, and money-getting, and vulgar
pleasure-seeking, not because there is a worthier life for
man to lead, but because there is nothing after all that is
worth while. I am no doubt a fool if I weary myself
with striving after wealth and luxury, fame and position ;
but I should be equally a fool if I were to delude myself
with fine phrases about virtue and humanity, patriotism
and duty, and seek to get satisfaction by going out to right
the wrongs of the world, and to be a benefactor to human
kind. " It is" not our business to work for crowns by
saving the Greeks, but to enjoy ourselves in good eating
and drinking." What difference does it make to me how
the world goes, so long as there is a quiet spot in which I
may recline, a crust to eat, and a friend to talk with ?
I will lie back, and watch the current of the world's misery,
as from a safe shelter on the shore I might watch a tem-
pest-driven vessel, taking a mild satisfaction in the thought
that it is some one else's peril, not my own. Such a con-
ception of life is crystallized in the Epicurean notion of
the Gods, as they sit beside their nectar, careless of man-
kind, and paying no heed to the cries of agony from the
downtrodden race of men below. That such a conception
should seem the highest ideal of life, and that the Epicu-
rean should find it unthinkable that one who had the
power of attaining such felicity, should voluntarily take
upon himself cares and responsibilities for the sake of
others, is his severest condemnation.

The Later Ethical Period 137

LITERATURE

Zeller, Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics.

Lucretius, De Natura Rerum.

Wallace, Epicureanism.

Courtney, Epicureanism (in Hellenicd).

Pater, Marius the Epicurean.

Horace, Odes.

Masson, The Atomic Theory of Lucretius.

Watson, Hedonistic Theories.

§ 15. Zeno. The Stoics

If Epicureanism was of a nature to appeal strongly
to the world weariness of the Roman courtier under the
Empire, when despotic power had come as a relief to inces-
sant civil war, and experience of the corruption of Roman
society had dulled the edge, in less strenuous minds, of any
pronounced belief in virtue, it was a very different sort of
philosophy that would recommend itself to the typical
Roman of the Republic, and to those men who carried on
the traditions of the Republic. The same intellectual
temper which in public life produced a Cato, received
expression in the world of philosophy as Stoicism. It is
true that Stoicism is not Roman in its origin. But neither
is it wholly Greek, although Athens, as the intellectual
centre of the world, was naturally chosen by Zeno (340-
265 B.C.), the founder of the school, as the most fitting
place in which to establish himself as a teacher. Zeno
was himself, however, a merchant of Cyprus, and probably
of Semitic origin ; and nearly all the succeeding heads of
the school were also born outside of Greece ; so that the
more ascetic temper which Stoicism displays, may perhaps
be traced in part to this Oriental strain. At all events,
Stoicism offered, to the nobler minds of the day, a welcome
refuge from the trivialities and anarchy of the life which
surrounded them ; and it succeeded in evolving a type of
character and belief, superior in some respects to anything
else that the ancient world produced.

138 A Student's History of Philosophy

i. Metaphysics. — Objectively, the Stoic philosophy is
aiming at a result which has many points of contact with Epi-
cureanism. For both, the true end of life might be described
as freedom from disturbing desires, and from the pressure of
external wants; and a discipline of the mind that should
enable it to find satisfaction within itself. For both, the
attaining of this end is the one aim of philosophy, which thus
is severely practical in its nature. But the real meaning of
the end, and the attitude of mind for which it called, were in
the two cases wholly different. As the Epicurean went
back to Aristippus, and his doctrine of pleasure as the end of
life, so the Stoics connected themselves with that develop-
ment of Socrates' thought, which, in the Cynics, made vir-
tue the highest good. But whereas the Cynics stopped
with negative results, and so found it difficult to give to
their conception any definite content, in the case of the
Stoics the possession of a more adequate theoretical ground-
work introduced elements which helped correct the one-
sidedness, not only of their predecessors, but also of their
rivals, the Epicureans. Instead, that is, of accepting the
individualism and atomism of Epicurus, they start from the
other end. Reality is an organic whole, an intimate combi-
nation of form and matter, soul and body, through which one
universal life pulsates. This connected whole is indiffer-
ently God, or nature. Since, then, man, like everything
else, constitutes a part of the universal nature, conform-
ity to nature becomes a formula which has in it the pos-
sibility of giving a real content to the life of virtue. It
is true the negative interpretation of the life of nature,
which it had with the Cynics, still persists very largely,
and dictates the character of the Stoic teaching on its
more paradoxical side. But still the positive conception
lies back of this, and becomes eventually more prominent.
The mere protest against convention, and the emphasis on
ascetic endurance, is transmuted into a positive law of duty.
The knowledge in which virtue consists, becomes a knowl-
edge of the true nature of things; and virtuous conduct,

The Later Ethical Period 139

such conduct as will further the life of nature — of that
whole to which we belong as parts, and which is interpre-
table in terms of our rational life.

Before examining this ideal more carefully, a few words
may be added to complete the account of the general meta-
physical theory of the school. The conception of the uni-
verse as a whole, instead of as a mere collection of atomic
elements, implies the reality of its rationality, or what
Plato calls the Idea. But the Stoic agrees with Aristotle
in denying that the two things, matter and form, are at all
separate. Meaning exists in the world, not in the realm
beyond it. Even Aristotle, however, had ended up with
pure form, as something entirely separate from matter.
The Stoics get rid of all transcendentalism whatever, by
reducing form itself to matter. The result is a material-
istic pantheism. The world of material nature is the sole
reality; but it is not dead matter. It is living, informed by
a rational soul; and so is God. This soul of the world, the
Logos, or rational principle, is everywhere present as a
more active and subtle kind of matter; just as the human
soul is present in the body, ruling and directing it to rational
ends. Indeed, what we call the soul — pneuma, breath or
spirit — is but a part of this world soul, participating in its
rational qualities, and received back finally into the uni-
versal reason, where its individuality is lost.

In opposition, therefore, to the explanation of the world
processes by chance or mechanism, the Stoic conception
is throughout teleological. Everything flows of necessity
from the nature of the whole ; and since that whole is
Reason, everything has its place in an intelligible scheme.
The combination of so thoroughly idealistic a tendency
with outspoken materialism — a materialism which argues
that an emotion, e.g., is matter, since it would have no
power to move a man unless it came in spatial contact
with him — does indeed give rise to serious difficulties. It
shows the decline of first-rate philosophical insight, that
men were able to ignore these difficulties, and rest content

140 A Student's History of Philosophy

with so crude a metaphysic. But here, also, practical needs
were uppermost. For a philosophy that was to prove a
real guide to men, in a life which needed such guidance,
the Ideal of Plato was too remote ; it must be brought down
to the actual world, even at the risk of losing something
from the standpoint of theory.

2. The Ethical Ideal. —With this general sketch of the
Stoic metaphysics, we may turn again to their ethical concep-
tion. First, then, virtue is knowledge. But this does not
mean, as it does with Aristotle, that the highest end of life is
pure contemplation. Knowledge, for the Stoics, is practical
knowledge — knowledge which grows out of the needs of
conduct. Accordingly, the Stoic has but little respect for
much that passes for learning and philosophy in the world.
"What does it concern us which was the older of the
two, Homer or Hesiod; or which was the taller, Helen
or Hecuba? We take a great deal of pains to trace
Ulysses in his wanderings, but were it not time as well
spent to look to ourselves, that we may not wander at
all ? Geometry teaches me the art of measuring acres ;
teach me to measure my appetites, and to know when I
have enough. Were not I a madman to sit wrangling
about words, and putting of nice and impertinent ques-
tions, when the enemy has already made the breach, and
the town is fired over my head ? The wisdom of the
ancients was no more than certain precepts, what to do
and what not, and men were much better in that simplic-
ity ; for as they came to be more learned, they grew less
careful of being good." 1

Once more, then, virtue is the sole end of man, and of
philosophy ; and since reason is the essential part of man,
the life of virtue is the life of reason. But what is the
relation of reason to the lower, appetitive nature, which
also forms a part of man ? In answering this question,
the Stoics introduce an innovation into the psychology of
Plato and Aristotle. Instead of making the desires and

1 Letters, XIII, 3.

The Later Ethical Period 141

emotions constitute, as in Plato, a second and separate part
of the soul, standing over against the reason, they repre-
sent them rather as a disease, an imperfection, a disturb-
ance of the reason itself. And from this an important
ethical result follows. The emotions are not something,
as with Aristotle, to be simply regulated and held in check
by the reason ; they must be destroyed utterly. As a
disease, emotion is not to be tolerated for a moment. If
we give it ever so slight a foothold, it is bound to grow,
and spread its contagion. The true ethical ideal, there-
fore, is entire freedom from the emotions. It is not a
question of tempering one's passions ; that is to rest satis-
fied with being only a little mad, a little sick. The wise
man must aim at perfect health of soul ; he must have no
passions at all. But may we not be sad in adversity, or
pity a friend in distress ? Relieve our friend, by all means;
but as for indulging in pity, no. Such a thing seems
harmless ; but as sure as we give way to it, we shall find it
gaining strength, and becoming ungovernable. Pity, too,
is apt to make a man bungle in his work, and thus actually
to defeat its own end. It is true, so at least the later
Stoics had to admit, that there are certain weaknesses
of the flesh — the blush that rises unbidden to the cheek,
the instinctive shrinking before pain and suffering —
which I may not be able wholly to control ; but these
are no more than affections of the body, and need not
touch the mind, unless the mind itself shall so permit.
An emotion is a disturbance of the mind; and over that
the mind has full control, and may give or withhold its
consent.

True virtue and happiness, then, will consist in living
free and undisturbed ; and that will only be possible, as we
refuse to allow our will to be coerced by those external things
and events, which lie outside the power of the mind itself.
Let us recognize that that only is an evil which we choose
to regard as such ; if we refuse, then, to call it evil, it may,
indeed, harm our body, but it cannot touch our real self.

142 A Studenfs History of Philosophy

" Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy
power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion,
and like a mariner who has doubled the promontory, thou
wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay." *
" Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the
complaint : I have been harmed. Take away the com-
plaint : I have been harmed, and the harm is done
away."2 Instead of striving to win this and avoid that, let
us rid ourselves of the desires which make things attractive
or dreadful. It is the good fortune of the wise man not
to need any good fortune. " One prays thus : How shall
I be released of this ; another thus : How shall I not de-
sire to be released. Another thus : How shall I not lose
my little son ? Thou thus : How shall I not be afraid to
lose him?. Turn thy prayers this way, and see what
comes." 3 That only is a real evil, which degrades the soul
from its true dignity ; and that only a good, which enables
the soul to stand fast in its integrity. " Soon thou wilt be
ashes or a skeleton, and either a name, or not a name even.
And the things which are much valued in life are empty
and rotten and trifling, and like little dogs biting one
another, and little children quarrelling and laughing, and
then straightway weeping." 4 What is pleasure, for which
men fight and die ? Transitory, tiresome, sickly, it scarce
outlives the tasting of it. " I am seeking," says Seneca,
" to find what is good for a man, not for his belly. Why,
cattle and whales have larger ones than he."5 Are we
taken with a life of luxury and outward show ? "As we
sit at table, let us consider that this is but the dead body
of a fish, that the dead body of a bird or of a pig ; and,
again, that this Falernian is only a little grape juice, and
this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed with the blood of
a shellfish."6 Or do we work for fame, that future gen-
erations may praise us ? Let us remember that men of after

1 M. Aurelius, Thoughts, XII, 22. 2 Ibid., IV, 7.

3/^.,IX,4o. 47fcV., V, 33.

5 Seneca, Dialogues, VII, 9. 6 Thoughts, VI, 13.

The Later Ethical Period 143

times will be exactly such as those whom now we de-
spise and cannot endure, just as foolish and unthinking,
just as short-lived. Let us, then, stand steadfast in
the faith that nothing can harm us, unless we ourselves
open the gate to the enemy ; that nothing is necessary,
save those inner possessions of which no one can rob
us.

Such an ideal of character — the ideal of the wise man, or
sage — is, however, in danger of becoming somewhat stern
and unlovely in its nature. In the rigor of their concep-
tion, the Stoics seemed to make no allowance for the
frailty of human nature. As in the later Christian doc-
trine, a man was either wholly saved or wholly lost, perfect
and complete, or else with no good thing in him ; just as a
stick is either straight or crooked, and there is no middle
alternative. The man who is a hundred furlongs from
Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally
not in Canopus. For virtues are not many, but one, since
all go back to the inner unity of the will which alone
is good, and to the attitude which this adopts. If, there-
fore, the will is sound, the man possesses at one stroke all
possible goods and perfections ; if it is weak in one point,
it is weak in all, for no chain is stronger than its weakest
link. The Stoics speak of the sage, accordingly, in the
most extravagant terms ; since all goods are one, he alone
is just, wise, beautiful, brave, a king, an orator, rich, a
legislator. So, also, there is no gradual progress toward
virtue. The wise man becomes wise by a sudden conver-
sion, which in a single moment bridges the gulf between
total depravity and perfection. Accordingly, the world
becomes divided between the two classes : the sages, a
scattered few, and the vast multitude of men, mostly fools.
And the tendency was strong to make this division a source
of Pharisaic pride, and to transfer the contemptuous dis-
regard in which outer things were held to the men also
who took delight in these things — that is, to mankind in
general.

144 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

But time tended to soften the asperity of this attitude.
The ideal sage, in his perfection, was too rare a phenom-
enon in the world, and the failure of the average Stoic to
live up to the standard thus set, was too obvious to himself
and to his opponents alike ; and so concessions necessarily
were made. It had to be allowed that, after all, there are
various grades of attainment, and that one is higher than
another. So also, it was found impossible, without too
great paradox, to hold that the good will is the only good
in the world, and that everything else is wholly indifferent.
Common sense will never admit that health and fortune,
because they are more or less fortuitous, and can at a pinch
be dispensed with, have therefore lost entirely the claim
to be called good, and are quite on a level with disease
and penury. Accordingly, in addition to the absolutely
good and evil, the Stoics were led to make a distinction
between those external things which tend to promote the
good life, and supply it with material, and those which
have the opppsite tendency. And it was admitted that,
although the former are not good in the proper and ulti-
mate sense, they yet are good in a secondary way, and
relatively ; while the term " indifferent " was now applied to
the third and more limited class of things, which are
recognized by common sense as having no important
bearing on our lives. Indeed, the assertion that pleasure
and pain are absolutely indifferent and on an equality,
is obviously only a paradoxical overstatement of certain
truths which, stripped of exaggeration, would be gener-
ally admitted ; apart from these, it would carry no convic-
tion at all. The elements of truth in it are, of course,
that pain may be endured with cheerfulness by the
brave man when it is inevitable, and even welcomed when
it is a step toward some higher good ; that pleasure is
subordinate to character, and unworthy to engross the affec-
tions, and stand in the way of the life of virtue. And
while the Stoic always retains his tendency to paradox,
this more moderate attitude comes to be adopted also on

The Later Ethical Period 145

occasion. The desirable thing is not to have the fire
burn me, — that I would willingly avoid if I could, — but
that it cannot conquer me. Pleasure is not wholly to be
disdained. It is true, virtue remains the final aim. But
still, if pleasure follows virtue naturally, it may be wel-
comed ; " as in a tilled field, when ploughed for corn, some
flowers are found amongst it, and yet, though these may
charm the eye, all this labor was not spent in order to
produce them." 1

This tendency toward softening the harsh contrasts in
the Stoic system, and making it more human, was helped
out by an idea contained in the Stoic metaphysics. So
far, we might seem to have an ideal of life as self-centred
and individualistic as that of Epicurus. But in the con-
ception, already mentioned, of the universal nature, there
was the possibility of a more adequate development, which
assumed greater prominence in the school as time went
on. The Pharisaic opposition of the sage to the fool
became tempered by the thought of the essential brother-
hood of man. As entering into the unity of nature, we
are all members one of another ; every man alike, as par-
ticipating in some measure of reason, forms a part of the
being of God. And so a life according to nature, as the
control of the passions by the reason, becomes defined ob-
jectively by the addition of the very important thought, that
such a life of reason is a life in and for society. No man
can live to himself ; " sooner will one find anything earthy,
which comes in contact with no earthy thing, than a man
altogether separated from other men." 2

A life, then, which regards the life of others, a life in
a community or state, is an essential element of the life
of reason. To be sure, as states then were constituted,
the Stoic might be excused from taking an active part in
politics ; but theoretically he was still in his private life
working for the public weal. "The services of a good
citizen are never thrown away; he does good by being

1 Dial., VII, 9, ** Thoughts, IX, 9.

L

146 A Students History of Philosophy

heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent
determination, and his very walk." J Nor is this limited, as
with the ancient Greek it was limited, to one's own par-
ticular state or city. " My nature," says the Emperor
Aurelius, "is rational and social, and my city and my
country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome ; but so far as
I am a man, it is the world." 2 This cosmopolitanism, which
prided itself on the sentiment, I am first of all a man —
Homo sum — is not, indeed, the outcome of any very vital
or deep-seated feeling. It is a result of the breaking down
of national bonds which followed the empire of Alexander,
and the Hellenizing of the world ; and it does not neces-
sarily imply any great sense of obligation toward man-
kind. Often it is no more than the throwing off of na-
tional responsibilities. Most of the Stoics, as has been
said, were not citizens of Greece, but rather, in the Greek
sense, barbarians, and so they naturally would not find
it so hard to enlarge their sympathy, and recognize the
essential oneness of men. The superstition of birth had
begun to be "criticised even at an earlier period. " It is
true," Antisthenes had replied to a slur upon his family
and origin, "that I am not the son of two free citizens;
but neither am I the son of two people skilled in wrest-
ling, and nevertheless I am a skilful wrestler." With
all its limitations, however, this cosmopolitanism shows
the growth of a broader view of life, which only had to
receive a more positive meaning to bring about a real
revolution.

This conception of nature was carried a step higher.
Man is not only a citizen of the world ; he is a part of the
fabric of the universe : and with the religious tinge which
this thought took on, is connected a good deal of the power
and attractiveness of the Stoic system. Merely as a part
of the universe of matter, man is of necessity subjected to
the law of the whole, and enters into the unvarying chain
of cause and effect which nature exhibits. But what might

* Dial, IX, 4. 2 Thoughts, VI, 44.

The Later Ethical Period 147

have been the sting of this conception, if nature were
looked at as an unmeaning play of atoms, with no regard
for man's welfare, becomes an added motive, as she as-
sumes those attributes which bring us into an emotional
relation to her, and which enable us to use the name of
God. It is perfectly true that we have no independence as
opposed to the one great reality ; we are but a part of the
deity who acts in us. " Among the animals who have not
reason, one life is distributed, just as there is one earth of
all things ; and among reasonable animals one intelligent
soul is distributed, just as we see by one light, and breathe
one air." x Like the course of a river fate moves forward
in an irresistible stream. He knows little of God that
imagines it may be controlled. There is no changing the
purpose even of a wise man, for he sees beforehand what
will be best for the future. How much more unchange-
able, then, is the Almighty, to whom all future is eter-
nally present. But this also is our comfort. What might
be hard to bear as Fate or Destiny, takes on another
aspect when we call it by its true name of Providence.
God alone knows what is best for us, nor have we any
right to urge our private desires against the good of the
whole. " To her who gives and takes back all, to nature,
the man who is instructed and modest says : ' Give what
thou wilt, take back what thou wilt.' And he says this,
not proudly, but obediently, and well pleased with her."2
Taken at its best, then, in the person of its more worthy
representatives, Stoicism offers an ideal of life which has
rarely been surpassed for noble simplicity. " I will look
upon death or upon comedy," says Seneca, "with the
same expression of countenance. I will submit to labors
however great they may be, supporting the strength of my
body by that of my mind. I will despise riches when I
have them as much as when I have them not. Whether
fortune comes or goes, I will take no notice of her. I will
view all lands as though they belong to me, and my own as

V/., IX, 8. *Itod., X, 14.

148 A Student's History of Philosophy

though they belonged to all mankind. I will so live as to
remember that I was born for others, and will thank nature
on this account ; for in what fashion could she have done
better for me ? She has given me alone to all, and all to
me alone. Whatever I may possess, I will neither hoard
it greedily, nor squander it recklessly. I will think that I
have no possessions so real as those which I have given
away to deserving people. I never will consider a gift to
be a large one if it be bestowed upon a worthy object. I
will do nothing because of public opinion, but everything
because of conscience. Whenever I do anything alone by
myself, I will believe that the eyes of the Roman people
are upon me while I do it. In eating and drinking, my
object shall be to quench the desires of nature, not to fill
and empty my belly. I will be agreeable with my friends,
gentle and mild to my foes. I will grant pardon before I
am asked for it, and will meet the wishes of honorable men
halfway. I will bear in mind that the world is my native
city, that its governors are the Gods, and that they stand
above and artfund me criticising whatever I do or say.
When either nature demands my breath again, or reason
bids me dismiss it, I will quit this life, calling all to witness
that I have loved a good conscience and good pursuits ;
that no one's freedom, my own least of all, has been im-
paired through me." 1 So Epictetus : " My man, as the
proverb says, make a desperate effort on behalf of tran-
quillity of mind, freedom, and magnanimity. Lift up your
eyes at last as released from slavery. Dare to look up to
God and say : Deal with me for the future as thou wilt,
I refuse nothing that pleases thee ; clothe me in any dress
thou choosest. Who would Hercules have been if he had
sat at home ? He would have been Eurystheus, and not
Hercules. But you are not Hercules, and you are not
able to purge away the wickedness of others. Clear away
your own ; from yourself, from your thoughts cast away,
instead of Procrustes and Sciron, sadness, fear, desire,

* Dial., VII, 20.

The Later Ethical Period 149

envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance." *
"Never value anything as profitable to thyself which
shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-
respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the
hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and cur-
tains." 2 A God dwells in the breast of every good man ;
let us not disgrace the abode of divinity.

And if once we have attained this salvation and intreg-
rity of soul, we are able to meet life cheerfully and confi-
dently, without fearing anything it can do to us. Other
delights are trivial in comparison with this serene and
sober peace of mind. They are greatly mistaken who
take laughter for rejoicing. The seat of true joy is within,
and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a brave
mind that has fortune under its feet. Virtue needs no
external rewards. " As a horse when he has run, a dog
when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made
the honey, so a man when he has done a good act does
not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to
another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes
in season." 8 The life of virtue is all-sufficient. It fills
the whole soul, and takes away the sensibility of any loss.
What matters it if a stream be interrupted or cut off, if
the fountain from whence it flowed be still alive ? As the
stars hide their diminished heads before the brightness of
the sun, so afflictions are crushed and dissipated by the
greatness of virtue ; and all manner of annoyances have
no more effect upon her, than a shower of rain upon the
sea.

In the presence of these true and eternal joys, mere
pleasures seem poor and worthless. We are in the world
not to live pleasantly, but to quit us like men ; and in thus
acting in accordance with our real nature, we shall derive
the only true satisfaction. " In the morning when thou
risest unwillingly, let this thought be present : I am rising
to the work of a human being. Why, then, am I dissatis-

1 Discourses, II, 16. 2 Thoughts, III, 7. 3 Ibid., V, 6.

150 A Student's History of Philosophy

fied, if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and
for which I was brought into the world ? Or have I been
made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself
warm ? But this is more pleasant. Dost thou exist, then,
to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion ?
Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants,
the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order
their several parts of the universe ? and art thou unwilling
to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make
haste to do that which is according to thy nature P"1 So
external advantages, riches, and position, have no real
value. It matters not whence we come, but whither we
go. For a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, which
serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below
a wise man's business. It is the edge and temper of the
blade that makes a good sword, not the richness of the
scabbard; and so it is not money and possessions that
makes a man considerable, but his virtue. " They are
amusing fellows who are proud of things which are not in
our power. A man says : I am better than you, for I
possess much land, and you are wasting with hunger.
Another says : I am of consular rank ; another : I have
curly hair. But a horse does not say to a horse : I am
superior to you, for I possess much fodder and much bar-
ley, and my bits are of gold, and my harness is embroid-
ered ; but he says : I am swifter than you. And every
animal is better or worse from his own merit or his own
badness. Is there, then, no virtue in man only, and must
we look to the hair and our clothes, and to our ances-
tors?"2 Every man is worth just as much as the things
about which he busies himself. Let our riches consist
in coveting nothing, and our peace in fearing nothing.
Secure, then, in the eternal possession of himself, a man
can afford to despise the buffets of fortune, and can even
welcome them, in the confidence that all things are work-
ing for his good. It does not matter what you bear, but

1 Thoughts, V, I. 2Epictetus, Fragments, 16.

The Later Ethical Period 151

how you bear it. Outward circumstances are not our
masters ; where a man can live at all, he can also live
well. A wise man is out of the reach of fortune, and
attempts upon him are no more than Xerxes' arrows ; they
may darken the day, but they cannot strike the sun. " I
must die. Must I then die lamenting ? I must go into
exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with
smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? Tell me the
secret which you possess. I will not, for this is in my
power. But I will put you in chains. Man, what are you
talking about ? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg,
but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower. I will
throw you into prison. My poor body, you mean. I will
cut your head off. When, then, have I told you that my
head alone cannot be cut off ? " 1 Thus not even death is to
the wise man a thing to dread ; like birth and all that the
seasons bring, it is but one of the things which nature wills.
" For as to children masks appear terrible and fearful from
inexperience, we also are affected in like manner by events
for no other reason. What is death ? A tragic mask.
Turn it and examine it. See, it does not bite. The poor
body must be separated from the spirit either now or later,
as it was separated from it before." 2 " Pass, then, through
thy little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy
journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe,
blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree
on which it grew." 3 Life itself is neither good nor evil,
but only a place for good and evil. This the Stoics
carried to the extent even of advocating the voluntary
giving up of life by suicide, if occasion seemed to call
for it. When life is so questionable a good, why not
renounce it? it is but ridding ourselves of a trouble-
some burden. " The house is smoky and I quit it " — that
is all there is to say. " The door is open ; be not more
timid than little children, but as they say when the thing
does not please them : I will play no longer, so do you,

1 Discourses, I, I. 2 Ibid., II, I. 8 Thoughts, IV, 48.

152 A Student's History of Philosophy

when things seem to you of such a kind, say : I will no
longer play, and be gone. But if you stay, do not com-
plain." 1 Temperance in prosperity, courage in adversity,
and a pervading faith in the oneness, rationality, and good-
ness of the universe — this is the whole duty of man.
" Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to
thee, O Universe ; nothing for me is too early or too late,
which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit for me
which thy seasons bring, O Nature; from thee are all
things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return.
The poets say : Dear City of Cecrops, and wilt not thou
say : Dear city of Zeus ? " 2

3. The Problem of Evil. — Before closing the account of
Stoicism, it will be well to mention two problems in particu-
lar, which the requirements of their theory led the Stoics to
give a special prominence. These are the problems of evil,
and of human freedom. The Stoic, as has been said, accepts
the teleological explanation of the universe, as opposed to
the theory of unmeaning mechanism ; to him it is self-evident
that the world is framed in accordance with a rational pur-
pose. " Every man knows without telling that this won-
derful fabric of the universe is not without a governor, and
that a constant order cannot be the work of chance ; for
the parts would then fall foul one upon another. The
motions of the stars and their influences are acted by the
command of an eternal decree. It is by the dictates of
an almighty power that the heavy body of the earth hangs
in balance."3 Accordingly, the world must be a perfect
world ; and this the Stoics attempted to establish by appeal-
ing to the harmony and beauty in it, and the apparent
adaptation of means to end, especially in organic life.
Thus, the peacock is made for the sake of its beautiful
tail ; horses are made for riding ; sheep to supply clothing
for man, and dogs to guard and help him ; asses to carry
his burdens. Such reasoning, however, unless a severe
restraint were put upon it, was clearly in danger of de-

1 Discourses, I, 24. 2 Thoughts, IV, 23. 8 Dial., I, I.

The Later Ethical Period 153

scending to trivialities ; and at its best it still has to meet
difficulties, by reason of the numerous cases where, espe-
cially if we take human life as the end of creation, the
products of nature seem quite irrelevant, or else positively
harmful. So the Stoics were put upon their mettle to meet
these objections, and still maintain the perfection of the
world.

In doing this, they succeeded in bringing out a suggestion,
at least, of most of the considerations by which subsequent
thought has tried to vindicate the ways of God to man. As
regards physical evils, at any rate, they had already met
the difficulty consistently, even if paradoxically, by their
denial that such things are evil at all. " Many afflictions
may befall a good man, but no evil, for contraries will
never incorporate ; all the rivers of the world are never
able to change the taste and quality of the ocean."1 Or,
again, if we wish to take it on somewhat less high ground,
let us remember that we only have to live each moment at
a time. It is neither the future nor the past that pains me,
but only the present. If then I do not let my thoughts
embrace at once all the troubles I may expect to befall me,
but consider each occasion by itself, I shall be ashamed to
confess that there is in it anything intolerable and past bear-
ing. But besides this, there are other more positive con-
siderations. The conception of the world as a unity enables
us to explain a seeming imperfection by its relation to the
larger scheme of things into which it enters ; a partial evil
becomes a universal good. " Must my leg then be lamed ?
Wretch, do you then on account of one poor leg find fault
with the world ? Will you not willingly surrender it for
the whole ? Know you not how small a part you are com-
pared with the whole ?" 2 " If a good man had foreknowl-
edge of what would happen, he would cooperate toward
his own sickness and death and mutilation, since he knows
that these things are assigned to him according to the uni-
versal arrangement, and that the whole is superior to the

1 Ibid., I, 2. 2 Discourses, I, 12.

154 A Student's History of Philosophy

part." 1 " But how is it said that some external things are
according to nature, and others contrary to nature ? It is
said as it might be said if we were separated from society ;
for to the foot I shall say that it is according to nature for
it to be clean ; but if you take it as a foot, and as a thing
not independent, it will befit it both to step into the mud,
and tread on thorns, and sometimes to be cast off for the
good of the whole body ; otherwise it is no longer a foot.
We should think in some such way about ourselves also.
What are you ? A man. If you consider yourself as
detached from other men, it is according to nature to live
to old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But if you consider
yourself as a man, and a part of a certain whole, it is for
the sake of that whole that atone time you should be sick,
at another time take a voyage and run into danger, at
another time be in want, and in some cases die prematurely.
Why then are you troubled ? Do you not know that as a
foot is no longer a foot if it is detached from the body, so
you are no longer a man if you are separated from other
men ? " 2

It is true that often this does not carry us very far
practically, since we are unable to put ourselves at the
point of view of the whole ; and so we may be forced to
fall back on the blind faith that nature can do no wrong.
But sometimes also we can see how evil may work for
good. "Just as we must understand when it is said that
^Esculapius prescribed to this man horse exercise, or bath-
ing in cold water, or going without shoes, so we must
understand it when it is said that the nature of the uni-
verse prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation, or
loss of anything of the kind."3 As a master gives his
most hopeful scholars the hardest lessons, so does God
deal with the most generous spirits. Life is a warfare, and
what brave man would not rather choose to be in a tent
than in shambles? In reality no one is more unhappy
than the man whom no misfortune has ever befallen.

i Ibid., II, 10. 2 mdtt n, 5. a Thoughts, V, 8.

The Later Ethical Period 155

How many are there in the world that enjoy all things
to their own wish, whom God never thought worthy of a
trial. If it might be imagined that the Almighty should
take off his thought from the care of his whole work,
what more glorious spectacle could he reflect upon than a
valiant man struggling with adverse fortune ? Calamity
is the touchstone of a brave mind, that resolves to live and
die master of itself. Adversity is the better for us all, for
it is God's mercy to show the world their errors, and that
the things they fear and covet are neither good nor evil,
being the common and promiscuous lot of good men and
bad.1

4. The Problem of Freedom. — The other problem which
received attention in the controversies between the Stoics
and the Epicureans was the problem of freedom. The
whole standpoint of the Stoics, as the preceding quota-
tions will show, involved an insistence upon the supreme
reality of duty, and the responsibility which goes along
with duty. But on the other side stood their doctrine
of necessity, according to which man is but a part of
the universe which is acting through him. Their op-
ponents were quick to point out the apparent contra-
diction, and to insist that no place was left for real
freedom and responsibility. A reconciliation of freedom
with determinism was, accordingly, attempted by the Stoics
with considerable acuteness ; and in this way there was
evolved the conception of a freedom opposed to the mere
causeless liberty of indifference which the Epicureans
upheld. Such a freedom acts, indeed, in accordance with
law ; but this law is an expression of man's own inner
nature, and not something forced upon him from without.
What I will to do is my action, whether I could have
acted differently or not ; and so I am strictly responsible
for it. If the result sometimes takes on the aspect of
fatalism, this is natural in an age in which political free-
dom had disappeared before the despotism of a great world

,4, 5.

156 A Student's History of Philosophy

empire, and the policy of submission was forced upon all
minds as the only safe one. Nevertheless, it is not an
ignoble submission, for we are yielding, not to brute force,
as in the political world, but to the law of reason, which
is the law of our own being. Is not this, indeed, the only
true liberty ? The wise man does nothing unwillingly, for
whatever he finds necessary, he makes his choice. We are
born subjects, but to obey God is perfect liberty. " But
you say : I would like to have everything result just as
I like, and in whatever way I like. You are mad, you are
beside yourself. Do you not know that freedom is a noble
and valuable thing ? But for me inconsiderately to wish
for things to happen as I inconsiderately like, this appears
to me not only not noble, but even most base. For how
do we proceed in the matter of writing ? Do I wish to
write the name of Dion as I choose ? No ; but I am
taught to choose to write it as it ought to be written.
And how with respect to music ? In the same manner.
If it were not so, it would be of no value to know any-
thing, if knowledge were adapted to every man's whim.
Is it then in this alone, in this which is the greatest and
the chief thing — I mean freedom — that I am permitted
to will inconsiderately ? By no means, but to be instructed
is this : to learn to wish that everything may happen as it
does." i

It is evident that the esoteric belief of the Stoics was
far removed from the popular religion, and lay in the
direction of a monotheism or pantheism. Still, their whole
temper of mind disposed them not to attack the religious
faith of the times, as the Epicureans did, but rather to
accommodate themselves to it, as an expression, inade-
quate indeed, but still the best attainable, of a real truth.
Accordingly, they were not averse to speaking in the
ordinary language about the Gods, provided they were
allowed to put their own construction upon their words.
According to that construction, the different deities are, of

1 Discourses, I, 12.

The Later Ethical Period 157

course, only the several functions of the one nature, the
one almighty power. " When," says Seneca, " men speak
of him as the father and the fountain of all beings, they
call him Bacchus ; and when under the name of Hercules,
they denote him to be indefatigable and invincible ; and in
the contemplation of him in the reason, proportion, order,
and wisdom of his proceedings, they call him Mercury ; so
that which way soever they look, and under what name
soever they couch their meaning, they never fail of find-
ing him, for he is everywhere, and fills his own work.
If a man should borrow money of Seneca, and say that
he owes it to Annseus or Lucius, he may change the name,
but not his creditor ; for let him take which of the three
names he pleases, he is still a debtor to the same per-
son." *

5. Stoicism and Christianity. — If we try to sum up
briefly the influence of Stoicism, we may say that it
created, at a time when ideals were sorely needed, an
ideal of personal life and character more profound than
the Greek world had yet seen; and in so doing, it pro-
vided the only available refuge for minds of the nobler
sort. In many ways it offers obvious points of contact
with the Christian religion, and it played an important
part in the preparation which rendered the triumph
of Christianity possible. The conception of the omni-
presence of God in the world as pneuma, or spirit; the
emphasis, unknown until now, which was laid upon duty
as the inner law of man's nature ; the ideal of a life of
self-denial, easily passing into an ascetic contempt for
the things of this world — these, and many other points
of resemblance, will suggest themselves. But on the other
hand, there are important elements of difference. In the
first place, while the God of the Stoics is preeminently
one of impersonal intelligence and power, the God of
Christianity is a God of love. The outlines of the Stoic
conception are almost uniformly hard and uncompromising.

1 Seneca, On Benefits, IV, 8.

158 A Student's History of Philosophy

God looks after the perfection of the whole, but this may
or may not be compatible with the happiness of the in-
dividual. The same hardness was carried over into the
relations of man to man ; more truly, perhaps, the former
fact is a reflex of the latter. We should help our fellows,
indeed, as reason demands ; but we should do it simply as
our duty, without letting ourselves be betrayed into feel-
ings of pity or tenderness. Theoretically, the Stoics recom-
mend an insensibility which is nothing short of inhuman.
A wise man is not affected by the loss of children or
friends. " To feel pain or griefs for the misfortunes of
others/' says Seneca, one of the mildest of Stoics, "is a
weakness unworthy of the sage ; for nothing should cloud
his serenity or shake his firmness."

It follows that Stoicism can only appeal to the sense of
satisfaction in one's mere power of dogged endurance, as
his sole reward ; Christianity, on the other hand, is a reli-
gion of hope and consolation. Even when, with Stoicism,
it holds to the necessity of rejecting the solicitations of
pleasure and ambition, it does not make this negation an
end in itself, but a means to a fuller life in another world,
if not in this. The love of God to men will never permit
them to drop out of his scheme; and the demand for
brute endurance is not, therefore, the last word. The
value of endurance is in relation to the reward for endur-
ance which is sure to come. To the Stoic, immortality is
only a possible hypothesis, which carries no special consola-
tion with it, even if it is not rejected outright ; and in any
case, it is but an extension of life, not an absolute immor-
tality. For even if our self-identity continues for a time
after death, yet at last the final overthrow of this world
of ours will come, and in the universal conflagration
which will then take place, all finite souls will be re-
absorbed into the great world soul, and lose their separate
existence.

And, finally, Stoicism is primarily an Ethics, not, like
Christianity, a Religion. The philosopher attains virtue

The Later Ethical Period 159

by his own efforts ; he looks to himself for help, not to
God. The wise man, so the Stoic could say, is as neces-
sary to Zeus, as Zeus to the wise man. In one way he
even can surpass God : God is beyond suffering evil, the
wise man is above it. God surpasses the good man in
this only, that He is longer good ; the good man can excel
God in the patience with which he bears the trials of his
mortal lot. The result is, at its best, a respect for one-
self, and one's own integrity, which is wholesome and
heroic ; at its worst, a Pharisaic pride in one's individual
achievements, and a contemptuous disregard for those
less strong. But in any case, it is not a creed for the
masses, but only for exceptional natures. It fostered
ideals which proved a saving leaven in the corruption
of social life ; but it was too cold, intellectual, and self-
centred to regenerate society. In the need that was
felt for something that should appeal, not simply to the
intellect or the bare will, but to the feelings and emo-
tions as well, which should take man out of himself, more-
over, and help out his weakness by relating him to a
higher power, ethical philosophy was passing into religious
philosophy.

LITERATURE

Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts.

Seneca, Dialogues, On Benefits, On Clemency y Letters.
Epictetus, Discourses and Encheiridion.
Cicero, Philosophical Works.
Plutarch, Morals.
Capes, Stoicism.

Bryant, The Mutual Influence of Christianity and the Stoic
School.

Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics.

Pater, Marius the Epicurean.

Seth, Study of Ethical Principles.

Matthew Arnold, Marcus Aurelius (in Essays).

Jackson, Seneca and Kant.

Watson, Life of M. Aurelius.

Bruce, Moral Order of the World in Ancient and Modern Thought.

160 A Student's History of Philosophy

§ 1 6. The Sceptics

I. Before turning, however, to the development of reli-
gious philosophy, it is necessary to give a brief account of
the other tendencies of the period that has already been
considered. Of these, the most important is Scepticism.
The first representative of Scepticism was Pyrrho of Elis
(365-275 B.C.), a contemporary of Aristotle. Like Zeno
and Epicurus, Pyrrho comes to philosophy with a practical
end in view. But instead of attempting to find satisfaction
through the medium of a positive and dogmatic system
of belief, he thought that it was just in this direction that
inquietude and perplexity lay. For after all that men
have thought, what agreement have they reached on the
simplest questions ? Each school has its own special
answer, which differs from the answer given by any other
school. Let us recognize, then, that much thinking is a
weariness to the flesh; that speculation only involves us
in doubt and uncertainty ; that every question may be
argued equally well on either side, so that a final decision
is impossible. Let us find peace of mind by acquiescing
in our enforced ignorance, holding our minds in suspense,
and regarding as indifferent to us all external things, since
we cannot possibly know the truth about them. In later
days, stories were current of the way in which Pyrrho
exemplified his own philosophy on the practical side ; how,
for example, he declined to trust his senses even to the
extent of turning out for a wagon, or precipice, or what-
ever might be in his way, and so had to be rescued by his
friends.

Pyrrho had no very great influence on the thought of
his own day ; the field was not yet ready for him. But as
the period of originality in speculative thinking became
more distant, a new sceptical reaction grew up against the
dogmatism of the dominant schools. This reaction suc-
ceeded in finding a home temporarily in the Academy,
where it was adopted in the first place chiefly as a weapon

The Later Ethical Period 161

against the Stoics. The most important names in connec-
tion with the Middle Academy, as it is called, are those of
Arcesilaus (315-241 B.C.), and his more brilliant successor
Carneades (215-130 B.C.). By Carneades, Scepticism was
carried over into the realm of Ethics as well ; and it is re-
lated that while on a political embassy to Rome, he created
a great sensation by arguing very eloquently in a public
discourse in behalf of justice, and then the next day speak-
ing with equal effect against it. The Academic doctrine
had, however, a more positive side also. Although cer-
tainty cannot be had, yet practical needs require that there
should be something to render decision possible. This
the Academics tried to give in their doctrine of probability.
A thing may not be capable of proof, but it still may be
more probable than its opposite ; and the logic of proba-
bility, which for practical needs is as good as demonstra-
tion, they worked out in some detail. A third tendency in
Scepticism, which considered that the Academy was still
too dogmatic, and so professed to go back to the more
thoroughgoing doctrine of Pyrrho, is found among the so-
called Empiricists, who are chiefly physicians. Of these
the most important are ALnesidemus of Cnossus, and
Sextus Empiricus.

2. The arguments of the Sceptics may be divided roughly
into two classes, — those empirical proofs, drawn chiefly
from sensation, which show the actual uncertainty and con-
tradictoriness of our knowledge, and the more theoretical
considerations from the nature of thought or reason. These
arguments have become familiar at the present day, and
may be reproduced briefly as follows : J —

There are, first, the differences in the organization of
animals, and the consequent difference in the impressions
which the same object makes upon them. What is pleas-
ant to one is disagreeable to another ; what is useful to one,
to another is fatal. Thus, young branches are eagerly

1 Taken largely from Diogenes Laertius' life of Pyrrho (Bohn's Classical
Library).

M

1 62 A Student's History of Philosophy

eaten by the goat, but are bitter to mankind ; hemlock is
nutritious to the quail, but deadly to man. So animals
differ vastly in the degree of development of their faculties.
The hawk is far more keen-sighted than man, the dog has
a much acuter scent. Must it not be a different world,
then, that reveals itself to different beings ? and who is to
decide which is the true world ?

So among men themselves, how vast is the variety in the
ways in which things affect them ? According to Demo-
phon, the steward of Alexander used to feel warm in the
shade, and to shiver in the sun. Andron the Argive
travelled through the deserts of Libya without once drink-
ing. Again, one man is fond of medicine, another of
farming, another of commerce. How are we to set up
any standard in the midst of the confusion that meets us ?
Everything goes back to personal tastes, and about tastes
there is no disputing.

Again, look at the different ways in which the same
object will appear to the different senses. An apple
presents itself to the sense of sight as yellow, to the taste
as sweet, to the smell as fragrant. Does not this very fact,
that each sense modifies the report which an object sends
in, so as to change its character entirely, show that we
never get the true object at all ? Conceivably there might
be countless other senses, and each of these would have just
as much, or just as little, title to be believed as those we
possess.

And in the same person there are continual changes
going on, which affect his whole view of things. Health,
sickness, sleep, waking, joy, grief, youth, old age, courage,
fear, want, abundance, hatred, friendship, warmth, cold,
ease or difficulty of breathing, — all determine us to the most
varied and contradictory notions about the real nature of
facts. What are we to take as the normal state, where
things appear in their truth ? And what opinion can we
have of a being whose powers and faculties can be so
easily upset and confounded by the most trifling cause ?

The Later Ethical Period 163

Consider, next, the all-important matter of custom and
tradition, and the effect which habit, education, and envi-
ronment have in determining a man's beliefs. In the face
of this, how can we suppose that there is any absolute
foundation of true or false, right or wrong ? In one
community certain customs rule, and everybody regards
them as eminently right and natural. Pass into the next
country, and you will find these same customs condemned
as absurd and vicious. The same action is just in the eyes
of some people, and unjust in those of others. The
Persians do not think it unnatural for a man to marry his
daughter ; but among the Greeks it is unlawful. The
Cilicians delight in piracy, but the Greeks avoid it. Dif-
ferent nations worship different Gods, and worship them
by different rites. And in the same country, customs are
all the while changing. " We see scarcely anything just
or unjust that does not change quality in changing climate.
Three degrees of higher latitude overturn all jurispru-
dence. A meridian decides the truth. Fundamental laws
change; right has its epochs. Pitiable justice, bounded by
a river or a mountain ! Truth this side the Pyrenees, error
that side." a

But in the object, as well as in the subject, there are
causes of confusion. Nothing is seen by us simply and by
itself ; but in combination either with air, or with light, or
with moisture, or heat, or cold, or motion, or evaporation,
or some other power. Sounds, for example, are different,
according as the air is dense or rare. Purple exhibits a
different hue in the sun, and in the moon, and by lamp-
light. A stone which one cannot lift in the air, is easily
displaced in the water. Accordingly, we cannot know posi-
tively the peculiar qualities of anything, just as we cannot
distinguish the real properties of oil in ointment.

Another fruitful cause of uncertainty is the position,
distance, and spatial relations of objects. Objects that we
believe to be large, sometimes appear small ; those that we

1 Pascal, Thoughts.

164 A Studenfs History of Philosophy

believe to be square, sometimes appear round ; those that
we fancy even, appear full of projections ; those that we
think straight, seem bent; those that we think colorless,
appear colored. A vessel seen at a distance seems station-
ary. Mountains at a distance look smooth, but when
beheld close at hand, they are rough. The sun on account
of its distance appears small ; and it has one appearance
at its rise, and quite another at midday. The neck of the
dove changes its color as it turns. Since, then, it is impos-
sible to view things irrespectively of place and position, it
is clear that their real nature is not known.

Again, qualities differ according to quantities. The horn
of the goat is black ; the detached fragments of this horn
are whitish. A moderate quantity of wine invigorates,
while an excessive quantity weakens. Certain poisons are
fatal when taken alone ; in mixture with other substances,
they cure.

The frequency or rarity of a thing determines our
view of it. Earthquakes excite no wonder among those
nations with "whom they are of frequent occurrence ; nor
does the sun astonish us, because we see it every day.

Finally, we cannot say anything about an object, without
involving, explicitly or implicitly, a comparison or relation
with other things. Thus light and heavy, strong and weak,
greater and less, above and below, right and left, are obvi-
ously only relative terms. In the same way, a man is
spoken of as a father, or brother, or relation to some one
else ; and day is called so in relation to the sun ; and every-
thing has its distinctive name in relation to human thought.
We cannot strip off these relations and have any content
left ; and consequently all our knowledge is relative — never
of the thing in itself.

3. If perception is incapable of giving us truth, so,
equally, is thought ; and the difficulties in the process of
syllogistic reasoning are accordingly pointed out. And
if neither sensation by itself, nor thought by itself, can
attain to certainty, their combination is clearly in no

The Later Ethical Period 165

better case. The whole matter is summed up in the dis-
cussion about the criterion of truth. Every demonstration
depends on the validity of certain premises, and these must
themselves in turn be established, if the whole process is
not to hang in the air. Accordingly, unless we go on for-
ever establishing one truth by another, we are compelled
to find somewhere a starting-point that is absolutely cer-
tain in itself. But what way have we of recognizing such
a truth ? The Sceptics of course deny that there is any
criterion. Sensation will not give it, for sensations have
been shown to be utterly unreliable. Shall we say, with
the Stoics, that it is the clearness and self-evidence with
which a truth comes home to us ; or its universal acceptance
by mankind ? But universal agreement does not exist, and
would prove nothing if it did ; and we are often very clear
and very positive about what turns out to be no truth at
all. The Sceptics went on to show in detail, and with
much acuteness, the flaws in the reasonings and results
of the dogmatic philosophers. The most extensive account
that we possess of the sceptical arguments is in a work by
Sextus Empiricus entitled Against the Mathematicians. In
this it is interesting to note that, among other things, the idea
of causality is subjected to a destructive criticism. It is
this same problem which occupied the greatest of modern
sceptics — David Hume.

LITERATURE

Maccoll, The Greek Sceptics.

Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics.

Patrick, Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism.

§ 17. The Scientific Movement. Eclecticism. Philo

I. Meanwhile, in another part of the world, a very con-
siderable intellectual activity had been going on, which,
although it lies outside the main philosophical movement,

1 66 A Student's History of Philosophy

deserves a brief mention. In Athens, which, after its loss of
political importance, had become practically a University
town, the speculative interest continued to be predominant ;
but elsewhere, the scientific side of Aristotle's work was
being carried on with a considerable degree of success. Alex-
andria, in Northern Egypt, had been founded by the con-
queror in the second half of the fourth century, and, under
the enlightened rule of the earlier Ptolemies, it sprang to a
place among the centres of the world. What its position did
for it commercially, the founding of the great University
of Alexandria accomplished in other lines. To this im-
mense school, the greatest of ancient times, students came
from all over the world. Its magnificent equipment, its
botanical garden, observatory, and anatomical building,
its collection of animals from every land, and its great
library, amounting at one time to seven hundred thousand
volumes, gave a great impetus to scholarship and science.
A series of eminent scientists made the Museum illustrious :
the best known are the mathematician Euclid, and the
astronomer Ptolemy, who gives his name to the system
which maintained itself down to the time of Copernicus,
and whose Geography was used in the schools of Europe
for fourteen centuries. So also literature was encouraged,
and had a considerable development. It is true that,
for the most part, there was no great originality shown ;
still, the very dependence upon the standards of the past
gave rise to valuable results, in the creation of a new inter-
est in literary and linguistic studies. The history of liter-
ature, the critical investigation of problems of style, and
the study of language and grammar, were put upon some-
thing like a systematic and scientific basis. In other cities,
too, such as Rhodes, Antioch, and Tarsus, similar schools
sprang up, and became centres of an active intellectual
life.

2. But in the realm of speculative thought, also, there
is one more tendency to be noted. Scepticism was itself
too negative to satisfy any save a peculiar few. The age

The Later Ethical Period 167

had need of knowledge, and this practical need was cer-
tain to cause the mass of men to ignore the subtle argu-
ments of the Sceptics. Nevertheless, Scepticism was not
wholly without effect even in wider circles. The criticism
which it brought against all philosophies alike would, at
least, tend to prick the conceit that in any one school the
absolute truth was contained. And the necessary recog-
nition of the many points of similarity between Stoic,
Academic, and Peripatetic, which constant discussion
brought about, also helped to lessen their opposition. This
had its counterpart on the political side, in the softening
down of national peculiarities 'which had begun with the
Macedonian world-empire, and the spread of the Greek
language and ideas, and which reached its culmination in
the Roman conquests. As political and national extremes
were worn away, and compromises accepted to the end that
all men might dwell together in a practical unity through-
out the Roman Empire, so the various schools began to
unite on a common philosophical basis, from which the
more extreme differences had been eliminated. At least
this was true of all except the Epicureans, who for the
most part continued to stand out as heterodox, and to
whose mechanical and hedonistic tendencies the other
three schools found themselves opposed on a common
ground. This eclecticism was largely stimulated when the
Greek philosophy came in contact with the Romans.
Themselves without any strong theoretical interests, and
caring for philosophy, if they cared for it at all, only for
its practical ends, the Romans would have but little sym-
pathy with subtle metaphysical distinctions. To the hard-
headed Roman, the disputes of the philosophers were trifling
and uncalled for, and capable of being easily settled by a
little shrewd management. The pro-consul Gellius actu-
ally took upon himself to urge the Athenian philosophers
to come to a compromise, and offered his own services
as mediator. Of this syncretistic temper, Cicero is the
most eminent representative. Without any great philo-

1 68 A Student's History of Philosophy

sophic gifts himself, his chief service is as a popularizer
of Greek ideas.

3. What has been said so far of Eclecticism has in view
chiefly the philosophy of the West. In the East, the same
attitude brought about another movement which proved of
great importance, — the union, namely, of Oriental ele-
ments with the stream of European thought. It was at
Alexandria, again, that this tendency crystallized. Among
the inhabitants of Alexandria there were a very large num-
ber of Jewish colonists, who, by their activity and abilities,
quickly made themselves a power. Among these exiles
the Hellenizing tendencies, which, in opposition to ortho-
dox Judaism, had very nearly won the day even in Pales-
tine itself, had an opportunity to work out freely. As
early as the third century a translation was made of the
Hebrew scriptures into the Greek of the Septuagint, and
a considerable literature sprang up in which Jewish views
of life are modified by contact with Western ideas. Some
of this is preserved among the books'of the Apocrypha.

When, in the second century before Christ, the influence
of the University at Alexandria waned, and many of the
Greek professors left the city, the Hellenistic Jewish
thought became the dominant intellectual force. And in
Philo, a Jew of great learning and ability, a systematic
attempt was made, about the beginning of the Christian era,
to show the inner harmony between Plato and Moses, Jewish
religious thought and Greek philosophy. This attempt gave
evidence of a very considerable power of original thought,
and influenced the future development alike of philosophy
and of Christian doctrine. According to Philo's conception,
God, like the monarch in the Oriental state, stands apart
from the world in ineffable and unthinkable perfection,
and has, accordingly, to be connected with actual things
by a series of lesser, but more intelligible forms, which are
regarded, sometimes as Platonic ideas, sometimes from the
standpoint of the Old Testament angelology. These are
somehow an offshoot from God's nature, without actually

The Later Ethical Period 169

belonging to it as component parts. The conception has
its consummation in Philo's doctrine of the Logos — the
mediator of God's revelation of himself. The repugnance
of the Hebrew scriptures to Greek conceptions was over-
come by having recourse to an ingenious allegorical inter-
pretation. And what Philo did for Jewish thought was
being done in less systematic ways wherever East and
West came in contact.

LITERATURE

Cicero, Philosophical Works (Bohn's Library).
Schlirer, History of the Jewish People, 5 vols.
Philo, Works (Bohn's Library).
Drummond, Philo-Judceus, 2 vols.
Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought.
Mahaffy, Silver Age of the Greek World.

THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD

§ 1 8. Introduction

i. THE tendency which has just been described was in
part accountable for, in part the outgrowth of, a new di-
rection which was imparting itself to philosophic thought,
and through which philosophy was passing from an ethical,
to a religious or theosophic basis. Even where the
Oriental influence was less strong, as in Stoicism, there
had been a gradual modification. Stoicism in particular,
among the philosophical schools of the period, had at-
tempted to act the part of a substitute for religion, and to
meet the needs for satisfying which the national religion
had long sinqe lost any real capacity. Alongside the
priest, who was absorbed in the ceremonial and political
duties of his office, the philosopher was generally rec-
ognized as the real spiritual guide of his time. He
occupied a position similar in many respects to that of the
modern clergyman. Peculiarities of dress and appearance
— his cloak and long beard — marked him off from the
rest of men. He was called on for advice in difficult
moral problems. A philosopher was attached to many of
the Roman families as a sort of family chaplain. He was
called in along with the physician at a death-bed. The
discourses which he was accustomed to deliver had a close
analogy to the modern sermon, and, indeed, are historically
related to it.

Unfortunately, however, this close relation to the needs
of life was continually in danger of becoming obscured in
the history of the Stoic school. The theoretical and logi-
cal interest which, in its origin, had been purely prepara-
tory, and subservient to the ideal of character in the sage,

170

The Religious Period 171

tended to break loose from this practical aim, and to intro-
duce a great deal of dry and unprofitable formalism into
philosophical discussions. The public discourses, also, like
the modern fashionable sermon, often came to sacrifice
real edification to the desire for rhetorical or argumenta-
tive display. And meanwhile a demand was growing
more and more insistent for some cure for the ills of life,
more thoroughgoing than philosophy, even at its best, was
offering. The whole age was filled with a sense of spirit-
ual unrest. The rapidly increasing corruption of the ruling
class, the glaring contrasts of luxury and misery, the insecu-
rity of life and property, the sense of world weariness which
marked the passing away of moral enthusiasms, all brought
home to men the feeling that the world was growing old, and
that some catastrophe was impending. The new sense of
sin and evil was fast outgrowing the ability of Stoicism to
cope with. The ideal of virtue was felt by bitter experi-
ence to lie beyond the reach of unaided human effort ; some
higher power must intervene to save us, if we are to reach
salvation.

This deepened sense of need showed itself in one direc-
tion by a change in Stoicism itself. In the later Stoics,
such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, we have
a strong reaction against logical subtilties, and an impres-
sive reaffirmation of the essentially practical nature of
philosophy. But in this reaffirmation, a new emphasis is
laid upon certain elements. The religious side becomes
pronounced as it had not been before. Nature takes on
more the character of a God whose sons men are, and with
whom they can enter into an emotional relationship of love
and gratitude. " We can be thankful to a friend for a few
acres," says Seneca, " or a little money ; and yet for the
freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the
great benefits of our being, as life, health, and reason, we
look upon ourselves as under no obligation. If a man be-
stows upon us a house that is delicately beautified with
painting, statues, gilding, and marbles, we make a mighty

172 A Student's History of Philosophy

business of it, and yet it lies at the mercy of a puff of wind,
the snuff of a candle, and a hundred other accidents to lay
it in the dust. And is it nothing now to sleep under the
canopy of heaven, where we have the globe of the earth
as our place of repose, and the glories of the heavens for
our spectacle?"1

In like manner, as has been said, a more human feel-
ing toward our fellows, which also connects itself closely
with the religious motive, takes the place of the hard
self-righteousness of the older Stoic. How shall we
despise one another? Are not Alexander the Macedo-
nian, and his groom, alike parts of nature, and brought
to the same level by death ? Or why should we be angry
with our fellow-men, and blame them for their injurious
and evil deeds ? Nature is working in them with the
same necessity as in every part of her domain, and we
may as well be angry that thistles do not bring forth
apples, or that every pebble on the ground is not an Ori-
ental pearl. The immortal Gods are not vexed because
during so long a time they must tolerate men continually ;
and they in addition take care of them in every way.
Shall you, whose life is so brief, become wearied of en-
during the wicked, and that too when you yourself are one
of them? Our nature is too closely bound up with the
fabric of the universe to make it possible to adopt an
attitude of antagonism toward our fellows. "A branch
cut off from the adjacent branch must of necessity be cut
off from the whole tree also. So, too, a man when he is
separated from another man has fallen off from the whole
social community. Now as to a branch, another cuts it
off, but a man by his own act separates himself from his
neighbor, when he hates him, and turns away from him ;
and he does not know that he has at the same time cut
himself off from the whole social system."2

2. It was outside of Stoicism, however, that the demands
of the time were met most completely. The sense of guilt,

1 Cf. Seneca, On Benefits, IV, 6. 2 M. Aurelius, XI, 8.

The Religious Period 173

the experience of the weakness of the human will for self-
reformation, and the weariness which followed a long at-
tempt to find salvation in the purely intellectual processes,
apart from the feelings and emotions, all resulted in an
immense impetus to the religious life, especially on its
superstitious side. Adherents of the religions of the East
poured into Rome, and gained converts and wealth on every
side. Their ascetic practices, their fantastic mythologies,
their mysterious purificatory rites, were grasped at eagerly in
the vain hope of finding something on which to rest. Given
a more articulate statement, these same Oriental and reli-
gious tendencies found an expression in philosophy. The
attempt at a combination of Eastern and Western thought
from the Oriental side, by the Jew Philo, has already been
mentioned ; the same attempt was made by Greeks as well.
A point of departure was secured by going back to some of
those aspects of the previous philosophy which the more
recent ethical development had neglected. The earliest
attempt centres about the name of Pythagoras — a name
which, by reason of the mythical haze by which it was sur-
rounded, and the ascetic features which were attached to
it, offered a convenient handle. A Neo-Pythagoreanism
arose in Alexandria, as a half-religious sect with ascetic
tendencies, to which belongs especially the name of the
religious teacher and wonder-worker, Apollonitis of Tyana.
But Pythagoras furnished no sufficient theoretical frame-
work for a philosophy, and it was, accordingly, to Plato
that the thought of the time more and more turned, as the
highest source and authority for its philosophical stand-
point. In Plutarch and Apuleius we have a position closely
allied to that of the Neo-Pythagoreans ; it appeals, how-
ever, to Plato rather than to Pythagoras, though without
any great depth of insight, and with a large intermixture
of magic and demonology. It is not till the third century
A.D. that we have the culmination of the whole religious
period, in the last great system of Greek thought — Neo-
Platonism.

174 A Student's History of Philosophy

LITERATURE

Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus.

Apuleius, Works (Bohn's Library).

Lucian, Dialogues.

Plutarch, Morals.

Tredwell, Life of Apollonius of Tyana.

Mahaffy, Greek World under Roman Sway.

§ 19. Plotinus and Neo-Platonism

Plotinus (204-269 A.D.), of Lycopolis in Egypt, came to
Rome about 244, and taught philosophy there for twenty-
five years. He was a disciple, at Alexandria, of Ammonius
Saccus, who is sometimes reckoned as the founder of Neo-
Platonism ; but the latter's fame is dwarfed beside that of
his greater pupil. Plotinus had also come in contact with
Persian ideas, having taken part in an expedition of the
Emperor Gordian against that country, in which he barely
escaped with his life. In Rome his success was pro-
nounced, and he even included an emperor and an em-
press among his disciples.

I. The Doctrine of God. — Neo-Platonism is a religious
philosophy, and so connects itself with the consciousness of
evil, and the felt need for salvation, which is characteristic of
the age. It presupposes, therefore, a certain dualism in
the ethical life. Such a dualism, and the ascetic tendency
which flows from it, runs through most of the thought of
the times, Christian as well as pagan. The consciousness
of a moral struggle in ourselves reports itself metaphysi-
cally as a division of the world into a good principle and a
principle of evil. This dualism, in its most thoroughgoing
form, is the basis of a number of Oriental philosophies of
religion, — the Persian, for example, in which the history
of the world reduces itself to a contest between Ormuzd
and Ahriman, God and the devil, light and darkness.
Now, according to the psychology of the self which was
current, the obvious interpretation of evil in ourselves is by

The Religious Period 175

reference to the dominance of those lower appetites more
directly connected with the body; it was natural, there-
fore, to find the root of evil in the body, i.e., in matter.

This way of thinking came, in the course of time, to
mark almost all the thought of the period. In some
instances, as in the semi-Christian sect of the Manichaeans,
the dualism is set up in the most extreme form ; and even
where there is no desire to make it absolute, as in the case
of the more orthodox Christian teachings, and in Neo-
Platonism itself, the influence still makes its presence felt.
There is a sense that matter is somehow evil, and that the
flesh always and necessarily must war against the spirit.
The only salvation, therefore, lies not in regulating our
bodily desires, but in exterminating them ; in outgrowing
the life of the senses and leaving it behind, while we find
our blessedness in the pure life of the spirit, unsoiled by
any taint of the body. Plotinus is said to have been
ashamed that he had any body ; he would never name his
parents, or remember his birthday. From the human side
of life — the side of feelings, emotions, and everyday
activities — all worth is thus taken away ; it is as nothing
to the soul, the real self. The sensuous life is a mere
stage play — all the misery in it is only imaginary, all grief
a mere cheat of the players.

To find the theoretical justification for this, and to con-
nect it with the doctrine of Plato, was comparatively a
simple task. If it does not represent the whole of Plato,
or even the best part of him, still there is much in his
writings which lends itself to such a mode of thought. He,
too, had disparaged the life of sense, and extolled the life
of pure thought, or contemplation. For him the highest
good had lain in a world transcending the world of matter.
Matter was an unreal and untrue existence, a limit to the
true being of the Idea. But this conception of Plato's is
carried farther by the Neo-Platonists ; and as a result we
have emerging a philosophical attitude which may perhaps
best be described roughly by the term mysticism. God,

176 A Student's History of Philosophy

the highest reality, had still been for Plato the world of
Ideas ; and the Ideas represent an intellectual and rational
existence. But the intellect requires data to work upon ;
it presupposes distinctions and differences, which it binds
together into a unity of the whole : while the way in which
Plato had on the whole tended to formulate the Idea had
involved rather the dropping away of particulars, and finite
distinctions, in order to get to the ultimate reality. The
logical outcome of such a process of abstraction would
really be simply that highest abstraction of all — mere
Being. Plato did not accept this result because, whatever
the form in which his theory was cast, it did not represent
the innermost motive of his thought. But in Plotinus the
logical issue of the tendency stands revealed. God, ac-
cordingly, becomes the infinite blank, before which all
human thought is powerless.

There is a way in which this might be interpreted, that
would be very generally accepted, not only as true, but as
a truism even. And this may perhaps confuse us as to
the consequences and real significance of the conception.
Expressed in religious terms, it might be made to mean
that God is far beyond our perfect comprehension. We
cannot, with our limited thought processes, exhaust the
depths of His nature ; His goodness is unsearchable, and
His ways past finding out; and we degrade Him when we
confine Him within the boundaries represented by our
finite notions of what the truth must be. But there are
two meanings that may be attached to such words as
these. We may mean, on the one hand, that our knowl-
edge, though it may be real as far as it goes, is not ex-
haustive ; that the relations under which we see the truth
are but a small part of all the relations which would con-
stitute it for a perfect intelligence ; and that, consequently,
there are many things that we should see differently were
we able to grasp the whole. Or, on the other hand, we
may mean that intelligence itself is transcended in God ;
that in His truth He is wholly unintelligible, wholly un-

The Religious Period 177

knowable, the infinite background marked by an utter
absence of relations. We attain to Him, not by making
our knowledge more complete, correcting what we know
by a richer and deeper knowledge, but by giving up our
attempt at comprehension, and allowing the distinct con-
ceptions of the intellect to fade away into the haze of an
immediate identity of feeling.

It is this latter path which mysticism takes. To know
God it is not enough, as with Plato, to get rid of the sen-
suous and bodily life ; we must get rid of the intellect as
well. We must separate ourselves from all things and
be alone ; must cut loose from every definite fact that can
occupy the mind, and reduce this to a blank. God thus
lies beyond even the Idea itself. All we can say of Him
is that He is the ultimate unity ; nay, we cannot say even
so much as this, for in speaking of Him as unity, we are
predicating an idea of Him, and so are limiting His abso-
lute indeterminateness. God transcends everything that
we can say or think. We cannot say so much as that He
exists, for He transcends existence itself. He does not
live, for it is He who gives life. He is not good, for He
stands above goodness. He neither knows anything, nor
has anything of which He is ignorant, for knowledge has
no meaning in connection with His nature. We recognize
Him only by a blind feeling of ' something real,' " as those
who energize enthusiastically, and become divinely inspired,
perceive, indeed, that they have something greater in
themselves, though they do not know what it is." 1 The
only truth is a negative truth; to reach Him we must
abstract from all positive attributes.

The result is, that no intellectual processes will bring us
into that immediate contact with God which is salvation.
The ultimate method of religion is not thought, but mystic
contemplation, or feeling. The Neo-Platonist does not,
indeed, as some mystics have done, despise the intellectual
life, and attempt by a single leap to reach the consumma-

1 Plotinus, V, 3, 14.
N

178 A Student's History of Philosophy

tion of identity with God. The cultivation of the intel-
lectual insight is an essential task ; but there remains a
step still to be taken. " The wizard king builds his tower
of speculation by the hands of human workmen till he
reaches the top story, and then summons his genii to
fashion the battlements of adamant, and crown them with
starry fire." 1 The final goal is that ecstasy in which all
our finite personality, thought, and self-consciousness drop
away, and we melt to a oneness with the Absolute, wherein
no shade of difference enters.

2. The Relation of God and the World. — But now
we seem to have reached a position which is not wholly
consistent with the one from which we started. This final
standpoint appears to be that of a pantheistic absorption
of all things in the one Absolute, whereas we started,
on the ethical side, with a dualism which sets matter
as a principle of evil over against God. The same diffi-
culty existed for Plato as well, and he never was able
to account satisfactorily for there being such a thing as a
material universe, in addition to the pure Ideas. With Neo-
Platonism the difficulty is even greater. If all distinctions
are essentially unreal, and the sole reality is the One, un-
knowable and unapproachable, cloaked in ineffable noth-
ingness, do we not seem by one stroke to have blotted out
the whole universe of our experience as less even than a
dream ? Is there any possible way of accounting even for
the delusive appearance of its existence? The Platonist
has the hard task of trying to reconcile the dualism which
not only his ethical presuppositions, but the indubitable
facts of life also, force upon him, with the unity for which,
alike as a metaphysician and as a mystic, he is bound to
strive.

In reality the task is an impossible one. So long as we
admit the existence of finite experience in any sense, there
is a flaw in the perfection of such an Absolute which no
logic can overcome. But the Platonist conceals the impos-

1 Vaughan, Hours -with the Mystics, I, 77.

The Religious Period 179

sibility by two considerations, which it seems to him help
solve the problem. In the first place, he declares, with
Plato, that this principle which lies at the basis of matter
is not a positive something, but wholly negative. Matter
is no substantial substratum out of which, as material, the
world is built, but mere not-being, absence of being, a
negative limit to reality. Evil, therefore, is not, as the Man-
ichaeans, e.g., thought, a substantial fact standing over
against the good as a positive constituent of the world.
Just in so far as a thing is, as it partakes of reality, it is
good ; it is evil or material only in so far as it is not, in
so far as it lacks being. But while verbally this seems to
make evil and matter nothing at all, it is still a positive
sort of nothing. Why, otherwise, should not all reality be
wholly positive, as God is, and possess no lack ? The not-
being which constitutes evil evidently stands opposed to
the good as a real limit which infects its perfection, and
the dualism, however attenuated it may appear, is still a
stubborn fact.

But there is another device still which is characteristic
of the Neo-Platonist philosophy. The feeling is wide-
spread throughout the attempts at religious philosophiz-
ing to which the period gives rise, that the gap between
God and matter can be bridged over, if we can introduce
a graduated scale of existence, connecting the two ex-
tremes by a series of smaller differences. In the Logos
doctrine of Philo, the countless aeons of the Christian
Gnostics, the demonology of Plutarch and others of the
Greeks, we have such attempts to mediate between the
supreme God, and those facts of the material world which
are thought to be unworthy of him. Of course, theoreti-
cally, there is not the slightest advantage which a small
gap has over a large one ; the difficulty is that there should
be any gap at all. Still it is a help to the imagination
if the transition can be made less noticeable. And the
delegation of the responsibility for imperfections to some
lesser and derived power provides a makeshift which,

180 A Student's History of Philosophy

temporarily at least, seems to render it possible to retain,
along with these imperfections, the notion of perfection
also.

In Neo-Platonism this takes the form of a theory of
Emanation. Finite existence is accounted for as a pro-
gressive falling away from an original perfection. Of
course the ground of this downward passage is ultimately
unexplainable ; but granting that its reality is required to
account for the facts of existence, we may by the use of
metaphor shadow it forth to ourselves partially and ob-
scurely. It cannot be regarded as a partition of the origi-
nal unity, for that is no sum of parts ; it is an indivisible
whole, which still abides in its completeness. The process
may more truly be compared to the gleaming of a bright
body, to the radiation of the sun, to a cup which eter-
nally overflows because its contents are infinite and can-
not be confined within it. The figure of light is the one
which on the whole is least inadequate. As light shines
into the darkness and illuminates it, without at the same
time suffering in its own existence, so the workings of the
Eternal One overflow from its central being, without thereby
lessening in any degree the reality of^their source. And
as the brightness of the light decreases continually in in-
tensity, until it loses itself in the surrounding darkness, so
the power of the Absolute expresses itself in more and
more diluted form in the hierarchy of the phenomenal
world. In general, this hierarchy is represented by the
three stages of mind or rational spirit, soul, and body.
Each stage has a dual aspect. On the one hand it looks
toward, and is constituted by, the truer reality in the scale
of being above ; it is an imitation of this, as the spoken
words imitate or represent the thought in the mind. On
the other hand, it serves to carry on the working of this
reality to the next lower stage. The material world is the
lowest stage of all — an image in an image, the shadow of
a shadow, where the negative element, not-being, reaches
its maximum. Still it is not positively evil ; it is evil only

The Religious Period 181

in so far as it is not. All the reality which it possesses is
due to the working of spirit, and in so far as it is at all,
it is good.

In this way Plotinus finds a suggestion for the first sys-
tematic attempt at a metaphysics of beauty, a special phi-
losophy of aesthetics. Beauty is the shining through of
the spiritual reality, in the material forms whose truth this
reality constitutes. And this tempers the asceticism of
Plotinus. " To despise the world, and the Gods, and other
beautiful natures that are contained in it, is not to become
a good man. He who loves anything is delighted with
everything which is allied to the object of his love ; for you
also love the children of the father whom you love. But
every soul is the daughter of the father of the universe." *
" His mind must be dull and sluggish in the extreme, and
incapable of being incited to anything else, who, in see-
ing all the beautiful objects of the sensible world, all this
symmetry and great arrangement of things, and the form
apparent in the stars, though so remote, is not from this
view mentally agitated, and does not venerate them as
admirable productions of still more admirable causes." 2

3. The Process of Salvation. — As the phenomenal
world has its being in this falling away from the Abso-
lute, so there remain in it traces of its lost estate, and
the longing to return to its original perfection. This
return forms the substance of the ethical and religious
life. We must rid ourselves of the restrictions of mat-
ter, and, rising above the realm of the particular and finite,
retrace our steps toward God. In general, the process
consists in penetrating to the universal ideas which
underlie the world of phenomena, and so accustoming
the soul to its own proper food. "The soul perceives
temperance and justice in the intellection of herself, and
of that which she formerly was, and views them like
statues established in herself which through time have
become covered with rust. These she then purifies, just

1 Plotinus, II, 9, 1 6. a Ibid.

1 82 A Student's History of Philosophy

as if gold were animated, and, in consequence of being
incrusted with earth, not perceiving itself to be gold,
should be ignorant of itself ; but afterward, shaking off
the earth which adheres to it, should be filled with admira-
tion in beholding itself pure and alone."1 This is neces-
sarily a slow process. The soul is like "children who,
immediately torn from their parents, and for a long time
nurtured at a great distance from them, become ignorant
both of themselves and their parents ;" 2 and so it does not
respond at once. It is not fitted for the sudden burst of
light which marks the final vision, and so it must be prepared
by degrees, through the contemplation of beautiful objects,
beautiful sentiments, beautiful actions, beautiful souls.
" All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assist
in this attainment, and there are three different roads by
which the end may be reached. The love of beauty which
exalts the poet, that devotion to the one and that ascent
of science which makes the ambition of the philosopher,
and that love and those prayers by which some devout
and ardent soul tends in its moral purity toward perfec-
tion — these are the great highways conducting to that
height above the actual and the particular, where we stand
in the immediate presence of the infinite, who shines out
as from the deeps of the soul." 3

But in all this the soul must be on its guard continually
not to remain entangled in mere particulars. This consti-
tutes the imperfection of the life of moral conduct as an ulti-
mate end. In a good deed there is implicit a certain univer-
sal value ; but it is only ascetic contemplation which is able
to free this ideal fact from the unessentials in which it is
immersed. As Ulysses from the magician Circe, we must
flee to our native land, and abandon wholly this dangerous
realm. The love of God means the giving up of all
earthly loves. And when one has seen God face to face,
he cares for no minor beauties. As one who, entering

1 Plotinus, IV, 7, 10. 2 V, I, I.

8 Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, Vol. I, p. 81.

The Religious Period 183

into the interior of the adytum, leaves behind all the
statues in the temple, or as those who enter the sanctu-
aries purify themselves, laying aside their garments, and
enter naked, so should the soul approach its goal. " This,
therefore, is the life of the Gods, and of divine and happy
men — a liberation from all terrene affairs, a life unac-
companied with human pleasures, a flight of the alone
to the alone." J An immortality in the ordinary sense is
only a denial of true life ; " a resurrection with body is a
transmigration from sleep to sleep, like a man passing in
the dark from bed to bed." 2 The true goal is only reached
when the soul loses all thought, desire, and activity, all
individual life, in an ecstasy of immediate union with God.
" This is the true end of the soul, to come into contact
with his light, and to behold him through it, not by the
light of another thing, but to perceive that very thing
itself through which it sees." 3 In this ' darkness which
transcends all gnostic illumination,' it does not see an-
other, but becomes one with God, absorbed, conjoining
centre with centre.

4. Later Neo-Platonism. — The spiritualization of the
world in which Neo-Platonism results, and the absence of
any adequate feeling for natural law, opened the way for an
appeal to non-physical agencies in the explanation of events,
which might easily become fantastic ; and among the suc-
cessors of Plotinus this is what took place. The world
becomes a great hierarchy of souls — Gods, demons, men,
— and the mystical affinities and relationships between
souls, which find expression in divination, astrology, and
magical rites, tend to take the place of sober investigation.
Jamblicus, the founder of Syrian Neo-Platonism, has a
special connection with this tendency.

Historically, this last outcome of Greek thought gets
an importance through making itself the champion of
Paganism, in the now losing struggle which this was carry-
ing on with Christianity. The struggle was wholly unsuc-

i Plotinus, VI, 9, 1 1. 2 In, 6, 6. « V, 3, 17.

184 A Student's History of Philosophy

cessf ul. The future belonged to Christianity ; philosophy
could hope to survive, not by antagonizing it, and joining
forces with its rival, but by accepting the new and vig-
orous contribution which it was making to the life of the
world, and moulding this into its own forms. For a
moment Paganism seemed to have a chance of success,
when the Emperor Julian, called by Christians the Apos-
tate — a man trained in the school of the Neo-Platonists —
attempted to reverse the verdict of history. But a half-
sentimental regret for the beauty of the pagan past was
no match for the living forces of the present ; and at the
death of Julian his plans came to nothing. The last
refuge of Neo-Platonism was the Academy at Athens, in
connection with which the name of Proclus is the most
important But in 529 A.D. the Academy was closed by
order of the Emperor Justinian, the teaching of heathen
philosophy was forbidden, and the philosophers driven

into exile.

4

LITERATURE

Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics.
Plotinus, Enneads (Bohn's Library).
Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists.
Bigg, Neo-Platonism.

§ 20. Christianity. The Church Fathers. Augustine

i. The new power which thus seemed to have sup-
planted the old was, in its inception, not a philosophy, but
a life. Questions of theory occupied the early disciples
but little ; belief in God, and the influence of the dominant
personality of Christ in renewing the life of the soul and
shaping it into His own likeness, were the central features
of the new religion. The evidences of acceptance with
God were the fruits of love, peace, righteousness, not a
belief in any set of doctrines.

The Religious Period 185

Originally, then, Christianity had no conscious depend-
ence on philosophical thought. And among many of the
early fathers, as, for example, Tertullian, there was a disposi-
tion to be openly hostile to the encroachments of philosophy,
or reason, as opposed to the purity and simplicity of faith
in the gospel. Nevertheless, if Christianity was to con-
tinue to expand, its coming under the influence of Greek
forms of thought was a foregone conclusion. As converts
began to come in from the Gentile world, they would bring
with them inevitably their former modes of thinking.
Some of them, like Justin Martyr, had been philosophers
before they became Christians. They had sought for
truth as Stoics, and Peripatetics, and Pythagoreans ; and
now that they had found the goal of their seeking in the
religion of Christ, they could not but look at this in terms
of the problems they had previously been trying to solve,
and regard it as the true philosophy, as well as the true
life. The necessity for justifying themselves to the heathen
world would lead in the same direction.

Of course there was danger in this. In many cases the
theoretical interest began to overshadow the practical, even
sometimes to displace it. By a very considerable body of
Christians, the essential thing came to be looked upon,
not as a Christ-like character, but as a superior and eso-
teric knowledge (gnosis\ which was really only a philos-
ophy, constructed, though more fantastically, along the
lines of Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism. The
Christian tinge was sometimes merely nominal. This
attempt by Gnosticism to capture the new religion in the
interests of Graeco-Oriental philosophy, constituted one
of the earliest and gravest dangers to the Church, which
was only averted after many years of stubborn controversy.
But although the Gnostics were defeated, they left their
mark upon their antagonists. The Church never went back
to the primitive form of undogmatic Christianity which
had represented its early type ; orthodoxy became identi-
fied with a middle course between the two extremes. It

1 86 A Student's History of Philosophy

rejected such doctrines as were inconsistent with the
genius of Christianity ; but it began, nevertheless, to lay
greater stress upon doctrinal agreement and theoretical
formulation.

For this work it had of necessity to make use of the
intellectual tools which Greek philosophy had forged.
There was a more conscious use of these in some cases
than in others. In Alexandria, especially, where philo-
sophical traditions were strong, there arose a school of
philosophical theologians, of which Origen (185-254) is
the most important representative. These attempted
with clear insight, and very considerable ability, to Plato-
nize theology. And even when theology supposed it was
dispensing with the help of philosophy, it was still de-
pendent upon it at every step. From one point of view
this involved a loss to Christianity. The substitution of
dogma for the free spirit of devotion, which finds the end
of the religious life in a personal love and service, went
along necessarily with a certain lowering of the standard,
and misplacement of emphasis. But still the change
could hardly have been avoided, if Christianity was to do
the work it actually succeeded in doing. As time went
on, the whole character of the Church altered. It became,
of course, larger and more unwieldy. Instead of the little
groups of earnest disciples, fully permeated by the spirit
of the Gospel, there began to flock to it, attracted by its
growing success, a multitude of men who were only super-
ficially affected by their new professions. Later on, when
the Empire fell, it was the Church which more and more
was compelled to assume many of the civil functions of
society, if anarchy was to be averted. Under these con-
ditions, nothing but a strong ecclesiastical organization, and
a definitely formulated creed, could have held the Church
together as a single catholic body ; and without such a
unity its work could not have been done. The Church
creed preserved Christianity on a distinctly lower level
than was represented in primitive Apostolic times, but

The Religious Period 187

it did preserve it. It formed a standard of belief and a
rallying-point which was definite and objective, and which,
by bringing to bear a strong authority, prevented the
breaking up of the new faith into a multitude of jarring
local sects.

2. This creation of an orthodox body of doctrine was no
immediate result, but a work which extended through
several centuries. During this time the Church had to
meet and conquer numerous heresies — tendencies, that is,
which afterward were pronounced heresies by their vic-
torious opponents, though there were moments when it
seemed that they might themselves conquer and be ac-
cepted as the orthodox opinion. In the long run, however,
the Church was led to avoid such dogmas as were incon-
sistent with the work marked out for it. If now we com-
pare the standpoint which finally became fixed as the
standpoint of the Church, with the purely philosophical
development of Neo-Platonism which falls within the same
general period, we shall find that while the two were en-
gaged in general with much the same problems, their
answers naturally differ in considerable degree.

Christian theology of course agrees with Neo-Platonism
in being a religious philosophy — a philosophy dealing
with God and His relation to the world, the nature of sin, or
evil, and the way of salvation. They agree, furthermore, in
that both find the source of knowledge, not in the discur-
sive exercise of reason, but rather in an immediate revela-
tion. But here they tend to separate. For the Platonist,
the revelation is the one which comes directly to the phi-
losopher in those moments of ecstasy in which his soul
becomes identical with the divine being itself. This recog-
nition of the side of immediate experience is also found,
it is true, in Christianity, in the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit ; and in Christian mysticism a direct Neo-Platonist
influence continues even until modern times. But circum-
stances compelled the Church to emphasize rather the fact
of a single historical revelation. In the primitive Church,

1 88 A Student's History of Philosophy

where conditions were freer, and the spiritual life more
spontaneous, the claims to inspiration were common, and
prophets, teachers, and apostles were numerous. But even
here a dangerous license began to show itself; and the
farther Christianity got away from the original source,
the more the need of some commonly accepted standard
became evident. That standard could be nothing but con-
formity with the teachings of Christ and His immediate
disciples. Accordingly, the insistence upon the authority
of a definite historical revelation in the past came to be
more and more the position of the orthodox body of Chris-
tians. This was mediated at first by oral tradition ; and
then, as time made tradition less reliable, by a gradually
formed canon of sacred writings, that were believed to go
back to Apostles and eye-witnesses. And when now the
Montanists claimed the right to do just what the early
Church had done, and to supplement this historical author-
ity by the immediate testimony of prophetic inspiration,
the attempt was recognized as dangerously lawless, and
condemned as a heresy.

The problem of evil also reached its orthodox solution
only after continued controversy. In the various heretical
sects, nearly every current answer to the problem was
reproduced, down to the baldest dualism of the good and
evil principle. The temptation to find the root of evil in
matter was very strong. Nowhere was the antagonism
between the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit
more pronounced than in the experience of Christians, or
the necessity more keenly felt of mortifying the deeds of
the body for the salvation of the soul. But the central fact
of the Incarnation, along with a feeling for the dignity and
the infinitude of God, caused the Church to reject all attempts
to regard matter as essentially evil. The stronger sense
of sin which characterized the Christian consciousness
kept it also from being satisfied with the Neo-Platonist
doctrine of evil as mere privation, or absence of reality.
Christianity found a solution, instead, in the moral realm,

The Religious Period 189

by having recourse to the freedom of the will. God created
all finite beings good, even the very devil ; but He gave
them the power to choose for themselves. By falling away
from God and choosing evil, they have perverted the pow-
ers which might have brought them blessedness. Evil is
thus the fault of the creature, not of the creator. It is
true that along with this there was a good deal of practical
dualism. The tendency to regard the body as naturally
evil and apart from God, and the ascetic life resulting from
such a conception, gained a firm foothold in the Church,
and became invested with an odor of superior sanctity.
But this feeling did not succeed in getting itself expressed
consistently in the form of dogma. On the contrary, in
the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, the Church
definitely cut loose from the Neo-Platonic conception of
blessedness as a complete emancipation from the bodily
life. By including the body within the scope of salvation,
it admitted this as an essential part of man's nature, and,
therefore, potentially at least, as sacred.

By rejecting dualism, Christianity was left the problem
of reconciling the existence of the phenomenal world with
the absolute nature of God; and here also its attitude is
opposed to that of Neo-Platonism. The combining of a
refusal to regard the world as an independent and eternal
existence opposed to God, with the refusal to make it either
a part of God Himself, or an emanation from His being,
gave rise to the orthodox theory of the creation of the
world out of nothing. In this way the world can be looked
upon as dependent wholly upon God's power, and yet as
not in any sense identical with Him. This latter — pan-
theistic— standpoint the Church consistently frowned
upon, in spite of the fact that the philosophical frame-
work of its theology, in so far as it was taken from the
Greeks, was all the time drawing it in that direction.
But counteracting this logical compulsion, and counter-
acting it for the most part successfully, there was another
factor which the influence of Christianity had much to

190 A Student's History of Philosophy

do in raising to a position of importance — the feeling for
personality.

In early times, as has been said, the individual had been
largely swallowed up in the community life. The tribe or
state, as representing this, had stood before his vision as
supreme, and his own rights and importance as nothing in
comparison with the whole to which he belonged. The
Sophists had broken up this unity, and had set the private
individual over against the state ; but they had made the
separation too violent, and so their work had been only
negative and revolutionary. The same general outcome was
brought about now in connection with the Roman state. The
early Roman, in a peculiarly pronounced way, lived his
whole life with reference to the Republic, and made the
glory of his country the main end of all his labor. But
now that the heroic days of Rome were over, the negative
tendencies of philosophy again had a chance to assert
themselves. The young and vigorous Republic might
seem an end to which it was worth while for a man to
devote his life ; an Empire, luxurious and corrupt, where
the will of a single man was supreme, and that man often
a monster of iniquity and madness, could not continue to
arouse the enthusiasm necessary to give it a place among
rational motives and ideals. Meanwhile the rule of Rome
appeared so inevitable, that any other and worthier national
life to take its place seemed hopeless. The individual man
was thrown back upon himself, and a demand was set up
for a satisfaction which should come home to him singly
and personally.

In the case of the few to whom belonged strength
and the assurance of success, this showed itself in an un-
bridled egoism and self-seeking. But for the mass of men,
for whom the prizes of life were out of reach, some more
definite philosophy was needed. The hopelessness of the
outlook, however, reported itself in the prevalent severity
and rigor of the ideal. In Stoicism, and in the asceticism
of the religious tendencies, there is the same inability to

The Religious Period 191

get any positive and hopeful content into life. Since man
must needs suffer, let him make a virtue of necessity. Let
him cease striving for the happiness which is beyond his
reach, and take what satisfaction he can in his power to do
without. Meanwhile such a conception could not attract to
itself any great enthusiasm, and it was too negative to set in
motion forces that should influence powerfully the life of
mankind at large. The natural desire of men in general
was for a warmer and more comforting ideal ; they were not
ready to abandon the dream of happiness. Vague hopes
began to stir of a deliverer who should come to raise the
burden of the poor, and introduce a new and better era —
hopes which found expression here and there in slave insur-
rections. But still the repressive and ascetic ideal did help
to deepen the feeling of individuality. It called forth the
sense of power and responsibility in the man who thus was
bending all his energies to crushing out his desires and
passions; and in this way it cleared the path for a more
positive meaning to personality.

Such a content to the individual life Christianity brought.
Here, also, there was repression and conflict; but it was no
longer a hopeless conflict, ending with itself. Man crushed
out the old self, only that God might enter and bring a
more abounding life. The feelings no longer were starved ;
they were set free, and stimulated to the utmost. And
with this appeal to his emotional life, the value of man
as such was felt as it had not been before. The concep-
tion of God as a potentate, to be approached only through
rites and ceremonies which were primarily a state matter,
gave place to the thought of Him as a father, in direct
contact with each of His children. And when God could
reveal Himself immediately to the humblest man, when He
loved him, and was seeking for his love in return, and
eager for his salvation, then not simply humanity in the large,
but each individual man, became a thing of infinite worth.
Wherever this conception really came home to men, it
worked an immediate and a vast change in all the ideals

1 92 A Student's History of Philosophy

of society. The artificial barriers of rich and poor, slave
and free, noble and common, became a thing of no impor-
tance. A new respect for human life grew up amid the
almost incredible callousness of the Roman world. Hope
and confidence took the place of despair, or a forced un-
concern ; the goodness of God, and the worth of the
human soul, must in the end lead to happiness.

With the new sense of active life and moral agency
which this involved, the vague pantheism of past philoso-
phies was no longer felt to be satisfactory. Man's life
could no longer be wholly absorbed in the divine life.
Man is a being created in the image of God, who may
even oppose himself to God, as the fact of sin shows. It
is in this personal relationship that the very essence of
his religious life consists, and must always consist. Per-
sonal immortality, which in Greek philosophy had either
been rejected outright or held with much hesitation, be-
comes a fundamental article of the Christian creed. The
same thing, also, determines the doctrine of God. In
order to render possible that intimate relationship which
is the core of the religious life, God also must be conceived,
not as the abstraction of Neo-Platonism, above all definite
conceptions, the conception of personality included, but a
true self, whom men can call Father. All things flow from
Him, not by any fatalistic law of necessity, but in accord-
ance with His intelligent purpose, and by an act of free
creation.

3. The process by which, under the influence of such
dominant ideas, the fluid beliefs of the early Church were
gradually shaped into a highly complex dogmatic system,
belongs to the history of theology ; it is necessary only to
say a word about the last and greatest of the Fathers to
whom this shaping was due. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo,
marks the transition between the constructive period of
Christian thought, and the long period of the Middle Ages,
when dogma had become fixed, and no freedom was allowed
the mind outside the narrow limits of an ecclesiastical sys-

The Religious Period 193

tern. Augustine is not only one of the great thinkers of
the world, but he also has a particularly interesting per-
sonality— a personality of which we know a great deal
through his own Confessions. He was born in Africa, in
354 A.D. His mother was a woman of great strength of
character, and a devoted adherent of Catholic Christianity ;
and it came to be her one aim in life to see her son a Chris-
tian also. For many years this wish did not seem likely
to be fulfilled. Augustine's youth in the corrupt city of
Carthage made him familiar with a life of dissipation ; and
the ambition which his brilliant intellectual gifts justified,
turned him to secular pursuits. He became a rhetorician,
and after leaving Carthage practised for a time in Rome,
and then in Milan. Meanwhile he had discovered an
aptitude for philosophy, and had made himself familiar
to a considerable extent with philosophic thought. At an
early age he was attracted by the Manichaeans, and their
solution of the problem of evil. But from the first he felt
the crudity of their metaphysics, and while it was some
time before he was ready definitely to reject their doc-
trines, his further intellectual development carried him
continually away from them. In Milan he came under the
influence of Ambrose, whose preaching made a profound
impression on him. Finally, after a violent struggle against
the complete self-abnegation which seemed to him to be
demanded by Christianity, he passed through an experi-
ence which led him once for all to abandon his old life.
Thereafter, till his death as Bishop of Hippo in 430, he
devoted his time and abilities wholly to the service of the
Church and Catholic Christianity.

In Augustine we find two strains of thought opposing
each other. As a philosopher — and he was a philosopher
before he was a theologian — he anticipates in a remark-
able way the standpoint of modern thought. The modern
movement, beginning with Descartes, which turns away
from objective knowledge as a starting-point, and comes
back to the self as the clew to the interpretation of reality,

194 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

finds its counterpart, often very exact, in Augustine's writ-
ings. Augustine even goes beyond Descartes by the empha-
sis which he places on the nature of the self as an active will,
in opposition to the intellectualism which had characterized
ancient philosophy. The freedom of the will, accordingly,
assumes a prominent place in his earlier thought.

But in this purely philosophical tendency, Augustine
was too far in advance of his age to have any immediate
effect. What the peculiar needs of the time demanded was
something quite different. It was, therefore, the second
tendency in Augustine which became the dominant and im-
portant one, both in its influence on the Church, and in his
own development. For the present, the need was for author-
ity, and this authority the Church alone was in a position
to exercise. The Roman mind was by nature of the legal
type. It tended to think of God, not as working in a world
akin to him, by coming home to the lives and consciences
of men ; but as a judge and lawgiver, promulgating a defi-
nite constitution and definite enactments, and holding men
rigidly to obedience under pain of punishment.

Such a forensic conception made necessary a definite
mediator between God and man — an institution which
should act as conservator of God's interests on earth. And
this need for a Church possessing a clearly defined body
of doctrine, guaranteed by an external authority, grew all
the time greater, the more the weakness of the Empire
became apparent, and the danger from the inroads of bar-
barians increased. This alone could preserve men from
intellectual anarchy during a period which neither produced
the ability, nor offered the external opportunity, for an
attainment of truth by the individual ; this alone could pre-
sent the objective organization and prestige to stand up
against the social anarchy which was impending. Both of
these things appealed powerfully to Augustine himself.
He also had experienced the impotency of reason, and had
passed from one stage of thought to another, until he had
reached at one time a more or less complete Academic

The Religious Period 195

scepticism. The ideal of a Church which offered an
infallible system of doctrine, based upon authority, and
satisfying his religious needs, attracted him, as it has many
others since. On the other hand, the outer splendor and
impressiveness of the Milan Church also affected a mind
by nature ambitious and eager for a career. Accordingly,
when, as Bishop of Hippo, he himself had reached a posi-
tion of authority, we find Augustine the philosopher be-
come Augustine the theologian, and devoting all the
powers of his mind to the support of the Church whose
authority he was to help establish securely for future ages.
This new standpoint involved more or less collision with
the old. If the Church is to be the absolute mediator
between God and man, the emphasis can no longer rest
on the subjective side, or on the idea of man as a free will.
If God reveals himself directly in the consciousness of the
individual, who has the power freely to assent to the reve-
lation or reject it, the importance of the Church as an organ-
ization is entirely secondary. The doctrine that there is
salvation only within the limits of the Church is a necessity,
if its authority is to be maintained. Augustine is not ready
to deny outright the principle of free will, but he limits its
application in such a way as practically to transform it
into determinism. The first man Adam was, indeed, free ;
he had the power to choose what course he pleased. But
having thus saved his general principle, Augustine can go
on to deny freedom elsewhere. By his apostasy from God,
Adam corrupted human nature, and the race lost its power of
free action. Henceforth man is predetermined to sin, and
cannot possibly escape from its power, save by the super-
natural aid of God's grace. This grace comes only through
the Church, by the rite of baptism. Accordingly the Church
has the key to salvation, and none outside its organization
can hope to escape the condemnation deserved by their guilt.
But if freedom is denied to man, it is asserted all the more
strongly of God, in the doctrine of election. God chooses
to save certain men and damn others, solely because He

196 A Student's History of Philosophy

wills to do so, without reference to any merit on their
part.

In the City of God, Augustine formulates his view of
the Church in the most elaborate philosophy of history
that had ever been attempted. All history is regarded
as a conflict between the earthly city, which belongs to the
children of the world, and the City of God, the Church —
a drama to end in the final victory and felicity of the
saints. Already Rome had been sacked by the Goths, and
its glory was nearing a close. The prophetic vision of a
triumphant theocracy filled Augustine's mind, and like
many another prophecy, it helped to bring about its own
fulfilment. It is the Church which is to be the dominant
factor in the next period of human history.

LITERATURE

Donaldson, Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine.

Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria.

Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought.

Mansel, Gnostic Heresies.

Augustine, Confessions, City of God.

Harnack, History of Dogma.

Hatch, Hibbert Lectures.

Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine.

II. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE TRAN-
SITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY

THE MIDDLE AGES
§ 21. Introduction

NOT long after Augustine's death, the Roman Empire
fell, and we enter upon a new era in the history of the
world and of thought. What is the general character and
significance of this period ?

1. The Greek Element. — Our modern thought is a com-
pound into which three main elements enter. The frame-
work of our thought, the concepts and ideas which we use,
come to us largely from the Greeks. It was the business
of the long development of Greek speculation to frame
these conceptions, on the basis of which every future phi-
losophy was to build. But philosophy is not simply an
exercise of intellectual comprehension. It grows out of
the needs of human life, and can only get its final justifi-
cation as it succeeds in organizing this, and making it
effective. And here the Greeks may be said to have
failed. All the Greek philosophizing could not prevent
the break-up of Greek social and political life ; indeed,
philosophy was one of the elements which hastened this
dissolution. And the Greeks had not the necessary poli-
tical genius to enable them to work out a practical substi-
tute for the forms which were proving inadequate.

2. The Roman Element. — This lack was supplied by
the Roman. However he might be wanting in intellectual
subtilty, the Roman was preeminently fitted to impress
upon the world the value and the reality of government
and law. The principle of authority ran through his life

197

198 A Student's History of Philosophy

— the authority of husband over wife, of father over son,
of master over slave, of state over citizen. And while the
outcome was often harsh and forbidding in appearance,
yet the rule of blood and iron was the only means of
reducing the world to at least a measure of order.

The result of this genius for organization passed over to
later times, even after the Empire itself had fallen. To the
Roman is largely due that external framework of society and
government, without which the spiritual side of civilization
would be impossible. The most important form in which
this inheritance was transmitted, was that combination of
Roman practical efficiency with Greek philosophy, which
resulted in Roman law. The Stoics, it will be remembered,
had reached the conception of a law of nature, binding upon
all men alike ; and of a consequent cosmopolitanism, which
recognized the essential equality of all men as expressions of
the universal reason working throughout the universe. This
conception had important results by being brought into con-
tact with practical legislation. As the power of Rome gradu-
ally extended, there grew up, alongside the civil law, the
so-called jus gentium, which governed her relation to those
who were not citizens. It was the policy of Rome to bring
all her subjects under a common law, but at the same time
to make this broad and tolerant in its provisions, and to leave
local customs as much as possible unchanged. The jus
gentium, accordingly, was made up largely of those ele-
ments common to the laws of different countries, which
were sifted out in the interests of simplicity and uniformity.

In this way there arose, alongside the ordinary Roman
procedure, the idea of a more common and universal law;
and under the influence of Stoic thought, this came to
assume a position of special importance. As opposed to the
particular, and more or less conventional enactments due
to local or temporary conditions, it came to be regarded
as the law of nature, universal, binding upon all by the
original constitution of man's being, and recognized by
him intuitively as such. This conception had a very con-

The Middle Ages 199

siderable influence in rendering possible a more rational
and scientific treatment of legislation. In particular, it
gave the theoretical basis for that codification of the laws
of the Empire, represented in the Justinian and in other
codes, which still remains the legal groundwork of our
modern life.

3. The Christian Element. — The work of the Romans
was thus the work of embodying in actual institutions
the ideas which, for the Greek philosophers, had been
mere theory. While, however, by their political genius
they performed a service of the greatest value for civ-
ilization, in the system of law and government by which
they welded society together, in one essential element
they were lacking. Roman civilization tended too much
to overbear and suppress the individual, and so to fur-
nish no motive power for growth and progress. It was
necessary to have not only the external forms of society,
but a sense of the value of human endeavor which should
make these forms living and significant. Man must be
revealed to himself at his true worth, and be given an
inspiration which should set him to work. This needed
emphasis on the subjective side, on the development of the
personal life of the man himself in its completeness, as
the only security for the stability and growth of the social
whole, Christianity came in to supply. By its appeal to
the feelings, it set free the latent forces of man's nature ;
and by directing these in the channels of a life which at
once looked toward God, and expressed itself in love and ser-
vice to man, it created a wholly new sense of the value of
the individual. It did not isolate and narrow man's life
as if it were something complete in itself, but related it to
the life of all men, through their common relation to God.

It is true that this ideal of Christianity was more or less
unstable. It depended too much upon an appeal to the
emotions, which necessarily lost something of their force
as time went on. There was lacking the definite intellec-
tual grasp, and the concrete institutional forms, to direct

2OO A Students History of Philosophy

the emotional life, and give consistency and permanency
to its workings. Consequently Christianity needed sup-
plementing by the contributions which Greece and Rome
had to offer. It took many centuries for this union to
become a vital one, and often in the meantime the charac-
teristic spirit of Christianity seemed on the point of dying
out. But its influence never was completely lost in the
darkest ages, and under more favorable conditions it was
destined to contribute to modern life and thought some
of their most essential features.

4. The German Element. — There is still a fourth
element which enters into modern life — the Teutonic.
The contribution which it makes, however, is not so
much any new idea, as the human material in which
the Roman, Greek, and Christian contributions were to
be brought together and realized. The problem of the
future was to create a new ideal of human life. This
ideal should take its stand, indeed, upon law and social
institutions; but instead of accepting these on authority,
it should base them upon, and let them grow out of,
the essential nature of man himself, and so combine
stability with the possibility of growth. It should be free
to understand the world ; but instead of making this under-
standing an end in itself, it should relate it to the needs of
man's physical and spiritual life. It should get the pur-
chase of an appeal to the feelings, and through them to
the will ; but it should not allow the feelings to lead us
blindly, apart from definite intellectual guidance, and
definitely organized forms of social activity. Conceivably,
the Roman world might have had within it the power to
make a fresh start, and assume this new task. But his-
torically this is not what happened. The German hordes
which were always pressing the Empire from the north,
had been held in check for a long time, but they became
more and more threatening the more the vigor of the
restraining forces was impaired. At last the exhaustion
of the Empire became too great to hold them back any

The Middle Ages 201

longer. In successive waves they overran the provinces,
and Italy itself. Rome was captured, and the conquerors
set up kingdoms of their own. If civilization was to be
carried on at all, it could only be by the assimilation of
this new material.

Hopeless as the task appeared, in reality the Teutons,
though barbarians, had in them the possibilities of a higher
development than any that had preceded. Their most
striking characteristic was a pronounced sense of individ-
uality and love of freedom ; but along with this there went
a simplicity of character and ruggedness of moral nature,
and a cleanness of life, which furnished admirable soil for
Christianity. Before, however, the Teutons could realize
their destiny, a long period of training was required. A
new individualism must arise out of the absolutism of the
Roman Empire ; but a freedom on the basis of their present
attainments would at once have degenerated into chaos.
It was the great work of the Middle Ages and of the Church
to take this raw material, and mould it into a definite
shape ; to impress upon it, by external authority, the ideas
and institutional forms which could be rescued from the
wreck of the ancient world. It was only when, after cen-
turies of training, these checks and guiding principles had
been worked into men's natures, so as to form an integral
part of themselves, that they could safely begin to find
their way to freedom again. The time came once more
when a criticism of beliefs and institutions was possible
and necessary ; that it did not result, as it had in the case
of Greece, in the overthrow of society, was due, partly to
a difference in racial characteristics, but also to the
thoroughness with which the Middle Ages had done their
work of education. The result was not a violent break
from the past, but a gradual transformation, on the founda-
tion of the essential truth in the old, which still persisted
and guided the process of emancipation.

Briefly, then, we may say that as it'was the peculiar task of
the Middle Ages to effect by external authority the training

2O2 A Student's History of Philosophy

of barbarian Europe, so their philosophical interest lies in
the gradual appearance of those principles of freedom of
thought and action which, in opposition to the principle
of authority, were to characterize modern times. From
this standpoint we may turn to a short account of the main
features of mediaeval philosophy.

§22. The First Period. Scotus Erigena. Anselm. Abelard

i . The Church and the Barbarians. — When Rome fell,
the only institution which could stand effectively for law
and order was the Church. Since this was divorced largely
from political life, it would arouse no special antagonism
on the part of the victors, while its sanctity and external
magnificence would stir feelings of awe in the minds of
barbarians accustomed only to the rudest life. When the
Goths sacked Rome, they still respected the Church, and
offered it the privilege of asylum ; and during the period
which followed, it was the Church which stood as a defence
against anarchy. Stretching as it did throughout the
Empire, with a strong internal organization, it at once set
about the task of conquering the victors. And in a sur-
prisingly short time it accomplished the task. The Ger-
mans, separated from the local associations of their own
religion, showed a readiness to accept the cult of a higher
civilization which displayed so much to impress the senses,
and such skill to adapt itself to the natures with which it
was dealing. The Church begins, accordingly, the victori-
ous career which was to make it, not simply the arbiter of
the intellectual beliefs of the world, but, as a vast hierarchy
centring in the Pope at Rome, a great, and at times the
ultimate exponent of civil authority also, able to enforce
its commands upon kings and emperors.

Meanwhile the intellectual life of antiquity seemed on
the point of being entirely eclipsed. In the centuries fol-
lowing the fall of the Empire, the literature and the culture
of Greece and Rome became almost as if they never had

The Middle Ages 203

been. Outside the Church there was no leisure for such
things, and inside the Church no inclination. All true
wisdom was given in the Church creed — all that was nec-
essary to salvation. Heathen learning and philosophy
were useless, as heathen art was vicious, and if they were
not regarded as positively un-Christian, and deserving to
be rooted up and destroyed, they were at least a matter of
indifference. " A report has reached us," writes Gregory
the Great to the Bishop of Vienne, "which we cannot
mention without a blush, that thou expoundest grammar to
thy friends. Whereat we are so offended and filled with
scorn that our former opinion of thee is turned to mourning.
The same mouth singeth not the praises of Jove and the
praises of Christ." Some slight respect for intellectual cul-
ture still persisted in the monasteries, but it was elementary,
and chiefly ecclesiastical in type. Previous philosophy
survived for the most part only as it filtered through the
writings of the Fathers, who ordinarily were hostile to it.
Of the works of Plato and Aristotle only the merest frac-
tion was known, and this through translation and com-
mentary. It was not till the twelfth century that the great
Greek philosophers began to be accessible at first hand.

2. Scholasticism. — When, accordingly, about 900 A.D.,
a somewhat greater activity shows itself in the life of
thought, these new intellectual interests which form the
beginning of what is known as the scholastic or school
philosophy — the philosophy of the Catholic Church —
take a particular direction. Scholasticism has two main
characteristics. It is, in the first place, a philosophy of
dogmatic religion, assuming a certain subject-matter as
absolute and unquestioned. The Church could not con-
sistently allow the search for truth, since she herself
already possessed the truth by an infallible revelation ;
the limits within which thought could move were neces-
sarily strictly defined. There was no neutral field of
secular knowledge ; in all spheres alike, history and
science as well as matters of religion in the stricter sense,

204 A Student's History of Philosophy

the Church conceived herself to be possessed already of
final truth. But meanwhile a certain work was left for
the intellect which was not obviously dangerous. This
was the work of showing how the doctrinal content, whose
truth was taken for granted on authority, was also self-
consistent and rational. Granting that the dogma was
given as an established fact, it yet might seem a pious
task to show that these doctrines, when given, are accept-
able to the reason, and capable of being justified to it.
There was indeed danger in this, as the Church was later
on to discover — the danger that the rational justification
should become a requirement, and the dogma be measured
by its standard, and derive authority from it. But mean-
while to oppose the tendency would have been to oppose
all intellectual life whatever, and this not even the Church
would have been powerful enough to do successfully.

The most prominent characteristic of Scholasticism, then,
was its function as a systematizer and rationalizer of re-
ligious dogma. But in connection with this there was an
important circumstance which also largely determined its
peculiar character. This was the extraordinary barrenness
and abstractness of the material with which it had to work.
The very considerable sum of concrete knowledge about
the world which antiquity had collected — knowledge of
history and of the natural sciences — had dropped out of
existence for the Middle Ages as useless, or worse than
useless. Instead of being able, therefore, to utilize in
their thinking the fruits of a rich experience and knowl-
edge, the attitude which the Schoolmen were compelled
to assume was almost wholly an abstractly logical attitude.
All they could do was to spin out fine distinctions and
implications from the most general statements about the
world — statements in large measure empty of the real con-
tent that gives them meaning. And while to this task they
often brought a surprising ability and acuteness, the lack
of a worthy subject-matter vitiated all their efforts, and
gave their speculations that air of unreality and triviality

The Middle Ages 205

which strikes the modern mind so forcibly. " Surely,"
says Bacon, " like as many substances in nature which are
solid do putrify and corrupt into worms, so it is the prop-
erty of good and sound knowledge to putrify and dissolve
into a number of subtile, idle, unwholesome, and as I may
term them, vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind
of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter
or goodness of quality. This kind of degenerate learning
did chiefly reign among the schoolmen, who, having sharp
and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small
variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells
of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, as their
persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and col-
leges ; and knowing little history, either of nature or time,
did out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agita-
tion of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learn-
ing which are extant in their books. For the wit and
mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contem-
plation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the
stuff and is limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, as
the spider worketh its web, then it is endless, and brings
forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fine-
ness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit."

3. Erigena. Realism and Nominalism. — The first
period of the scholastic philosophy may be taken as
extending to about the twelfth century, and it is marked
in the beginning by a comparative degree of specula-
tive freedom. After the long night of the intellect, men
rediscovered the delights of reason with a feverish joy.
The most trivial logical questions had the power of rous-
ing an unbounded enthusiasm. And the naive confidence
in the accordance of reason with dogma — a confidence
which could not be shaken until experience had shown
something of where reason was to lead — made possible a
less guarded attitude than afterward could be allowed. It
is true that in the case of the first great philosopher of the
Middle Ages, John Scotus Erigena (about 810-880), the

206 A Student's History of Philosophy

Church was already inclined to be on its guard. Neverthe-
less, we find in not a few instances a frankness and bold-
ness in the expression of entirely rationalistic opinions,
which indicates the absence of anything like the effective
censorship and control of a later period.

In general, the determining influence upon this period
of philosophy was Plato. It was Plato, however, not at
first hand, but through the medium of Neo-Platonism.
Erigena was a native of Ireland, a country in which the
best learning of the day had taken refuge ; his scholarship
was varied and profound for his time, and he possessed
the very unusual accomplishment of a knowledge of Greek.
He was, therefore, fitted to bring about that first infusion
of ancient thought, which was to be repeated on a larger
scale at each new step of advance, down to the times of
the Renaissance. It was his revival of the abstract and
transcendental standpoint of Neo-Platonism, with its graded
hierarchy of existence, which was largely influential in
shaping the course of the great philosophical problem of
the Middle Ages, as opposed to the more purely theologi-
cal problems dealing with the interpretation of dogma.
This is the question as to the reality of universals, or
abstract notions — a question which goes back to Plato him-
self. It divided the thinkers of the Middle Ages into
three great schools — the Realists, the Nominalists, and
those who tried to mediate between the two. The Real-
ists, who are represented by Erigena, take their stand
with Plato, and declare that class terms are real — more
real than the individual things which come under them.
The more general a term is, the more reality it possesses ;
man is more real than particular men, the circle than
particular circles. The Nominalists, on the other hand,
taking up the cause of common sense, denied that the con-
cept, or class, has an existence of its own beyond the
individuals which make up the class ; these individuals
alone are real. For the extreme Nominalists, of whom
Roscellinus is one of the earliest, the concept is absolutely

The Middle Ages 207

nothing but a name, which can be applied to a number of
particular things.

In ringing the changes upon this problem, a great share
of the philosophical energies of the Middle Ages is ex-
pended. So far as the net result is concerned, it is for
us not very large. The problem had been treated by the
Greek philosophers with far more concrete knowledge and
genuine insight. The Scholastics added some logical de-
tail, and an elaborate philosophical terminology which has
not proved altogether a blessing ; but as for bringing out
the real truth of Plato's doctrine, and freeing it from its
inadequate expression, neither Realist nor Nominalist had
the necessary insight. There is a significance, however,
which the controversy possesses, apart from the question
of metaphysics that is directly involved. It represents one
aspect of the fundamental struggle between the dominant
modes of thought of the Middle Ages, and the begin-
nings of the modern scientific and individualistic spirit
which was destined to overthrow the power of the Church
and create a new civilization.

It was natural that the Church should be realistic.
The hierarchical system of reality, which absorbed the
part in the whole, the less general in the more general,
was a counterpart, in the intellectual world, of the graded
hierarchy of the Roman ecclesiastical system, at the top
of which the Pope stood supreme, as the representative of
the Church universal. To admit that the individual alone
is real, and not the class, would have been to deny that
solidarity of the human race, on which the whole Church
doctrine of sin and redemption was based. It would have
been to admit that particular persons and particular
churches have reality, while the one Holy Catholic Church
is a mere name ; and so that the mediation of the Church
is unnecessary in religion.

Again, if Nominalism were true, and particular things
alone were real, then consistently men's attention ought to
be directed to such things, and secular and scientific interests

2o8 A Student's History of Philosophy

must take the place of religious and ecclesiastical. Nomi-
nalism was the natural ally of the scientific spirit, even if
this was not consciously present in the minds of the earlier
Nominalists ; and science is incompatible with an exclusive
and overwhelming interest in personal salvation such as the
Church endeavored to foster, and on the existence of which
its authority rested. When it was worked out, moreover,
Nominalism was bound to conflict with the whole principle
of dogmatism. A dogma is a past generalization which is
divorced from the correcting influence of new facts, and
taken as necessarily and absolutely true in itself. With
such traditional generalizations the Church was identified ;
it stood for authority rather than investigation — the
authority of some one else's experience in the past. To
concentrate attention on the particular facts out of which
generalizations grow, and to maintain the superior validity
of these facts, was to substitute the principle of private
judgment.

In its earlier history, Nominalism was not aware of all its
implications. In taking its stand upon the common-sense
denial that class terms have an objective existence apart from
things, it supposed itself to be entirely orthodox. And,
indeed, it was able to retort the cry of heresy against its rivals.
Without doubt the logical tendency of Realism was in the
direction of Pantheism. If individuals exist only in the class,
and not by themselves, then the highest concept, or God, is
the sole reality, in whom alone all lesser facts — the world
and man — have being. " God is everything that truly is,"
says Erigena ; and again, " This is the end of all things
visible and invisible, when all visible things pass into
intellectual, and the intellectual into God, by a marvellous
and unspeakable union." It is true that he adds, " yet
not by any confusion or distinction of essences or sub-
stances;" but it is a question how far he really can
maintain this. In spite of the danger, however, the
Church remained realistic. The great need of the world
was still for a unifying and ordering force in opposition to

The Middle Ages 209

the disintegrating tendencies which were present in Feudal-
ism. Realism alone supplied a theoretical basis for this,
and Nominalism had, accordingly, to wait for a more favor-
able opportunity.

4. Anselm. — The typical exponent of Realism in the
first period of the Middle Ages is Anselm. Born in Aosta
in 1033, he was attracted to the famous monastery of Bee,
in Normandy, by the name of Lanfranc, whom he after-
ward succeeded as Abbot. Later he was again made Lan-
franc's successor, as Archbishop of Canterbury, under
William the Red ; and in this office, after a career marked
by numerous vicissitudes which his conscientiousness and
uprightness occasioned, he died in 1109. Anselm com-
bines in a remarkable way a genuine piety, and an un-
flinching acceptance of the orthodox creed, with a strong
speculative bent, and a confidence that reason and reve-
lation will lead to the same goal. With Anselm, there
is no question of doubting the doctrines of the Church.
Faith must always precede knowledge. We do not re-
flect in order that we may believe ; we believe in order
that we may know. The unbeliever, who does not first
perceive the truth by faith, can no more arrive at an
understanding of the truth, than the blind man who does
not see the light can understand the light. Our duty,
therefore, is to accept the teachings of the Church in all
sincerity and humility, and strive to comprehend them. If
we succeed, we may thank God ; if we do not, let us simply
end our search, and submit to God's will, instead of deny-
ing the dogma, and allowing our reason to stray outside
the limits which it sets.

Anselm himself, however, is strongly convinced that
the attempt will be successful. In the endeavor to make
the objects of faith intelligible to reason, he examines
acutely the fundamental doctrines of the Church, particu-
larly the doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement, in a
way that deeply influenced subsequent theology. On the
more distinctly philosophical side, his most lasting work

2io A Student's History of Philosophy

was in connection with the proof of the existence of God.
He threw himself into this problem with an intensity of
earnestness which often made him go without food and
sleep. The most characteristic result of his meditations
was the famous ontological argument — an argument which
has appealed to some of the greatest thinkers since An-
selm's day, and which still retains an influence and a fas-
cination. The argument is substantially as follows : We
define God as a being than which nothing greater can be
thought. Now there is in the mind the idea of such a be-
ing. But also such a being must exist outside the mind.
For if it did not, it would fail to be a being than which noth-
ing greater can be thought ; a being with the added at-
tribute of existence is greater than one merely in idea.
Therefore God exists not merely in the mind, but also as a
real existence outside the mind. The obvious criticism on
this argument was seen by a contemporary of Anselm, a
monk named Gaunilo. He points out that it bases itself
solely upon the idea of perfection and the idea of existence,
and does not prove anything whatever about an objective
reality corresponding to these ideas of ours. In essence
this objection is commonly regarded nowadays as well
founded.

5. The Growth of Rationalism. Abe lard and Conceptu-
alism. — The various tendencies which Anselm's personal-
ity had held in equilibrium could not, however, be expected
always to exist together in entire harmony. The rational
and logical spirit, grown by exercise, was bound to show a
disposition to break loose from its connection with theologi-
cal tenets, and to set up on its own account. In place of the
unified intellectual life in which reason acted as the obedient
handmaid of the Church, three somewhat specialized atti-
tudes can be distinguished in the thought of the day. On
the one hand stood the theologians proper, who fell back
upon authority, and aimed simply to set forth the dogmas
as they had been handed down from the Fathers. On the
other hand, the pure interest in dialectical and logical skill

The Middle Ages 211

for its own sake, apart from the services which it ren-
dered to theology, was also beginning to manifest itself.
The results might be trifling, but the tendency involved a
dangerous principle. If reason were given an independent
footing, next in order it would grow bolder, and attempt
to dictate. Meanwhile a third attitude also was assuming
importance. Dissatisfied alike with the cold formalism of
the theologians and with the abstract rationalism of the
philosophers, many of the more religious natures, revert-
ing to a tendency which had come down from the Neo-
Platonists, found refuge in Mysticism. This movement
connects itself in particular with the abbey of St. Victor.
Besides Hugo of St. Victor (1096-1140), and his followers
Richard &Q& Walter, St. Bernard of Clairvaiix (1091-1 153)
may be regarded as its best-known representative, though
from a standpoint less philosophically grounded. By its
cultivation of freedom and spontaneity in the religious life,
Mysticism had a part to play among the influences which
later were to bring the Middle Ages to a close.

For the present, however, the growing rationalistic spirit
was of special significance. This has its most remarkable
representative in the famous Abelard (1079-1142). Abe-
lard was the possessor of a typically French intellect —
keen, clear cut, impatient of all mysticism and obscurity ;
and his striking talents early gave promise of a brilliant
career. He became a pupil of William of Champeaux, in
Paris, but soon came into collision with his teacher, and
defeated him so signally in argument that William's popu-
larity waned, and Abelard was the hero of the day. At
the age of twenty-two he had opened a school of his own
at Melun, and both here, and later on in Paris, was extraor-
dinarily successful as a teacher. William was an extreme
Realist, and in opposition to him Abelard took an inter-
mediate position. Traditionally he is regarded as the
founder of Conceptualism ; and while there is some doubt
about his real teaching, it would seem to have contained
the elements at least of this position. Conceptualism is

212 A Student's History of Philosophy

substantially identical with the commonly accepted opin-
ion about the nature of abstract ideas at the present time.
The class term has no objective existence as such ; it exists
only as a thought, a concept in our minds. But neither is
it a mere breath or word, out of all relation to things them-
selves. The concept exists in the particular things as a
similarity or identity of qualities, through whose abstraction
by a mental act the concept is formed ; and as the expres-
sion of this similarity it is objectively valid. There is even
a sense in which we might say that the concept exists inde-
pendently of the things — as an idea, that is, in the mind
of God. A divine idea, then, a likeness existing among
qualities in objects, and an abstraction of these qualities by
the human mind to form a class term with a universal
meaning — these for Conceptualism are the factors which
enter into the problem of universals.

But the clearness and independence of Abelard's mind
showed itself in other fields also. He brought the same
rationalistic temper to subjects more directly connected
with the dogmas of the Church. With surprising frank-
ness he condemns the credulity which is willing to take
beliefs on trust, without a rational justification. " A doc-
trine is not believed," he declares, "because God has said
it, but because we are convinced by reason that it is so."
Doubt is no sin, as the Church thought; "by doubting
we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the
truth." He confesses to an admiration for the ancient
philosophers, and finds expressed in them the essential
doctrines of religion and morality. The noteworthy at-
tempt is made to establish a theory of ethics independent
of dogmatic sanctions. Christianity itself seems to him
first of all the rehabilitation of the natural moral law, which
was revealed to the Greek sages as well ; that which was
mysterious in Christianity he decidedly inclined to mini-
mize. " Shall we people hell," he says, " with men
whose life and teachings are truly evangelical and apos-
tolic in their perfection, and differ in nothing, or very

The Middle Ages 213

little, from the Christian religion ? " This naturalistic tone
appears in his treatment of the particular dogmas; the
three persons of the Trinity, for example, are resolved into
three attributes of God — power, wisdom, and goodness —
united in a single personality.

§ 23. The Second Period. The Revival of Aristotle.
Thomas Aquinas. Duns Scotus. William of Occam

I. Arabian Philosophy. The Crusades. — Abelard's
views were condemned by the Church ; but this did not
prevent the spread of the rationalistic and independent
spirit which he embodied. For a time it almost looked as
if the Renaissance might be anticipated by several cen-
turies. A large factor in this was the growing influence
of Arabian thought. While Europe had been asleep,
learning had taken refuge among the Mohammedans.
The works of Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle's, were
preserved and studied when they were known to Christian
scholars only in the most fragmentary form. In the
courts, of the Eastern caliphs, and in the kingdom of the
Moors in Spain, there came about a brief period of culture
in which a considerable scientific activity went along with
a vigorous, though not very original, philosophical revival.
The most important name among the Arabian commenta-
tors and philosophers who influenced the later Scholasti-
cism, is that of Averroes (i 126-1 198).

The reception of this influence was made easier by a
change which was beginning to come over the whole spirit
of the age, and which was furthered in particular by the
Crusades. These great religious wars had turned out
quite otherwise than their promoters had anticipated.
The religious results, from the standpoint of Catholicism,
were almost nothing, while of consequences entirely op-
posed to the Church's desires there were a great number.
The men of Europe had their dormant wits violently and
effectually shaken by contact with other peoples, and by

214 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

the novel experiences which their wanderings brought
them. Christendom found to its surprise that those whom
it had been accustomed to look upon with contempt as
heretics, were in reality a brave and warlike people, with
many virtues of their own, and a civilization in some
respects superior to that of Europe. Contact with them
inevitably rubbed off to some extent the provincialism, and
the unreasoning horror of ideas at all dissimilar to their
own, on which the hold of the Church largely depended ;
and the feeling of respect which the field of battle engen-
dered facilitated an exchange of ideas. So also two other
tendencies, which were to weaken the power of the Church,
received a decided stimulus from the Crusades. The emu-
lation and rivalry resulting from a coming together of men
from every country in Europe, brought to the surface a
new sense of national spirit, which was opposed to the
pretensions of the Church. Furthermore, commercial ac-
tivity was given an immense impetus, owing to the neces-
sity of transp6rting the large armies of the Crusaders, and
furnishing the supplies required, as well as to the closer
communication brought about between the East and the
West, and the revelation of new luxuries and new wants.
Both of these things tended to give an emphasis to the
new secular spirit as opposed to the religious.

Many of the conditions, accordingly, seemed to be
favorable to a breaking away from the authority of the
Church. And, indeed, on a small scale, many of the features
of the Renaissance were anticipated. The widespread in-
terest in learning is shown in the rise of the great Uni-
versities, while in the court of Frederick the Second,
especially, a new culture was introduced which was as
thoroughly pagan as that which characterized the Italian
cities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To Frederick
all religion was alike untrue ; Mohammed and Christ alike
impostors. But the movement was premature. It had no
sufficient knowledge to back it, and the hold of the Church
was still too great to be broken. The new forces were

The Middle Ages 215

turned safely into ecclesiastical channels, and spent them-
selves in infusing fresh life into Scholasticism, rather than
in breaking away from it. The Church philosophy got
possession of the Universities, where it remained in-
trenched even after a different spirit had come over the
outer world ; and the awakening was postponed for several
centuries.

I. The Revival of Aristotle. Aquinas. — In turning
the new tendencies to her own account, the Church
showed her usual astuteness. The chief incentive to the
threatened revolution in the intellectual world was due
to the opening for the first time to Europe of a knowl-
edge of the real Aristotle, and the coming of its scholars
into contact with a mind of the first order, whose think-
ing was not specifically theological. It is the influence
of Aristotle which is the dominant factor in the whole of
the following period. At first the Church had been alarmed
at the evident dangers involved in the situation, and it had
tried to avert them by condemning Aristotle. But as the
Greek text came to be known, and the rationalistic and
pantheistic tinge which Aristotle had taken from his Ara-
bian commentators was found not to be necessary to his
interpretation, the attitude of the Church was altered.
She began to realize that she had in Aristotle a possible
instrument for her own ends. And so effectively did she
use this, that when, later on, the emancipation of the intel-
lect was brought about, Aristotle, instead of being, as he
now promised to be, the agent of that emancipation, was
the one chiefest obstacle against which the new spirit had
to make war. By setting up the dictatorship of Aristotle,
the Church had set bounds to the intellect more effectually
than she had ever been able to do by means of dogma.
There had been no recognized authority in the realm of
pure reason in the earlier Middle Ages, and accordingly,
within the limits of certain dogmatic results, the reason
had had free play. By establishing now the supreme
authority of Aristotle in every sphere to which reasoning

216 A Student's History of Philosophy

applies — the natural world as well as the metaphysical,
— and by interpreting Aristotle in her own way, a tool was
at hand for holding the reason in check, without at the
same time denying it its rights. Aristotle was himself
identical with reason, not to be denied or questioned.
Even in matters of science the question was, not what does
nature reveal, but what does Aristotle say ; and when sci-
ence began to emerge, the authority of the philosopher was
actively used to check its growth. " My son," so, accord-
ing to an anecdote, was the reply made to one who thought
he had discovered spots in the sun, " I have read Aristotle
many times, and I assure you that there is nothing of the
kind mentioned by him. Be certain therefore that the
spots which you have seen are in your eyes, and not in the
sun." In the formulation of Scholasticism in Aristotelian
terms by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor (1225-
1274), the most comprehensive task of mediaeval thought
was performed, and Catholic philosophy was determined
definitely for the future.

In Aquinas, the formula was at last attained which was
to be accepted by the Church as the final statement of the
relation that exists between philosophy and revelation, be-
tween reason and faith. The naYve confidence in the abil-
ity of reason to justify the full content of religious belief
had not been supported by experience. It came to be rec-
ognized that there are heights to which reason cannot pos-
sibly reach. The higher truths of revelation belong to a
sphere where it is incompetent to decide; they are mys-
teries, to be accepted only on the ground of faith in authority.
But while the fields of reason and of faith are thus not co-
extensive, and while therefore philosophy cannot hope to
make theology fully intelligible to the limited powers of
the human mind, there need not for all that be any actual
contradiction between the two. So far as it goes, reason
is harmonious with faith ; but there comes a point where it
no longer is able to pass judgment, and here faith steps in
as a more ultimate principle, which stands to the natural

The Middle Ages 217

powers of the mind as their final consummation. This
relationship is typical of the central thought of Aquinas'
whole system of philosophy. By means of the Aristotelian
concepts of matter and form, all existence is arranged in a
hierarchical system, in which the lower is subordinated to
the higher — body to soul, matter to spirit, philosophy to
theology, the secular power to the ecclesiastical — with a
thoroughness and acuteness which left a lasting impression.

3. Religion and Reason. The Revival of Nominalism.
— In the system of Aquinas, the scholastic philosophy
reached its height. From this time on the interest centres
in the emergence of those tendencies which finally were to
undermine it, and introduce the modern period. Without
dwelling upon individual thinkers, it will be sufficient here
to point out the more important factors in this evolution.

The distinction which had now been clearly drawn
between natural and revealed religion, reason and theol-
ogy, was not of a nature to stop within the limits to
which Aquinas had tried to confine it. The notion of
revelation as being above reason, furnished a basis for a
separation between the two realms which grew continually
more pronounced. In accordance with this distinction,
religion comes to be taken as having a special organ — faith,
or feeling — with regard to which reason has nothing to say.
In one form or other this has been a widely influential
attitude down to the present day. To the man of religious
nature who longs to be undisturbed in his cherished beliefs,
and who chafes at the violence which often seems to be done
alike to these, and to his reason, by the attempt to bring the
two together, it often seems a welcome relief to give up
the whole endeavor to harmonize his knowledge with his
faith, and be able to deny to reason the right to interfere
in the separate province of religion. At the same time he
gains for reason a free play in its own proper field, un-
checked by the irritating feeling that it must continually
be squared with some preconceived result. To-day, for
example, it is common to find men securing for themselves

218 A Student's History of Philosophy

the right to follow the leadings of science, and still to re-
tain the religious beliefs upon which science seems to cast
doubt, by adopting the principle of a division of labor, ac-
cording to which reason is to be allowed its validity, but
only in a lower and phenomenal sphere. Even if it comes
to an apparent contradiction, therefore, between scientific
and religious truth, that contradiction means nothing.

The intent of this is to save religion, but it is easy to
see that the same attitude may just as well be adopted
from a different motive. Especially in an age when reli-
gious authority is strong, and requires evasion if thought
is to have free scope, it may be seized upon as a pretext
by men who have no concern for religion, and only want
a chance to rationalize the universe. If revelation and
reason are distinct, there can be no harm in pushing the
conclusions of reason to any result, however extreme,
since religion is not prejudiced thereby. This attitude
found expression in the famous doctrine of the " twofold
truth" — the doctrine, namely, that a thing might be true
according to reason which was not true theologically, and
•vice versa. In the case of many who practically adopted
this point of view, there was no intention of undermining
the authority of religion or the Church. Nevertheless, the
tendency was due at bottom to a demand for the emanci-
pation of the reason from Church trammels, and this as
a matter of fact must destroy her authority. The conten-
tion of Aquinas, that certain doctrines are above the dis-
covery of the unassisted reason, was gradually widened.
The doctrines which natural theology, or rational thought,
could attain to and defend successfully, decreased in num-
ber, until, in William of Occam, even the arguments for the
existence of God were held to be insufficient.

Philosophy, then, is no longer in any positive way a
minister to theology, as it had started out by being. It has
become a mere critical inquiry into the nature of reason,
which ends in discrediting the capacity of knowledge for
reaching ultimate truth, or for dealing with anything except

The Middle Ages 219

the phenomenal world. This is, in one aspect, the meaning
of a controversy which forms one of the central points about
which the thought of the later Middle Ages turns — the
question as to the primacy of the intellect or of the will.
The Thomists, or followers of Aquinas, maintained the
ancient doctrine that intellect is original and supreme, and
that God's will is determined by His knowledge. Their
opponents, who are represented by the Franciscans, Duns
Scotus and William of Occam (Thomas was a Dominican,
and a rivalry between the two orders intensified the philo-
sophical rivalry), maintained, on the contrary, that if God's
will is limited by an eternal truth, then there is something
above God which determines him. Accordingly, God must
be conceived as an absolutely free will; and therefore
truth and falsehood, right and wrong, are nothing in them-
selves, but are established by God's arbitrary act. On the
practical side, this means that religion is no longer identi-
fied with a reasoned statement of truth, but is a disposition
of will, a moral life, which obeys the law of duty imposed
upon it by authority. If truth rests upon the inscruta-
ble will of God, it must of necessity be unknowable by the
natural reason.

The only sphere which is left to reason is, accordingly,
the lower, natural world, which does not come in contact
with the realm of ultimate reality. But when it has thus
been forced to become purely naturalistic in tone, it is
ready for a further step. Men cannot continue indefinitely
to hold to truth which not only has no rational ground,
but is contradicted by all we mean by reason. That which
has reason on its side cannot fail in the long run to get an
advantage; the subjects with which it deals are going to
gain constantly in interest, and in consequent reality for us.
And if it has been admitted that reason leaves us in pos-
session only of the natural world, from which all super-
sensible realities are excluded, then inevitably the conclusion
will be drawn that this world is the only true one, and that
the supersensible realities do not exist. Attention will be

220 A Student's History of Philosophy

directed toward these verifiable and rational facts, which,
as a result, will be emphasized at the expense of the others.
The supersensible world may still be handed over to
theology to do with as it pleases, and there may be no
open break so long as theology confines itself to faith
or feeling, and does not attempt to compete with scientific
explanations. This, for instance, is Bacon's attitude later
on. But to all intents and purposes theology has been
dispossessed of all real rights. The tendency, therefore,
of the doctrine of twofold truth was to confine philosophy
to the physical world, and so to prepare the ground for
scientific inquiry, as the highest truth about the world
which we are capable of knowing.

The same tendency shows itself in the revival of Nomi-
nalism. The older Nominalism had failed, because the
age was still in need of the unifying authority of the
Church, and Realism had been the philosophical justifi-
cation of this. authority. Aquinas was a Realist, although
somewhat influenced by the mediating tendencies repre-
sented in such men as Abelard ; and so also was Duns
Scotus. In Scotus, however, the movement is already
toward Nominalism, which finally triumphs in William of
Occam. Individual things are the only realities ; concepts
have no existence extra mentem. Interpreted, this means
that the period of authority is past, and that the period of
individualism is at hand, which is to lay the foundations
for modern progress. Nominalism, by its insistence upon
the reality of particular things, justified the growing scien-
tific spirit in its attention to facts rather than to a priori
dogmas. It justified the revolt of individuals against the
ready-made generalizations of the past, and of nations
against the absolutism of the Catholic Church. It was
no longer, therefore, opposed to the needs of the age,
but was in line with a very essential aspect of what was
soon to become a dominant tendency.

4. The Beginnings of Science. — By itself, however, the
mere philosophical development within Scholasticism would

The Middle Ages 221

have had no great result. It needed to be reenforced
by the concrete growth of knowledge about the world,
before it could affect in any very thoroughgoing way
the life of the times. During the Middle Ages them-
selves this was rendered impossible in any consider-
able degree. An interest in science had been aroused
through contact with the Mohammedans, and acquaint-
ance with the works of Aristotle. But it was not en-
couraged either by the Church or by public opinion.
The Church felt more or less clearly that the growth of
knowledge was a menace to its own position, while to
the popular mind, a too close familiarity with the works of
nature was supposed to argue an unholy connection with
the powers of evil. Even the office of Pope did not pre-
vent the possessor of unusual scientific knowledge from
being looked upon with suspicion, while a less influential
man, like the monk Roger Bacon (1214-1294), was com-
pelled to pay the full penalty for being in advance of his
age. Bacon saw the problems of science with remarkable
clearness, and his Opus Majus is a monument of industry
and insight. But as a result he only gained the popular
name of being a wizard and magician, while by the Church
his work was condemned, and he himself confined for many
years as a prisoner in his cell. In spite of everything,
however, the scientific spirit persisted, and grew in strength ;
and when at last the conditions were ripe, it suddenly at-
tained a development which has been the means of deter-
mining the whole course of modern thought.

LITERATURE

Poole, Illustrations of Thought in the Middle Ages.

Adams, Civilization in the Middle Ages.

Duruy, History of the Middle Ages.

Emerton, Medieval Europe.

Townsend, The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages.

West, Alcuin.

222 A Student's History of Philosophy

Church, St. Anselm.
Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux.
Compayrd, Abelard.

Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities.
Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics.

Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2 vols.
Deane, Translation of Anselm's Proslogium, Monologium, Cur Deus
Homo.

TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY

§ 24. The Renaissance. Bruno

I. The Renaissance and the Reformation. — The neces-
sary conditions for the introduction of the modern period
were brought about by the great movement which, from
its various aspects, is called the Renaissance, or the Re-
vival of Learning, or the Reformation. It has already
been seen that this was no sudden appearance, but that
the influences bringing it about had been at work at
least as early as the Crusades. From that time on soci-
ety was gradually becoming transformed, away from the
ecclesiastical, and toward the secular ideal. The rapid
growth of commerce and industry necessarily gave an
emphasis to secular interests. The new social class which
consequently rose to importance alongside the nobles and
clergy, tended to ally itself with the king in his struggles
with the feudal lords, since only through a strong cen-
tral authority could trade and industry be protected; and
this joined with other influences in building up a new
national spirit. Presently nations began to attempt, with
growing success, to break away from ecclesiastical control,
and to separate the civil power from the spiritual. Here,
again, the Nominalism of the later Scholastics threw in its
lot with the new tendency, and we find Occam openly
on the side of national authority, in its conflicts with the
Pope.

It was in Italy that the Renaissance first became an
accomplished fact. Here the greater commercial activity,
and the intense rivalry between the different cities, had
early given rise to a pronounced and aggressive individual-

223

224 A Student's History of Philosophy

ism, and a sharpening of the wits without much reference
to moral scruples. As early as the fourteenth century the
main features of the Renaissance — its interest in life,
and its keener appreciation of the past, and the literature
of the past — appear in Petrarch and Boccaccio. But it
is from the year 1453 that the Renaissance is commonly
dated. In that year Constantinople, the capital of the
Eastern Empire, which had continued, up to this time, to
maintain an ignoble existence, was taken by the Turks.
Many of the Greek scholars, driven from their country,
took refuge in Italy. Here they found the soil prepared
for them, and the result was immediate and revolutionary.
The revelation of the real spirit of classical antiquity, to
men beginning to feel the possession of new powers of life
and capacities of appreciation, and heartily sick of the dry
and tasteless theological nourishment with which they had
had to satisfy themselves for centuries, completely over-
turned all their old ideas. The shackles of the Church fell
from their minds, and they turned back to the past with a
passionate delight. A civilization sprang up which, as op-
posed to the religious civilization of the Middle Ages, was
thoroughly pagan in its spirit — pagan not only in its love
of beauty and literature, and its delight in living, but also —
as a reaction against the asceticism of the Church — in its
vices, and its frank sensualism and egoism. The whole
scale of values was shifted. Men cared more for an old
manuscript of the poets than for the prophets and apos-
tles ; for a Greek vase or statue, than for temperance and
holy living. A new zest for all that was human and beauti-
ful found expression in a great period of artistic creation.
Even the court of St. Peter's was paganized, and we have
the spectacle of a series of Popes, sunk in vices, indeed,
which have made their names synonyms of infamy, but
still accomplished scholars, artistic dilettantes, and patrons
of art and learning. In philosophy, nearly every system
of ancient times was revived. Plato, the artist among
philosophers, attracted a large following, and a Platonic

Transition to Modern Philosophy 225

Academy was founded in Florence. In opposition to him,
other scholars set up Aristotle, interpreted not as he had
been by the Church, but freely and naturalistically. So also
Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, Epicurean-
ism, and Scepticism, and even some of the earlier Greek
schools, found adherents. And in all there was the same
eagerness to throw off ecclesiastical restraints, in the inter-
ests of a real intellectual activity.

Beyond Italy, the Renaissance took on a somewhat
different form. In Germany, where it had to do with a
type of mind naturally profounder and more religious, and
where, moreover, the religious life had already been deep-
ened by the mysticism of Eckhart, and Tauler, and the
Brethren of the Common Life, its most characteristic
result was the Reformation of Luther. Even its Human-
ism, as typified in Erasmus and Melancthon, had more or
less strong religious sympathies. But the Reformation was
still in principle the same revolt against authority. By
its doctrine of justification by faith, apart from any exter-
nal mediation, and its appeal to immediate Christian ex-
perience, it stood directly for individual freedom, as opposed
to the pretensions of the Church.

With whatever differences of form, however, the change in
the attitude toward life was a permanent one. The human
spirit, once freed from the restrictions which ecclesiasti-
cism had put upon it, could never return again to the same
bondage. By the impulse which had thus been given, the
whole aspect of the world had been changed. National
life and secular pursuits had received a strength which made
it impossible that the Church should ever usurp again in
any universal way its old power. And along with these,
there followed other changes, which in a short space still
further revolutionized existing conditions. The voyages of
Columbus and Vasco da Gama, Balboa and Magellan, result-
ing, among other things, in the discovery of America and of
the road to the Indies, opened up vast possibilities which had
not been dreamed of before. They changed the map of the

226 A Student's History of Philosophy

world, and furnished a powerful spur to the imaginative and
creative spirit — witness the Elizabethan age. In quick suc-
cession came also a series of inventions of world-wide signifi-
cance. The discovery of gunpowder revolutionized the art
of war, and put the common soldier and the noble on an equal
footing ; printing first made possible a generally diffused
knowledge and culture ; while the telescope laid open the
structure of the heavens, and the compass enlarged the
boundaries of the earth.

And, finally, there came forward, to realize the new possi-
bilities in the way of knowledge, a brilliant group of scientists
of the first magnitude — Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo,
Kepler, and others — whose investigations gave a firm
foundation to those scientific methods and conceptions which
were destined to enter so vitally into all future thought. In
particular Copernicus, by shifting the centre of the universe
from our earth, and making this but a point in a vast system,
created a profound impression on men's imaginations, and
perhaps more than any other one influence helped to cut
the ground from beneath the narrow and earth-centred
theological view of life, which hitherto had dominated
men's minds. " The earth moves " became the recognized
formula of advance. God could no longer be conceived
as having His local habitation in the heavens ; the whole
geography of the spiritual world was thrown into con-
fusion, and the way opened for a deeper conception of
God's relation to the universe. The results of all this appear
in the emergence of a wholly new way of looking at the
world — the way of the modern man. Nothing could be
more modern in tone, for example, than the essays of
Montaigne. In their cool common sense, their cautious
scepticism — the assertion of the right of a man to think
and judge for himself, — their clear condemnation of super-
stition and religious fanaticism, and their wide spirit of
toleration, they represent the complete divergence of
cultivated thought from ecclesiastical influence, and the
secularization of human life and interests.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 227

2. Bruno. — Turning now to the way in which this enor-
mous change is mirrored in philosophical theory, we may
pass over the transition period with just a word. At first, as
has been said, men had been compelled to go back to the
remoter past to get that concrete content to life, the lack
of which repelled them in the Middle Ages, but which they
were not yet ready to supply from their own resources.
But soon the mere renewal of ancient systems gave place
to more original attempts to satisfy the needs of the time,
though these are still so closely bound by the influences they
are trying to escape, that their results are necessarily un-
clear, and suggestive rather than final. Starting at first
within the general limits of Scholasticism, these attempts
soon passed, in Giordano Bruno, into a bitter hostility to
the Church and the Church theology. Bruno's philosophy
is, in many ways, the most characteristic product of the
Renaissance period. He himself was a Dominican monk,
born near Naples in 1548. His fiery spirit and poetic
temperament soon turned him, however, from sympathy
with dogmatic and ascetic Catholicism. Persecuted in
consequence by the Church, he passed a varied and un-
happy life, wandering from country to country — Switzer-
land, Germany, England, France, — but nowhere finding
peace. At last he fell into the clutches of the Inquisition,
and was burnt at the stake in Rome (1600).

In Bruno there are all the elements which go to make the
Renaissance period so attractive. There is the ardent
enthusiasm for nature and beauty ; the revolt from asceti-
cism and Scholasticism alike ; the consciousness of a new
and vaster universe suddenly laid open to man, and the
confidence that it can be grasped as a whole, without the
long process of careful investigation whose necessity time
was to show ; and, finally, along with this, the inevitable
ferment and unclearness of new ideas imperfectly appre-
hended. In his zeal for life Bruno goes back to the an-
cient Hylozoism. All nature is alive. A world soul
permeates everything. The universe is a great organism,

228 A Student's History of Philosophy

whose dwelling-place is the infinite reaches of space. To
this emotional realization of the infiniteness and divineness
of the natural world, which sweeps away the restrictive
barriers of theology, his eyes had been opened first by the
Copernican theory. " By this knowledge we are loosened
from the chains of a most narrow dungeon, and set at lib-
erty to rove in a most august empire ; we are removed from
presumptuous boundaries and poverty to the innumerable
riches of an infinite space, of so worthy a field, and of such
beautiful worlds." Nothing now is limited and restricted,
and nothing is dead matter. As he looks forth on the
world, man comes in contact everywhere with a power
akin to him, which is nearer to him than he to himself,
and yet which pulsates through the remotest regions of the
heavens, and informs all things. " It is not reasonable to
believe that any part of the world is without a soul life,
sensation, and organic structure. From this infinite All,
full of beauty and splendor, from the vast worlds which
circle above us, to the sparkling dust of stars beyond, the
conclusion is drawn that there are an infinity of creatures,
a vast multitude, which, each in its degree, mirrors forth
the splendor, wisdom, and excellence of the divine beauty."
The stars have intellectual and sense life, — "those sons
of God who shouted for joy at the creation, the flaming
heralds his ministers, and the ambassadors of his glory, a
living mirror of the infinite Deity."

Accordingly we must rid ourselves of the paltry thought
that it is for us that all things are created. " Only one
bereft of his reason could believe that those infinite spaces,
tenanted by vast and magnificent bodies, are designed
only to give us light, or to receive the clear shining of the
earth." " If in the eyes of God there is but one starry
globe, if the sun and moon and all creation are made for
the good of the earth and for the welfare of man, humanity
may be exalted, but is not the Godhead abased ? Is
this not to straiten and confine His providence? What! is
a feeble human creature the only object worthy of the care

Transition to Modern Philosophy 229

of God? No, the earth is but a planet, the rank she
holds among the stars is but by usurpation ; it is time to
dethrone her. The ruler of our earth is not man, but the
sun, with the life which breathes in common through the
universe. Let the earth eschew privilege ; let her fulfil
her course, and obey. Let not this contemplation dispirit
man, as if he thought himself abandoned by God ; for in
extending and enlarging the universe, he is himself ele-
vated beyond measure, and his intelligence is no longer
deprived of breathing space beneath a sky meagre, narrow,
and ill-contrived in its proportions. And better still, if
God is everywhere present in the whole of the world, fill-
ing it with his infinity and with his immeasurable great-
ness, if there is in reality an innumerable host of suns and
stars, what of the foolish distinction between the heaven
and the earth? Dwellers in a star, are we not compre-
hended within the celestial plains, and established within
the very precincts of heaven ? " And so the distinction
between the divine, and the secular, or earthly, disappears
before a wider knowledge. "This is that philosophy
which opens the senses, which satisfies the mind, which
enlarges the understanding, and which leads man to the
only true beatitude; for it frees him from the solicitous
pursuit of pleasure, and from the anxious apprehensions
of pain, seeing that everything is subject to a most good
and efficient cause." 1

In this conception of the universe it will be noticed
that there are two sides, both of which Bruno wishes to
emphasize. On the one hand, he insists upon the unity of
the whole. Reality is an eternal spirit, one and indivisi-
ble, and as such alone possesses truth. All things that
appear are but images of this ultimate reality. "The
heavens are a picture, a book, a mirror, wherein man can
behold and read the form and the laws of supreme good-
ness, the plan and total of perfection." " From this spirit,

1 Taken from Frith, Life of Bruno, pp. 42-46. (Paul, Trench, Trttb-
ner & Co.)

230 A Student's History of Philosophy

which is One, all being flows ; there is one truth and one
goodness penetrating and governing all things. In nature
are the thoughts of God. They are made manifest in
figures and vestiges to the eye of sense ; they are repro-
duced in our thoughts, where alone we can arrive at con-
sciousness of true being. We are surrounded by eternity
and by the uniting of love. There is but one centre from
which all species issue, as rays from a sun, and to which
all species return. There is but one celestial expanse,
where the stars choir forth unbroken harmony. From this
spirit, which is called the Life of the Universe, proceeds
the life and soul of everything which has soul and life, the
which life, however, I understand to be immortal, as well
in bodies as in their souls, there being no other death
than division and congregation." * All differences seem at
times to disappear in this eternal whole ; and by reason of
the emphasis which he puts upon it, Bruno may be said to
anticipate the, pantheism of Spinoza. But his thought has
also the other side, which tends away from the mere ab-
stract form of unity. God is the whole, but a whole which
is present in its completeness in each single part. He is
in the blade of grass, in the grain of sand, in the atom that
floats in the sunbeam, as well as in the boundless All.
Each man is a point in which the fulness of the Godhead
is reflected ; it represents the whole ; it is the microcosm
which in miniature reproduces the great macrocosm of the
universe. With Bruno " man is a mirror within a mirror,
and his perception of things is a reflection of nature, which
is the reflection of the thought of God."

3. Paracelsus. — Evidently, then, the return to nature
lends itself, in this its early form, rather to a poetical glori-
fication of the world, an imaginative interpretation which
reaches its goal by a subjective leap, rather than to the
sober attention to details which was needed before science
could be established. For a time, the revival of the essen-
tially true ideal of control over nature as a main end of hu-

1 ibid., p. 278.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 231

man knowledge, showed itself in the form of an interest in
magic, astrology, alchemy, a search for the philosopher's
stone. The control was to come about, not by patient
industry, but by the possession of some secret wisdom,
some all-compelling formula or word, which should force
the powers of the spiritual world to do man's bidding.
Paracelsus is the type of a host of men who sprang up all
over Europe — men of enthusiasm for nature, and to some
extent of original and high ideals, but men whose un-
disciplined imaginations led them beyond the bounds of
sober thinking. In the immense activity which resulted,
some valuable knowledge about the world was, it is true,
attained. In alchemy, in particular, the search for that
which should turn everything to gold was the means of
giving a start to the science of chemistry. It was neces-
sary, however, not only that the barren logomachies of
Scholasticism, but also that these more attractive, but
almost equally unfruitful methods of magic and theosophy,
should be definitely rejected, and the foundations laid for
an entirely different view of the world, before progress
could be secure.

LITERATURE

Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance.

Montaigne, Essays.

Cellini, Autobiography.

Owen, The Sceptics of the Italian Renaissance.

Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics.

Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, 7 vols.

Frith, Life of Bruno.

§ 25. Bacon

I. The Defects of the Existing Philosophy. — The man
who came forward to attempt this task was Francis Bacon
(1561-1626). The way in which philosophy now begins
to pass out from the hands of ecclesiastics and School-
men is itself significant of the change that has taken
place. In the Middle Ages, all the philosophers were con-

232 A Student's History of Philosophy

nected with the Church ; even Bruno was a Dominican
monk. But Bacon is a lawyer and statesman, Hobbes a
private tutor, Descartes a soldier, Spinoza a grinder of
lenses. Bacon's personal character is not one that we can
view with unmixed satisfaction. Pope's phrase — "the
wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind" — is no doubt ex-
aggerated for the sake of antithesis. Nevertheless there
is, in Bacon's checkered career — a career ending in his
disgrace, and removal from the Lord Chancellorship —
too much truckling to those in power, too elastic a con-
science, and too obvious a lack of any delicate sense of
personal honor and dignity, to be altogether attractive.
Nor, indeed, as a thinker, is Bacon deserving of the ex-
cessive admiration which has sometimes been bestowed
upon him. On the more ultimate questions of philosophy
he has little to say ; and even on the side of science and
the world of nature, his work is not in any sense final. He
continually prgmises more than he is able to perform. It was
other men who were actually doing the things whose neces-
sity Bacon was pointing out, and Bacon was not always able
to recognize the value of their work. He never accepted
the Copernican theory ; and the valuable investigations of
Gilbert, an Englishman, in connection with the properties of
the magnet, he was inclined to depreciate, on the ground
that they covered only a limited field. Nor, again, is the
method which it was his main purpose to elaborate, accepted
nowadays as an adequate account of scientific procedure.

But in spite of these defects, the work which Bacon accom-
plished was a highly important one. What the times needed
was not simply men to carry out practically the new methods
of science in a detailed investigation of the world, but also
some one with the breadth of vision to realize clearly, and
in a large way, what these methods meant, to emphasize
their relation to previous methods, and to set them in con-
nection with some worthy end in terms of human life as a
whole. For this task Bacon was admirably equipped. The
catholicity and universality of his scientific interests, which

Transition to Modern Philosophy 233

might have hindered him in the actual investigation of
scientific detail, enabled him here to keep in view and call
attention to the larger and more important aspects. His
reputation as a statesman lent to his words a special
weight ; while the gifts of a great writer, helped out by a
wide learning, gave his exposition an impressiveness and
attractiveness which much increased its influence.

Bacon starts out with the recognition that philosophy
has broken down, and is in general disrepute. What now
is the reason for this, when other things are prospering ?
Take the mechanical arts — " they grow and perfect them-
selves daily as if enjoying a certain vital air, while philos-
ophy, like a statue, is adorned and celebrated, but moves
not. The former also are seen rude and commonly with-
out proportion and cumbrous in the hands of their first
authors, but afterward get new strength and aptness ; the
latter is in its greatest vigor with its first author, and after-
ward declines." This is a feeling about philosophy which
frequently finds expression, but in Bacon's time it had a
special justification. " The fable of Scylla is a lively image
of the present state of letters, with the countenance and
expression of a virgin above, the end in a multitude of bark-
ing questions, fruitful of controversy, and barren of effect."1

Now this unfortunate state of affairs has three main
roots, three " distempers of learning " : the first fantastical
learning, the second contentious learning, and the last deli-
cate learning. By delicate learning, Bacon means the dilet-
tante spirit which the Renaissance had made fashionable.
Here words usurp the place of substance; matters of
style and polished phrases are substituted for real weight
of meaning. " Of this vanity Pygmalion's frenzy is a good
emblem ; for words are but the images of matter, and ex-
cept they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love
with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture." The
second distemper is that which the Schoolmen exemplify,
and the image of Scylla will stand for it. The first, or

1 Great Instauration, Preface.

234 A Student's History of Philosophy

fantastical learning, which manifests itself alike in impos-
ture and credulity, is the spirit which makes men run after
old wives' tales, wonders, and ghosts, and miracles ; or, in
a pseudo-scientific form, gains credence for the fancies of
alchemy and natural magic.

From these three roots grow the numerous errors which
infect philosophy, and of these Bacon names a long list.
There is the extreme affecting, either of antiquity, or novelty,
" whence it seemeth the children of time do take after the
nature and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his
children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the
others ; while antiquity envieth there should be new addi-
tions, novelty cannot be content to add, but it must deface.
Antiquity deserveth that reverence that men should make a
stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but
when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression.
And to speak truly, those times are the ancient times when
the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient
by a computation backward from ourselves. " Another error,
depending on this, is a "distrust that anything should be now
to be found out which the world should have missed and
passed over so long time;" and again, the " conceit that of
former opinions the best hath still prevailed and suppressed
the rest, so that the result of new search will be nothing
save to light upon exploded errors. The truth is, that time
seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which
carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and
sinketh and drowndeth that which is weighty and solid."
So, again, we may mention the premature formulation of
knowledge which checks its growth ; an extreme speciali-
zation ; too much confidence in man's own wit and under-
standing, apart from the contemplation of nature; an
impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion without due
and mature suspension of judgment; a lazy content with
discourses already made.

And, finally, there is the greatest error of all, " the mistak-
ing or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 235

For men have entered into a desire of learning or knowl-
edge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive
appetite, sometimes to entertain their minds with vanity
and delight, sometimes for ornament and reputation, some-
times to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction, and
most times for lucre and profession ; and seldom to give a
true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use
of men. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch
whereupon to rest a restless spirit; or a tarasse for a
wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a
fair prospect ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife
and contention ; or a shop for profit or sale ; and not a rich
storehouse for the glory of the creator, and the relief of
man's estate. Howbeit I do not mean, when I speak of
use and action, that end before mentioned of the applying
of knowledge to lucre and profession ; for I am not igno-
rant how much that divideth and interrupteth the prosecu-
tion and advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden
ball, thrown before Atalanta, which while she goeth aside
and stoppeth to take up, the race is hindered. But as
both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the
use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be for both
natural and moral philosophies, to separate and reject vain
speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and to
preserve and augment whatever is solid and fruitful." 1

2. The Aim of Philosophy. — For Bacon, then, philoso-
phy, in opposition to the practical barrenness of the
Scholastics, has the definite function of serving for the
benefit and relief of the state and society of man; for
a " restitution and reinvesting of man to the sovereignty
and power, in that wheresoever he shall be able to call
the creatures by their true name, he shall again command
them which he had in his first state of creation."2 Such
an ideal is pictured in the unfinished fragment of the
New Atlantis. Here Bacon imagines an island, shut

1 Adv. of Learning (Spedding's ed., Vol. VI, pp. 117-135).

2 Interpretation of Nature, Vol. VI, p. 34.

236 A Student's History of Philosophy

off from the rest of the world, and raised to a high
point of felicity and civilization; and this is brought
about simply by a systematic application of the human
mind to sa discovery of the secrets of nature, and the
utilization of these for inventions intended to secure
man's control over his environment. In a sort of scien-
tific society called Solomon's House, this aim is carried
out with a high degree of organization and efficiency ;
and Bacon gives rein to his imagination in anticipating
all sorts of possible results of inventive skill, including
the microphone and telephone, the flying machine and
submarine vessels, to say nothing of several kinds of
perpetual motion. But now this whole conception is
thoroughly practical and secular. All speculative ques-
tions relating to God and His purposes, or to the ultimate
destiny of man, are excluded from the realm of reason,
and handed over to theology and faith. At most a con-
templation of, the world — and this is the true sphere of
philosophy — may be made to refute atheism ; but it can
give no more positive content. To be sure, Bacon still is
ready to acknowledge the truth of theology in its own
sphere ; but he deprecates any mingling of theology and
reason. " The knowledge of man is as the waters, some
descending from above, and some springing from beneath ;
the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired
by divine revelation." 1 " If any man shall think by view
and inquiry into sensible and material things to attain to
any light for the revelation of the nature and will of God,
he shall dangerously abuse himself. It is true that the
contemplation of the creatures of God hath for end, as to
the natures of the creatures themselves, knowledge, but as
to the nature of God, no knowledge, but wonder, which is
nothing else but contemplation broken off or losing itself.
Nay, further, as it was aptly said by one of Plato's school,
the sense of man resembles the sun, which openeth and
revealeth the terrestrial globe, but obscureth and concealeth

1 Adv. of Learning, Vol. VI, p. 207.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 237

the celestial ; so doth the sense discover natural things,
but darken and shut up divine." * Theology is grounded
only upon the word of God, and not upon the light of
nature ; to the latter it may be but foolishness, as " that faith
which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was
of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein was
an image of natural reason." 2 Whether the profession of
faith in theology is altogether sincere or not is a matter of
some doubt ; at any rate, the thing that Bacon is most con-
cerned with is, not to establish faith, but to free reason,
and give it full play in its proper sphere. As reason has
nothing to say about the concerns of theology, so the-
ology, on its side, must not meddle in matters which do
not belong to it. The Bible is made to teach religion,
not science ; and to endeavor, as some have done, to
build a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter
of Genesis, or other parts of Scripture, is to seek the dead
among the living.

3. Method of Induction. — To sum up, then, the past ill
success of science has been due solely to the lack of a true
method. Those who have treated of it have been empirics,
or dogmatical. " The former, like ants, only heap up and
use their store ; the latter, like spiders, spin out their own
webs. The bee, a mean between both, extracts matter from
the flowers of the garden and the field, but works and
fashions it by its own efforts. The true labor of philoso-
phy resembles hers, for it neither relies entirely or prin-
cipally on the powers of the mind, nor yet lays up in the
memory the matter afforded by the experiments of natural
history or mechanics in its raw state, but changes and works
it in the understanding." 3 What, accordingly, is the new
method by which Bacon, with the self-confidence charac-
teristic of a century to whose fresh and vigorous powers
no achievement seemed impossible, looked to see human
thought and life straightway revolutionized ?

1 Inter, of Nature, Vol. VI, p. 29. 2 Adv. of Learning, Vol. VI, p. 393.

3 Novum Organum, § 95.

238 A Student's History of Philosophy

In the first place, it is Empiricism, as opposed to the
a priori syllogistic reasoning of the Scholastics. Bacon
thought that " theories and opinions and common notions,
so far as can be obtained from the stiffness and firmness
of the mind, should be entirely done away with, and that
the understanding should begin anew plainly and fairly
with particulars, since there is no other entrance open to
the kingdom of nature than to the kingdom of heaven,
into which no one may enter except in the form of a little
child." 1 These prepossessions, of which it is our first duty
to rid ourselves, are what Bacon metaphorically calls Idols :
— Idols of the Tribe, or the predispositions which by the
natural working of the mind more or less beset every one ;
Idols of the Cave, " for every one, besides the faults he
shares with his race, has a cave or den of his own which
refracts and discolors the light of nature," due to mental
and bodily structure, habits, education, or accident; Idols
of the Forum, of society and language, " for men believe
that their reason governs words, but it is also true that
words, like the arrows from a Tartar bow, are shot back
and react upon the mind ; " and Idols of the Theatre, or
those which get into men's minds from the dogmas of
philosophers, so called because all received systems are but
" so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own
creation after an unreal and scenic fashion." *

Abandoning these presuppositions, we are to begin with
the particular facts, and only arrive at generalities by a
gradual process, instead of at a single leap. The syllogism,
on which the Schoolmen rely, is a useful instrument in cer-
tain cases, but it is incompetent to reach the truth of nature.
Dealing as it does with words and ideas, rather than with
things, whenever these ideas happen to be vague, incom-
plete, and not sufficiently defined, — and this is usually the
case, — it falls at once to the ground. Let us abandon all
such trifling with nature, and come to her with open minds
to learn what she has to teach. " If there be any humility

1 Novum Organum, § 68. 2 Ibid., 39 ff.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 239

toward the Creator, any reverence for or disposition to mag-
nify His works, any charity for man and anxiety to relieve
his sorrows and necessities, any love of truth in nature, any
hatred of darkness, any desire for the purification of the
understanding, we must entreat men again and again to
discard, or at least set apart for a while, these preposterous
philosophies, which have preferred theses to hypotheses, led
experience captive, and triumphed over the works of God,
and to approach with humility and veneration to unroll the
volume of creation, to linger and meditate therein, and with
minds washed clean from opinions to study it in purity and
integrity. For this is that sound and language which
went forth into all lands, and did not incur the confusion
of Babel; this should men study to be perfect in, and,
becoming again as little children, condescend to take the
alphabet of it into their hands, and spare no pains to
search and unravel the interpretation thereof, but pursue
it strenuously, and persevere even unto death." a

Induction from empirical particulars is thus the general
method of science. But induction must itself escape the
perils that attend it as it has commonly been applied.
What Logic has had in a meagre way to say of induction,
as a mere enumeration of particulars, is vicious and incom-
petent. " To conclude upon an enumeration of particulars
without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a con-
jecture; for who can assure in many subjects, upon those
particulars which appear of a side, that there are not
others on the contrary side which appear not. As if
Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which
were brought before him, and failed of David, which was
in the field." 2 True induction, accordingly, must not be in
too great haste to generalize, but must consider carefully
all opposing instances. It must not specialize and confine
itself to a few objects, but must be universal in its scope;
for no one can successfully investigate the nature of any

1 Nat. and Exp. Hist., Vol. IX, pp. 370-371.

2 Adv. of Learning, Vol. VI, p. 265.

240 A Student's History of Philosophy

object by considering that object alone. It must not be
too ready to run after immediate utility, but must look for
experiments that shall afford light rather than profit, " imi-
tating the divine creation, which only produced light on
the first day, and assigned that whole day to its creation,
without adding any material work." * And it must subject
its data to the most careful experimental examination, " not
following the common example of accepting any vague
report or tradition for fact ; so that a system has been
pursued in philosophy with regard to experience, resem-
bling that of a kingdom or state which would direct its
councils or affairs according to the gossip of city and
street politicians, instead of the letters and reports of
ambassadors and messengers worthy of credit."2

The thing most to be desired, then, is the creation of a
definite method, which shall enable us to avoid these pit-
falls, and put in our hands an instrument for conquering
nature. " For the fabric of the universe is like a labyrinth
to the contemplative mind, and the guides who offer their
services are themselves confused. In so difficult a matter
we must despair of man's unassisted judgment, or even of
any casual good fortune ; we must guide our steps by a
clew, and the whole path from the very first perceptions
of our senses must be secured by a determined method.
Nor must I be thought to say that nothing whatever has
been done by so many, and so much labor. But as in
former ages, when men at sea used only to steer by their
observation of the stars, they were indeed able to coast the
shores of the continent, or some small arid inland seas ;
but before they could traverse the ocean, and discover the
regions of the New World, it was necessary that the use
of the compass — a more trusty and certain guide in their
voyage — should be first known ; even so the present dis-
coveries in the arts and sciences are such as might be
found out by meditation, as being more open to the senses,
and lying immediately beneath our common notions ; but

1 Great Instauration, Preface. 2 Novum Organum, § 98.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 241

before we are allowed to enter the more remote and hidden
parts of nature, it is necessary that a better and more
perfect use and application of the human mind should be
introduced." 1

More definitely, the new method from which Bacon
hoped so much was briefly this : After clearing the mind
of presuppositions, the next step is to gather and carefully
tabulate all possible knowledge of the facts of nature ; for
it is useless to clear the mirror if it have no images to re-
flect. These facts are not to be taken at haphazard, but
are to be the result of careful and exact experiment, in
which the natural imperfections of the senses are to be
assisted by whatever instruments and processes may be
necessary. Such a catalogue of facts Bacon himself
started, and he expected that a determined and con-
certed effort on the part of men of science would soon
render it practically exhaustive. The problem of science
now is to discover what, following the scholastic terminol-
ogy, Bacon calls the "forms" of things. Every "simple
nature," that is, or ultimate quality, has a form, or essence,
or law, which is always present where the quality is, and
which, if it can be discovered, will always serve to super-
induce the quality in any particular object. Suppose, then,
that we wish to discover the form of a simple nature like
heat. Using the tabulations we have made of all the cases
in nature where heat appears, and, again, of cases where
it is absent, we find, by a process of comparison and exclu-
sion, what the form of heat must be. It cannot be weight,
e.g., for we find heavy bodies in both lists ; nor can it be
a host of other things for the same reason. And at last
we hit upon motion as the one thing which always is pres-
ent when heat is present, and absent when heat is absent.
Finally, we may draw up a third list, which represents the
presence of the quality in varying degrees ; and in this we
ought to find the form presenting a similar variation. This
is, in brief, Bacon's scientific method, though of course it

1 Great Instauration, Preface.
K

242 A Student's History of Philosophy

admits of working out in much greater detail, particularly
in the way of formulating certain kinds of cases which are
especially illuminating as test instances.

The results of Bacon's work were incommensurate with
the promises he had held out. What he did do was to call
attention in an impressive way to the necessity for induc-
tion, experiment, and the empirical study of facts. But
his great work remained at his death a mere sketch of a
method which he had found it impossible to exhibit in its
actual working ; and he had not sufficiently understood
the conditions of science to lay out a path for others. In
particular, he was almost wholly blind to the important
part which deduction plays in scientific inquiry. As he
conceived it, Bacon's method was almost mechanical in its
nature, leaving little to that scientific imagination and
bold fertility of hypothesis which characterizes the great
scientists. " Our method of discovering the sciences," he
says, " is such as to leave little to the acuteness and strength
of wit, and, indeed, rather to level wit and intellect. For
as in the drawing of a straight line or accurate circle by
the hand, much depends upon its steadiness and practice,
but if a ruler or compass be employed there is little occa-
sion for either, so it is with our method." J

LITERATURE

Bacon, Chief Works : Advancement of Learning (1605); Novum
Organum (1620) ; De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (1623) ; New
Atlantis.

Fowler, Bacon.

Spedding, Life and Times of Francis Bacon, 2 vols.

Fischer, Bacon and his Successors.

Nichol, Bacon^ 2 vols.

Morris, British Thought and Thinkers.

§ 26. Hobbes

I. The deductive side, whose importance Bacon had
overlooked, was emphasized by another Englishman, who

* Novum Organum, § 61.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 243

also attempted to raise science to a philosophy. Thomas
Hobbes, the son of a clergyman, was born at Malmesbury
in 1588. After passing through the University of Oxford,
he became a tutor in the Cavendish family, with which he
remained more or less closely connected throughout the
course of a long life. In his earlier years he gave no spe-
cial philosophical promise. He took no interest in the
scholastic doctrines, which still were taught at Oxford, but
neither did he actively revolt against them ; his tastes lay
rather in a different direction. It was not till his fortieth
year that an accidental event gave a new turn to his
thought. Picking up a book on geometry, of which to
that time he had been ignorant, he was greatly impressed
by it. " It is impossible," he is reported to have said as
he read the 4/th proposition ; and as he went back, and
traced the steps which led up to the proof of the proposi-
tion, an interest was aroused which set him at once to the
study of mathematics. And the result of this new study,
combined with a growing interest in the mechanical sci-
ences which had already transformed the educated thought
of the day, was the emergence of the idea which he was
to make the basis of a complete philosophy.

This idea was, that the cause of all events whatsoever
can be reduced to motion, and thus can be made amenable
to mathematical and deductive treatment. Philosophy is
the reasoned knowledge of effects from causes, and causes
from effects ; and since these are always motions, philoso-
phy is the doctrine of the motion of bodies. Such an idea
meant the freeing of science from esoteric natures, Aristo-
telian forms, final causes, and its restriction to exact quan-
titative investigations. It is true that Hobbes was only
pointing out what was already the conscious method of his
great scientific contemporaries. Nor was he able to con-
tribute to the history of science any results to be compared
in value for a moment with theirs. He came to the study
of mathematics too late ever to be a master of it, and in his
extended controversies with mathematicians of his day, he

244 -^ Student's History of Philosophy

committed himself to positions that were hopelessly in the
wrong, as, for example, in his insistence on the possibility
of squaring the circle. But with Hobbes it is not a matter
simply of scientific method. He intends to assert a philo-
sophical principle, which is absolutely universal, and
which results in an entirely mechanical and materialistic
world view. Not only is a mechanical explanation to be
given to events in the material world, but the same method
is to be followed in psychology and sociology. The life
of man is to be shown to result from a higher complex-
ity of motions ; and the life of society, in turn, is a still
more complex mechanism, strictly determined, and so
capable of being treated deductively. Accordingly in
Hobbes' original plan, a trilogy of works — De Corpore, De
Homine, and De Give — was to follow up these mechan-
ical principles through all their workings, in order to cover
the whole sphere of existence.

A significant part of Hobbes' position is thus the re-
duction of consciousness to motion. He identifies it, that
is, with those changes in the nervous system which accom-
pany and condition it — a confusion which is the peculiar
vice of materialism. Consciousness is only the feeling of
these brain changes. All the conscious life thus reduces
itself to sensations, which are combined in various ways.
Since knowledge is due simply to the setting up of motions
in the brain, the old theory that images or copies of things
enter the mind must be rejected. Our sensations are not
mirrors of external realities, but wholly subjective.

2. It was not, however, as a physicist or psychologist,
but rather as a social philosopher, that Hobbes won his
greatest influence. As it happened, he was induced by the
course of events to change his original plan, and produce
the last part of his work earlier than he had intended.
The occasion of this was the political situation in England,
which resulted in the beheading of Charles the First and
the exile of the Royalists. Hobbes, by his connection
with the Cavendishes, was naturally in sympathy with the

Transition to Modern Philosophy 245

Royalist party, and thought that he had a message for the
times. The fundamental importance of his theory, for
subsequent thought, lies, not so much in its actual details,
as in the fact that it set up the ideal of a purely natural-
istic treatment of the ethical and social life of man, an
attempt to understand it simply in terms of its natural
environment.

Hobbes starts from the conception of man as naturally
self-seeking and egoistic, and nothing more. A man loves
only himself ; he cares for others only as they minister to
his own pleasure. " If by nature one man should love
another as man, there is no reason why every man should
not equally every man." This idea of human nature
Hobbes corroborates by various facts drawn from a cynical
observation of men's foibles. In a company, for example,
is not each one anxious to tell his own story, and impatient
of listening to others ; and when one leaves, are not the
rest always ready to talk over his faults ? There is no dis-
interested satisfaction in social intercourse ; " all the pleas-
ure and jollity of mind consists in this, even to get some,
with whom comparing, it may find somewhat wherein to
triumph and vaunt itself." J

Now in a state of nature, where selfish characteristics
rule unrestrained, the result must be a condition of contin-
ual warfare, in which every man's hand is raised against
his neighbor. All men will have an appetite for the same
things, and each man's selfishness, accordingly, will lead
him to encroach upon his fellows whenever he has the
opportunity. Under such conditions there is no satisfac-
tion possible in life, no place for industry, navigation,
commodious building, knowledge of nature, arts, letters,
society; "and, which is worst of all, continual fear and
danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish, and short." Does any one doubt that this
is what human nature, unrestrained, would lead to ? " Let
him therefore consider with himself," says Hobbes, "when
1 DC Give, I, 2, 5.

246 A Student's History of Philosophy

taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well
accompanied ; when going to sleep, he locks his doors ;
when even in his house, he locks his chests; and this
when he knows there be laws and public officers armed to
revenge all injuries shall be done him." 1

It is the intolerableness of this state of affairs which
gives rise to society and government. Society, indeed,
does not call into play any new or non-egoistic impulses.
All social life springs either from poverty or vainglory,
and it exists for glory or for gain. But it is found that
selfishness can be gratified better by peace than by war.
" The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death,
desire of such things as are necessary to commodious liv-
ing, and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And
reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which
men may be drawn to agreement."2 An enlightened self-
interest will lead a man to see that it is vastly preferable
for him to give up the abstract right to everything which
he is strong enough to wrest from other men and keep,
and to refrain from aggression upon their liberty and pos-
sessions, provided he is thus certain of securing a like
immunity for himself.

But this is only possible on two conditions : First, all
men alike must enter into this agreement to respect one
another's rights; and, second, the carrying out of their
compact must be guaranteed by the creation of a single
power, sufficiently strong to enforce its demands upon
individuals, since the only way to keep men to their con-
tracts is by physical compulsion. " Covenants without
the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a
man at all ; " 3 witness the acts of nations, and the almost
entire lack of good faith and honor in their dealings with
one another, since here there is no such authority to com-
pel them to live up to their promises. For the sake,
then, of peace and protection, men will be willing to hand
over their individual rights and powers to one man, or

1 Leviathan, Ch. 1 3. 2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. , Ch. 1 7.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 247

assembly of men, submit their wills to a single will, which
they thus endow once for all with the supreme authority
necessary to maintain order. All men will find this to their
advantage, for there is no one enough superior to his fel-
lows to be secure against aggression. " For as to the
strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to
kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by con-
federacy with others that are in the same danger with
himself." An even greater equality exists in natural gifts
of the mind ; " for there is not ordinarily a greater sign of
the equal distribution of a thing than that every man is
contented with his own share." x When this agreement
comes about, then, society and government succeed to the
original state of anarchy.

Now one consequence flowing from this theory is that
right and morality are a creation of the state; they relate
to man only in society, and not in his original solitude.
Naturally, man has nothing but instincts of self-seeking
and self-preservation, and there is no limit to these except
the power of gratifying them. Obligation, duty, right and
wrong, have as yet no meaning. Duty only arises when
there comes in an outside power to impose laws ; and this
power is the state. Right and wrong, then, are identical
with the commands and prohibitions of the state; law is
the public conscience. "The desires and other passions
of men are in themselves no sin ; no more are the actions
that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that
forbids them, which, till laws be made, they cannot know ;
nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the
person that shall make it." 2 A man can have no individ-
ual morality, therefore, which conflicts with these com-
mands of his rulers. In making such a claim, he would
be breaking the contract which gives rise to morality, and
putting himself outside the pale of society, in which alone
the words have meaning.

So religion, also, must necessarily be a state affair ; as
/., Ch. 13.

248 A Student ' s History of Philosophy

the commonwealth is one person, it should exhibit to God
but one worship. Hobbes takes for granted that each
man will, if left to himself, attempt to force his own opin-
ions on other men ; and so the central authority of the
state is necessary, here as elsewhere, to keep men within
bounds. Rights of conscience and of private judgment are,
accordingly, mere impertinences. Religion is not some-
thing to be believed on reason, but accepted on authority.
"For it is with the mysteries of our religion as with
wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole have
the virtue to cure, but chewed, are for the most part cast
up again without effect."1 We must trust in him that
speaketh, though the mind be incapable of any notion at
all from the words spoken. But now who shall judge the
claims of the revelation to be from God ? who shall guar-
antee the authority of the Bible itself ? Evidently, unless
we go back to private judgment again, not individuals,
nor any arbitrary collection of them in a church, but only
the commonwealth as a whole. Outward conformity to
the worship of the Established Church, therefore, and a
profession of belief, is a necessity of civil order. Mean-
while in your own heart you may believe what you please,
if only you keep it to yourself. If this is thought disin-
genuous, Hobbes bids you remember that, in your profes-
sion of belief under compulsion, the king is really acting,
not you, and so that you are not responsible for the
contradiction.

The practical issue of all this is that the will of the state
— that is, of the king, or the authorities who represent the
established government — is supreme, and that disobedi-
ence or rebellion is in every case unjustified. Nothing can
release the subject from the duty of obedience. The con-
tract is not between people and ruler, but is a covenant of
the people with one another, to which the ruler is not a
party; and accordingly no possible act of his can be a
breach of contract, and furnish an excuse for rebellion.
1 Ibid., Ch. 32.

Transition to Modern Philosophy 249

Nothing the sovereign can do to a subject can properly be
called injustice. The king is acting by the authority given
him by the people, and to complain of his act is to com-
plain of oneself ; if the subject dissents, he has already
voluntarily made his dissent a crime. Does the king seize
a man's property ? He has property rights only with ref-
erence to others, not to the sovereign. The king is the
recipient of power freely handed over to him, and once
given, this cannot be recalled. For what would such a
recall mean ? It would mean that society no longer exists,
that no one remains to judge disputes, and that the original
anarchy has returned ; and any conceivable act of despot-
ism on the part of the ruler is preferable to this.

3. The philosophy of Hobbes had shown a clear under-
standing of certain aspects of the scientific problem, but it
was not altogether fitted to give the new impetus for which
philosophy was waiting. In the first place, its theory of
knowledge was not satisfactory. Like the whole scientific
movement of the day, Hobbes accepted Nominalism, and
denied the reality of universals. Concepts, accordingly, are
mere counters which the mind uses to reckon with, and
represent no objective realities. Now so long as we insist
upon the empirical side of science, as Bacon did, there is
not so obvious a difficulty in attributing reality simply to
individual things. But when, with Hobbes, we lay em-
phasis on deduction and mathematical laws, trouble arises.
For these laws are concepts, or universals, and so, instead
of having the highest reality for science, they would seem
to have no reality at all. By his theory of knowledge,
mathematical deduction is a mere manipulation of subjec-
tive counters in the mind, which have no objective validity.
To make his science of any value, however, they ought to
have precisely that external truth which they do not possess.

In the second place, a universal philosophy should give
its due, not simply to material facts, but also to the human,
conscious side which makes up the other great division
into which phenomena fall. Hobbes' materialism fails to

250 A Student's History of Philosophy

do this, and so it comes short of an adequate philosophy.
It is true that physical laws can be appealed to more or
less successfully to account for the appearance and con-
nection of mental phenomena. Hobbes' position has thus
a methodological value, and is an anticipation of modern
physiological psychology. But as metaphysics it is crude
and unsatisfactory. The two facts cannot be identified,
and a sensation made quite the same thing as a motion
of brain particles, except by a confusion of thought. It
needed a clearer recognition of the distinctive character
of consciousness, and an appreciation of the great prob-
lems which its relationship to the material world involves,
to bring about the rise of modern philosophy in its fullest
sense. This is attained in Descartes.

LITERATURE

Hobbes, Chief Works : On Human Nature (1650) ; De Cive (1642) ;
Leviathan (165!'); De Cor pore (1655); Of Liberty and Necessity
(1654) ; De Homine (1658).

Sneath, The Ethics of Hobbes.

Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy.

Robertson, Hobbes.

Morris, British Thought and Thinkers.

Patten, Development of English Thought.

Watson, Hedonistic Theories.

Stephen, Hobbes.

Woodbridge, The Philosophy of Hobbes in Extracts and Notes col-
lected from his Writings.

III. MODERN PHILOSOPHY

§ 27. Introduction

i. BEFORE proceeding with the series of great modern
philosophers, it will be well to sum up briefly what the
Middle Ages had accomplished, and what problems were
left for later philosophy to attempt to solve. It has been
said that the task of the Middle Ages was essentially a
task of training. It took the unformed material which the
Germanic races offered, and by a process of centuries of
authority, and by ways which were often harsh, crude, and
arbitrary, it succeeded in instilling into them so thoroughly
certain habits of thought and action, that these remain a
part of our inheritance to the present day. Now of course
such an attitude of unreasoning acceptance does not repre-
sent the highest attainment. In the stress of conditions
in the mediaeval period, the specific contribution of Chris-
tianity— the bringing back of conduct to the inner per-
sonality, and the founding of all the outer life on the
individual will and conscience — had tended to be obscured.
The great work of modern times was to bring this again
to the front, and to replace external law by free activity,
which, however, should not be lawless, but a law to itself.
Without abolishing the restraints of institutions originally
established on authority, it should rather regard these as
themselves necessary means to the realization of inner
freedom ; but it should do away with their externality,
rigidity, and incapacity for growth.

But now the value of the Middle Ages began to show.
In order that this new spirit of freedom and individuality
should get a foothold, there must first be a negative move-

251

252 A Student's History of Philosophy

ment to clear the ground, a repudiation of authority as
mere authority, and a consequent emphasis on an abstract
freedom, which might easily lend itself to anarchy. The
same situation had arisen before, in the Greek Enlighten-
ment at the time of the Sophists ; and the scepticism and
criticism of authority then had meant a social disintegra-
tion fatal to Greek life. That the same result did not fol-
low now, was due in considerable part to the thoroughness
with which the period of the Middle Ages had done its
work. The value of the institutions for which it stood had
been so thoroughly tested, that instead of crumbling at
once before hostile criticism, they continued to exert a
power over the practical life of men. Save in exceptional
periods, like that of the French Revolution, they regulated
and restrained the spirit of change in a way to prevent any
violent catastrophe, and substituted for this a process of
gradual modification and improvement. Society, accord-
ingly, was able to tide over the intervening period of nega-
tion. It could hold together until, when the non-essentials
had been sifted out, the more positive and valuable elements,
that for the time had been confused with these, could be
appreciated in turn, and utilized in the interests of human
advancement.

The history of modern thought is, therefore, in brief, the
history of the way in which a life according to authority
passes, by an intermediate period of protest and criticism,
into a recognition that those acts and institutions which
formerly had been accepted unreasoningly, are after all not
inconsistent with the freedom which is now demanded, but are
rather its necessary expression. Freedom is not opposed to
law, but is the self working in accordance with the law of its
own nature. This process has, in the past, embodied itself
unconsciously in institutions and beliefs, but now can be
made conscious, and directed in the interests of advance.

It is about the social life of man, therefore, that the great
philosophical movements of modern, as of ancient times,
revolve; and they express themselves primarily in the

Modern Philosophy 253

new emphasis upon individuality. But if this is to be
firmly grounded, it makes necessary also a development
along more purely theoretical lines, which may not seem
to have a very immediate relation to social questions in the
narrow sense. It is only as man understands himself, and
the world in which he lives, that he can move effectively
for practical freedom. Intellectual enfranchisement is an
intimate part of social progress. Apart, then, from social
philosophy in the strict sense, the more technically philo-
sophical growth will lie along two interconnected lines,
according as it is concerned predominatingly with the world
of external nature, or with the spiritual interests of man's
conscious life. The interaction between these two inter-
ests continues through the course of modern thought ; and
it is the attempted combination and reconciliation of the
motives which are derived from each, and the more general
relating of them both to the unitary life of man as a social
being, which furnishes the main problems with which
modern philosophy is engaged, and the most general clew
to its understanding.

2. It has already been said that the peculiar characteristic
of modern thought is the way in which it bases itself upon
the individual man. Its watchword is progress, and it is
only through individual initiative that conscious progress
can take place. So long as men receive their principles
from external authority, these stand over against them as
an unchangeable and absolute ideal, to which they may not
set themselves in opposition. In science, this individual-
ism takes the form of free investigation and experiment, of
direct interrogation of nature, influenced by traditional
opinions. In the world of human life, it means the asser-
tion of the right of private judgment, the privilege of
criticising all the dogmas of religion and political authority,
the setting up of the individual reason as the final court of
appeal. The first phase, then, of modern thought, is a
scientific Rationalism — an appeal to reason, which takes
its method and criterion from the new scientific inquiry,

254 A Student's History of Philosophy

whose remarkable results had been a revelation of what
the mind of man could accomplish. Accordingly, from
Descartes to Leibniz, there is a period of great metaphysical
systems, having a close connection with science, and show-
ing a firm confidence in the power of reason to discover
the ultimate secrets of the universe.

3. This Rationalism, however, had its dangers. In the re-
action against authority and the past, reason came to mean
a rather abstract thing. It was emphatically the individual
reason, testing everything by certain necessarily abstract
principles, which were supposed to reveal their truth
directly to the individual, in his isolation from the life,
experience, and institutions of the race. Accordingly, it
assumed a somewhat hard and narrow aspect. The histor-
ical sense, the sense of perspective, was almost entirely
wanting. With no regard for how beliefs and institutions
had come into being, or what in their historical environ-
ment was tr^e value which they possessed, men were
accustomed to judge and to condemn, often in a very
supercilious and shallow fashion, everything that did not
approve itself with demonstrative certainty to these narrow
and abstract principles which they had set up as the
ultimate criterion. Reason, in this meaning, inevitably
separated itself from other aspects of the human spirit,
and became actively opposed to all feelings, aspirations,
and enthusiasms, which could not meet its narrow tests.
Hence the peculiarly cold and unimaginative type which
presents itself in the so-called Enlightenment. One by
one the graces of life were stripped away. The so-called
natural religion of Deism took the place of revealed reli-
gion, which at least had had something to say to the emo-
tional nature of man. God was pushed farther and farther
into the distance, as the mere starter of the universal ma-
chine, to be pushed out, finally, altogether.

4. But the process did not stop here. After being used as
an instrument for getting rid of other beliefs, reason began
itself to be called in question. Ancient scepticism had

Modern Philosophy 255

already thrown doubt upon its principles, and this scepti-
cism had been revived by men like Montaigne and Pascal.
One great fact, however, tended to prevent such an atti-
tude from having much weight — the evident and marvel-
lous success of science. So long as men were actually
showing by the use of reason what undeniable results could
be obtained, it needed more than a mere revival of discon-
nected ancient doubts to shake the hold of Rationalism.
Meanwhile, however, a more original and more profound
movement had been gaining headway. As the question was
at last forced upon philosophy : What is the origin and sanc-
tion of these metaphysical principles that have been used
so freely ? the current of thought for the time being
changes its direction, and becomes primarily a theory of
knowledge. And the result of this is that Rationalism is
gradually undermined. Locke, the Englishman, institutes
an inquiry into the origin of knowledge, and, true to the
English traditions represented in Bacon, he finds this to be
wholly empirical. Experience is the source of all we
know ; the innate and universal ideas of reason, on which
more or less consciously the Rationalists had relied, have
no existence. But if this is true, then, sooner or later, an
absolute science must follow in the steps of dogmatic reli-
gion ; one is as little to be demonstrated as the other.

5. The result is Scepticism, and this result is reached in
Hume. Along this line it was impossible to go any farther ;
and had there been nothing to supplement it, we might have
had again the spectacle of a society whose whole foundation
was brought into question. But meanwhile still another
movement was preparing, which was destined to give a new
turn to the thought of the age. In a sense, Rousseau may
be taken as the precursor of this movement. Having in him-
self many of the faults of the preceding period, he yet set
himself in conscious opposition to it, by an emphasis, one-
sided indeed, but unavoidably so, on those facts of human
life which Rationalism had neglected, especially the fact of
feeling. In France, the negative side of his influence pre-

256 A Student's History of Philosophy

dominated, and had its issue in the Revolution. But in Ger-
many there were found men of genius who were prepared to
receive from him a more positive inspiration. The brilliant
period of German literature, beginning with Lessing and
Herder, seized upon the vital part of Rousseau, but supple-
mented it in a way to create a new conception of life. The
thought of man as an integral part of the life of the world,
instead of a mere separate individual ; of God as an imma-
nent spirit, rather than a far-off abstraction ; of beliefs and
institutions as having their roots in history, and needing to be
judged in their concrete settings; of this historical process as
necessary to give content to our notion of the world, which
cannot be built up by mere abstract arguments; of the
value of art and religion, and the whole emotional life, as
opposed to the deification of the abstract reason — all these
things were brought in to vitalize and renew philosophy.
Put in philosophical form, they constitute the chief signifi-
cance of the §eries of great names from Kant to Hegel,
which makes this period of German thought one of the
most illustrious in the history of the world.

6. Finally, German Idealism needed in turn to be supple-
mented. Concerned with the spiritual facts of experience
most of all, it ran the risk of paying too exclusive attention
to these, and of neglecting the equally insistent facts of
the independently existing external World. To this lack
another great scientific epoch, whose most important prod-
uct is the theory of Evolution, called attention almost in
our own day. With the reconciliation of these two contri-
butions, the work of the present is largely occupied.

With this brief and abstract statement of the general
course of modern thought, we may turn to a more detailed
account.

SYSTEMS OF RATIONALISM

§ 28. Descartes. The Cartesian School

I. The Method of Philosophy. — It is with Descartes
(1596-1650) that modern philosophy is generally regarded
as beginning. There were several things which helped to
give his philosophical doctrine this importance. In the first
place, it was based upon a definite method, and this method
— the mathematical — was a clear recognition of the sci-
entific spirit. That a new method was needed in philos-
ophy was generally recognized, and men stood ready to
hail it when it should appear. Descartes, moreover, en-
joyed the advantage of being himself a mathematician of the
highest order, who came to his philosophy after a practical
demonstration of the triumphs which he could win in a nar-
rower field. Again, the modern principle of individuality
and subjectivity was recognized by Descartes. The exist-
ence of the self forms the basis of all his constructive efforts ;
and the test of truth, again, is the clearness with which it
justifies itself to the individual reason, by which all the
authority of tradition has been rejected. Finally, Descartes'
dualism, his clear distinction between mind and body, with
their different and irreconcilable attributes of thought and
extension, was the necessary starting-point for a fruitful
development. By this separation, the purely mechanical
nature of physical processes was vindicated ; and at the
same time the existence was shown of a wider problem
than the merely scientific. By the fact of setting up an
immaterial reality alongside the material world, the need
for some means of connecting the two was forced into
notice. It is true that the violence of the separation
s 257

258 A Student's History of Philosophy

itself gave rise to difficulties ; but until the two distinct
motives which are represented in matter, and in mind or
spirit, were sharply set apart, the attitude toward the
philosophical problem must necessarily be confused.

The interest of Descartes' life lies in the story of his
mental history. He came from a well-to-do family, and
possessed through life an independent fortune, so that he
was able to devote himself to the things that appealed
most strongly to him. Educated in the Jesuit school of
La Fleche, and led to believe that a clear and certain
knowledge of all that was useful in life might be acquired
by education, he had an extreme desire for learning. But
his course of study completed, he found himself compelled
to change his opinion. " For I found myself involved in
so many doubts and errors, that it seemed to me that I had
derived no other advantage from my endeavors to instruct
myself, but only to find out more and more how ignorant
I was. And yet I was in one of the most celebrated
schools in Europe, where I thought there must be learned
men if there were any such in the world. Moreover, I
knew what others thought about me, and I did not per-
ceive that they considered me inferior to my fellow-students,
albeit there were among them some who were destined to
fill the places of our masters."

He began to doubt, therefore, whether there existed in the
world any such wisdom as he had been led to hope for,
although he did not cease to think well of some of the
scholastic pursuits, if followed with discretion. Language
and history, which bring us into contact with men of other
times, are, like travelling, of great value. " It is well to
know something of the manners of foreign peoples, in
order that we may judge our own more wisely. But if
one spends too much time in travelling in foreign coun-
tries, he becomes at last a stranger in his own ; and when
one is too curious to know what has been done in past
ages, he is liable to remain ignorant of what is going on in
his own time." Eloquence, again, and poetry he held in

Systems of Rationalism 259

high esteem, but he regarded both as the gifts of genius,
rather than the fruit of study.

"Above all I was delighted with the mathematics, on
account of the certainty and evidence of their demonstra-
tions ; but I had not as yet found out their true use, and
although I supposed that they were of service only in the
mechanic arts, I was surprised that upon foundations so solid
and stable no loftier structure had been raised ; while, on the
other hand, I compared the writings of the ancient moralists
to palaces very proud and very magnificent, but which are
built on nothing but sand or mud. I revered our theology,
and, as much as any one, I strove to gain heaven ; but when
I learned, as an assured fact, that the way is open no less
to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that
the revealed truths which conduct us thither lie beyond
the reach of our intelligence, I did not presume to submit
them to the feebleness of my reasonings, and I thought
that to undertake the examination of them, and succeed
in the attempt, required extraordinary divine assistance,
and more than human gifts. I had nothing to say of
philosophy, save that, seeing it had been cultivated by the
best minds for many ages, and still there was nothing in it
which might not be brought into dispute, and which was,
therefore, not free from doubt, I had not the presumption
to hope for better success therein than others ; and con-
sidering how many diverse opinions may be held upon the
same subject and defended by the learned, while not more
than one of them can be true, I regarded as pretty nearly
false all that was merely probable. Then, as to the other
sciences which derive their principles from philosophy, I
judged that nothing solid could be built upon foundations
so unstable. . . . And finally, as for the pseudo-sciences,
I thought I was already sufficiently acquainted with their
value to be proof against the promises of the alchemist,
the predictions of the astrologer, the impostures of the
magician, the artifices and vain boasting of those who
profess to know more than they actually do know.

260 A Student's History of Philosophy

" For these reasons, so soon as I was old enough to be
no longer subject to the control of my teachers, I
abandoned literary pursuits altogether, and, being re-
solved to seek no other knowledge than that which I
was able to find within myself, or in the great book of the
world, I spent the remainder of my youth in travelling,
in seeing courts and armies, in mingling with people of
various dispositions and conditions in life, in collecting a
variety of experiences, putting myself to the proof in the
crises of fortune, and reflecting on all occasions on what-
ever might present itself, so as to derive from it what
profit I might. ... It is true that, while I was employed
only in observing the manners of foreigners, I found very
little to establish my mind, and saw as much diversity
here as I had seen before in the opinions of philosophers.
So that the principal benefit I derived from it was that,
observing many things which, although they appear to us
to be very extravagant and ridiculous, are yet commonly
received and- approved by other great peoples, I gradually
became emancipated from many errors which tend to
obscure the natural light within us, and make us less
capable of listening to reason. But after I had spent
some years thus in studying in the book of the world, and
trying to gain some experience, I formed one day the
resolution to study within myself, and to devote all the
powers of my mind to choosing the paths which I must
thereafter follow — a project attended with much greater
success, as I think, than it would have been had I never
left my country nor my books." J

" I was then in Germany, whither the wars, which were
not yet ended there, had summoned me ; and when I was
returning to the army, from the coronation of the emperor,
the coming on of winter detained me in a quarter where,
finding no one I wished to talk with, and fortunately having
no cares nor passions to trouble me, I spent the whole day
shut up in a room heated by a stove, where I had all the

1 Discourse upon Method, Part I. Torrey's translation. (Henry Holt & Co.)

Systems of Rationalism 261

leisure I desired to hold converse with my own thoughts.
One of the first thoughts to occur to me was, that there is
often less completeness in works made up of many parts
and by the hands of different masters, than in those upon
which only one has labored. . . . And so I thought that
the sciences contained in books, at least those in which
the proofs were merely probable and not demonstrations,
being the gradual accumulation of opinions of many differ-
ent persons, by no means come so near the truth as the
plain reasoning of a man of good sense in regard to the
matters which present themselves to him. And I thought
still further that, because we have all been children before
we were men, and for a long time of necessity were under
the control of our inclinations and our tutors, who were
often of different minds, and none of whom, perhaps,
gave us the best of counsels, it is almost impossible that
our judgments should be as free from error and as solid
as they would have been if we had had the entire use of
our reason from the moment of our birth, and had always
been guided by that alone. . . As for all the opinions which
I had accepted up to that time, I was persuaded that I
could do no better than get rid of them at once, in order
to replace them afterward with better ones, or, perhaps,
with the same, if I should succeed in making them square
with reason. And I firmly believed that in this way I
should have much greater success in the conduct of my
life, than if I should build only on the old foundations,
and should rely only on the principles which I had allowed
myself to be persuaded of in my youth, without ever hav-
ing examined whether they were true." 1

In a word, then, what Descartes resolved to do was
to strip himself completely of all that he had formerly
believed, and start de novo, with the intention of admitting
only that which was absolutely certain, in order to see if
on this basis a system of philosophy might not be erected
which should escape the uncertainties of the old. To do

1 Discourse upon Method, Part II.

262 A Student's History of Philosophy

this he required a definite method of work ; and as the
old logic was unsuitable for the discovery of new truth, he
drew up a code of rules for himself. " The first rule was,
never to receive anything as a truth which I did not clearly
know to be such ; that is, to avoid haste and prejudice,
and not to comprehend anything more in my judgments
than that which should present itself so clearly and so
distinctly to my mind that I should have no occasion to
entertain a doubt of it. The second rule was, to divide
every difficulty which I should examine into as many parts
as possible, or as might be required for solving it. The
third rule was, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly man-
ner, beginning with objects the most simple and the easiest
to understand, in order to ascend as it were by steps to
the knowledge of the most composite, assuming some
order to exist even in things which did not appear to be
naturally connected. The last rule was, to make enumera-
tions so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I
should be certain of omitting nothing." 1

The basis and suggestion of these rules of Descartes is
mathematical reasoning. Briefly, the two steps involved
are intuition and deduction — the only two ways open to
man for attaining a certain knowledge of truth. By intui-
tion is meant the immediate self-evidence with which a
truth forces itself upon us, " the conception of an attentive
mind so distinct and so clear that no doubt remains to it
with regard to that which we comprehend." Most of our
ideas are confused and obscure, because we try to take in
too much at once. He who is bent on taking in too many
things at one look sees nothing distinctly ; in the same
way, he who in one act of thought would attend to many
objects, confuses his mind. The first thing to do, therefore,
is to analyze out from our habitual thinking those clear and
axiomatic principles whose certainty cannot be doubted.
These clear axioms are what Descartes calls innate
ideas. As they are necessary to give us any starting-

1 Discourse upon Method, Part II, (Torrey's translation, p. 46).

Systems of Rationalism 263

point for our demonstration, and as they cannot be the
result of empirical experience, since in that case they
would not be certain and universal, they must represent
primitive germs of truth which nature has planted in the
human intellect, and which the mind is capable of finding
clearly within itself when it goes to work the right way. To
this criterion of clearness, the objection may be made that
all ideas which we believe to be true seem clear to us.
" This way of speaking," says Hobbes, " is metaphorical,
and therefore not fitted for an argument ; for whenever a
man feels no doubt at all, he will pretend to this clearness,
and he will be as ready to affirm that of which he feels no
doubt, as the man who possesses perfect knowledge. This
clearness may very well then be the reason why a man
holds and defends with obstinacy some opinion, but it
cannot tell him with certainty that the opinion is true."
Descartes tries to parry this objection by drawing a distinc-
tion between a natural inclination impelling me to believe a
thing that nevertheless may be false, and a natural light
which makes me know that it is true. But now to intui-
tion is to be added also deduction — the process by which,
through a series of steps each intuitively certain, we are able
to reach new conclusions. Two ideas whose connection is
not immediately self-evident are shown to be connected
through this string of intermediate intuitions ; and if each
step is in reality seen as we take it to be necessary,
the result has an equal certainty, and it too is an innate
idea.

Now of all human knowledge, mathematics is the clear-
est, and furnishes the most self-evident axioms. Descartes,
therefore, will begin with mathematics, and by accustoming
his mind to nourish itself upon truths, and not to be satis-
fied with false reasons, he will get himself in readiness for
more ambitious efforts. So successful was this endeavor,
that in the course of a few months he found himself with
a mastery over his science, and an ability to advance to new
truths in it, which surprised and delighted him. Thinking,

264 A Student's History of Philosophy

however, that it needed a riper age than his present
twenty-three years, before he should be capable of dealing
with fundamental questions, he postponed the considera-
tion of these until he should have gained a sufficient disci-
pline.

2. The Existence and Nature of the Self. — At length,
considering that his capacities are now matured, he sits
down to the serious task of ridding himself of all the
false opinions he has hitherto received, in order to begin
entirely anew from the foundation. Now, "all that I
have hitherto received as most true and assured I have
learned from the senses, or by means of the senses. But
I have sometimes found that these senses were deceivers,
and it is the part of prudence never to trust entirely
those who have once deceived us. But although the
senses may deceive us sometimes in regard to things
which are scarcely perceptible and very distant, yet there
are many other things of which we cannot entertain a
reasonable doubt, although we know them by means of
the senses ; for example, that I am here, seated by the fire,
in my dressing gown, holding this paper in my hands, and
other things of such a nature. And how can I deny that
these hands and this body are mine ? Only by imitating
those crazy people, whose brains are so disturbed and con-
fused by the black vapors of the bile, that they constantly
affirm that they are kings, while in fact they are very poor ;
that they are clothed in gold and purple, while they are
quite naked ; or who imagine themselves to be pitchers, or
to have glass bodies. But what ! These are fools, and I
should be no less extravagant if I should follow their
example. Nevertheless, I have to consider that I am a
man, and that I fall asleep, and in my dreams imagine the
same things, or even sometimes things less probable than
these crazy people do while they are awake." It seems
to me now, indeed, that my present state is different from
dreaming. But then I remember that I have often had a
similar illusion while asleep, so that there seems to be no

Systems of Rationalism 265

certain mark by which the waking can be distinguished
from the sleeping state.

" Let us, then, suppose that we are asleep, and that all
those particular events — that we open our eyes, shake our
heads, stretch out our hands, and such like things — are
only false illusions ; and let us think that perhaps neither
our hands nor our entire bodies are such as we perceive
them. Nevertheless, we must at least admit that the
things which we imagine in sleep are like pictures and
paintings, which can only be formed after the likeness
of something real and veritable. Accordingly, these things
in general — namely, eyes, head, hands, body — are not
imaginary, but real and existent." At least the simple ele-
ments of which they are made up must be real, — corporeal
being in general and its extension, the figure of things ex-
tended, their quantity or size, their number, and the like.
Even if the compositions are illusions, and the sciences
which deal with them false, yet how can I doubt those ele-
mental truths of which, e.g., arithmetic and geometry treat —
that two and three make five, or that a square always has
four sides ?

"Nevertheless, I have long cherished the belief that
there is a God who can do everything, and by whom I
was made and created such as I am. But how do I know
that he has not caused that there should be no earth, no
heavens, no extended body, no figure, no size, no place, and
that, nevertheless, I should have perceptions of all these
things, and that everything should seem to me to exist not
otherwise than as I perceive it? And even in like manner as
I judge that others deceive themselves in matters that they
know best, how do I know that he has not caused that I de-
ceive myself every time that I add two to three, or number
the sides of a square, or judge of anything still more simple,
if anything more simple can be imagined ? " He certainly
does permit me to deceive myself at times ; why may I not
always be deceived ? " I shall suppose, then, not that God,
who is very good, and the sovereign source of truth, but

266 A Student's History of Philosophy

that a certain evil genius, no less wily and deceitful than
powerful, has employed all his ingenuity to deceive me.
I shall think that the heavens, the air, the earth, colors,
figures, sounds, and all other external things, are nothing
but illusions and idle fancies, which he employs to impose
upon my credulity. I shall consider myself as having no
hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, as having no senses, but
as believing falsely that I possess all these things. I shall
obstinately adhere to this opinion ; and if by this means it
will not be in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any
truth, at all events it is in my power to suspend my judg-
ment." !

" I make the supposition, then, that all things which
I see are false ; I persuade myself that nothing has ever
existed of all that my memory, filled with illusions, has
represented to me ; I consider that I have no senses ; I
assume that body, figure, extension, motion, and place
are only fictions^ of my mind. What is there, then, which
can be held to be true ? Perhaps nothing at all, except the
statement that there is nothing at all that is true. But how
do I know that there is not something different from those
things which I have just pronounced uncertain, concern-
ing which there cannot be entertained the least doubt ? Is
there not some God, or some other power, who puts these
thoughts into my mind ? That is not necessary, for perhaps
I am capable of producing them of myself. Myself, then !
at the very least am I not something ?

" But I have already denied that I have any senses or
any body ; nevertheless I hesitate, for what follows from
that ? Am I so dependent upon the body and the senses
that I cannot exist without them ? But I have persuaded
myself that there is nothing at all in the world, that there
are no heavens, no earth, no minds, no bodies ; am I then
also persuaded that I am not ? Far from it ! Without doubt
I exist, if I am persuaded, or solely if I have thought any-
thing whatever. But there is I know not what deceiver,

1 Meditations, I.

Systems of Rationalism 267

very powerful, very crafty, who employs all his cunning
continually to delude me. There is still no doubt that I
exist if he deceives me ; and let him deceive me as he may,
he will never bring it about that I shall be nothing, so long
as I shall think something exists. Accordingly, having
considered it well, and carefully examined everything, I
am obliged to conclude and to hold for certain, that this
proposition, / am, I exist, is necessarily true, every time
that I pronounce it or conceive it in my mind."

The foundation of Descartes' philosophy, that through
which he is to secure a firm foothold, is thus the existence
of the self — an existence which is in no wise to be doubted,
since even in this doubt the self appears. But now what
is the nature of the self whose existence is so certain ? I
am accustomed to think of myself as made up of a body
and a mind. As for my body, I commonly suppose I
know what that is — it is something that possesses shape,
can fill space so as to exclude other bodies, and can have
sensations from outer impressions. But none of these
attributes pertain to that self which is a necessity of
thought. Suppose I admit the possibility of an evil genius
who deceives me : then every one of these bodily attributes
may be open to doubt. If now I turn to the soul, is there
anything here which belongs to me intrinsically ? Yes,
there is the attribute of thought. So long as I think, so
long certainly I exist, although, so far as I can see, I
might immediately cease to exist if once I were to stop
thinking. " I am, then, to speak with precision, a thing
which thinks, that is to say, a mind, an understanding, or
a reason — terms the significance of which was unknown
to me before.

"But I am a truly existing thing; but what thing? I
have said, a thing which thinks ; and what more ? I stir
up my imagination to see whether I am not still something
in addition. I am not this collection of members which is
called the human body ; I am not a thin and penetrating
vapor diffused throughout these members ; I am not a

268 A Student's History of Philosophy

wind, a breath, a vapor ; nor anything at all of all that I
am able to picture or imagine myself to be, since I have
assumed that all that is nothing at all, and that without
changing this assumption I find that I do not cease to be
certain that I am something.

" But what is it, then, that I am ? A thing which thinks.
What is a thing which thinks ? It is a thing which doubts,
which understands, which conceives, which affirms, which
denies, which wills, which wills not, which imagines also, and
which perceives. Surely, it is no small matter if all these
things belong to my nature. But why do they not belong
to it ? Am I not that even which now doubts almost every-
thing ; which nevertheless understands and conceives cer-
tain things ; which is assured and affirms these only to be
true, and denies the rest ; which wills and desires to know
more ; which wills not to be deceived ; which imagines
many things, even sometimes in spite of myself; and
which also perceives many, as if by the interposition of
bodily organs'? Is there nothing of all that which is as
true as it is certain that I am, and that I exist, even al-
though I were always sleeping, and he who gave me my
being were using all his skill to deceive me? Is there also
any of these attributes which can be distinguished from
my thoughts, or which can be said to be separate from my-
self ? For it is so evident of itself that it is I who doubt,
who understand, and who desire, that there is no need here
of adding anything to explain it. And I also certainly
have the power of imagining ; for, although it might hap-
pen (as I have already supposed) that the things which I
have imagined were not true, nevertheless this power of
imagining does not cease really to exist in me, and to form
part of my thought.

" Finally, I am the same being which perceives, that is,
which has the knowledge of certain things as if by the or-
gans of sense, since in reality I see light, I hear noise, I
feel warmth. But I have been told that these appearances
are false, and that I am asleep. Granted ; nevertheless, at

Systems of Rationalism 269

least, it is very certain that it appears to me that I see
light, that I hear noise, and that I feel warmth ; and it is
just that which in me I call perceiving ; and that, precisely,
is nothing else than thinking. From this point I begin to
know what I am with more clearness and distinctness than
heretofore."1

The basis, then, on which Descartes builds, is the un-
deniableness of consciousness. This alone it is impossible
to doubt ; this alone comes home to me as a directly felt
experience, whose reality depends, not on an inference, but
on the immediate fact of its being experienced. I may be
mistaken about the object of my thought, but that casts no
shade of doubt upon the thought itself, and the immaterial
' I ' who thinks. I am, it is true, accustomed to suppose
that things, bodies, are the one undeniable fact, and to
overlook the thought by which these things are known. I
see, e.g., a piece of wax before me; can anything be more
certain than this ? " What, then ! I who appear to conceive
of this piece of wax with so much clearness and distinct-
ness, do I not know myself not only with much more truth
and certainty, but even with much more distinctness and
clearness ! For if I judge that the wax is or exists, from
the fact that I see it, certainly it follows much more evi-
dently that I am, or that I exist myself, from the fact that
I see it, for it may be that what I see is not in reality wax ;
it may also be that I have not eyes even to see anything ;
but it cannot be that while I see, or — what I do not dis-
tinguish therefrom — while I think I see, I who think am
not something."

Cogito, ergo sum — here is the one certain fact from
which, as an axiom, we are to start, in order to get back
again, with a new certainty, the wider reality which provi-
sionally we have doubted. And the test has also been
given by which the validity of these new truths is to be
measured. If they can approve themselves to us with the
same clearness and certainty that goes with the perception

1 Meditations, II.

270 A Student's History of Philosophy

of our own existence, we may take them as demonstrated.
What now is the process by which we are to make our
way back to the world again ?

3. The Existence of God and of the World. — The
first step is the proof for the existence of God. This
proof takes in Descartes more shapes than one, but it is
sufficient here to state it in the simplest form. We find
a great number of ideas in the mind. Some of these
it seems- to us come from our own nature, others from
an external compulsion, while others, again, we regard
as mere fictions, which the mind has put together of its own
invention. But what evidence is there that anything
exists outside our minds to correspond to these ideas ?
We have, it is true, a natural compulsion to believe that
some of them actually exist in the outer world. But such a
compulsion proves nothing philosophically. We have found
that many of our ideas do so fail to correspond with their
supposed objects, and why may this not conceivably be true
of the others ? If, then, their external archetype is not ca-
pable of being proved, is there any way in which we can be
certain that reality exists at all beyond our own thoughts ?

This certainty, according to Descartes, can be reached
through the medium of the principle of causality. It is
a thing manifest and self-evident, by the same natural
light which assured us of the existence of the self, that
there must be in every cause at least as much reality as
reveals itself in the effect Otherwise, we should have a
portion of the effect arising out of nothing. If, therefore,
in my mind there exists any single idea which evidently
is too great to have originated from my own nature, then
I can be sure that outside of me there is a cause commen-
surate to this idea. For the most part, I discover nothing
in my ideas which thus evidently requires something more
than my own nature to produce it. But to this there is
one exception. I find in myself an idea of God, as a sub-
stance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient,
omnipotent, by which myself and all other things have

Systems of Rationalism 271

been created and produced. Is it conceivable that attri-
butes so great and so exalted ever should have come from
the imperfect and finite nature which I know my own to
be ? Furthermore, my nature cannot have been derived
ultimately from my parents, or from any other cause that
falls short of the perfection of this idea which is a part of
me. Accordingly, I have bridged the gulf between my-
self and external reality; the real existence of God Him-
self must be postulated, as the only being great enough
to account for the presence in me of this idea of God,
which indubitably exists. The idea must have been im-
planted in my mind at birth, as a mark of the divine
workmanship.

And now with the self and God established, the re-
mainder is easy. We were prevented from resting in our
natural conviction that a material world exists beyond us, by
the final doubt whether a malignant power might not pur-
posely be deceiving us. But the act of deception necessarily
grows out of some defect, and cannot be attributed to the
God whose perfection we have established. Accordingly,
this doubt must now be put aside, and, in so far as it is
clearly conceived, the reality of matter must be admitted,
else God would be responsible for making us believe a lie.

4. The Nature of Matter. — Such, in brief, was the
metaphysics by which Descartes supposed that, with the
same certainty and clearness that are found in a geomet-
rical proof, the essential features of a world philosophy
were to be established. It will be evident on considera-
tion that the process of proof contains various assump-
tions, which Descartes did not clearly bring into view,
and which might be questioned much more easily than he
thought possible. But whether we consider his reasoning
valid or not, there are two things at any rate which he
had accomplished. He had set up the ideal of a method
which, in intention at least, discarded all assumptions based
on authority, and thus had broken free from Scholasticism.
And he had also marked out the main distinctions which it

272 A Student's History of Philosophy

is the task of philosophy to reconcile, with a clearness and
a precision which had never been attained before. In so
doing he opened up a new set of problems, that were to
occupy the succeeding period.

The main point about which this development centres
is the sharp distinction which Descartes draws between
mind and matter — the two substances into which the
world of experience is divided. The nature of mind, or
soul, has already been considered; it is a thing which
thinks. However we may regard the adequacy of this
term to express the essential character of the soul, at least
it emphasizes the entirely immaterial nature of conscious-
ness, and makes it possible for exact thinking to avoid that
confusion of the conscious life with the outer world, which
lies at the bottom of the obscure hylozoism of earlier philoso-
phers, and the conscious materialism of more modern times.
When we come, however, to inquire more closely into the
corresponding attribute of matter, a difficulty arises. The
matter which the common man knows, and which he feels
a natural compulsion to believe in, is matter as he sees,
and hears, and touches, and tastes it, — extended, colored,
sonorous. But some of these qualities, as, e.g., color, taste,
and sound, science tells us are not original, but are effects
upon us which have no counterpart in the thing itself;
and it is upon science that Descartes is building. Very
well then ; but we have found it possible to demonstrate
the existence of matter at all, only by means of the veracity
of God ; and if some of the qualities which God has led us
to believe in are demonstrably false, is not our whole cause
lost therewith ?

Descartes saves himself by his theory of truth and fal-
sity. When I judge, e.g., that I see a certain red object,
there are two elements that enter in. There is, first, the
fact that I have a perception of red ; and this, as a fact of
experience, is an absolutely certain fact, about which no
doubt whatever is possible. But I may also go beyond
this, and draw the inference that this red is the counterpart

Systems of Rationalism 273

of a real quality out in space. But while I may be inclined
to draw this inference, I do not need to do so ; it is a mat-
ter of choice on my part, or of will. False judgments, then,
are due to the fact that I go beyond the certain knowledge
which I have, and draw inferences that are not warranted ;
and for this I am responsible, not God. If God chooses to
give us a knowledge which is less than perfect, it is nothing
of which we can complain. And if, again, he has given
us a power of willing which is unlimited, and so goes beyond
our knowledge, that also is no hardship. He would only
be deceiving us, if that were false which we see clearly and
distinctly to be true. This is the criterion by which we are
to distinguish between what we commonly, but erroneously,
regard as the qualities of matter, and those qualities which
really belong to it. We are to resist the unthinking inclina-
tion to judge hastily, and withhold our assent until the truth
approves itself to us clearly and axiomatically.

In this way we shall find, so Descartes thinks, that ex-
tension is the only quality that can be conceived clearly.
That extension can be so conceived, is evident from the
fact that it is extension to which the truths of geometry,
the clearest of all the sciences, apply. The other qualities,
on the contrary, so Descartes thinks, involve no such self-
evident intuitions. They are like the sensation of hunger,
which furnishes no knowledge, but only serves a utilitarian
purpose, by giving us a warning with reference to bodily
needs. The essence of matter, consequently, is extension.
It is infinite, and infinitely divisible ; this last point in-
volves a denial of the theory of atoms. Again, since
space, as extension, is an attribute of matter, there is no
such thing as empty space. By identifying matter with
extension Descartes is compelled, also, to regard it
as entirely passive ; and so in order to get a foundation
for science he has to introduce from the outside a new
conception — that of motion — whose place in his meta-
physics is accordingly somewhat anomalous. Through
these two conceptions — matter and motion — the entire natu-

274 A Student's History of Philosophy

ral world is to be explained as a necessary and mechanical
system.

5. The Relation of Mind and Body. — But the very
clearness of Descartes' conception was the means of giv-
ing rise to a problem which from this time on becomes
an insistent one. If mind and matter are so abso-
lutely and totally different in their nature, how can they
come together to form a single world ? How are they to
react upon and affect each other, as apparently they do ?
The larger aspects of this problem did not at once present
themselves, but the beginning of the later development is
found in a point which became for Descartes himself a
matter of considerable importance. It is in connection with
the human organism that matter and mind come into closest
contact. Now as the body is a part of the material world,
its actions would logically come under the same mechanical
and mathematical laws that govern other things ; and this
is the direction in which Descartes is almost irresistibly
led. It is shown clearly in his famous doctrine of the au-
tomatism of brutes. " The greatest of all the prejudices we
have retained from infancy is that of believing that brutes
think. The source of our error comes from having observed
that many of the bodily members of brutes are not very dif-
ferent from our own in shape and movements, and from
the belief that our mind is the principle of the motions
which occur in us ; that it imparts motion to the body, and
is the cause of our thoughts. Assuming this, we find no
difficulty in believing that there is in brutes a mind similar
to our own ; but having made the discovery, after thinking
well upon it, that two different principles of our movements
are to be distinguished, — the one entirely mechanical and
corporeal, which depends solely on the force of the animal
spirits, and the configuration of the bodily parts, and which
may be called corporeal soul, and the other incorporeal, that
is to say, mind or soul, which you may define as a substance
which thinks, — I have inquired with great care whether
the motions of animals proceed from these two principles,

Systems of Rationalism 275

or from one alone. Now, having clearly perceived that
they can proceed from one only, I have held it demon-
strated that we are not able in any manner to prove that
there is in the animals a soul which thinks. I am not at
all disturbed in my opinion by those doublings and cun-
ning tricks of dogs and foxes, nor by all those things which
animals do, either from fear, or to get something to eat,
or just for sport. I engage to explain all that very
easily, merely by the conformation of the parts of the
animals." *

And if it is true that the life of animals can be explained
without reference to intelligence, this is also conceivable
of the vast majority of the activities of men as well. In
the Tract on Man, Descartes undertakes to show how,
assuming the body to be nothing but a statue or machine
of clay, the mere mechanical motion of parts is enough to
account for what we call its life ; " just as you may have
seen in grottoes and fountains in the royal gardens, that
the force alone with which the water moves, in passing
from the spring, is enough to move various machines, and
even to make them play on instruments, or utter words,
according to the different arrangement of the pipes which
conduct it. And, indeed, the nerves of the machine that
I am describing to you may very well be compared to the
pipes of the machinery of these fountains, its muscles and
its tendons to various other engines and devices which
serve to move them, its animal spirits to the water which
sets them in motion, of which the heart is the spring, and
the cavities of the brain the outlets. Moreover, respira-
tion and other such functions as are natural and usual to
it, and which depend on the course of the spirits, are like
the movements of a clock or a mill, which the regular flow
of the water can keep up. External objects, which, by
their presence alone, act upon the organs of its senses,
and which by this means determine it to move in many
different ways according as the particles of its brain are

1 Letter to Henry More (Torrey, p. 284).

276 A Student's History of Philosophy

arranged, are like visitors who, entering some of the grot-
toes of these fountains, bring about of themselves, without
intending it, the movements which occur in their presence ;
for they cannot enter without stepping on certain tiles of
the pavement, so arranged that, for example, if they
approach a Diana taking a bath, they make her hide in
the reeds ; and if they pass on in pursuit of her, they cause
a Neptune to appear before them, who menaces them with
his trident ; or if they turn in some other direction, they
will make a marine monster come out, who will squirt
water into their faces, or something similar will happen,
according to the fancy of the engineers who construct
them. And finally, when the reasonable soul shall be in
this machine, it will have its principal seat in the brain,
and it will be there like the fountain maker, who must be
at the openings where all the pipes of these machines dis-
charge themselves, if he wishes to start, to stop, or to
change in any way their movements." *

The last words of the quotation just given, show that
Descartes was not ready to carry out his conception to the
final consequences. That would have been to deny alto-
gether the influence of the will — of ourselves, in other
words — upon our actions ; and Descartes was not prepared
to sacrifice this apparent fact to suit his theory. Accord-
ingly, he admits that while our more habitual and reflex
actions are due to mechanism alone, yet it also is possible
for the mind to interfere, and alter the motions of the
body. The seat of this interaction he supposed to be a
part of the brain known as the pineal gland. Here the
animals spirits, or fine particles of the blood, whose en-
trance into the various nerves determines the body to one
action or another, may be deflected by the influence of the
soul, and so made the instrument by which the soul moves
the body. From the other side, this relationship of mind
and body gives rise to a distinction between two classes of
conscious facts. As the activity of the mind wholly by

1 Tract on Man (Torrey, p. 278).

Systems of Rationalism 277

itself, there is the power of pure thought. This the mind
possesses in its own right. But the mind is also influenced
by its connection with the body, and this gives rise to
certain modes of consciousness — emotions, sensations, and
the like — which, intellectually at least, are of a lower
order. For Descartes, as for most of the ancients, the true
type of life is the intellectual life.

6. The Cartesians. Occasionalism. — The influence which
Descartes exerted was immediate and profound. By his
disciples, his words were taken almost as those of one
inspired. In Holland a school of enthusiastic Cartesians
sprang up, but the most important speculative development
was in France. Here a number of famous names, notably
those of Geulincx and Malebrancke, are found among the
thinkers who professed themselves Cartesians. Only one
point in connection with these men will be mentioned here.

Descartes had admitted the fact of a mutual influence
between the soul and the body, without going on to
explain its possibility. With this his followers were not
wholly satisfied. The main difficulty for them lay in the
question how, if matter and mind are so absolutely diverse
in nature, there can be any such thing as an influence
of one upon the other. The answer given by Geulincx
took the form which became known as Occasionalism.
The difficulty of an interaction was admitted, but it was
solved by falling back on the omnipotence of God. It is
no power of the human mind that effects an alteration in
the physical world, but a direct act of God. A particular
exertion of the will does not move the human body, but on
occasion of this act of will God intervenes, and changes
the direction of the body in a way to secure the same
result. There is thus no need of any influence passing
between the two unlike substances.

Occasionalism proved to be only a temporary stopping-
place ; it did not reach the deeper aspects of the problem.
But already it showed the direction in which the logic of
Descartes' standpoint was to lead. Descartes had left the

278 A Students History of Philosophy

world divided into three constituent parts — the two sub-
stances, mind and matter, and a third more ultimate
reality, God. Now it was by appealing to this last reality
that the division could, it seemed, most naturally be over-
come, if the distinction which Descartes had so clearly
drawn was not again to be confused. Descartes, indeed,
had recognized this. Defining a substance as that which
can be conceived through itself alone, he had seen that
after all mind and matter are no true substances, since
they are not to be conceived apart from God ; and so that
in the strict meaning of the term only one substance — God
— exists. Consequently Occasionalism had a glimpse of
the true problem when it fell back upon an appeal to God's
power. But this solution remained only an external one ;
the way to a more intimate connection between God and
the world was brought to light by Spinoza.

LITERATURE

Descartes, Chief Works: Discourse upon Method (1637); Medita-
tions (1640) ; Principia Philosophize (1644) ; Emotions of the Soul
(1649). Translations: Veitch (Method, Meditations, Selections from
the Principles) ; Lowndes (Meditations) \ Torrey (Selections} .

Mahaffy, Descartes.

Fischer, Descartes and his School.

Huxley, Methods and Results.

Caird, Essays on Literature and Philosophy.

Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy.

Iverach, Descartes, Spinoza, and the New Philosophy.

Haldane, Descartes, His Life and Times.

§ 29. Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza was a Portuguese Jew, born in 1632 in
Amsterdam, where his parents had taken refuge from per-
secution. On account of the scandal growing out of his
heretical opinions, he was excommunicated from the syna-
gogue, in 1656, after vain efforts to bribe him to maintain at

Systems of Rationalism 279

least an outward conformity. So bitter were the feelings
against him that an attempt was even made to get rid of
him by assassination. His opinions were hardly less objec-
tionable to Christians, however, than to Jews, and he spent
the rest of his days apart from men and social life, supply-
ing his very simple wants by grinding lenses, for which he
earned a wide reputation. His profound intellect and the
beauty of his character attracted, however, a few friends
and disciples. His fame gradually extended, and he was
offered at one time the chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg ;
but he preferred the liberty to hold without restriction his
own beliefs, and think his own thoughts. Money possessed
no greater attraction for him than fame and position. The
patrimony of which his sisters had attempted to deprive
him, he voluntarily relinquished, after first securing his
title to it by a legal process. He refused a present from
the French king, which a simple dedication would have
secured. An admirer, Simon de Vries, who proposed to
leave Spinoza his property, was dissuaded by him in favor
of the natural heir ; and when the latter, after De Vries'
death, fixed a pension which had been willed to Spinoza at
five hundred florins, he declared the sum too great, and
refused to take more than three hundred. His own death
occurred in 1677.

It is not easy to give a brief account of Spinoza's phi-
losophy that shall at once be intelligible, and do justice to
its inner spirit. Couched as it is in abstract and scholastic
terms, and given the form of rigid mathematical demon-
stration, an understanding of the chain of close reasoning
which constitutes his system calls for a somewhat tech-
nical acquaintance with metaphysics. Furthermore, the
acknowledged inconsistencies in Spinoza's thought render
a systematic exposition complicated. Without attempting
this, accordingly, it will be enough to suggest in a more
general way what it is that Spinoza, in his philosophy, is
trying to accomplish.

The estimates of Spinoza have been somewhat startling

280 A Student's History of Philosophy

in their divergence. For the most part, he has been exe-
crated, by Jew and Christian alike, as an atheist and a foe
to religion. And yet, by others, his philosophy has been
thought to be so fundamentally religious, that Novalis gave
to him the name " God-intoxicated." Both these judgments
stand for factors in his thought that are necessary for its
proper understanding. From the standpoint of orthodox
theology, there is no doubt that Spinoza is irreligious. He
denies outright the personal God of the Christian, the
government of the world according to purpose, and the
freedom of the will. It is often difficult to distinguish his
theory from a thoroughgoing naturalism, which identifies
God with the necessary laws of the physical universe.
But, on the other hand, Spinoza evidently supposes that
he is vindicating the only worthy idea of religion ; and he
opposes the ordinary conceptions as themselves, in reality,
irreligious. God is the beginning and the end of his phi-
losophy. This philosophy is not, in the last analysis,
merely theoretical, in spite of its abstractness. As the
title — Ethica — of his most important book implies, it is
practical, a philosophy of life and of redemption.

The central idea of Spinoza, and that which gave him
his deep influence somewhat later on, when the period of
the Enlightenment was drawing to a close, is his recognition
of the unity of things ; and that not only as an intellectual
necessity, but as a requirement of feeling, a religious re-
quirement, as well. Descartes had split the world up into
two substances distinct from each other, and a God sepa-
rate from both of them. The Rationalism which took its
rise from him, tended still further to remove God from the
world, until he became a mere far-away observer, with
scarcely any relation to his work. Such a separation was
fatal in two ways. It emptied the idea of God, on the
one hand, of all content, and so made him superfluous;
and it rendered it impossible to give any ultimate and uni-
tary explanation of the world of things. In opposition to
this, it was Spinoza's task to insist upon the connection of

Systems of Rationalism 281

God with the world, and to find in him the ultimate reality,
alongside which the independent reality of other so-called
substances fades into nothingness.

This, then, is the starting-point of Spinoza's thought — •
the perception of the unreality of finite things. Man
begins by taking the world as a collection of independent
persons and objects, each complete in itself and real in
itself. But he soon discovers the futility of this. Intel-
lectually, he cannot stop with any object by itself. He
finds he is unable to understand it apart from its connec-
tions with other things ; and he thus is led continually
on from one relationship to another, in an endless series.
Nor, emotionally, can he rest his affections on the chang-
ing facts of the finite world. They are ever leaving him
disappointed and disillusioned, and he craves some perma-
nent and perfect object to satisfy his ideal. " After expe-
rience had taught me," Spinoza says, in a passage which
describes how he was led to philosophy, " that all the usual
surroundings of social life1 are vain and futile, seeing that
none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves
anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind
is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether
there might be some real good having power to communi-
cate itself, which would affect the mind singly to the ex-
clusion of all else ; whether in fact there might be anything
of which the discovery and attainment would enable me
to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness."
Such happiness, he saw very clearly, neither riches, nor
fame, nor pleasures of sense could give. " Further reflec-
tion convinced me that if I could really get to the root of
the matter, I should be leaving certain evils for a certain
good. I thus perceived that I was in a state of great peril,
and I compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a
remedy, however uncertain it might be; as a rich man
struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death
will surely be upon him unless a remedy be found, is com-
pelled to seek such a remedy with all his strength, inasmuch

282 A Student's History of Philosophy

as his whole hope lies therein; all the objects pursued by
the multitude not only being no remedy that tends to pre-
serve our being, but even act as hindrances, causing the
death not seldom of those who possess them, and always
of those who are possessed by them. All these evils seem
to have arisen from the fact that happiness or unhappiness
is made wholly to depend on the quality of the object
which we love. When a thing is not loved, no quarrels
will arise concerning it, no sadness will be felt if it per-
ishes, no envy if it is possessed by another, no fear, no
hatred, in short, no disturbance of the mind. All these
arise from the love of what is perishable, such as the ob-
jects already mentioned. But love toward a thing eternal
and infinite fills the mind wholly with joy, and is itself
unmingled with any sadness ; wherefore it is greatly to be
desired, and sought for with all our strength." 1

What is the end of philosophy then ? It is the practical
end of escaping from the fleeting show which the phenom-
enal world presents, since this gives no real happiness ;
and of finding blessedness by identifying ourselves with
that true reality without variableness or shadow of turning,
which alone is worthy to call forth our love, and able to
satisfy it. And this which alone approves itself to heart
and intellect alike, is the one eternal unity of the universe,
which embraces all finite facts in its grasp, and gives to
them whatever reality they possess ; in religious language,
it is God. Instead of God being a hazardous inference
from the undoubted reality of finite things, it is these latter
which are doubtful ; it is their insufficiency which leads us
necessarily to the all-sufficient whole in which they have
their being. For philosophy, the starting-point is not from
them, but from the one reality which alone is absolutely
certain, and from which they are themselves to be deduced.

Stated in this general way, Spinoza's aim, on the theo-
retical side, is that which every philosophy, which is not
content with a chaotic atomism, has striven to accomplish.

1 Improvement of the Intellect. (Elwes* translation, Vol. II, pp. 3-5.)

Systems of Rationalism 283

An understanding of the ultimate unity of things is, in-
deed, the reason for philosophy's existence. It remains
to ask how successfully Spinoza accomplishes his task.
What is the nature of the connection of God and the world
with which he leaves us, and how far does it satisfy alike
the head and the heart ?

I. Spinoza 'j Metaphysics

I. Substance and Attributes. — And first, a brief state-
ment of the intellectual construction of the world which
Spinoza makes the basis of his ethical conclusions. Every
fact that can exist must come under one of three heads :
it is a substance, or an attribute, or a mode. A substance
is " that which is in itself, and is conceived by means of
itself, that is, that the conception of which does not need
to be formed from the conception of any other thing."
An attribute is " that which the understanding perceives
as constituting the essence of substance." A mode is a
" modification of substance : in other words, that which is
in, and is conceived by means of, something else." 1 The
term " mode," to put it more simply, stands for the whole
list of particular, finite facts, that made up our world —
external things, and inner states of consciousness.

But now Descartes had already seen that, strictly
speaking, there is- only a single substance. Matter and
mind are not conceivable in themselves, but can only be
understood by reference to God ; and Spinoza, accordingly,
is entirely consistent in reducing them, from substances,
to mere attributes of the one substance, God. Reality,
then, is one, eternal, infinite. On the one substance all
things depend — attributes as its eternal essence, finite
things as the modifications of these attributes. Just as in
geometry eternal truths about spatial relations are deduced
from self-evident premises, so from the bare definition of

1 Ethics, Pt. I. Def. This and the following quotations are from Professor
Fullerton's translation. ( The Philosophy of Spinoza, Henry Holt & Co.)

284 A Student's History of Philosophy

God his attributes are to be derived, and from these, other
lesser truths. To be sure, Spinoza does not actually
succeed in showing how these deductions from the defi-
nition of God are to be made; but he assumes their
possibility. The nature of the real connections in the
world is not that of cause and effect, but of logical de-
pendence.

Spinoza's doctrine of substance opens up to him a new
solution of the problem which had occupied Descartes and
the Cartesians — that which concerns the relation of mind
and body. Of the infinite number of attributes which
belong to the nature of God, we know only these two —
thought and extension. Now on the surface these seem
clearly to be connected An act of will apparently causes
a bodily movement ; an external impression gives rise to
a sensation or a thought. But, on the other hand, there
are difficulties in understanding this interaction. Des-
cartes felt these difficulties, and they led him to his belief
in the automatism of brutes, and the all but automatism
even of human beings. We cannot, for one thing, get
any clear notion of how one substance can act upon
another of a wholly different nature. But there is a more
formidable difficulty still. If we follow out scientific
method with entire consistency, we are forced to look for
the same physical and mechanical explanation for our
own bodily movements, as for the movements of lifeless
things ; and this excludes a reference to acts of will, which
have no place in the physical world. Occasionalism might
seem to obviate the first difficulty, but it hardly touched
the second.

Spinoza's doctrine of substance enabled him to offer a
new solution. If the attributes of thought and extension
are not two separate things, but only aspects of one and
the same thing, they cannot interfere with or act upon
each other ; for a thing cannot interact with itself. Never-
theless, a definite relation will exist between them, because
it is the same substance of which they both are attributes.

Systems of Rationalism 285

That which in one light appears as a mode of extension
or physical fact, will be, in another light, a mode of
thought or fact of consciousness ; and so the two modes
will correspond, and a complete and exact parallelism will
hold between the attributes, without, however, there being
any interaction.

In this way Spinoza justifies the claim of science to give
an explanation of all physical events, including the move-
ments of the body, in purely physical terms. For each
mode of thought, a mode of extension will exist. But
since there is no interaction, thought can only be ex-
plained by reference to the thought series, extension by
reference to other modes of extension; never the one
by the other. " A mode of extension, and the idea of that
mode, are one and the same thing, but expressed in two
ways: a truth which certain of the Hebrews appear
to have seen as if through a mist, in that they assert that
God, the intellect of God, and the things known by it,
are one and the same. For example, a circle existing
in nature, and the idea, which also is in God, of this exist-
ing circle, are one and the same thing, manifested through
different attributes ; for this reason, whether we con-
ceive nature under the attribute of extension or under
that of thought, we shall find there follows one and the
same order, or one and the same concatenation of causes,
that is, the same thing. I have said that God is the
cause of an idea, for instance, the idea of a circle,
merely in so far as he is a thinking thing, and of the
circle, merely in so far as he is an extended thing, just
for the reason that the formal being of the idea of a
circle can only be perceived through another mode of
thinking as its proximate cause, that one in its turn
through another, and so to infinity. Thus, whenever
we consider things as modes of thinking, we must explain
the whole order of nature, or concatenation of causes,
through the attribute of thought alone ; and in so far
as we consider them as modes of extension, we must

286 A Student's History of Philosophy

likewise explain the whole order of nature solely through
the attribute of extension/' x

2. The Nature of God. — So much for a general state-
ment. But now in what way is this ultimate substance —
God — to be conceived ? And certainly he is not the God
of popular belief. Can he be thought of after the fashion
of a man, with body, and mind, and the passions of men ?
Surely not. Is he a being who acts according to ends
beyond himself ? " I confess the doctrine which subjects
all things to a certain arbitrary fiat of God, and makes
them depend upon his good pleasure, is less wide of the
truth than that of those who maintain that God does all
things with some end in view. The latter appear to affirm
that there is something external to God, and independent
of him, upon which, as upon a pattern, God looks when he
acts, or at which he aims, as at a definite goal. This is
simply subjecting God to fate, and nothing more absurd
than this can be maintained concerning God, who is the
first and only free cause, as well of the essence of all things
as of their existence." 2 Again, this doctrine denies God's
perfection ; for if God acts with an end in view, he neces-
sarily seeks something which he lacks. " Nor must I here
overlook the fact that the adherents of this doctrine, who
have chosen to display their ingenuity in assigning final
causes to things, have employed in support of their doctrine
a new form of argument, namely, a reduction, not ad im-
fossibile, but ad ignorantiam, which shows that there was
no other way to set about proving this doctrine. If, for
example, a stone has fallen from a roof upon some one's
head, and has killed him, they will prove as follows that the
stone fell for the purpose of killing the man. If it did not
fall, in accordance with God's will, for this purpose, how
could there have been a chance occurrence of so many cir-
cumstances ? Perhaps you will answer, it happened because
the wind blew, and the man had an errand there. But they
will insist, why did the wind blow at that time ? and why did
1 Pt. II, 7. Schol. 2 Pt. I, 33. Schol. 2.

Systems of Rationalism 287

that man have an errand that way at just that time ? . . .
And so they will keep on asking the causes of causes,
until you take refuge in the will of God, that asylum of
ignorance. So, again, when they consider the structure
of the human body, they are amazed, and because they
are ignorant of the causes which have produced such a
work of art, they infer that it has not been fashioned
mechanically, but by divine or supernatural skill, and put
together in such a way that one part does not injure
another. Hence it happens that he who seeks for the
true causes of miracles, and endeavors, like a scholar, to
comprehend the things in nature, and not, like a fool,
to wonder at them, is everywhere regarded and pro-
claimed as a heretic and an impious man by those whom
the multitude reverence as interpreters of nature and the
gods." *

There are, then, no final causes in nature. Our popular
notions are due to a wholly unjustifiable transference of
our own conditions to God. Men are constituted by
nature with an impulse to seek their own advantage,
and they do everything with some purpose in view that
has reference to this. " Hence it happens that they always
desire to know only the final causes of actions, and, when
they have learned these, are satisfied. But if they cannot
learn these from some one else, nothing remains for them
to do but to turn to themselves, and have recourse to the
ends by which they are wont to be determined to similar
action ; and thus they necessarily judge another's char-
acter by their own. Again, since they find in themselves
and external to themselves many things which, as means,
are of no small assistance in obtaining what is to their
advantage, as, for example, the eyes for seeing, the teeth
for chewing, plants and animals for food, the sun for giv-
ing light, the sea for maintaining fish, and so on — this has
led them to regard all the things in nature as means to
their advantage. And knowing that these means have

1 Pt. i, Appendix.

288 A Student's History of Philosophy

been discovered, not provided, by themselves, they have
made this a reason for believing that there is some one
else who has provided these things for their use. . . .
Moreover, as they had never had any information con-
cerning the character of such beings, they had to judge
of it from their own. Hence they maintained that the
gods direct all things with a view to man's advantage, to
lay men under obligation to themselves, and to be held by
them in the highest honor ; whence it has come to pass
that each one has thought out for himself, according to
his disposition, a different way of worshipping God, that
God might love him above others, and direct all nature
to the service of his blind desire and insatiable avarice.
Thus this prejudice has become a superstition, and has
taken deep root in men's minds; and this has been the
reason why every one has applied himself with the great-
est effort to comprehend and explain the final causes of all
things. But while they sought to prove that nature does
nothing uselessly (in other words, nothing that is not to
man's advantage), they seemed to have proved only that
nature and gods and men are all equally mad. Just see
how far the thing has been carried. Among all the useful
things in nature they could not help finding a few harm-
ful things, as tempests, earthquakes, diseases, and so forth.
They maintain that these occur because the gods were
angry on account of injuries done them by men, or on
account of faults committed in their worship. And
although experience daily contradicted this, and showed
by an infinity of instances that good and evil fall to the
lot of the pious and of the impious indifferently, that did
not make them abandon their inveterate prejudice ; they
found it easier to class these facts with other unknown
things of whose use they were ignorant, and thus to retain
their present and innate condition of ignorance, than to
destroy the whole fabric of their reasoning, and think out
a new one. Hence, they assumed that the judgments of
the gods very far surpass man's power of comprehension.

Systems of Rationalism 289

This in itself would have been sufficient to hide the truth
forever from mankind, had not mathematics, which is
concerned, not with final causes, but with the essences
and properties of figures, shown men a different standard
of truth."1

It is from these prejudices that all our judgments of
worth in nature have sprung. "After men have per-
suaded themselves that everything that happens, happens
for their sake, they had to regard that quality in each
thing which was most useful to them as the most impor-
tant, and to rate all those things which affected them the
most agreeably, as the most excellent. Hence, to explain
the natures of things, they had to frame the notions good,
evil, order, confusion, beauty, and deformity ; and from their
belief that they are free have arisen the notions oipraise and
blame, and sin and merit. . . . They have called good every-
thing which conduces to health and to the worship of God,
and bad everything that is unfavorable to these." In re-
ality, good and evil indicate no positive element in things,
considered, that is to say, in themselves. They are only
modes of thinking, or subjective notions. One and the
same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and
indifferent. For example, music is good for the mel-
ancholy man, and bad for him who mourns ; while for the
deaf man it is neither good nor bad. " And as those who
do not understand nature make no affirmations about
things, but only imagine things, and take imagination for
understanding, in their ignorance of things and of their
nature they firmly believe that there is order in things.
For when things are so arranged that, when they are rep-
resented to us through the senses, we can easily imagine
them, and hence can easily think them over, we call them
orderly ; if the opposite be true, we say they are in dis-
order, or are confused. And since those things we can
easily imagine are more pleasing to us than to others,
men place order above confusion, — as though order had

iPt. I, Appendix.
u

290 A Student's History of Philosophy

any existence in nature except in relation to our imagina-
tion, — and they say that God created all things in order,
thus unwittingly ascribing imagination to God. ... So if
the motion communicated to the nerves by objects repre-
sented through the eyes is conducive to health, the objects
which cause it are called beautiful; those objects, on the
other hand, that excite a contrary motion, are called ugly.
Again, those that move the sense through the nostrils are
called odoriferous or stinking: those that move it through
the tongue, sweet or bitter, savory or unsavory, and so on.
Finally, those that move the ears are said to give forth
noise, sound or harmony : which last has driven men so
mad that they believed even God takes delight in harmony.
Nor are there wanting philosophers who have persuaded
themselves that the motions of the heavenly bodies com-
pose a harmony. All this sufficiently proves that every one
has judged of things according to the condition of his
brain, or, rather, has taken the affections of his imagina-
tion for things. Hence it is not surprising that so many
controversies have arisen among men, as we find to be the
case, and that from these scepticism has resulted. For
although men's bodies are in many respects alike, yet they
have very many points of difference, and, therefore, what
seems good to one seems bad to another ; what seems or-
derly to one seems confused to another ; what is pleasant
to one is unpleasant to another. The sayings : ' Many
men, many minds '; ' Every man is satisfied with his
own opinion ' ; ' Brains differ as much as palates ' —
these are in everybody's mouth ; and they sufficiently
prove that men judge of things according to the condition
of their brains, and rather imagine things than comprehend
them. For had they comprehended things, all these proofs
would, as mathematics bears witness, if not attract, at least
convince them." 1

All the attributes of worth, then, which we are accus-
tomed to apply to the world, have no real existence. All

1 Pt. I, Appendix.

Systems of Rationalism 291

that we can say is, that things are, and are necessarily.
God did not create them for a purpose, nor could he have
made them to be otherwise than we actually find them.
To suppose that God is a free cause, and able to pre-
vent the things which follow from his nature from coming
to pass, is the same as saying that God can prevent it fol-
lowing from the nature of a triangle, that its three angles
are -equal to two right angles. We cannot ascribe to God
will or intellect at all in the human meaning of the words.
" If intellect or will do belong to God's eternal essence,
each of these attributes must be taken in a sense very dif-
ferent from the common one. For there would have to be
a world-wide difference between our intellect and will, and
the intellect and will constituting God's essence, nor
could they agree in anything except the name ; just as the
Dog, a constellation, agrees with dog, an animal that
barks." *

If then, God has neither passions, nor purposes, nor
intellect, nor will, nor moral worth, what content are
we to give to him ? At times, Spinoza seems clearly
to conceive reality, after the manner of the scientist,
as a great system of natural law. It is, at least, the
scientific view of the world which forms the positive
basis for his criticism of religion and teleology. " Science
touched with emotion," therefore, perhaps comes closest
to characterizing the more positive features of his
whole attitude. But is even this ultimate ? Is God after
all in his truth anything more- than bare abstract sub-
stance, of which we can say nothing whatever that is
definite ?

3. God and the Finite World. — Such a question brings
out the special difficulty in Spinoza's philosophy. There is
no doubt that he wants to get a substance that shall find a
place for, and give an explanation to, all the reality of the
phenomenal world. Evidently nothing less than this will
be sufficient. The phenomenal, finite world is that from
1 Pt. 1, 17, Schol.

292 A Student's History of Philosophy

which we start. Undeniably it has some reality, even if its
reality is imperfect and incomplete. And a unity which
explains it must include in itself at least all the truth that
the finite world possesses, even while it goes beyond and
supplements this truth; it must not simply ignore finite
things. Now Spinoza might have retained the reality
of the finite by making God, the ultimate substance,
simply the aggregate of finite facts; but he saw clearly
that this would not serve his purpose. Such a unity
would be only a fictitious one, and would leave reality after
all a mere heap of particulars. But how to get any other
unity, that should be at once concrete, doing justice to the
facts of experience, and yet a real universal, a real bond
of union, was a problem which Spinoza never completely
met.

Accordingly, while the true aim and presupposition of
his philosophy is to find reality in the unchanging rational
laws of which changing events in the natural world are
the expression, and through which they are to be under-
stood, the constant tendency in Spinoza's thinking — a
tendency increased by his Scholastic terminology — was to
get away from the concrete altogether, and to arrive at
his more general and ultimate being by the process of ab-
straction. That the process of abstraction does not lead us
to concrete reality, he was well aware. He recognizes that
the abstract man is not more, but less, real than particular
men, and only represents the fact that these have certain
elements in common ; the ideal of the universal which he
has before him is rather that of a comprehensive law. But,
for all that, the eternal facts which he identifies with real-
ity tend to be, in so far as he can make them clear at all,
just such abstractions. Substance, or God, is reached by
precisely that same process of dropping all limitations in
the way of determinate qualities, which gives us the ab-
stract man. The consequence is, that the logical deriva-
tion of less ultimate from more ultimate reality is beyond
his reach. To use Hegel's figure, Spinoza's Absolute is

Systems of Rationalism 293

the lion's den to which all tracks lead, and from which
none return.

And even if Spinoza had been always true to his ideal
of reality as law, rather than mere substance, he still had
an unsolved problem in the fact of imperfection and con-
tingency, for which his rationalism left no place. By the
geometrical method, we can at best only get truths which,
though derived, are as absolute and as eternal as the God
on the definition of whom they depend. The theorem of
geometry is as true and adequate as the axioms on which
it is based. But what, then, of the inadequate and false
ideas which are represented in what Spinoza calls modes ?
Whence comes our phenomenal knowledge of ourselves
and of the world ? Clearly such false ideas can never be
derived by a method which gives only truth. Or, to put
it in another way, our inadequate notions of the world, and
the modes of extension, or particular changing things,
which these represent, either have an existence or they
have not. If they have an existence, they are a part of
God, since nothing exists outside of him ; and then how
can they be otherwise than as they are for God — eternal
and adequate ? Or, if they have no existence at all, how
do we come to talk about them as if they did exist ? The
fact is, that by no possibility can Spinoza connect the world
of appearance, of finite modes, of existence in time, with
the true and eternal (timeless) reality of God, and of those
derivative truths, equally eternal, that can be logically de-
duced from Him. And, consequently, he leaves the finite
world without explanation; it is a mere impertinence in
his system. Yet it is precisely to explain this that philos-
ophy originates ; and, apart from it, reality is left a mere
blank.

It will not be necessary to dwell upon the statements by
which Spinoza attempts, verbally at least, to bridge over
the gap between this world of appearance, and the world
of reality. From the nature of the case, the task is a
hopeless one. Logically, Spinoza should have denied the

294 -A Student's History of Philosophy

former world altogether ; but the facts are too evident to
permit of this. Indeed, the whole purpose of his philoso-
phy is just to show how man, from being a mere part of
the phenomenal world, can escape from its finiteness and
attain true felicity. It only remains, then, to consider how
this practical redemption is to be brought about, and what,
more precisely, is the bondage from which we are to be
set free.

2. The Doctrine of Salvation

I. Human Bondage. — It has been seen that, according
to Spinoza, the unsatisfactoriness of life is due to the fact
that our affections are set, not upon an object that is eternal
and unchanging, but upon transitory and imperfect things.
If the object of our love were without variableness, it would
lay to rest our passions, and impart to life something of its
own calm and steadfastness. But because we love that
which has no* constancy and no true reality, we are in a
continual turmoil of emotions; we hate, and envy, and
fear, are exalted and depressed, take even our pleasures
feverishly, and never know what peace is. Subjection to
the emotions, then, and ignorance of our true end — the
former growing out of the latter — are the elements which
constitute human bondage.

Now the further justification of this is found in Spinoza's
psychology of the human life. The essence of life is self-
preservation — the tendency of each individual thing to
persevere in its own existence, to welcome all that tends to
increase this, and oppose and reject whatever tends to limit
it. Here again Spinoza accepts a fact of experience for
which logically his system has no place ; for if individual
things have no reality in themselves, any such self-asser-
tive activity would seem to be excluded. When this act
of self-assertion depends wholly on ourselves, we have
what Spinoza calls an action; when it depends in part
upon what lies beyond ourselves, it is a passion. What,
then, is the basis of this distinction between actions and

Systems of Rationalism 295

passions ? What actions depend wholly on ourselves, and
what on other beings ?

The answer goes back to the two ways of regarding the
human mind, implied in Spinoza's whole doctrine. If we
take, that is, our phenomenal knowledge about the world,
the particular states of our empirical consciousness, we
have what Spinoza calls modes. Now these facts of the
finite world are not complete in themselves, or capable of
an absolute explanation. Each is causally dependent on
another finite fact, and this, again, on another, and so on,
in an infinite series. Thus, in the physical realm, any
bodily change depends, not on the nature of the body
alone, but on the body as affected by another mode, that
is, upon the interaction between the body and the outside
world ; and the antecedents of this interaction can never
be completely traced out. The same thing is true of the
modes of thought, or ideas, which correspond to the bodily
modes. Accordingly, our supposed adequate knowledge
of objects is nothing of the sort. When we think we per-
ceive an external object, what we really have is a sensation
representing a state of our own body — a state which is
caused by the interaction between the real object and our
sense organs, and which, consequently, by reason of its
being a product of two factors, is a true representative of
neither of them. This is the old doctrine of the relativity
of sense perception, which goes back to Protagoras. All
our sense knowledge is, therefore, inadequate and confused.

But now there is another way of regarding the human
mind. Besides being a collection of finite modes, our
minds are also a constituent part of God's nature, since
everything whatever that exists, exists in God. In their
essence, therefore, their inmost truth and reality, our ideas
may be viewed 'under a certain form of eternity ' ; and when
thus viewed, they of course are adequate. The distinction,
then, between actions and passions, goes back to the dis-
tinction between adequate thought, which has its full ex-
planation in the mind itself, as identical in its essence with

296 A Student's History of Philosophy

God ; and inadequate thought, which depends on the mind
as a collection of finite modes, each getting what explana-
tion it can by reference to an infinite series of other finite
facts. We are never fully active, except as we think truly,
and see things as they are in God; for thought is the
very essence of our nature. "The desires which follow
from our nature in such a way that they can be compre-
hended through it alone, are such as are referred to the
mind in so far as it is conceived as consisting of adequate
ideas. The other desires, however, are not referred to the
mind, except in so far as it conceives things inadequately,
and their strength and growth must be defined, not as
human power, but as that of the things that are outside us.
Hence, the former are properly called actions, the latter
passions ; for the former always indicate our power ; the
latter, on the contrary, our impotence and fragmentary
knowledge." 1

But now the mind strives to persevere in its being, and
is conscious of this its endeavor, not only in so far as it
has clear and distinct ideas, but also in so far as it has
confused ideas. And here comes in Spinoza's doctrine of
the emotions. For an emotion is nothing but a confused
idea, or a passion. The body can be affected in many
ways by which its power of acting is increased or dimin-
ished ; modifications of the body, and their corresponding
ideas, through which either of these results are brought
about, are what we call emotions. A passion in which the
mind passes to a greater degree of perfection is pleasure ;
one in which it passes to a lesser degree of perfection is pain.
By reference to the three elements — desire, pain, pleasure —
all the varied emotions are to be defined. Thus, love is pleas-
ure accompanied by the idea of an external cause ; hate is
pain accompanied by a similar idea. Derision is pleasure
which has its source in the fact that we conceive something
we despise to be in the thing we hate. Hope is inconstant
pleasure arising from the idea of something future or past,

i Pt. IV, Appendix II.

Systems of Rationalism 297

of the event of which we have some doubt. Despair is
pain arising from a thing present or past, regarding which
cause for doubt has been removed ; and so on. In general,
" an emotion, which is called a passion of the soul, is a
confused idea, through which the mind affirms the energy
of existence possessed by its body, or any part of it, to be
greater or less than it was before, and through the pres-
ence of which the mind itself is determined to this thought
rather than to that." *

The attainment of freedom, then, has two sides. It is
an escape from the emotions, and it is an escape from in-
adequate and false ideas : and these two things are one.
True blessedness is thus the blessedness of knowledge.
"Hence it is of the utmost service in life to perfect the
understanding or reason, as far as we can ; and in this one
thing consists man's highest felicity. Indeed, blessedness
is nothing but that very satisfaction of the soul which
arises from an intuitive knowledge of God. But to perfect
the understanding is only to comprehend God, his attri-
butes, and the actions that follow from the necessity of his
nature. Wherefore the ultimate aim of the man who is
controlled by reason, that is, the highest desire, with which
he strives to restrain all the others, is that which impels him
to conceive adequately himself and everything that can fall
within the scope of his understanding."2 That only is
good which is conducive to knowledge ; that which hinders
and diminishes it is bad. We are virtuous in so far as we
are strong, as the understanding is active ; to be weak, or
passive, is to be vicious. Thus not only hatred and envy
are vices, but also pity, shame, humility, and repentance.
All of these are accompanied by a feeling of pain ; they
concentrate attention on our weakness, and make us blind
to our true strength. Compassion, by putting an undue
emphasis on the mere external signs of suffering, diverts
us from a study of causes, and often leads us to acts of
blind impulse that afterward we regret. Repentance is

i Ft. Ill (Fullerton, p. 152). * R. IV> Appendix IV.

298 A Student's History of Philosophy

doubly bad ; for he who regrets is weak, and is conscious
of his weakness. The man who lives according to reason
will, therefore, strive to rise above pity and vain regrets.
He will help his neighbor, but he will do it from reason,
not from impulse. He will consider nothing worthy of
hatred, mockery, or contempt. He will look at life dispas-
sionately and fearlessly, obeying no one but himself, doing
that only which he knows to be best, conquered neither by
human miseries nor his own mistakes.

2. Human Freedom. — This, in general terms, is the out-
come of Spinoza's philosophy ; it may be well, however, to
consider the process a little more closely. And at first
sight it might seem that freedom is impossible in Spinoza's
system, since necessity rules in this from first to last. It has
been seen that all things follow necessarily from the nature
of God ; an event is called contingent only in relation to the
imperfection of our knowledge. And of course man's life
does not fall outside this necessity. Is it said that we know
by experience that it is within the power of the mind alone
to do many things solely by its own decree ; to speak, for
example, or to be silent, as it chooses ? " But surely the
condition of human affairs would be much more satisfactory
if it were as much within man's power to be silent as to speak.
But experience gives sufficient, and more than sufficient
proof of the fact that there is nothing less under a man's
control than his tongue, nor is there anything of which a
man is less capable than of restraining his impulse. This
is the reason most persons believe that we are free only in
doing those things to which we are impelled by slight de-
sires, for the impulse to do such things can be easily checked
by the memory of some other thing of which we often think ;
but that we are by no means free in doing those things to
which we are impelled by strong emotion, which cannot be
checked by the memory of some other thing. But, had
they not had experience of the fact that we do many things
which we afterward regret, and that we often, when we
are harassed by conflicting emotions, see the better and

Systems of Rationalism 299

follow the worse, nothing would prevent them from believ-
ing that we are always free in our actions. Thus the in-
fant believes that it desires milk of its own free will ; the
angry child that it is free in seeking revenge, and the
timid that it is free in taking to flight. Again, a drunken
man believes that he says of his own free will things he
afterward, when sober, wishes he had left unsaid ; so also
an insane man, a garrulous woman, a child, and very many
others of the sort, believe they speak of their own free will,
while, nevertheless, they are unable to control their im-
pulse to talk. Thus experience itself shows, no less clearly
than reason, that men think themselves free only because
they are conscious of their actions, and ignorant of the
causes which determine them. It shows, moreover, that
the mind's decisions are nothing but its impulses, which
vary with the varying condition of the body." 1

We cannot, therefore, escape from the necessary facts
of existence. Reality is as it is, and we cannot make it
different. But this is bondage only when we rebel against
it, and set up in its stead purely individual ends. We
shall find freedom — the only true freedom — in knowing
the truth and accepting it. We are not under constraint
because we are subject to law, but because we are subject
to our own ignorance and passions. God is perfect free-
dom, not because he can act arbitrarily, but because he
acts solely from the laws of his own nature and under no
compulsion ; there is nothing external to him that can
determine him to act.

Now emotions, since they are passions rather than
actions, represent such an influence of external things.
But the road to salvation has already appeared. We can
overcome the emotions by understanding them, by ridding
ourselves of our confused ideas, and seeing everything in
its innermost truth, as a necessary fact. Everyday experi-
ence will show us how potent an effect the recognition of
the necessity of things has upon our attitude toward them.

1 Pt. Ill, 2, Schol.

300 A Student's History of Philosophy

" The more the knowledge that these things are necessary
is brought to bear upon individual things, which we imag-
ine more distinctly and vividly, the greater is the power of
the mind over the emotions. To this fact experience itself
bears witness. We see sorrow at the loss of some good
thing mitigated, as soon as the man who has lost it per-
ceives that he could not have preserved it in any possible
way. Thus we see, also, that no one pities an infant be-
cause it cannot speak, walk, or reason, and because, in a
word, it lives so many years, as it were, without the con-
sciousness of self. But if most persons were born as adults,
and only one here and there as an infant, then every one
would pity infants, for then we should regard infancy itself,
not as a natural and necessary thing, but as a defect or
fault of nature."

Accordingly, Spinoza goes on to show the ways in which
the emotions can be controlled by the superior force, per-
manence, frequency, and harmony of true knowledge,
which enable it to hold the mind against false and inade-
quate ideas. These ways all go back ultimately to that
which constitutes the chief power of adequate ideas — their
relation to the idea of God. Everything alike can be
referred to the idea of God, since he is the truth of all
things; and when it is thus referred, we have a means
at hand for overcoming the emotions whose force is irre-
sistible. For the philosopher, convinced that all events,
including human actions, are the outcome of the necessity
of the divine nature, nothing merits contempt, hatred, pity ;
he has simply to understand them as a part of the whole
of things, not judge them. He will lay aside all private
and selfish aims, and merge himself in the great life of the
whole, to whose will he will bow without repining, and find
thereby joy and peace. Once know and accept things as
they are in God, and the warring desires and passions which
distract us will pass away ; the motives which look large to
us now in our ignorance will lose their power. " Griefs and
misfortunes have their chief source in an excessive love of

Systems of Rationalism 301

that which is subject to many variations, and of which we can
never have control. No one is solicitous or anxious about
anything unless he love it; nor do injustices, suspicions,
enmities, and so forth arise, except from the love of things
of which no one can really have control. Thus we easily
conceive what power clear and distinct knowledge, and
especially that third kind of knowledge, the foundation of
which is the knowledge of God and nothing else, has over
the emotions ; if it does not, in so far as they are passions,
absolutely remove them, at all events it brings it about that
they constitute the least part of the mind. Furthermore,
it begets love toward that which is immutable and eternal,
and which we really have within our power — a love which,
consequently, is not stained by any of the defects inherent
in common love, but can always become greater and greater,
and take possession of the greatest part of the mind, and
affect it everywhere."1

This is very different from the love of God which
religion ordinarily inculcates. The God of positive re-
ligions is a God of the imagination, an individual like
ourselves, who loves and hates, is angry and jealous, and
acts by an arbitrary will. Accordingly, all the defects
of human love enter into our relations to him, and love
may easily pass into hate. But no one can hate the
eternal and necessary order of nature. This love toward
God cannot be stained either with the emotion of envy or
of jealousy, but it is the more intensified the greater the
number of men we conceive bound to God by this same
bond of love. " We can show in the same way that there
is no emotion directly opposed to this love capable of
destroying it. Hence we may conclude that this love
toward God is the most unchangeable of all the emotions,
and cannot, in so far as it is referred to the body, be
destroyed except with the body itself."

In the final stage of this process of emancipation, we
have already gone beyond mere practical rules of life, to

1 Pt. V, 20, Schol.

302 A Student's History of Philosophy

the conception of a mystical union with God, which gives
its peculiar tinge to Spinoza's whole thought. From the
falsity of ordinary opinion, or imagination, we have passed
by the power of discursive reason to adequate ideas ; but
there is a higher kind of knowledge still. Reason is not
merely our individual reason working under conditions of
time ; it is also eternal, freed from all restrictions, a part
of the infinite intellect of God. And the same truths which
we have gained laboriously by processes of reasoning may
also take on another form, the form of an immediate flash
of intuition, in which they are seen to flow directly from
the one Truth — God. From this third kind of knowledge
springs the highest possible satisfaction of the mind.
" The more of this kind of knowledge any one possesses,
the clearer is his consciousness of himself and of God,
that is, the more perfect and blessed is he." " From this
third kind of knowledge necessarily springs the intellectual
love of God." For from this kind of knowledge springs
pleasure, accompanied by the idea of God as cause, that is,
a love of God, not in so far as we imagine him as present,
but in so far as we comprehend God to be eternal." " And
this intellectual love of the mind toward God is the very
love of God with which God loves himself, not in so far as
he is infinite, but in so far as he can be expressed by the
essence of the human mind, considered under the form of
eternity; that is, the intellectual love of the mind toward
God is a part of the infinite love with . which God loves
himself. From this we clearly comprehend in what our
salvation, or blessedness, or freedom, consists ; to wit, in
an unchangeable and eternal love toward God, that is, in
the love of God toward men. This love or blessedness is
in the sacred Scriptures called glory." *

To sum up, then, how does this doctrine of freedom
contribute to the service of life ? " First, it is of value in
that it teaches us that we act according to God's decree,
and are participants in the divine nature; and this the

1 Pt. V, 31, Schol. ; 32, Cor. ; 36, and Schol.

Systems of Rationalism 303

more, the more perfect the actions we perform, and the
better we comprehend God. Hence this doctrine not only
sets the soul completely at rest, but also teaches us in what
our highest felicity or blessedness consists, to wit, only in
the knowledge of God, which leads us to do only those
things that love and piety recommend. Thus we see
clearly how far from a true estimate of virtue are those
who expect God to honor them with the highest rewards
for their virtue and good actions, as though for the ex-
tremest slavery — as if virtue and the service of God were
not felicity itself, and the completest freedom. Second,
it is of value in that it teaches us how to behave with
regard to those things which depend upon fortune, and
which are not within our power, that is, with regard to
those things that do not follow from our nature. It
teaches us, namely, to look forward to and endure either
aspect of fortune with equanimity, just because all things
follow from the eternal decree of God, by the same neces-
sity with which it follows from the essence of a triangle
that its three angles are equal to two right angles. Third,
this doctrine is of service to social life in that it teaches
to hate no one, to despise, to ridicule, to be angry at no one,
to envy no one. It is of service, further, in that it teaches
each one to be content with what he has, and to aid his
neighbor, not from womanish pity, partiality, or superstition,
but solely under the guidance of reason, according to the
demands of the time and the case. Fourth, this doctrine
is of no little advantage to the state in that it shows how
citizens ought to be governed and led ; namely, not so as
to act like slaves, but so as to do freely what is best." J

" And even if we did not know our mind to be eternal,
we should nevertheless regard as of the highest importance
piety and religion. The belief of the multitude appears to
be otherwise. Most men seem to think that they are free
just in so far as they are permitted to gratify desire, and that
they give up their independence just in so far as they are

i Pt. II, 49, Schol.

304 A Student's History of Philosophy

obliged to live according to the precept of the divine law.
Piety, then, and religion, and all things, without restriction,
that are referred to greatness of soul, they regard as bur-
dens ; and they hope after death to lay these down, and
to receive the reward of their bondage, that is, of piety
and religion. And not only by this hope alone, but also
and chiefly by fear — the fear of being punished after
death with dire torments — are they induced to live ac-
cording to the precept of the divine law, so far as their
poverty and feebleness of soul permit. If men had not
this hope and fear, but if, on the contrary, they thought
that minds perished with the body, and that for the
wretched, worn out with the burden of piety, there was
no continuance of existence, they would return to their
inclination, and decide to regulate everything according
to their lusts, and to be governed by chance rather than
by themselves^ This seems to me no less absurd than it
would seem if some one, because he does not believe he
can nourish his body with good food to eternity, should
choose to stuff himself with what is poisonous and deadly ;
or, because he sees that his mind is not eternal or im-
mortal, should choose on that account to be mad, and to
live without reason. Blessedness is not the reward of
virtue, but virtue itself ; nor do we rejoice in it because
we restrain the desires, but, on the contrary, because we
rejoice in it we are able to restrain the desires." x

" With this I have completed all that I intended to show
regarding the power of the mind over the emotions, and
the freedom of the mind. From what I have said it is
evident how much stronger and better the wise man is
than the ignorant man, who is led by mere desire. For
the ignorant man, besides being agitated in many ways by
external causes, and never attaining true satisfaction of
soul, lives as it were without consciousness of himself,
of God, and of things, and just as soon as he ceases to be
acted upon, ceases to be. While, on the contrary, the

1 Pt. V, 41 and Schol. ; 42.

Systems of Rationalism 305

wise man, in so far as he is considered as such, is little
disturbed in mind, but, conscious by a certain eternal
necessity of himself, of God, and of things, he never ceases
to be, but is always possessed of true satisfaction of soul.
If, indeed, the path that I have shown to lead to this
appears very difficult, still it may be found. And surely
it must be difficult, since it is so rarely found. For if
salvation were easily attained, and could be found without
great labor, how could it be neglected by nearly every
one ? But all excellent things are as difficult as they are
rare." *

LITERATURE

Spinoza, Chief Works : Improvement of the Intellect, Ethics, Theo-
logico-Political Treatise, Political Treatise. Translations: Elwes
(Works, 2 vols.) ; White (Ethics) ; Fullerton (Selections from Ethics).

Pollock, Spinoza.

Martineau, Study of Spinoza.

Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory.

Caird, Spinoza.

Caird, Essays on Literature and Philosophy.

Iverach, Descartes, Spinoza, and the New Philosophy.

Joachim, Study of the Ethics of Spinoza.

Duff, Spinoza's Political and Ethical Philosophy.

§ 30. Leibniz

The temperament and life history of Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz are as far as possible removed from those of his
great predecessor. Born in Leipsic in 1646, he early
showed a remarkable genius which took the whole world
as its field. In mathematics, where he is celebrated as
being one of the discoverers of the differential calculus ;
in law, civil and international ; in history (he was employed
to write the memoirs of the family of his patron, the Duke
of Hanover); in religious controversy, and in philosophy
proper — in all these different directions he stood among
the leading men of his time. This universality of mind
i Ft. v, 42, Schol.

306 A Student's History of Philosophy

enabled him to do justice to the varied interests which
philosophy has to serve, and made his system a gathering-
point of the various threads which had entered into the
entire past development. Almost alone of the men of his
time — the time of the Enlightenment — he had some just
appreciation of the past and of history ; and he was able
to enter sympathetically into the thought alike of Plato
and Descartes, of the Schoolmen and the scientists of his
own day.

The practical side of Leibniz* nature was another factor
which influenced his theoretical views. He was no mere
thinker, like Spinoza, but a man of the world, in the midst
of, and taking a large part in, the political life of his time.
His legal training early gave him an entrance into politics,
and, either as writer or diplomatic agent, he was connected
with most of the important events of the period. This
practical training perhaps emphasized his tendency to
mediate between opposing views. The same spirit which
led him to attempt to get at the truth in all philosophies,
reveals itself in his political aims; for example, in his
endeavor to heal the differences between Protestants and
Catholics, by drawing up a compromise on which both
could unite. In addition to all the labor which these
political offices involved, we should mention also the effort,
occupying a considerable part of Leibniz' life, to secure
the establishment in Germany of learned societies, or
Academies, by which the results of the new scientific
spirit should be conserved and applied to human ends.
This bore fruit during Leibniz' own lifetime in the Berlin
Academy.

i. The Nature of Substance. --The more general
aspects of Leibniz' philosophy can perhaps be brought
out by comparing them with the solution which Spinoza
had offered. The main emphasis in Spinoza had been
upon the unity of the world, a unity which brings to-
gether the factors which Descartes had left separate —
mind, matter, and God. To Leibniz, also, this was the

Systems of Rationalism 307

ultimate goal of philosophy; and yet it had been pur-
chased at what seemed to him too great a sacrifice. For
apparently it left no place for the reality of individ-
uals — men and things ; it was a mere abstract unity,
in which all the particular facts of the world were swal-
lowed up. This result to Leibniz was unsatisfactory. A
man of practical affairs, individuals were to him indubi-
tably real, and no theory which failed to account for their
reality seemed tenable. A unity must, indeed, be attained,
but it must be a unity of the real facts of the world, and
not lying beyond them. So, also, Leibniz was not satis-
fied with Spinoza's rejection of teleology, or purpose, in
the world. Here again his experience of life stood him in
stead ; the very essense of practical life consists in work-
ing for ends, and nothing which rejects ends altogether
can seem adequate to the practical man. At the same
time, Leibniz felt the need, as Spinoza had done, of bridg-
ing over the gaps which Descartes had left. He accepted,
too, at least the relative validity of that purely mechanical
view of the physical world which Descartes had started,
and which Spinoza's parallelism had been designed to
justify. How was he to retain these truths, and still do
justice to the world of finite things, and to human intelli-
gence and freedom ?

The answer which Leibniz gave was made possible by
means of a reconstruction of the idea of substance, both
mental and material. Descartes had denned matter as ex-
tended substance. This had involved the assumption that it
is essentially passive and inert, and able to receive motion
only from the outside. Leibniz was led by various motives
to substitute, for extension, power of resistance, as the essen-
tial quality of matter, to which even extension is subordi-
nate. In this way the conception of passive matter is
changed to what is essentially the modern scientific con-
ception — energy, or force. A substance is a being capa-
ble of action. Since, therefore, we find individual things
exerting force, the substantiality of which they had been

308 A Student's History of Philosophy

deprived by Spinoza, in favor of his single ultimate
substance, must be restored to them. But, furthermore,
these substantial units, to which extended matter reduces
itself, cannot be themselves extended. We cannot find
anything really ultimate and indivisible in the atoms of the
physicists; whatever is still material, however small it
may be, is still divisible. In order to find a true indivisible
unit, we need to go back of the extended and the material
altogether. Matter is thus at bottom immaterial; it is
made up of substantial units that are themselves un-
extended.

But from this new standpoint there is opened up the
possibility of removing the absoluteness of that distinc-
tion between matter and mind, upon which Descartes had
insisted. If the essence of matter is extension, then it has
no point of contact with the mental life. It is, indeed,
exactly the opposite of thought. And so the attempt of
Spinoza, also," to get rid of the dualism by referring both
thought and extension to a single substance, is essentially
self-contradictory ; it is asserting that the same substance
is both extended and unextended. But when, instead of
extension, we characterize matter as force, a means of con-
nection is opened up. For force has its analogue in the
conscious life ; corresponding to the activity of matter is
conscious activity, or will. Indeed, are there any positive
terms in which we can describe the nature of force, unless
we conceive it as identical with that conscious activity
which we know directly in ourselves ? The notion of mat-
ter has thus been completely transformed. Instead of its
being a passive lump of extended substance, extension is
only the phenomenal way in which it appears to us. In
reality, what we call matter is a host of unextended cen-
tres of force, whose activity is at bottom, when we inter-
pret it, a spiritual or perceptual activity. The reality of
the world is not matter, but monads.

In order, however, to complete the union, the concept
of mind has also to suffer a partial transformation. Ac-

Systems of Rationalism 309

cording to Descartes, again, the essence of mind is thought ;
and Leibniz also retains a tendency to intellectualism. But
whereas hitherto consciousness had been taken to mean
that of which we are distinctly conscious, Leibniz vastly
enlarges the conception. Below the threshold of our clear
consciousness there is, he thinks, a dark background of
obscurer consciousness, petites perceptions, unconscious
mental states. The existence of these, Leibniz proves by
various considerations. "For a better understanding of
the petites perceptions I am wont to employ the illustration
of the moaning or sound of the sea, which we notice when
we are on the shore. In order to hear this sound as we
do, we must hear the parts of which the whole sound is
made up, that is to say, the sounds which come from each
wave, although each of these little sounds makes itself
known only in the confused combination of all the sounds
taken together, that is to say, in the moaning of the sea,
and no one of the sounds would be observed if the wave
which makes it were alone. For we must be affected a
little by the motion of this wave, and we must have some
perception of each of these sounds, however little they
may be ; otherwise we should not have a perception of a
hundred thousand waves, for a hundred thousand nothings
cannot make something. We never sleep so profoundly
as not to have some feeble and confused feeling, and we
should never be wakened by the greatest noise in the
world if we had not some perception of its beginning,
which is small, just as we should never break a cord by
the greatest effort in the world, if it were not strained and
stretched a little by less efforts, though the small exten-
sion they produce is not apparent."1

Now in this conception, we have a means of removing
the gap which apparently still exists between what we
know as mind, and the blind workings of force in material
nature. This is done through the principle of continuity,

1 New Essays (p. 371). This and the succeeding quotations are taken
from Latta's translation. (Clarendon Press.)

3 1 a A Student's History of Philosophy

which is another of the great watchwords of Leibniz' phi-
losophy. According to this principle, there are no breaks
in nature. Things shade into one another by infinitely
small gradations. Consequently, there is a continuous
series from the lowest monads up to the highest, which
we call souls, or spirits. The life of each monad is a
thought life, a life of perceptual activity ; but it is thought
which may be infinitely confused. It is this confused
thought which constitutes the life of the material monads,
and which, compared with our own, is like a swoon or
dreamless sleep. What we call souls, on the contrary, are
monads in which this confused thought has come to at
least a partial consciousness of itself. Even in man, a
large part of the soul life is still obscure. Sense percep-
tion and feeling are such confused thought. It is on
account of this confusion that we see the world as mate-
rial, and not for what it really is — a collection of imma-
terial beings/ Accordingly, there is no difference in kind
between souls and other monads, but only in degree ; both
are spiritual in their nature. However, this difference in
degree is infinitely varied, and sufficient to account for all
the apparent oppositions in the world.

So far, then, we find reality to be made up of an infinite
host of individual beings, or monads, representing count-
less different grades of development. Those lower in
the scale are what we call matter; those more highly
developed are souls; while highest of all are self-con-
scious minds, or spirits. The inner nature of these monads
is force ; or, to interpret this in more ultimate terms, an
active life consisting in more or less conscious perception,
or thought. " In the smallest particle of matter there is a
world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls.
Each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden
full of plants, and like a pond full of fishes. But each
branch of every plant, each member of every animal,
each drop of its liquid parts, is also some such garden
or pond. Thus there is nothing fallow, nothing sterile,

Systems of Rationalism 311

nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusion
save in appearance, somewhat as it might appear to be
in a pond at a distance, in which one would see a con-
fused movement, and, as it were, a swarming of fish in
the pond, without separately distinguishing the fish them-
selves." !

2. Preestablished Harmony. — But now we seem to
have been carried to the opposite pole from Spinoza, and,
in establishing the reality of individuals, to have lost the
unity which is to bind them together. And the way in
which Leibniz goes on to describe the life of the monads
seems to make the problem more desperate still. Each
monad, as a centre of force, has the principle of its life
and development contained wholly in its own nature. In-
stead of being, like the matter of Descartes, passive, and
so influenced only from without, it is never influenced from
without at all. It has a perfect independence as regards
the influence of all other created things. " Each spirit
being like a world apart, sufficient to itself, independent of
every other created thing, involving the infinite, expressing
the universe, is as lasting, as continuous in its existence,
and as absolute as the very universe of created things." 2
How, indeed, is a purely external influence thinkable ?
How could a thing act in response to an outer influence,
unless it were its own nature so to act ; unless, that is, it
had the active principle of its movement already in itself ?
Each monad thus lives its own life independently of every
other monad. It is shut up to the possibilities of its own
nature, and develops solely in accordance with its own laws.
It has no windows through which anything can come in
or go out. And yet, as a matter of fact, the different
monads must somehow be related, and take account of
other monads in their actions, in order to account for the
ordered Cosmos that results. What is the explanation of
the apparent contradiction ?

The answer lies in the two words — Preestablished Har-

1 Monad., 66, 67, 69. 2 New System (p. 316).

312 A Student's History of Philosophy

mony. It is true that each monad is a thing by itself, un-
influenced by any other monad. Nevertheless, there is a
real unity in the world ; it is the unity of a plan or pur-
pose which the world reveals, and which has its source
in the mind of God. With reference to each other, the
monads are indeed windowless; they develop in accord-
ance with principles immanent in their own being. But
still they are not absolutely isolated. There is a higher
reality on which each depends, and a higher purpose which
each serves. And it is this which explains why, in spite of
being isolated, the monads yet show so close a correspond-
ence. For it is with reference to this universal plan that
the nature of each monad is constituted at the start. The
course of development which is to make up the life of each
is originally determined with the whole universe of other
monads directly in view. So, by simply following its
own course, without interference from anything outside, it
yet runs parallel to, and reflects, the development which is
going on independently in other monads.

This thought is illustrated by Leibniz in a simile. "I
will say that this concomitance which I maintain, is com-
parable to several different bands of musicians or choirs,
playing their parts separately, and so placed that they do
not see or even hear one another ; which can nevertheless
keep perfectly together, by each following their own notes,
in such a way that he who hears them all finds in them a
harmony that is wonderful, and much more surprising than
if there had been any connection between them." * The
nature of the correspondence Leibniz expresses in the
statement that each monad, although windowless, never-
theless, at each stage of its existence, mirrors, from its
special point of view, the life of all the rest of the world ;
just as in the physical realm each movement involves all
other movements in the universe. This latter fact is, in-
deed, only the other side, the phenomenal aspect, of the
first. So one might come to know the beauty of the whole

1 Letter to Arnauld (Latta, p. 47).

Systems of Rationalism 313

universe in each soul, if he could unfold all that is enfolded
in it from the start.

This conception of preestablished harmony has a par-
ticular application, in Leibniz* mind, to one specific prob-
lem — the relationship of mind and body. Of course what
we call a body is, for him, not an actual material thing,
but a group of monads, of the less developed sort. Every
"soul," or higher monad, has such a group of inferior
associates with which it stands in a specially close connec-
tion. These, by the law of their nature, tend to subordi-
nate themselves to the central and ruling " soul," in virtue
of its higher development ; and thus they constitute what
appears to us phenomenally as an organic body. " These
principles have given me a way of explaining naturally the
union, or rather the mutual agreement, of the soul and the
organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and the body
likewise follows its own laws ; and they agree with each
other in virtue of the preestablished harmony between all
substances, since they are all representations of one and
the same universe." x

This is expressed in the famous figure of the clocks.
Suppose two clocks or watches, which perfectly keep
time together ; this may happen in three ways. The first
way is by a direct mechanical influence of one upon the
other, and this is the ordinary conception of the relation
between body and soul. The second way of making two
clocks, even though they be bad ones, keep together, would
be to put them in charge of a skilled workman, who
should regulate them from moment to moment — this,
again, is the theory of Occasionalism. Finally, the
third way would be to make the two clocks at first with
such skill that we could be sure of their correspond-
ing accurately for all the future. This is the way of
preestablished harmony — "a contrivance of the divine
foreknowledge, which has from the beginning formed
each of these substances in so perfect, so regular and accu-

1 Monad. , 78.

314 A Student's History of Philosophy

rate a manner, that by merely following its own laws,
which were given to it when it came into being, each sub-
stance is yet in harmony with the other, just as if there
were a mutual influence between them, or as if God were
continually putting his hand upon them." * There is no
need, therefore, of any intervention, which, indeed, implies
an altogether unworthy notion of God. Surely, his skill
is not so limited that he could not make a mechanism that,
would run forever, and so must wind up his watch from
time to time, to prevent its running down. The more he
has to mend it and set it right, the poorer a mechanic it
shows him to be. " According to my system, bodies act
as if (to suppose the impossible) there were no souls, and
souls act as if there were no bodies, and both act as if
each influenced the other." 2

The reality of the world is, then, once more, the life of
a multitude of immaterial beings, each developing its own
nature in accordance with laws which it is impossible that
other monads should interfere with, and yet in relation to
a general plan, which finds its complete summing up in the
one ultimate being — God. On him they severally depend,
and this dependence enables them to act in harmony with
the rest of the world, and to mirror its course ideally in
their own lives. And this gives, too, the content of the
purpose of the world in so far as it is possible for us to
fathom it. Development consists in making actual for
each monad the possibilities of its own nature. And since
that nature is thought, it consists in getting rid of confused
perceptions, and attaining to the true ideas which lie con-
cealed in the muddy depths of our primitive experience.
The goal of life is to see things truly as they exist for God.
Such a condition is the only true freedom. Of course
Leibniz cannot admit any freedom of a purely arbitrary
will. The monad's nature is given at the start, and the
course of a man's development thus is fixed. Every pres-
ent state of a simple substance is naturally a consequence

1 Third Explanation (p. 33 1 ) . 2 Monad., 8 1 .

Systems of Rationalism 315

of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is
big with its future. But man is free in the sense that it is
the law of his own nature that determines him, not some-
thing from the outside. He is free to realize himself in
his completeness : and in so far as confusedness gives
place to clear thought, and the reasons for his activity
cease to lie beyond his knowledge, this freedom becomes
conscious and actual. Through knowledge, the soul is
truly active, truly a law to itself.

3. The World of Freedom. — This fact of freedom, of
self-conscious development, takes us out of the realm
of phenomena, and relates us to the purposes of God and
the moral universe. " Among other differences which
exist between ordinary souls and spirits there is also
this : that souls in general are living mirrors or images
of the universe of created things, but that spirits are
also images of the Deity or Author of nature Himself,
capable of knowing the system of the universe, and to
some extent of imitating it, each spirit being like a small
divinity in its own sphere. It is this that enables spirits
to enter into a kind of fellowship with God, and brings
it about that in relation to them he is not only what
an inventor is to his machine (which is the relation of
God to other created things), but also what a prince is
to his subjects, and, indeed, what a father is to his chil-
dren. Whence it is easy to conclude that the totality of
all spirits must compose the City of God, that is to say, the
most perfect state that is possible, under the most perfect
of monarchs. This City of God, this truly universal mon-
archy, is a moral world in the natural world, and is the
most exalted and most divine among the works of God ;
and it is in it that the glory of God really consists, for he
would have no glory were not his greatness and his good-
ness known and admired by spirits. It is also in relation
to the divine City that God specially has goodness, while
his wisdom and his power are manifested everywhere." 1

1 Monad, 83-86.

316 A Student's History of Philosophy

For Leibniz, then, the mechanical view of the world,
and the teleological, are not inconsistent or competing, but
rather two aspects of the same thing. The phenomenal
aspect of the world, in terms of physical relations, is en-
tirely legitimate in its own sphere. There can be no inter-
ference with its laws, since the inner life of the monads,
of which scientific laws are a phenomenal transcript, has
been determined from the beginning. But now an-
other question presents itself to the philosopher, as distinct
from the scientist. Granted that any event can be re-
lated with mathematical necessity to other events, still
why should this whole constitution of things be as it is,
and not something different ? To answer this ques-
tion, we must go back of appearance to reality, — to
the inner life of the monads, and the moral purpose
which is being realized in the lives of those monads who
have attained to spiritual self-consciousness. Such pur-
pose is entirely harmonious with mechanism. "Things
lead to grace" by the very ways of nature, and this globe,
for instance, must be destroyed and renewed by natural
means, at the very time when the government of spirits
requires it, for the punishment of some and the reward of
others." *

This conception of purpose, also, is connected with
another important doctrine of Leibniz. There are two
different kinds of truths — necessary truths, and contin-
gent. Necessary truths follow with logical certainty ;
they are eternal and unalterable, and even the will of
God cannot make them otherwise than they are. They
fall, therefore, under the logical law of contradiction ;
their opposite is unthinkable. But it is only abstract
truths that are thus necessary. When it comes to truths
of fact, or existence, there is no apparent necessity in-
volved. So far as we can see, the course of the world
might have been wholly different from what it actually
has been. The particular facts of the world, therefore,

1 Monad., 88.

Systems of Rationalism 317

are contingent, and all that we can do is to find for them
some sufficient reason. Now this sufficient reason depends
ultimately upon purpose, or the relation to moral ends.
Our particular world is only one among an infinite number
that would have been possible had God so willed; why,
then, should it exist, rather than any other ? Simply be-
cause God has chosen, not any world at random, but the
best of all possible worlds ; and such a world is represented
by our own. Among all the possibilities which pass before
his vision, God sees that there is only one combination
which will give the greatest possible good and the least
possible evil ; and his supreme wisdom and perfection lead
him to choose this and make it actual, rather than any
other of the possibilities which, apart from the question
of better or worse, would have an equal right to exist.
"The whole matter may be likened to certain games in
which all the spaces on a board are to be filled up accord-
ing to definite rules, so that unless you make use of some
ingenious contrivance, you find yourself in the end kept
out of some refractory spaces, and compelled to leave empty
more spaces than you intended, and some of which you
might otherwise have filled." 1 So, for God, the problem
is, how to get a world representing the greatest possible
amount of reality, the highest physical and moral perfec-
tion ; and this " best of all possible worlds " which we find
existing, is the result.

Such a conception involves a solution of the problem
of evil, which Leibniz works out most elaborately in his
Theodicy. What appears to us as evil is only a neces-
sary incident in the life of the whole, which, if we could but
see it from the standpoint of the whole, we should recognize
as necessary to the highest perfection. " And, indeed, as
the lawyers say, it is not proper to judge unless we have
examined the whole law. We know a very small part of
eternity, which is immeasurable in its extent ; for what a
little thing is the record of a few thousand years, which

1 Ultimate Origination of Things (p. 341).

318 A Studenfs History of Philosophy

history transmits to us ! Nevertheless, from so slight an
experience we rashly judge regarding the immeasurable
and eternal, like men who, having been born and brought
up in prison, or perhaps in the subterranean salt mines of
the Sarmatians, should think that there is no other light in
the world than that of the feeble lamp which hardly suffices
to direct their steps. If you look at a very beautiful pic-
ture, having covered up the whole of it except a very small
part, what will it present to your sight, however thoroughly
you examine it (nay, so much the more, the more closely
you inspect it), but a confused mass of colors, laid on with-
out selection and without art ? Yet if you remove the cov-
ering, and look at the whole picture from the right point
of view, you will find that what appeared to have been
carelessly daubed on the canvas was really done by the
painter with very great art. The experience of the eyes
in painting corresponds to that of the ears in music. Emi-
nent composers very often mingle discords with harmonies,
so as to stimulate, and, as it were, to prick the hearer, who
becomes anxious as to what is going to happen, and is so
much the more pleased when presently all is restored to
order, just as we take pleasure in small dangers or risks of
mishap, merely from the consciousness of our power or our
luck, or from a desire to make a display of them ; or, again,
as we delight in the show of danger that is connected with
performances on the tight rope, or sword-dancing ; and we
ourselves in jest half let go a little boy, as if about to throw
him from us, like the ape which carried Christiern, king
of Denmark, while still an infant in swaddling clothes, to
the top of the roof, and then, as in jest, relieved the anxiety
of every one by bringing him safely back to his cradle.
On the same principle sweet things become insipid if we
eat nothing else ; sharp, tart, and even bitter things must
be combined with them, so as to stimulate the taste. He
who has not tasted bitter things does not deserve sweet
things, and, indeed, will not appreciate them. This is the
very law of enjoyment, that pleasure does not have an

Systems of Rationalism 319

even tenor, for this begets loathing, and makes us dull,
not happy." *

We cannot judge, then, a so-called evil by itself. It
may either be necessary to avoid still greater evils, or it
may be justified as a condition of attaining some positive
good that far outweighs it, as the general of an army will
prefer a great victory with a slight wound to a condition
without wound and without victory. Even if in quantity
the evil could be shown to surpass the good, yet the latter
would still make up in quality ; the glory and perfection
of the blessed are incomparably greater than the misery
of the damned, since the excellence of the total good in
the lesser number exceeds the total evil in the greater
number. We cannot lay the blame for evil upon God.
God is responsible for realities only in so far as they are
positive and perfect ; evil is a negative fact, which results
from the necessary imperfection and limitation of finite crea-
tures. It is with them as with a loaded vessel, which the
river causes to move more or less slowly according to the
weight it carries ; its speed depends upon the river, but
the retardation which limits this speed comes from the
load.

4. Theory of Knowledge. — It remains to mention, briefly,
one other important phase of Leibniz' thought. Nearly fifty
years after his death there was published, for the first time,
a work of his entitled New Essays on the Human Under-
standing. This contained an acute examination of Locke's
theory of knowledge ; and so it brings Leibniz into direct
connection with the problem which was presently to become
the main problem of philosophy. As Locke's theory still
remains to be considered, Leibniz' criticism can only be
noticed here in a very general way.

Locke's position, to anticipate, was briefly this : that all
our knowledge comes from sense experience, and that there
are no such things as innate ideas. The mind is a blank
tablet. Images impress themselves upon it from external

1 Ultimate Origination oj Things (p. 346 ) .

320 A Student's History of Philosophy

objects, and these form the basis of all our knowledge.
Leibniz opposes this whole conception. He does not,
indeed, consider it necessary to hold that universal truths
exist clearly and consciously in the mind at birth. He can
agree with Locke that, in point of time, sensations come
first. But such universal knowledge exists implicitly,
involved in the sensations themselves, although it is only
brought to consciousness by the gradual clearing up of
this original confused sense experience. Leibniz' doctrine
of petites perceptions enables him to understand how a
thing may be in the mind, in an undeveloped way, even
when we do not seem to be conscious of it. And universal
ideas must be there implicitly, or we never should have
them at all. No universal and necessary truth can pos-
sibly come from mere sensations. " The senses never give
anything but instances, that is to say, particular or indi-
vidual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a
general truth,- however numerous they may be, are not
sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same
truth ; for it does not at all follow that what has happened,
will happen in the same way." *

In general, then, Leibniz goes back to an entirely differ-
ent conception of the mind from that which Locke holds.
Locke practically ignores the reaction of the mind itself
in knowledge ; whereas, for Leibniz, this is the one essen-
tial thing. The mind is not a mere passive recipient of
ideas. There would be no reality to it if it were not
already active, and disposed in certain specific directions.
Instead of everything being due to the influence of outer
objects, there is nothing due to this. According to the
theory of monads, the entire life develops solely from
within, by the laws of its own nature ; and so sensations
themselves are innate. It is thus absolutely necessary
to take into account, first of all, the mind itself, with its
native character, natural inclinations, powers, dispositions.
" Accordingly I have taken as illustration a block of veined

1 New Essays (p. 362).

Systems of Rationalism 321

marble, rather than a block of perfectly uniform marble,
or than empty tablets, that is to say, what is called by phi-
losophers tabula rasa. For if the soul were like these
empty tablets, truths would be in us as the figure of Her-
cules is in a block of marble, when the block of marble is
indifferently capable of receiving this figure or any other.
But if there were in the stone veins, which should mark
out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, the
stone would be more determined toward this figure, and
Hercules would somehow be, as it were, innate in it,
although labor would be needed to uncover the veins, and
to clear them by polishing, and thus removing what pre-
vents them from being fully seen." J

LITERATURE

Leibniz, Chief Works: Discourse on Metaphysics (1685); New
System (1695) ; New Essays on the Human Understanding (1704) ;
Theodicy (1710) ; Monadology (1714) ; Principles of Nature and Grace
(1714). Translations: Latta (Monadology, etc.) ; Duncan (Selections) ;
Langley (New Essays) ; Montgomery (Discourse on Metaphysics,
Correspondence with Arnauld, Monadology) .

Merz, Leibniz.

Dewey, Leibniz* New Essays.

Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz.

lNew Essays (p. 366).

THE GROWTH OF EMPIRICISM AND THE
ENLIGHTENMENT

§ 31. Locke

The name of John Locke, the founder of the new phi-
losophy of Empiricism, which Leibniz had attacked in the
New Essays, stands for all that is most characteristic in
English philosophical thought, down almost to the present
day. Locke was born in Somersetshire in 1632, a period
marked by the beginning of the struggles of the parliamen-
tary party against Charles the First. He was sent to Ox-
ford, where, however, the academic spirit was still too
much dominated by Scholasticism to arouse in him any
strong interest. Later he received an appointment at the
University, and continued for a number of years in more
or less close connection with it. In 1666 he met Lord
Ashley, afterward Earl of Shaftesbury, and one of the
greatest of the statesmen of Charles the Second's reign.
With him Locke entered into a lasting friendship. This
intimacy brought him into contact with public life, and
finally compelled him, on the fall of his patron, to seek
refuge in Holland. Here he stayed five years. On the
accession of William of Orange, he returned to England.
During the remainder of his life he stood for the most pro-
nounced intellectual force in England, and he was in con-
siderable degree responsible for shaping the policy of the
new government. His closing years were spent in quiet,
except for various controversies, mostly theological, in
which his writings had involved him. He died in 1704.

Locke's attention was first directed to the field of phi-
losophy by a chance incident. " Were it fit to trouble thee
with the history of this essay, I should tell thee that five

322

The Growth of Empiricism 323

or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on
a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly
at a stand by the difficulties that rose on every side. After
we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer
a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came
into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that
before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it
was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what
objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal
with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily
assented ; and therefore it was agreed that this should be
our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts
on the subject I had never before considered, which I set
down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into
this discourse ; which having been thus begun by chance,
was continued by entreaty, written by incoherent parcels,
and after long intervals of neglect resumed again, as my
humor or occasion permitted ; and at last, in a retirement
where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was
brought into that order thou now seest it." 1

It is characteristic of the sober thoroughness which dis-
tinguishes Locke, that it was twenty years before this
design was finally completed, and the book given to the
world. Indeed, until he was nearly sixty years old, he had
published nothing. It was not till after his return from
exile that his principal works appeared in quick succession.
His writings include three Letters on Toleration, two
Treatises on Government, Thoughts on Education, The
Reasonableness of Christianity, and the Essay on the
Human Understanding.

In all these works the same general aim is to be found.
That aim is to show the futility of empty verbiage and
idle acquiescence in traditional opinions and assumptions,
which take the place of honest intellectual effort and in-
quiry. In opposition to this, it strives to make men use
their own minds, not upon words but upon real facts, to

1 Essay, Epistle to the Reader, Vol. I, p. 118 (Bohn's Library).

324 A Student's History of Philosophy

the intent that they may be freed from the weight of the
past, and attain to a rationally grounded liberty. And the
method by which Locke thought to accomplish this result
was by demolishing the undue pretensions which the human
intellect is wont to make. However competent it may
prove to be for dealing with homely matters of fact and
experience, when it aspires to a dogmatic certainty about
higher things, it is in reality making use of words to which
no definite and verifiable ideas correspond, and so modesty
is its proper attitude. The Letters on Toleration vindi-
cate man's right to religious freedom just on this ground,
that it is absurd to force all men dogmatically to adopt one
particular belief, when the foundations of our knowledge of
the things which theology pretends to teach are so unsub-
stantial. The Treatises on Government, similarly, defend
the freedom of the citizen in the state on the homely and
intelligible basis of expediency or utility, in opposition to
the unreasoning faith which rests on mere blind tradition,
and expresses itself in the theory of a divine right of kings.
As opposed to this, Locke made himself the spokesman
of the Revolution of 1688, by arguing that government is
simply a means for serving the best interests of the people
governed. Government, as with Hobbes, is based upon a
contract, but this contract has nothing of the rigidity for
which Hobbes had argued. To retain old forms un-
changed when circumstances have altered, is to defeat
the very purpose of government. And if at any time the
ruler is untrue to his trust, and the advantages for the
sake of which he was given power are no longer forth-
coming, authority reverts to the people, and revolution is
justified.

Now these practical aims, in behalf of freedom and rea-
sonableness, and against mere tradition, irrationality, and
restrictive forces, underlie the Essay also. In it Locke at-
tempts a philosophical justification of the practical interests
to which he is devoted. He comes to an examination of
the powers of the human mind in order, primarily, to get a

The Growth of Empiricism 325

weapon against political superstitions, traditional dogmas,
empty words divorced from things, and a sentimental and un-
reasoning * enthusiasm.' "The commonwealth of learning
is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty
designs in advancing the sciences will leave lasting monu-
ments to the admiration of posterity ; but every one must
not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham ; and in an age that
produces such masters as the great Huy genius, and the
incomparable Mr. Newton, it is ambition enough to be
employed as an under-laborer in clearing the ground a
little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the
way to knowledge; which certainly had been very much
more advanced in the world, if the endeavors of ingenious
and industrious men had not been much cumbered with
the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or unin-
telligible terms, introduced into the sciences, and there
made an art of, to that degree that philosophy, which is
nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought
unfit or incapable to be brought into a well-bred company
and polite conversation. . . . To break in upon the sanc-
tuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some ser-
vice to human understanding." 1

i. The Source of Knowledge

i . The Aim of the Essay. — With this general end in view,
what Locke will attempt will be to " consider the discerning
faculties of a man, as they are employed about the objects
which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not
wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on
this occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, I can give
any account of the ways whereby our understandings come
to attain those notions of the things we have, and can set
down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge, or
the grounds of those persuasions which are to be found
amongst men, so various, different, and wholly contradic-

p. 121.

326 A Student's History of Philosophy

tory." 1 " If by this inquiry into the nature of the under-
standing, I can discover the powers thereof, how far they
reach, to what things they are in any degree proportionate,
and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to pre-
vail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in
meddling with things exceeding its comprehension ; to stop
when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit
down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon ex-
amination, are found to be beyond the reach of our capaci-
ties. We should not then perhaps be so forward, out of
an affectation of a universal knowledge, to raise questions,
and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about
things to which our understandings are not suited, and of
which we cannot frame in our minds any clear or distinct
perceptions, or whereof (as it has perhaps too often hap-
pened) we have not any notions at all." 2

Nor have we any right to complain of this limitation.
" How short soever their knowledge may come of an uni-
versal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet se-
cures their great concernments, that they have light enough
to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight
of their own duties. Men may find matter sufficient to
busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, de-
light, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with
their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their
hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to
grasp everything. We shall not have much reason to
complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but
employ them about what may be of use to us ; for of that
they are very capable : and it will be an unpardonable, as
well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the advan-
tages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the
ends for which it was given us, because there are some
things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no ex-
cuse to an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend
his business by candlelight, to plead that he had not broad

1 Bk. I, Chap. I, 2. 2 Bk> T> chap. I, 4.

The Growth of Empiricism 327

sunshine. The candle that is set up in us shines bright
enough for all our purposes. ... It is of great use to the
sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot
with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well
he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom at
such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and cau-
tion him against running upon shoals that may ruin him."1
2. No Innate Ideas. — This, accordingly, is the purpose of
the essay — to destroy false pretensions of knowledge, by
showing, through a careful examination of the facts of con-
sciousness, how our ideas originate, and what are the criteria
for distinguishing real knowledge from that which is illusory.
But before Locke can enter on this, there is a preliminary
matter which he must discuss in order to clear the way. This
is the supposed existence of innate ideas. " When men have
found some general propositions that could not be doubted
of as soon as understood, it was a short and easy way to
conclude them innate. This being once received, it eased
the lazy from the pains of search, and stopped the inquiry
of the doubtful concerning all that was once styled innate.
And it was of no small advantage to those who affected to
be masters and teachers, to make this the principle of
principles, 'that principles must not be questioned': for
having once established this tenet, that there are innate
principles, it put their followers upon a necessity of receiv-
ing some doctrines as such ; which was to take them off
from the use of their own reason and judgment, and put
them on believing and taking them upon trust without
further examination : in which posture of blind credulity
they might be more easily governed by and made useful
to some sort of men who had the skill and office to princi-
ple and guide them. Nor is it a small power it gives one
man over another, to have the authority to be the dictator
of principles and teacher of unquestionable truths ; and to
make a man swallow that for an innate principle which
may serve to his purpose who teacheth them." 2

* Bk. I, Chap. I, 5, 6. * Bk. I, Chap. IV, 24.

228 A Student's History of Philosophy

It is a matter, therefore, not only of theoretical, but of
very great practical interest, to determine whether we really
have ideas of this kind. First, accordingly, Locke thinks
it is necessary to prove that there are no such things as
innate ideas. "It is an established principle amongst some
men, that there are in the understanding certain innate
principles; some primary notions, KOLVOL evvoiai, characters,
as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul
receives in its very first being, and brings into the world
with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced
readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only
show how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties,
may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the
help of any innate impressions, and may arrive at certainty,
without any such original notions. For I imagine any one
will easily grant that it would be impertinent to suppose the
ideas of colors innate in a creature to whom God hath
given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from
external objects ; and no less unreasonable would it be to
attribute several truths to the impressions of nature and
innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves facul-
ties fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them, as
if they were originally imprinted on the mind. But because
a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own
thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever
so little out of the common road, I shall set down the rea-
sons that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as
an excuse for my mistake, if I be in one." a

Now, what are the arguments for the existence of such
ideas ? First, there is the great argument from the univer-
sal assent of mankind. But it is necessary at the start to
dispute the supposed facts. " I shall begin with the specu-
lative, and instance in those magnified principles of demon-
stration, ' whatever is, is/ and ' it is impossible for the
same thing to be and not to be ' ; which, of all others, I
think have the most allowed title to innate. But yet I

1 Bk. I, Chap. II, i.

The Growth of Empiricism 329

take liberty to say that these propositions are so far from
having a universal assent, that there are a great part of
mankind to whom they are not so much as known."

" For, first, it is evident that all children and idiots have
not the least apprehension or thought of them; and the
want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent
which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all
innate truths ; it seeming to me near a contradiction to say
that there are truths imprinted on the soul which it per-
ceives or understands not; imprinting, if it signify any-
thing, being nothing else but the making certain truths
to be perceived. For to imprint anything on the mind
without the mind's perceiving it, seems to me hardly in-
telligible." "That a truth should be innate, and yet not
assented to, is to me as unintelligible as for a man to know
a truth and be ignorant of it at the same time. But then,
by these men's own confession, they cannot be innate, since
they are not assented to by those who understand not the
terms, nor by a great part of those who do understand
them, but have yet never heard nor thought of those prop-
ositions ; which, I think, is at least one half of mankind."

" But that I may not be accused to argue from the
thoughts of infants, and to conclude from what passes in
their understandings before they express it, I say next,
that these two general propositions are not the truths
that first possess the minds of children, nor are antecedent
to all acquired and adventitious notions; which, if they
were innate, they must needs be. ... The child certainly
knows that the nurse that feeds it is neither the cat it
plays with, nor the blackmoor it is afraid of ; that the
wormseed or mustard it refuses is not the apple or sugar
it cries for, this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured
of : but will any one say, it is by virtue of this principle,
' that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not
to be/ that it so firmly assents to these and other parts of
its knowledge ? He that will say, children join in these
general abstract speculations with their sucking bottles

330 A Student's History of Philosophy

and their rattles, may perhaps, with justice, be thought
to have more passion and zeal for his opinion, but less
sincerity and truth, than one of that age." 1

There is thus no universal assent to such ideas. More-
over, these instances just given are just the ones where
they ought to show most clearly. " These characters, if
they were native and original impressions, should appear
fairest and clearest in those persons in whom yet we find
no footsteps of them; and it is, in my opinion, a strong
presumption that they are not innate, since they are least
known to those in whom, if they were innate, they must
needs exert themselves with most force and vigor. For
children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, being of all
others the least corrupted by custom or borrowed opinions,
learning and education having not cast their native thoughts
into new moulds, nor by superinducing foreign and studied
doctrines, confounded those fair characters nature had
written there, one might reasonably imagine that in their
minds these innate notions should lie open fairly to every
one's view, as it is certain the thoughts of children do. . . .
But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly
illiterate, what general maxims are to be found ? A child
knows his nurse and his cradle, and by degrees the play-
things of a little more advanced age ; and a young savage
has, perhaps, his head filled with love and hunting, accord-
ing to the fashion of his tribe. But he that from a child
untaught, or a wild inhabitant of the woods, will expect
these abstract maxims, will, I fear, find himself mistaken.
Such kind of general propositions are seldom mentioned in
the huts of the Indians, much less are they to be found
in the thoughts of children, or any impressions of them on
the minds of naturals." a

To avoid the difficulty, it may be said that men know
these truths when they come to the use of the reason. As
a matter of fact, however, the time of coming to the use of
the reason is not necessarily the time we come to know

i Bk. I, Chap. II, 4, 5, 24, 25. 2 Bk. I, Chap. II, 27.

The Growth of Empiricism 331

these maxims ; and even if it were, it would not prove
them innate. " For by what kind of logic will it appear
that any notion is originally by nature imprinted in the
mind in its first constitution, because it comes first to be
observed and assented to when a faculty of the mind, which
has quite a distinct province, begins to exert itself ? " 1
It is equally irrelevant to say that they are assented to as
soon as they are proposed and understood. " By the same
reason, all propositions that are true, and the mind is
capable of ever assenting to, may be said to be in the mind,
and to be imprinted : since, if any one can be said to be in
the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only because
it is capable of knowing it, and so the mind is of all truths
it ever shall know." If such an assent be a mark of innate,
then " that one and two are equal to three, that sweetness
is not bitterness, and a thousand the like, must be innate."
" Nay, thus truths may be imprinted on the mind which
it never did nor ever shall know ; for a man may live long,
and die at last in ignorance of many truths which his mind
was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. So that
if the capacity of knowing be the natural impression con-
tended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will,
by this account, be every one of them innate; and this
great point will amount to no more, but only to a very im-
proper way of speaking ; which, whilst it pretends to
assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who
deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied
that the mind was capable of knowing several truths."2

In a similar way, Locke goes on to show that there are
no innate practical or moral principles ; there are none
which are universally received by all men. An examina-
tion of moral customs will show that there is no rule of
right and justice which is not openly violated by some
nation, and the violation approved by the public con-
science. The general resemblance in the conceptions of
virtue in different countries, and the general approval of it,

i Bk. I, Chap. II, 14. a Bk. I, Chap. II, 5.

332 A Student's History of Philosophy

are due to the fact, not that virtue is innate, but that it is
profitable. And, finally, to clinch the whole argument,
Locke points out that no proposition can be innate, unless
the ideas of which it is composed are innate. " Whatever
we talk of innate principles, it may with as much proba-
bility be said that a man hath £ 100 sterling in his pocket,
and yet denied that he hath either penny, shilling, crown,
or other coin out of which the sum is to be made up, as to
think that certain propositions are innate, when the ideas
about which they are can by no means be supposed to be
so ; "* and this can be shown to be true of the ideas in all
the propositions for which any claim to innateness has
been made.

3. All Knowledge from Experience. — With innate ideas
out of the way, Locke can go on to the positive part of his
work. And there are two main divisions of this. The first
has to do with the way in which we come by our ideas, since
they are not bdrn in us. When, however, an idea is once in
the mind, its mere existence there still does not involve the
question of truth or error. This arises only in connection
with the relation of ideas to one another, and so forms a sepa-
rate inquiry. And to the first of these problems, the answer
is unambiguous. " Every man being conscious to himself
that he thinks, and that which his mind is applied about
whilst thinking, being the ideas that are there, it is past
doubt that men have in their minds several ideas, such as are
those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweet-
ness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness,
and others. It is in the first place, then, to be inquired
how he comes by them. . . . Let us then suppose the
mind to be white paper, void of all characters, without any
ideas ; how comes it to be furnished ? Whence comes it
by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of
man has painted on it with an almost endless variety ?
Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge ?
To this I answer in one word, from experience; in that

I, Chap. IV, 19.

The Growth of Empiricism 333

all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately
derives itself. Our observation, employed either about
external sensible objects, or about the internal operations
of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is
that which supplies our understandings with all the mate-
rials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowl-
edge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally
have, do spring." J

The source of our knowledge of external objects is
called Sensation. The other fountain, the perception of
the operations of our own mind within us, as it is em-
ployed about the ideas it has got, is called Reflection.
" These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and
their several modes, combinations, and relations, we shall
find to contain all our whole stock of ideas." "These
alone, so far as I can discover, are the windows by which
light is let into this dark room ; for methinks the under-
standing is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from
light, with only some little opening left, to let in external
visible resemblances, or ideas of things without : would the
pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and
lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very
much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference
to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them." 2 " Thus
the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is
fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through
the senses by outer objects, or by its own operations when
it reflects on them. This is the first step a man makes
toward the discovery of anything, and the groundwork
whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall
have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts
which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven
itself, take their rise and footing here : in all that good
extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote specula-
tions it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot
beyond those ideas which sense or reflection has offered
i Bk. II, Chap. I, i, 2. 2 Bk. n, Chap. XI, 17.

234 A Students History of Philosophy

for its contemplation." * Ideas can, it is true, be com-
bined in various new ways; but every element in these
complex ideas still comes to us from one of the two
sources. " It is not in the power of the most exalted wit,
or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or variety of
thought, to invent or frame one new simple idea in the
mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned : nor can
any force of the understanding destroy those that are
there."2 If, then, we can analyze a supposed idea into
these simple components, we have the means of testing it,
and of ridding ourselves of the domination of mere words,
to which no ideas correspond.

4. Simple Ideas. — Accordingly, in order to make good
his position, Locke is bound to give an account of the whole
stock of our ideas, arrange and classify them, and make it
evident that there is none whose origin in experience cannot
be clearly shown. Evidently, the most general division will
be into Simple- and Complex Ideas, — the elements of our
thought which come to us passively through sensation and
reflection, and the various combinations which these may
assume. Upon simple ideas, Locke does not have to dwell
very long. They are subdivided into ideas which come into
our minds from one sense only; those which come from
more senses than one; those that are had from reflection
only ; and those that are suggested to the mind by all the
ways of sensation and reflection. Sounds, colors, tastes, and
smells, solidity, heat and cold, are examples of the first class.
Belonging to the second division are ideas of space or
extension, figure, rest, and motion, which are received both
through sight and touch. By reflection we get the ideas
of perception and of volition. The last division includes
the notions of pleasure, pain, power, existence, unity, and
succession. Thus, pleasure or pain join themselves to
almost all our ideas, both of sensation and reflection ; the
idea of unity is suggested by whatever we can consider as
one thing, whether a real being or an idea ; power is involved
i Bk. II, Chap. I, 24. 2 Bk. II, Chap. II, 2.

The Growth of Empiricism 335

alike in the ability which we find in ourselves to move the
various parts of our bodies, and in the effects which mate-
rial objects have on one another. These classes include
all the possible ingredients of our knowledge. " Nor let
any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious
mind of man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther
than the stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the
world ; that extends its thoughts often even beyond the
utmost expansion of matter, and makes excursions into
the incomprehensible inane. It will not be so strange to
think these few simple ideas sufficient to employ the quick-
est thought or largest capacity, if we consider how many
words may be made out of the various composition of
twenty-four letters, or if we will but reflect on the variety
of combinations that may be made with barely one of the
above-mentioned ideas, viz., number, whose stock is inex-
haustible and truly infinite." l

Before going on to speak of complex ideas, however,
one point needs a special mention. Besides their exist-
ence in the mind, many of these simple ideas are also
referred to the external world, where they are supposed
somehow to belong to things. Color, for example, is com-
monly regarded as at once a sensation, and an attribute of
objects. In order to avoid confusion between the mental
existence of ideas, and those physical facts which are sup-
posed to give rise to them, it is well to call these latter,
not ideas, but qualities. But among these there is an
important distinction. Certain qualities are entirely in-
separable from a body, whatever its state ; these are called
original, or primary qualities, and include solidity, exten-
sion, figure, motion, and number. " Secondly, such quali-
ties which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves,
but powers to produce various sensations in us by their
primary qualities, i.e., by the bulk, figure, texture, and
motion of their insensible parts, as colors, sounds, tastes,
etc., these I call secondary qualities.'*

1 Bk. II, Chap. VII, 10.

A Student's History of Philosophy

Now, whereas " the ideas of primary qualities of bodies
are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist
in the bodies themselves, the ideas produced in us by these
secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all.
There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies
themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate
from them, only a power to produce those sensations in
us ; and what is sweet, blue, or warm in idea, is but the
certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts in
the bodies themselves. Flame is denominated hot and
light; snow, white and cold; and manna, white and
sweet, from the ideas they produce in us ; which qualities
are commonly thought to be the same in those bodies that
those ideas are in us, the one the perfect resemblance of
the other, as they are in a mirror ; and it would by most
men be judged very extravagant if one should say other-
wise. And yet he that will consider that the same fire
that at one distance produces in us the sensation of
warmth, does at a nearer approach produce in us the far
different sensation of pain, ought to bethink himself what
reason he has to say that this idea of warmth, which was
produced in him by the fire, is actually in the fire ; and his
idea of pain, which the same fire produced in him the same
way, is not in the fire. Why are whiteness and coldness
in snow, and pain not, when it produces the one and the
other idea in us ; and can do neither, but by the bulk,
figure, number, and motion of its solid parts ? The par-
ticular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of
fire or snow are really in them, whether any one's senses
perceive them or not, and therefore they may be called
real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies;
but light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really
in them than sickness or pain in the manna. Take away
the sensation of them ; let not the eye see light or colors,
nor the ears hear sound ; let the palate not taste, nor the
nose smell; and all colors, tastes, odors, and sounds, as
they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are

The Growth of Empiricism 337

reduced to their causes, i.e., bulk, figure, and motion of
parts."1

5. Complex Ideas. — To return, then, it is self-evident to
Locke that, of the simple ideas, the mind cannot possibly
frame one, until it has been presented by experience. " If
a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other
but black and white till he were a man, he would have no
more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his child-
hood never tasted an oyster or a pineapple has of those
particular relishes." 2 So far the mind has been passive.
But now it also has power, after it has received these simple
ideas, to act upon them in various ways. " The acts of the
mind, wherein it exerts its power over its simple ideas, are
chiefly these three : i. Combining several simple ideas into
one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made.

2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or
complex, together, and setting them by one another so
as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them
into one, by which way it gets all its ideas of relations.

3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that
accompany them in their real existence : this is called
abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made."3

All possible combinations of ideas can be brought under
three heads : Modes, Substances, and Relations. Modes
are "complex ideas which, however compounded, contain
not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves,
but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of,
substances ; such as are ideas signified by the words tri-
angle, gratitude, murder, etc." Of these modes there are
two kinds. Simple modes are those which are "only
variations or different combinations of the same simple
idea, without the mixture of any other; as a dozen or
score, which are nothing but the ideas of so many dis-
tinct units added together." Mixed modes are com-
pounded of simple ideas of several kinds; e.g., "beauty,

i Bk. II, Chap. VIII, 10, 15. 2 Bkt n, Chap. I, 6.

» Bk. II, Chap. XII, i.

338 A Student's History of Philosophy

consisting of a certain composition of color and figure,
causing delight in the beholder."

" Secondly, the ideas of Substances are such combina-
tions of simple ideas as are taken to represent distinct
particular things subsisting by themselves, in which the
supposed or confused idea of substance, such as it is, is
always the first and chief. Thus, if to substance be joined
the simple idea of a certain dull whitish color, with certain
degrees of weight, hardness, ductility, and fusibility, we
have the idea of lead." " Thirdly, the last sort of complex
ideas, is that we call Relation, which consists in the consid-
eration and comparing one idea with another." * Such are
the ideas of cause, of spatial and temporal relations, of
identity and diversity, and the like. From this point of
view, Locke goes on to show, in detail, that all the terms
of which metaphysics has made so much, and which have
been thought to be too exalted to have grown out of every-
day experien.ce — even the idea of God itself — can be
brought back to perfectly definite simple ideas, in so far
as they have any meaning at all.

6. Criticism. — Before going on, it may be well to sug-
gest, briefly, the limitations of Locke's discussion. Locke
has an entirely definite and straightforward thesis to estab-
lish. He intends to show that we have no knowledge
which does not arise in connection with sense experience ;
in other words, that we do not come into the world with
ready-made truths in our minds. And if this is his con-
tention, it may surely be granted that he has made out his
case. But is this really the important point ? Might not
a judicious opponent be content to admit that all truths
come to our knowledge only in the course of experience,
and still maintain that there are certain truths which may
properly be called innate ?

Take, for example, the supposed truth that every event
must have a cause. There is a sense in which this is
derived from experience. It could not very well be sup-
i Bk. II, Chap, xn, 4-7.

The Growth of Empiricism 339

posed to be in the mind of any one who had not witnessed
instances of causation. But in spite of this, if it really is
true that every event must have a cause, in the future as
well as in the past, we are going entirely beyond the bare
facts of experience in the statement. All that mere ex-
perience could possibly tell us would be, that certain
particular events in the past have had a cause. There is
a distinction between a truth's coming to consciousness
in connection with experience, and its being wholly
summed up in the experience in connection with which
it appears. If, therefore, there are truths that are neces-
sarily and universally true, they must be due to some
capacity of the mind that goes beyond the mere collection
of its past experiences. Now, Locke himself admits the
existence of such truths, as, e.g., causation. There are
depths to the problem, accordingly, which Locke does not
begin to sound. It will be necessary to define, much more
closely than Locke does, what the vague word "experi-
ence " really means ; and this was left to Locke's succes-
sors, particularly to Hume and Kant.

2. Nature and Extent of Knowledge .

i. Nature and Degrees of Knowledge. — Having thus
examined the source of our ideas, it is still necessary to
consider what these ideas tell us in the way of truth.
Now, "since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings,
hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which
it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our
knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowledge,
then, seems to be nothing but the perception of the con-
nection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy,
of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists. Where
this perception is, there is knowledge; and where it is
not, there, though we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we
always come short of knowledge." *

i Bk. IV, Chap. I, i, 2.

34O A Student's History of Philosophy

The varying clearness of our knowledge lies in the
different way of perception the mind has of the agree-
ment or disagreement of its ideas. Sometimes " the mind
perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas
immediately by themselves, without the intervention of
any other; and this we may call intuitive knowledge.
Thus the mind perceives that white is not black, that a
circle is not a triangle, that three are more than two. . . .
This part of knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright sun-
shine, forces itself immediately to be perceived, as soon as
ever the mind turns its view that way ; and leaves no room
for hesitation, doubt, or examination, but the mind is pres-
ently filled with the clear light of it. He that demands
a greater certainty than this, demands he knows not what,
and shows only that he has a mind to be a sceptic, without
being able to be so." The next degree of knowledge is,
where the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement
of any of its ideas, but not immediately ; this is demon-
strative knowledge. " Thus the mind being willing to
know the agreement or disagreement in bigness between
the three angles of a triangle and two right ones, cannot
by an immediate view and comparing them do it. In this
case the mind is fain to find out some other angles, to
which the three angles of a triangle have an equality;
and, finding those equal to two right ones, comes to know
their equality to two right ones."1 A third degree of cer-
tainty, which also passes, though with less justification,
under the name of knowledge, will be considered presently
in connection with sensitive knowledge.

2. Knowledge of Real Existence. — But now, if knowl-
edge is only of the connection between our own ideas, does
it not become purely subjective, arbitrary, and unreal?
"It is evident that the mind knows not things immedi-
ately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of
them. Our knowledge, therefore, is real only so far as
there is a conformity between our ideas and the reality of

1 Bk. IV, Chap. II, i, 2.

The Growth of Empiricism 341

things. But what shall be here the criterion ? How shall
the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas,
know that they agree with things themselves?"1 Later
on this question attains a preeminent importance, and leads
to strange results. Locke, however, does not appreciate
all its difficulty, and slips over it rather easily. It never
occurs to him to doubt that there is a real world, and that
we can, to an extent at least, know it. And so, although
apparently in defiance of his definition of knowledge, he
adds now another conception — the agreement of our ideas
with the real things to which they refer. We may have
an assurance or conviction that such a reality exists, to
which our ideas correspond ; and in this case we have not
only certain, but real knowledge.

Now there is a kind of knowledge that also may fairly
be termed real, not because it agrees with an external
archetype, but because it does not pretend to refer to any-
thing beyond itself; and so there can be no question of
a lack of correspondence. " All our complex ideas, except
those of substances, being archetypes of the mind's own
making, not intended to be the copies of anything, nor
referred to the existence of anything, as to their originals,
cannot want any conformity necessary to real knowledge." 2
All our abstract knowledge, as opposed to that which deals
with facts — and most of the statements of necessary
truth are merely abstract — is concerned with such ideas.
Mathematics is one of the best instances of this. In
mathematics we are dealing only with ideas which we have
ourselves formed, and whose truth is entirely independent
of whether or not there happen to be any real objects in
the world. But such knowledge is after all not strictly real;
there is no disagreement, only because there is no object
with which to disagree. When, however, we turn to ideas
of substances, a new factor comes in. This is the idea
of real existence, which brings us back to real knowledge in
the stricter sense.

1 Bk. IV, Chap. IV, 3. * Bk. IV, Chap. IV, 5.

342 A Student's History of Philosophy

There are three kinds of substances of which we may
have a real knowledge. We have the knowledge of our
own existence by intuition ; we perceive it so plainly and
so certainly, that it neither needs, nor is capable of, any
proof. Of the existence of God, we have a demonstrative
knowledge. The proof of God is, briefly, this : We know
that something exists, since we are sure of our own exist-
ence ; and we know, also, that something must have existed
from eternity, since we are intuitively certain that bare
nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can
be equal to two right angles. Again, it is evident, in the
case of any derived being, that it must have received
everything it possesses from the reality from which it is
derived. Since, therefore, we possess powers, perception,
knowledge, all these things must be present in still greater
measure in the eternal reality from which we spring ; and
we can know, therefore, that a supremely powerful, know-
ing, and intelligent being exists. Otherwise there must
have been a time when knowledge did not exist ; and in
that case, it never could have come into being.

Finally, we can have a knowledge of material things
through sensation ;' which, if it fails of being as sure as
our knowledge of ourselves and of God, is still practically
certain. " For I think nobody can, in earnest, be so
sceptical as to be uncertain of the existence of those things
which he sees and feels." This assurance is confirmed by
various arguments. First, it is plain that these perceptions
are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses ;
because those to whom any organ is lacking, never have
the ideas belonging to that sense. The organs themselves,
it is clear, do not produce them ; for then the eyes of a
man in the dark would produce colors, and his nose smell
roses in the winter. Again, there is a manifest difference
between ideas from sensation, and ideas from memory.
If I turn my eyes at noon toward the sun, I cannot avoid
the ideas which the light or sun then produces in me ;
whereas I can at pleasure recall or dismiss ideas of the

The Growth of Empiricism 343

sun that are lodged in memory : and this points to an
exterior cause for the former. So, also, our senses cor-
roborate one another. "He that sees a fire may, if he
doubt whether it be anything more than a bare fancy, feel
it too, and be convinced by putting his hand in it ; which
certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain by
a bare idea or phantom." So that "this evidence is as
great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our pleas-
ure or pain, i.e., happiness or misery; beyond which we
have no concernment, either of knowing or being." l

3. Limitations of our Knowledge of the External World.
— But granting it is proved we have a knowledge of the
existence of material things, we still need to inquire in re-
gard to the adequacy and extent of this knowledge. Now,
in the first place, our simple ideas are adequate ; they may
not be actual copies of material qualities, but they are
necessarily and truly connected with them in the order of
nature. " Since the mind, as has been showed, can by no
means make to itself these simple ideas, they must neces-
sarily be the product of things operating on the mind in a
natural way, and producing therein those perceptions which
by the wisdom and will of our Maker they are ordained
and adapted to. From whence it follows that simple ideas
are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural and regular
productions of things without us, really operating upon us ;
and so carry with them all the conformity which is intended,
or which our state requires : for they represent to us things
under those appearances they are fitted to produce in us.
Thus the idea of whiteness or bitterness, as it is in the
mind, exactly answering that power which is in any body
to produce it there, has all the real conformity it can or
ought to have, with things without us."2

But when it comes to a knowledge of complex substances,

the case is different. We may combine ideas, and refer

them to a substance, when, as a matter of fact, they are

not actually found together in that substance ; or, we may

i Bk. IV, Chap. XI, 3-8. * Bk> IV, Chap. IV, 4.

344 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

leave out qualities which ought really to be there ; or again,
we may attribute to the connection, in the substance, of its
simple qualities, a necessity which this does not possess.
If we have actually found certain simple qualities going
together, we have a real knowledge of their coexistence in
nature in this particular case. But practically we have no
insight into the reason for the connection, and so our knowl-
edge hardly goes farther than our empirical acquaintance
with the particular instances. Necessity, for the most part,
belongs only to abstract ideas. " Some few of the primary
qualities have a necessary dependence and visible connection
one with another, as figure necessarily supposes extension.
Yet there are so few of them, that we can by intuition or
demonstration discover the coexistence of very few of the
qualities that are to be found united in substances. Thus,
though we see the yellow color, and, upon trial, find the
weight, malleableness, fusibility, and fixedness that are
united in a pie.ce of gold ; yet because no one of these ideas
has any evident dependence or necessary connection with
the others, we cannot certainly know that where any four
of these are, the fifth will be there also, how highly prob-
able soever it may be." *

" In fine, then, when our senses do actually convey into
our understandings any idea, we cannot but be satisfied
that there doth something at that time really exist without
us, which doth affect our senses, and actually produce that
idea which we then perceive ; and we cannot so far distrust
their testimony, as to doubt that such collections of simple
ideas as we have observed by our senses to be united
together, do really exist together. But this knowledge
extends as far as the present testimony of our senses, em-
ployed about particular objects that do then affect them,
and no farther. For if I saw such a collection of simple
ideas as is wont to be called man, existing together one
minute since, and am now alone ; I cannot be certain that
the same man exists now, since there is no necessary con-

ifik. IV, Chap. Ill, 14.

The Growth of Empiricism 345

nection of his existence a minute since with his existence
now : by a thousand ways he may cease to be, since I had
the testimony of my senses for his existence." 1

4. Probable Knowledge. — So much, then, for our certain
knowledge. Fortunately, however, we do not have to de-
pend upon demonstration for a great part of the affairs of
life. " The understanding faculties being given to man, not
barely for speculation, but also for the conduct of his life,
man would be at a great loss if he had nothing to direct
him but what has the certainty of true knowledge ; for that
being very short and scanty, as we have seen, he would be
often utterly in the dark, and in most of the actions of his
life, perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to guide him in the
absence of clear and certain knowledge. He that will not
eat till he has demonstration that it will nourish him, he
that will not stir till he infallibly knows the business he
goes about will succeed, will have little else to do but to
sit still and perish." 2 Accordingly, Locke goes on to con-
sider the grounds of probability, which in brief are these :
" First, The conformity of anything with our own knowl-
edge, observation, and experience. Secondly, The testi-
mony of others, vouching their observation and experience.
In this is to be considered, (i) The number. (2) The
integrity. (3) The skill of the witnesses. (4) The design
of the author, when it is a testimony out of a book cited.
(5) The consistency of the parts, and circumstances of the
relation. (6) Contrary testimonies."3 Among the beliefs
accepted on testimony, those based on revelation have a
peculiarly high degree of assurance. Nevertheless, this is
always less than intuitive and demonstrative certainty, and
therefore it can never prevail, if it comes in conflict with
truths of the latter kind.

5. Ethics. — A word remains to be said about Locke's
ethical theory. He never works this out in detail, but
scattered references show what lines it would have fol-

1 Bk. IV, Chap. XI, 9. 2 Bk. IV, Chap. XIV, I.

»Bk. IV, Chap. XV, 4.

346 A Student's History of Philosophy

lowed. Good and evil are nothing but pleasure and pain,
or what occasions or produces pleasure or pain for us.
Moral good or evil, then, is only the " conformity or dis-
agreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby
good or evil is drawn on us by the will and power of the
lawmaker ; which good and evil, pleasure or pain, attend-
ing our observance or breach of the law by the decree of
the lawmaker, is that we call reward and punishment."
The true ground of morality is thus the will and law of a
God, " who sees men in the dark, has in his hands rewards
and punishments, and power enough to call to account the
proudest offender." J Locke thinks that ethics can be made
a demonstrative science.

LITERATURE

Locke, Chief Works : Essay concerning Human Understanding
(1690) ; Thoughts on Education (1692) ; Reasonableness of Christian-
ity^^.

Russell, Selections.

Fowler, Locke.

Fraser, Locke.

Curtis, Outline of Locke's Ethical Philosophy.

Green, Introduction to Hume.

Bourne, Life of John Locke.

Dewey, Leibniz1 New Essays.

McCosh, Realistic Philosophy.

Moore, Existence, Meaning and Reality in Lockers Essay.

§ 32. Berkeley

The philosophy of Locke was, for the most part, a clear-
ing up and systematization of our common-sense beliefs.
It proposed to itself no metaphysical subtilties, nor did it
think it possible to attain to any great amount of absolute
and ultimate knowledge. The present facts of sense, how-
ever, it did not doubt ; and these, eked out by probability,
seemed to it quite sufficient to answer all the practical
needs of life. But Locke had set forces at work which did
not stop with him. There were contradictions and diffi-
*Bk. II, Chap. XXVIII, 5 ; Bk. I, Chap. Ill, 6.

The Growth of Empiricism 347

culties present in his thought which he did not perceive,
but which could not long be overlooked. One such dif-
ficulty has been noticed in his theory of knowledge.
Technically, he had limited the possibility of knowledge
to a perception of the connections between ideas ; but he
immediately had to add to this the agreement of ideas with
a reality which is no idea of ours at all. It was from this
point that a movement started which was, in the end, to
render all knowledge whatever uncertain.

George Berkeley, on whom the mantle of Locke fell,
was an Irishman, born in 1685. He entered Dublin in
1700. Here his intellectual subtilty, his enthusiastic and
imaginative temperament, and his peculiarly lovable per-
sonality, won for him a high reputation among his inti-
mates. His zeal for knowledge is illustrated in the story
related of him that, after attending an execution with some
companions, he induced his friends to suspend him from
the ceiling, that he might experience the sensation of
strangling. He was cut down only after he had become
unconscious.

It was in these early college days that the vision came
to him of the new principle by which he hoped to revolu-
tionize philosophy ; and his chief work — A Treatise on
the Principles of Human Knowledge — was published in his
twenty-fifth year. The novelty of his conception — the
denial of the independent existence of matter — prevented
an immediate recognition ; but his acute reasoning, and the
beauty of his literary style, gradually overcame the preju-
dice which the paradoxical nature of his position at first
aroused. In 1713 Berkeley visited London. Here he
became acquainted with the brilliant literary circle of
Queen Anne's reign — Steele, Addison, Swift, Pope, and
others, — and by the charm of his personality made a
deep impression. After some time spent in travel, he
returned to England, to carry out a great philanthropic
purpose, which, for the next few years, filled his thoughts.
This was the idea of converting America, and laying there

348 A Student's History of Philosophy

the foundation of a higher and purer civilization than he
found at home, through the establishment of a university
in the Bermudas. The plan was at once too noble, and
too visionary, to appeal much to English politicians; but
his high-minded enthusiasm and eloquence won the day,
and he secured a grant from Parliament of .£20,000. In
1728 he sailed for America, landing in Rhode Island; and
here he spent the next three years in quiet and study, wait-
ing for the plans for the university to be carried out. But
with Berkeley off the ground, the natural disinclination to
the scheme asserted itself again ; and finally, convinced
that the grant was never to be paid, Berkeley returned to
England. Here he received an appointment as Bishop
of Cloyne, in Ireland. His last appearance was in con-
nection with a somewhat fantastic controversy about the
merits of tar water, in which Berkeley, partly on experi-
mental, partly on philosophic grounds, was convinced that
he had fourfd a universal panacea for physical ills, and
which his deep interest in the welfare of humanity urged
him to promote with his usual fire and enthusiasm. His
last work — Siris — is a compound of the praises of tar
water, with some of the most profound of his philosophical
reflections. He died in 1753.

I. Unthinking Matter does not Exist. — There are two
sides to Berkeley's doctrine, a negative and a positive;
and it was the negative side which made the deepest
impression on his age, and on the future development
of philosophy. His main thesis may be stated in his
own words : " It is evident to any one who takes a
survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they
are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else
such as are perceived by attending to the passions and
operations of the mind; or, lastly, ideas formed by help
of memory and imagination. . . . But besides all that
endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is
likewise something which knows or perceives them, and
exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remem-

The Growth of Empiricism 349

bering, about them. This perceiving, active being is what
I call MIND, SPIRIT, SOUL, or MYSELF. . . . That neither
our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imag-
ination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will
allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sen-
sations, or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended
or combined together (that is, whatever objects they com-
pose) cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving
them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of
this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by
the term ' exist ' when applied to sensible things. The table
I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it ; and if I
were out of my study, I should say it existed, meaning
thereby that if I was in my study, I might perceive it, or
that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There
was an odor, that is, it was smelt ; there was a sound, that
is, it was heard ; a color or figure, and it was perceived by
sight or touch. That is all I can understand by these and
the like expressions. For as to what is said of the abso-
lute existence of unthinking things, without any relation
to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligi-
ble. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should
have any existence out of the minds of thinking things
which perceive them. It is, indeed, an opinion strangely
prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers,
and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natu-
ral or real, distinct from their being perceived by the
understanding. But with how great an assurance and
acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in
the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in
question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a
manifest contradiction. For what are the fore-mentioned
objects, but the things we perceive by sense ? And what
do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations ? And
is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any
combination of them, should exist unperceived ? "

" Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind

35 o A Student's History of Philosophy

that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I
take this important one to be, viz., that all the choir of
heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those
bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have
not any subsistence without a mind — that their being is to
be perceived or known ; that, consequently, so long as they
are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my
mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either
have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some
Eternal Spirit — it being perfectly unintelligible, and in-
volving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any
single part of them an existence independent of a spirit." *
This, accordingly, is what Berkeley starts in to prove —
the immaterialism of the external world, the non-existence
of an unspiritual, unthinking matter. Far from admitting,
however, that this is a paradox, Berkeley insists that he is
only going back to, and justifying, the beliefs of common
sense, in opposition to the confusion in which philosophers
have involved the question. "Upon the whole," he says,
"I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all,
of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philoso-
phers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely
owing to themselves — that we have first raised a dust, and
then complain we cannot see."2 The root of the evil lies
in the supposition, universally made, but entirely false,
that we can have such things as abstract ideas. In reality,
every possible idea must be a particular concrete fact of
consciousness, or image, with definite characteristics, which
we can discover and describe. If we cannot discover such
an image, we are wrong in supposing that any idea is there.
We deceive ourselves by taking words for ideas. Once
get free from the bondage of words, and represent to our-
selves concretely the things we are talking about, and half
the difficulties of philosophy will be solved. " In vain do we
extend our view into the heavens, and pry into the entrails
of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned

1 Treatise, §§ I, 2, 3, 4, 6. 2 Ibid., Introd., § 3.

The Growth of Empiricism 351

men, and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity — we need
only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of
knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach
of our hand."1

With this preliminary warning, we may turn to our con-
ception of matter — matter, that is, as independent of mind
or consciousness. The simple test is, Can we represent to
ourselves what we mean by matter in this sense ? or is it
just a word which we use, without any understanding be-
hind it ? It is on this that Berkeley rests his whole case.
If we can tell what we mean by the existence of objects,
in abstraction from the fact of their being perceived, very
well. But if we cannot, then we are merely fooled by
words, and must, if we are consistent, go back to the posi-
tion of common sense, and hold that matter is nothing but
the very things we see, feel, and hear ; that is, the collections
of ideas which make up the experience of perception.

" But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist
without the mind, yet there may be things like them,
whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things
exist without the mind in an unthinking substance. I
answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea ; a color
or figure can be like nothing but another color or figure.
If we look but never so little into our own thoughts, we
shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except
only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those sup-
posed originals or external things, of which our ideas are
the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable
or no ? If they are, then they are ideas, and we have
gained our point ; but if you say they are not, I appeal to
any one whether it be sense to assert a color is like some-
thing which is invisible ; hard or soft, like something which
is intangible ; and so of the rest." 2

Every quality, then, which we can attribute to an object,
may be reduced to a sensible quality, or a sensation ; and
how can anything be like a sensation, and still be absolutely

1 Treatise, Introd., § 24. 2 Treatise, § 8.

352 A Student's History of Philosophy

different from what a sensation is, namely, conscious and
immaterial ? If any one objects to this conclusion, let him
consider that, in the case of the majority of the qualities
of matter, it is a conclusion already generally admitted.
" They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the
primary or original qualities, do exist without the mind in
unthinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge
that colors, sounds, heat, cold, and such like secondary
qualities, do not." But now, in the first place, the fact
that primary and secondary qualities are inseparably joined,
shows that, if the latter exist only in the mind, the same
thing must be true of the former also. " For my own part,
I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea
of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it
some color or other sensible quality which is acknowledged
to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and
motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceiv-
able. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are,
there must these be also, to wit, in the mind, and nowhere
else."1

But furthermore, the very same arguments that prove
secondary qualities subjective, apply equally to the pri-
mary. Thus, for instance, it is said that heat and cold are
affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real
beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite
them ; " for the same body which appears cold to one hand
seems warm to another. Now, why may we not as well
argue that figure and extension are not patterns or resem-
blances of qualities existing in matter, because to the same
eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at
the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore
be the images of anything settled and determinate without
the mind ? Again, it is proved that sweetness is not really
in the sapid thing, because the thing remaining unaltered,
the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever,
or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say

* 10.

The Growth of Empiricism 353

that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession
of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it is ac-
knowledged, shall appear slower, without any alteration in
any external object ? " 1

But, it may be said, the essence of matter is not the
qualities, but a substratum, or substance, which lies behind
these, and supports them. The qualities may be only sub-
jective ideas, but you cannot get rid of the substantial
existence back of them. Now, in the first place, if the
qualities are ideas, they cannot subsist in an un perceiving
substance. But what of this concept of substance itself ?
Locke had already criticised the notion, and had come to
the conclusion that it is a purely negative and unreal idea.
It is a "something we know not what," quite on a par
with the unknown support of the mythical tortoise, which
for the Indian thinker holds up the world. Berkeley goes
on to subject the idea to a still more vigorous criti-
cism. " Let us examine a little the description that is
given us of matter. It neither acts, nor perceives, nor is
perceived ; for this is all that is meant by saying it is an
inert, senseless, unknown substance ; which is a definition
entirely made up of negatives, excepting only the relative
notion of its standing under or supporting. But then it
must be observed that it supports nothing at all, and how
nearly this comes to a description of a nonentity, I desire
may be considered. But, say you, it is the unknown occa-
sion, at the presence of which ideas are excited in us by
the will of God. Now, I would fain know how anything
can be present to us, which is neither perceivable by
sense nor reflection, nor capable of producing any idea in
our minds, nor is at all extended, nor hath any form, nor
exists in any place. The words ' to be present,' when thus
applied, must needs be taken in some abstract and strange
meaning, and which I am not able to comprehend." " You
may, if so it shall seem good, use the word ' matter ' in the
same sense as other men use ' nothing,' and so make those
2 A !§ 14.

354 A Student's History of Philosophy

terms convertible in your style. For, after all, that is
what appears to me to be the result of that definition —
the parts whereof, when I consider with attention, either
collectively or separate from each other, I do not find
that there is any effect or impression made on my mind
different from what is excited by the term * nothing/ " "It
is a very extraordinary instance of the force of prejudice,
and much to be lamented, that the mind of man retains so
great a fondness, against all the evidence of reason, for a
stupid, thoughtless Somewhat, by the interposition of which
it would, as it were, screen itself from the Providence of God,
and remove it farther off from the affairs of the world." 1
A material substance, then, is unthinkable. Moreover,
it would be of no possible use if we had it. " Though we
give the materialists their external bodies, they, by their
own confession, are never the nearer knowing how our
ideas are produced ; since they own themselves unable to
comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or
how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind.
Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations
in our minds can be no reason why we should suppose
matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged
to remain equally inexplicable with or without this suppo-
sition. ... In short, if there were external bodies, it is
impossible we should ever come to know it ; and if there
were not, we might have the very same reasons to think
there were that we have now. Suppose — what no one can
deny possible — an intelligence, without the help of exter-
nal bodies, to be affected with the same train of sensa-
tions or ideas that you are, imprinted in the same order,
and with like vividness in his mind. I ask whether that
intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence
of corporeal substances, represented by his ideas, and ex-
citing them in his mind, that you can possibly have for be-
lieving the same thing ? Of this there can be no question ;
which one consideration were enough to make any reason-

1 §8 68, 75, 80.

The Growth of Empiricism 355

able person suspect the strength of whatever arguments
he may think himself to have, for the existence of bodies
without the mind." l

To reiterate the main point, an unthinking matter does
not exist, simply because it is inconceivable. " I am con-
tent to put the whole upon this issue : If you can but
conceive it possible for one extended movable substance,
or, in general, for any one idea, or anything like an idea,
to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall
readily give up the cause. And, as for all that compages
of external bodies you contend for, I shall grant you its
existence, though you cannot either give me any reason
why you believe it exists, or assign any use to it when it
is supposed to exist. I say, the bare possibility of your
opinion's being true, shall pass for an argument that it is
so. But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for
me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books ex-
isting in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I an-
swer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it ; but what is all
this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind cer-
tain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same
time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may per-
ceive them ? But do not you yourself perceive or think of
them all the while ? This therefore is nothing to the pur-
pose ; it only shows you have the power of imagining or
forming ideas in your mind ; but it does not show that you
can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may
exist without the mind. To make out this, it is necessary
thatjj/0& conceive them existing unconceived, or unthought
of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our ut-
most to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are
all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the
mind, taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can
and does conceive bodies existing unthought of or without
the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended
by or exist in itself." 2

1 §§ 19, 20. a §§ 22t 23.

356 A Student's History of Philosophy

2. God as the Cause of our Ideas. — So much for the
purely negative argument. But if we were to stop
here, no one, probably, would be convinced. Is there,
then, we ask, no reality outside our own fleeting ideas?
Can we say nothing beyond the fact that these ideas
come and go ? Certainly we can ; and this brings us
to the more constructive side of Berkeley's theory. In
addition to the mere existence of ideas, there are two
very important characteristics of our sense experience —
its necessity, and orderly coherence. "Whatever power
I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actu-
ally perceived by sense have not a like dependence on my
will. When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in
my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to deter-
mine what particular objects shall present themselves to
my view." * So, also, sensations have a steadiness, order,
and coherence ; they are not excited at random, as those
ideas which are the effect of human wills often are, but in
a regular train or series. Let us, then, keep in mind these
two conclusions : First, my ideas evidently require some
cause beyond my own will ; and, second, this cause cannot
be an unthinking matter — a word to which no positive
notion corresponds. Nor, clearly, can the ideas be the
cause one of another. " All our ideas, sensations, notions,
or the things which we perceive, are visibly inactive, —
there is nothing of power or agency included in them."2

Is there, then, any other sort of reality known to us,
apart from passive ideas, to which we may have recourse ?
Yes; in addition to ideas, we know ourselves, or spirits.
As opposed to ideas, a spirit is a substance. " Besides all
that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there
is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and
exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remem-
bering about them ; " 3 and that this substance which sup-
ports or perceives ideas should itself be an idea, or like an
idea, is evidently absurd. Instead of being passive, as
1 § 29. 2 § 25. 8 § 2.

The Growth of Empiricism 357

ideas are, it is active. " All the unthinking objects of the
mind agree in that they are entirely passive, and their exist-
ence consists only in being perceived ; whereas a soul or
spirit is an active being, whose existence consists, not in
being perceived, but in perceiving ideas, and thinking." l
We have no knowledge of any reality that is not one of
these two sorts — spirits, or ideas. "The former are ac-
tive, indivisible substances; the latter are inert, fleeting,
dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but
are supported by, or exist in, minds or spiritual sub-
stances." 2 We may say that we have a notion of spirit,
although we have no idea or image of it.

And now Berkeley's theory is ready for him. "We
perceive a continual succession of ideas ; some are anew
excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There
is, therefore, some cause of these ideas, whereon they
depend, and which produces and changes them. That this
cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of ideas,
is clear already. It must therefore be a substance ; but it
has been shown that there is no corporeal or material sub-
stance ; it remains, therefore, that the cause of ideas is an
incorporeal, active substance, or spirit."3 And since our
own will is not equal to the task, there must be some other
Will that produces ideas in us — namely, God. Our ideas,
that is, must have an objective cause. But instead of look-
ing for this in an unthinkable matter, why not have re-
course to a reality of the same type as that we know
already in the knowledge of ourselves?

In this hypothesis, we have everything that is needed
to account for the objectivity, order, significance, and ne-
cessity of our ideas. The objection that, if things are only
ideas, we ought to be able to create a world to suit our-
selves, is wholly without point ; there stands a power over
against us, which, in sensation, determines the order our
ideas shall follow. But such a controlling spirit will sat-
isfy all the conditions. What we call the connection of
1 § 139. 2 § 89. » § 26.

358 A Student's History of Philosophy

qualities in things, or the laws of nature, stands only for
this : that by the divine power, one sensation is made to
serve to us as a sign that we may, if we wish, get other
concurrent sensations ; or that other sensations are about
to follow. "The connection of ideas does not imply the
relation of cause and effect, but only of a mark or sign, with
the thing signified. The fire which I see is not the cause
of the pain I surfer upon my approaching it, but the mark
that forewarns me of it. In like manner the noise that I
hear is not the effect of this or that motion or collision of
the ambient bodies, but the sign thereof." This gives us
a sort of foresight which enables us to regulate our actions
for the benefit of life ; and we cannot reasonably demand
anything more. " That food nourishes, sleep refreshes,
and fire warms us ; that to sow in the seedtime is the way
to reap in the harvest ; and, in general, that to obtain such
or such ends, such or such means are conducive — all this
we know, not by discovering any necessary connection
between our ideas, but only by the observation of the set-
tled laws of nature, without which we should be all in un-
certainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know
how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant
just born. And yet this consistent uniform working, which
so evidently displays the goodness and wisdom of that
Governing Spirit whose Will constitutes the laws of nature,
is so far from leading our thoughts to Him, that it rather
sends them wandering after second causes." x

3. Ansivers to Objections. — Having stated his theory,
Berkeley goes on to anticipate the objections that will be
brought against it. First, it will be objected " that by
the foregoing principles all that is real and substantial in
nature is banished out of the world, and instead thereof a
chimerical scheme of ideas takes place. All things that
exist, exist only in the mind, that is, they are purely
notional. What, therefore, becomes of the sun, moon, and
stars ? What must we think of houses, rivers, trees,

1 §§ 65, 31, 32.

The Growth of Empiricism 359

stones ? Are all these but so many chimeras and illusions
of fancy ? To all which I answer, that by the principles
premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature.
Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or under-
stand, remains as secure as ever. There is a rerum natura,
and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains
its full force. . . . The only thing whose existence we
deny is that which philosophers call matter, or corporeal sub-
stance. And in doing this there is no damage done to the
rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it." * The
phrase " greater reality " has no meaning except as it indi-
cates the superiority of certain ideas over others in vividness,
coherency, and distinctness ; and in this sense the sun that
I see by day is the real sun, and that which I imagine by
night is the idea of the former. This also is an answer to
the objection that there is a great difference between real
fire, for instance, and the idea of fire, between dreaming or
imagining oneself burnt, and actually being so. And it may
be added, that "if real fire be very different from the idea of
fire, so also is the real pain which it occasions very differ-
ent from the idea of the same pain ; and yet nobody will
pretend that real pain really is, or can possibly be, in an
unperceiving thing, or without the mind, any more than its
idea." 2

Again, "it will be objected that we see things actually
without or at a distance from us, and which consequently
do not exist in the mind ; it being absurd that those things
which are seen at the distance of several miles, should be
as near to us as our own thoughts."3 In answer to this,
Berkeley calls attention to the fact that in dreams, also,
we seem to see things at a distance, which yet have no
reality outside the mind; but he has a more adequate
answer still. For in his famous New Theory of Vision,
he had already attempted to prove that we do not see dis-
tance at all ; all we get through the senses is sensations
of color and touch. When one says that a thing is at a

1 §§ 34, 35- 2 § 4i. 8 § 42.

360 A Student's History of Philosophy

distance, what he unconsciously means is, that, in order to
touch the thing, he foresees he would have to pass through
certain locomotive or muscular sensations, more or less
numerous according to the distance from him at which the
thing is placed. Vision is simply a " language," in which,
by an arbitrary connection, one sensation (of color) stands
as sign for another (of movement). Or, do we object that,
on this view, things are annihilated and created anew
every time we shut and open our eyes? Once more
Berkeley asks : Why call this absurd, if we can get abso-
lutely no notion of what a thing can be when it is not per-
ceived ? And if it is " thought strangely absurd that upon
closing my eyelids all the visible objects around me should
be reduced to nothing, yet is not this what philosophers
commonly acknowledge, when they agree on all hands
that light and colors, which alone are the proper and
immediate objects of sight, are mere sensations, that exist
no longer than they are perceived ? " * And so Berkeley
goes on with various other objections; and, although he
does not meet them all with complete success, there is
very little that has since been urged against him which he
does not anticipate more or less clearly.

Let us sum up once more. "Ideas imprinted on the
senses are real things, or do really exist ; this we do not
deny; but we deny that they can subsist without the
minds which perceive them, or that they are resem-
blances of any archetypes existing without the mind ;
since the very being of a sensation or idea consists in
being perceived, and an idea can be like nothing but an
idea. Again, the things perceived by sense may be
termed external, with regard to their origin — in that
they are not generated from within by the mind itself,
but imprinted by a Spirit distinct from that which per-
ceives them. ... It were a mistake to think that what
is here said derogates in the least from the reality of
things.' It is acknowledged, on the received principles,

'§46.

The Growth of Empiricism 361

that extension, motion, and in a word all sensible quali-
ties, have need of a support, as not being able to subsist
by themselves. But the objects perceived by sense are
allowed to be nothing but combinations of those qualities,
and consequently cannot subsist by themselves. Thus far
it is agreed on all hands. So that in denying the things
perceived by sense an existence independent of a sub-
stance or support wherein they may exist, we detract
nothing from the received opinion of their reality, and
are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the dif-
ference is that, according to us, the unthinking beings
perceived by sense have no existence distinct from being
perceived, and cannot therefore exist in any other sub-
stance than those unextended, indivisible substances, or
spirits, which act and think and perceive them ; whereas
philosophers vulgarly hold the sensible qualities do exist
in an inert, extended, unperceiving substance which they
call matter, to which they attribute a natural subsistence,
exterior to all thinking beings, or distinct from being per-
ceived by any mind whatsoever, even the eternal mind of
the Creator." *

4. The Consequences of the Theory for Religion. —
And now for some of the further advantages which
Berkeley's system is to bring. In the first place, it will
banish at once from philosophy a number of difficult ques-
tions, about which men have puzzled their heads, and
wasted their time to no purpose. Such questions as these,
" whether corporeal substance can think," " whether mat-
ter be infinitely divisible," and " how it operates on spirit,"
as well as all the problems which arise from assuming the
real existence of space, are set aside at once as meaningless.
But, also, there is a more far-reaching result, which for
Berkeley is all-important — the effect upon religion. For
Berkeley's interest in philosophy is largely a religious in-
terest; and it seems to him that he has, in his Immaterial-
ism, a potent weapon against the Agnosticism and Atheism

1 §§ 90, 91.

362 A Student's History of Philosophy

of his day. It takes away the ground, in the first place,
from Scepticism. " So long as we attribute a real exist-
ence to unthinking things, distinct from their being per-
ceived, it is not only impossible for us to know with
evidence the nature of any real unthinking being, but
even that it exists. Hence it is that we see philosophers
distrust their senses, and doubt of the existence of heaven
and earth, of everything they see or feel, even of their
own bodies." 1 If, however, I mean by matter that which
I actually perceive by the senses, it is as impossible for
me to doubt this as it is to doubt my own being.

And as the doctrine of matter " has been the main pillar
of Scepticism, so likewise, on the same foundation, have
been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and Irre-
ligion. . . . All these monstrous systems have so visible
and necessary a dependence on it that, when this corner-
stone is once removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but
fall to the ground, insomuch that it is no longer worth
while to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdi-
ties of every wretched sect of Atheists." 2 Do we ask for
proof of God ? It lies immediately before us, says Berke-
ley, and is just as certain as the proof of our neighbor's
existence. For as we do not see directly the very self of
another man, but only certain bodily movements, which
stand as signs to us of what is present in his mind, so
is not nature a Divine Visual Language in which God
speaks to us, a system of signs which, by their order and
coherency, tell indubitably of a Mind behind them ?

" It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking
herd that they cannot see God. Could we but see Him,
say they, as we see a man, we should believe that He
is, and believing obey His commands. But alas, we need
only open our eyes to see the Sovereign Lord of all things,
with a more full and clear view than we do any one of our
fellow-creatures. A human spirit or person is not per-
ceived by sense, as not being an idea ; when therefore we

1 § 88. 2 § 92.

The Growth of Empiricism 363

see the color, size, figure, and motions of a man, we per-
ceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own
minds ; and these being exhibited to our view in sundry
distinct collections, serve to mark out unto us the existence
of finite and created spirits like ourselves. Hence it is
plain we do not see a man — if by man is meant that which
lives, moves, perceives, and thinks as we do — but only
such a certain collection of ideas as directs us to think
there is a distinct principle of thought and motion, like to
ourselves, accompanying and represented by it. And after
the same manner we see God ; all the difference is that,
whereas some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas
denotes a particular human mind, whithersoever we direct
our view, we do at all times, and in all places, perceive
manifest tokens of the Divinity : everything we see, hear,
feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of
the power of God ; as is our perception of those very mo-
tions which are produced by men." l

By any true definition of language, therefore, God
speaks to us as directly as one man to another. " Since
you cannot deny that the great Mover and Author of na-
ture constantly explaineth Himself to the eyes of men by
the sensible intervention of arbitrary signs, which have no
similitude or connection with the things signified ; so as,
by compounding and disposing them, to suggest and ex-
hibit an endless variety of objects, differing in nature,
time, and place ; thereby informing and directing men how
to act with respect to things distant and future, as well as
near and present. In consequence, I say, of your own
sentiments and concessions, you have as much reason to
think the Universal Agent or God speaks to your eyes, as
you can have for thinking any particular person speaks to
your ears." 2

" It is therefore plain that nothing can be more evident
to any one that is capable of the least reflection, than the
existence of God, or a Spirit who is intimately present to

1 § 148. 2 Alciphron, Fourth Dialogue. (Fraser, Selections, p. 271.)

364 A Student's History of Philosophy

our minds — producing in them all that variety of ideas or
sensations which continually affect us, on whom we have
an absolute and entire dependence, in short, * in whom we
live, and move, and have our being.' That the discovery
of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the
mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few,
is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men,
who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifes-
tations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them that
they seem, as it were, blinded with excess of light." 1

5. Sensation and Reason. — If we follow the line of
main emphasis in Berkeley's theory of knowledge, it would
seem to lead to the position that we can know only our
own ideas. As a matter of fact, this does not fully repre-
sent his belief. There was for him, as has been seen,
knowledge of other reality as well. We can know ourselves,
to begin with, and our activities and relations to ideas, and
these are nothing that can be represented by any definite
image. "We may be said to have some knowledge or
notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings,
whereof in a strict sense we have not ideas." 2 And as
Berkeley's thought developed, he came to lay more and
more stress on the intellectual framework of experience,
by which we rise to truth and God, and less upon the side
of sensations. " We know a thing when we understand it ;
and we understand it when we can interpret or tell what it
signifies. Strictly the sense knows nothing."3 But his en-
tire consistency here is perhaps a little dubious. Often,
at least, he seems to speak as if the point from which we
start, in knowledge, were a mass of unrelated " ideas " or
sensations, and as if from these, by mere "experience,"
we finally arrive at their interpretation as the language of
a divine Author. But if such a starting-point were granted,
should we ever be in a position to reach, not merely this
conclusion, but any conclusion at all? Could we be as-
sured of the existence of any reality beyond the ideas

1 Treatise, § 149. 2 § 89. 8 Siris, § 253.

The Growth of Empiricism 365

themselves, — of God, or even of other men? At any
rate, the logic of this " new way of ideas " needed to be
more rigidly examined than it hitherto had been, to deter-
mine just where it was to lead. It was necessary that the
consequences of Empiricism and Sensationalism — the con-
sequences, that is, of the attempt to found experience on a
mere chance connection of isolated sensations — should
be carried out to their final issue. It was this work which
Hume accomplished, and which constitutes his great sig-
nificance in the history of thought,

LITERATURE

Berkeley, Chief Works : New Theory of Vision (1709); Principles
of Human Knowledge (1710) ; Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous (1713) ; Alciphron (1732) ; Siris (1744).

Fraser, Selections.

Fraser, Berkeley.

Huxley, Critiques and Addresses.

Mill, Essays.

Morris, British Thought and Thinkers.

McCosh, Realistic Philosophy.

Tower, Relation of Berkeley^ Later to his Earlier Idealism.

§ 33. Hume

David Hume was a Scotchman, born in Edinburgh in
1711. His life was comparatively uneventful; the main
interest in it centres in his literary and philosophical work
and associations. His character was a mixture of the
most kindly tolerance and good nature, with a shrewdness
and penetrating critical insight in certain directions. He
was, however, lacking on the idealistic and imaginative
sides, and, consequently, in constructive ability. His own
estimate of his character is essentially just. "To conclude
historically with my own character, I am, or rather was
(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of my-
self, which emboldens me the more to speak my senti-

366 A Student's History of Philosophy

ments); I was, I say, a man of mild disposition, of
command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful
humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of
enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even
my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured
my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments.
My company was not unacceptable to the young and
careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and
as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest
women, I had no reason to be displeased with the recep-
tion I met with from them. In a word, though most men,
anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of cal-
umny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her bale-
ful tooth ; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the
rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be
disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends
never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of
my character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we
may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and
propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could
never find any which they thought would wear the face of
probability." Hume died calmly and cheerfully, expect-
ing his end, in 1776.

i. The Analysis of Knowledge. — It has already been
said that the significance of Hume's philosophy lies in the
way in which he carries the empirical and sensationalistic
tendencies in the thought of Locke and Berkeley to their
conclusion. The psychology, accordingly, on which he
bases his results, follows that of his predecessors, except
that it is more unambiguous. Every possible object of
knowledge is reduced either to an impression or an idea.
" The difference between these consists in the degrees of
force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind,
and make their way into our thought or consciousness.
Those perceptions which enter with most force and vio-
lence, we may name impressions ; and under this name I
comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as

The Growth of Empiricism 367

they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I
mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning ;
such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by
the present discourse, excepting only those which arise
from the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate
pleasure or uneasiness it may occasion. I believe it will
not be very necessary to employ many words in explaining
this distinction. Every one of himself will readily perceive
the difference betwixt feeling and thinking."1 In general,
ideas seem to correspond closely to impressions, differing
only in the degree of force and vivacity.

There is another division among ideas which also is self-
evident — that between simple and complex ideas. And
this last division tends to modify somewhat the statement
just made, about the resemblance between ideas and im-
pressions. " I observe that many of our complex ideas
never had impressions that corresponded to them, and that
many of our complex impressions never are exactly copied
in ideas. I can imagine to myself such a city as the New
Jerusalem, whose pavement is gold, and walls are rubies,
though I never saw any such. I perceive, therefore, that
though there is in general a great resemblance betwixt our
complex impressions and ideas, yet the rule is not univer-
sally true, that they are exact copies of each other. We
may next consider how the case stands with our simple
perceptions. After the most accurate examinations of
which I am capable, I venture to affirm that the rule here
holds without any exception, and that every simple idea
has a simple impression which resembles it; and every
simple impression a correspondent idea. That idea of red
which we form in the dark, and that impression which
strikes our eyes in sunshine, differ only in degree, not in
nature."2 And as complex ideas go back ultimately to
simple, we may affirm, in general, that the two species of
perception are exactly correspondent. Accordingly we
are led to the general conclusion that all our simple ideas

1 Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. I, I. 2 Ibid.

368 A Student's History of Philosophy

in their first appearance are derived from simple impres-
sions, which they exactly represent.

These impressions and ideas, then, are the sole contents
of the human mind, all of them going back originally to
impressions. And if, accordingly, we are to be able to es-
tablish the reality of any supposed fact, we must be in a
position to point out the definite, concrete impression which
it is, or reproduces. " Since nothing is ever present to the
mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are derived from
something antecedently present to the mind, it follows that
it is impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an
idea of anything specifically different from ideas and im-
pressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as
much as possible; let us chase our imaginations to the
heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe : we never
really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive
any kind of .existence but those perceptions which have
appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of
the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there
produced." 1

2. Criticism of the Self. — Now on these principles it of
course follows that, as Berkeley clearly pointed out, there
can be no such thing as a material substance ; reality is coex-
tensive with ideas. " I would fain ask those philosophers
who found so much of their reasonings on the distinction
of substance and accident, and imagine we have clear ideas
of each, whether the idea of substance be derived from the
impressions of sensation or reflection. If it be conveyed
to us by our senses, I ask, which of them; and after what
manner ? If it be perceived by the eyes, it must be a color ;
if by the ears, a sound ; if by the palate, a taste ; and so of
the other senses. But I believe none will assert that sub-
stance is either a color, or sound, or a taste. The idea of
substance must therefore be derived from an impression of
reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflec-
tion resolve themselves into our passions and emotions ;
1 Bk. I, Pt. II, 6.

The Growth of Empiricism 369

none of which can possibly represent a substance. We
have, therefore, no idea of substance, distinct from that of
a collection of particular qualities, nor have we any other
meaning when we either talk or reason concerning it. The
idea of a substance is nothing but a collection of simple
ideas that are united by the imagination, and have a par-
ticular name assigned them." l

But is it possible to stop here ? Berkeley had insisted
that we cannot know material substance ; but, neverthe-
less, he had supposed that spiritual substance — the self,
or soul — we can know. And it was by using the self as
an instrument, that he was enabled to build up his positive
theory of reality. But, once again, we must ask, What is
the positive impression on which the idea of a self, or
spirit, is based ? Berkeley had himself admitted that there
is no such impression. The self is not an idea. We only
have a notion of it, which can be represented by no definite
image. But in that case, the self, or spiritual substance,
has no more foundation than material substance; both
must go together.

" I desire those philosophers, who pretend that we have
an idea of the substance of our minds, to point out the
impression that produces it, and tell distinctly after what
manner that impression operates, and from what object it
is derived. Is it an impression of sensation or of reflection ?
Is it pleasant, or painful, or indifferent ? Does it attend us
at all times, or does it only return at intervals ? If at inter-
vals, at what times principally does it return, and by what
causes is it produced ? " 2 " There are some philosophers
who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of
what we call our SELF ; that we feel its existence, and its
continuance in existence ; and are certain, beyond the evi-
dence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and
simplicity. . . . For my part, when I enter most intimately
into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particu-
lar perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love

1 Bk. I, Ft. I, 6. 2 Bk. I, R. IV, 5 (Selby-Bigge's edition, p. 233).

2B

370 A Student's History of Philosophy

or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at
any time without a perception, and never can observe
anything but the perception. When my perceptions are
removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I in-
sensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And
were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I
neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the
dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated,
nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a
perfect nonentity. If any one, upon serious and unpreju-
diced reflection, thinks he has a different notion of himself >
I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can
allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and
that we are essentially different in this particular. He
may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued,
which he calls himself \ though I am certain there is no
such principle in me.

" But, setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I
may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are
nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity,
and are in a perpetual flux and movement. The mind is
a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively
make their appearance, pass, re-pass, glide away, and min-
gle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There
is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in
different; whatever natural propension we may have to
imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of
the theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive
perceptions only, that constitute the mind ; nor have we the
most distant notion of the place where these scenes are
represented, or of the materials of which it is composed." *

3. Criticism of the Idea of Cause. — Now, no doubt the

belief in an identical self needs to be accounted for. This,

however, we may postpone for a little, and take up what

constitutes Hume's most important contribution to philos-

i Bk. I, Ft. IV, 6 (p. 251).

The Growth of Empiricism 371

ophy. There are certain all-pervading relations, outside the
relation to a self, which seem to bind together our ideas to
form what we know as knowledge. These also need to be
criticised in order to make sure they are legitimate, and go
back to definite impressions. And since the most important
of these relations is that of cause and effect, we may con-
fine ourselves to this. The necessity of the causal rela-
tion had throughout conditioned Berkeley's advance from
the mere existence of ideas, to his conception of the world
as a universal and rational system of signs, dependent upon
God. And he had found, as he thought, a basis for the
reality of causation, in that free activity of Spirit, which is
not, indeed, picturable to the imagination, but which is
rationally intelligible. Is this, now, to be justified ? Again
there is the same inexorable demand : what is the impres-
sion from which the idea of cause is derived ? Is there
any such impression that we are able to point out ?

" Let us cast our eye on any two objects, which we call
cause and effect, and turn them on all sides, in order to
find that impression which produces an idea of such pro-
digious consequence. At the first sight, I perceive that I
must not search for it in any of the particular qualities of
the object; since, whichever of these qualities I pitch on, I
find some object that is not possessed of it, and yet falls
under the denomination of cause and effect." x The idea,
then, must be derived from some relation among objects.
Now when I examine the matter, I find two such relations
present — contiguity and succession. But these do not ex-
haust what I mean by causation ; an idea may be contigu-
ous and prior to another without being considered as its
cause. There is still something more to be added of prime
importance ; and that is, the idea of necessary connection.

But what is the nature of this necessary connection, and

where is the impression from which it is derived. The

more we consider it, the more puzzling the question appears.

Search as I will, the only relations between objects that I

iBk.I,Pt.m,2(p.75).

37 2 -d Student's History of Philosophy

discern are " those of contiguity and succession, which I
have already regarded as imperfect and unsatisfactory.
Shall the despair of success make me assert that I am here
possessed of an idea which is not preceded by any similar
impression ? This would be too strong a proof of levity
and inconstancy, since the contrary principle has been
already so firmly established." J Let us, then, turn from
the question for the moment, and take up two related
questions, in the hope that these may incidentally throw
some light on the matter in hand. First, for what reason
do we pronounce it necessary that everything whose exist-
ence has a beginning should also have a cause ? And,
secondly, why do we conclude that such particular causes
must necessarily have such particular effects, and what is
the nature of that inference we draw from the one to the
other, and of the belief we repose in it ?

Hume disposes of the first question by denying that the
necessity exists. " Here is an argument which proves at
once that the foregoing proposition is neither intuitively
nor demonstrably certain. . . . As all distinct ideas are
separable from each other, and as the idea of cause and
effect are evidently distinct, 'twill be easy for us to conceive
any object to be non-existent this moment, and existent the
next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause
or productive principle. The separation, therefore, of the
idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence, is
plainly possible for the imagination ; and consequently the
actual separation of these objects is so far possible, that it
implies no contradiction nor absurdity ; and is, therefore,
incapable of being refuted by any reasoning from mere
ideas; without which 'tis impossible to demonstrate the
necessity of a cause." 2 Accordingly we shall find, upon
examination, that every demonstration which has been
produced for the necessity of a cause is fallacious and
sophistical.

If, then, the belief in the necessity of a cause does not
1 Bk. I, Pt. Ill, 2 (P. 77). 2 Bk. I, Pt. Ill, 3.

The Growth of Empiricism 373

go back to any intuitive or demonstrative truth, it must
come from observation and experience. How does experi-
ence give rise to such a principle ? And Hume finds it
convenient to consider this in the less general form : why
do we believe that any particular cause will necessarily be
followed by some particular effect ? And the only reason
there can be, is that we have found this effect to follow in
the past. " Thus we remember to have seen that species
of object we call flame, and to have felt that species of sensa-
tion we call heat. We likewise call to mind their constant
conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther
ceremony, we call the one cause and the other effect, and
infer the existence of the one from that of the other."

"Thus in advancing, we have insensibly discovered a
new relation betwixt cause and effect, when we least ex-
pected it. This relation is their constant conjunction.
Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to make us
pronounce any two objects to be cause and effect, unless
we perceive that these two relations are preserved in sev-
eral instances. We may now see the advantage of quitting
the direct survey of this relation, in order to discover the
nature of that necessary connection, which makes so essen-
tial a part of it. ... Having found that after the discov-
ery of the constant conjunction of any objects, we always
draw an inference from one object to another, we shall now
examine the nature of that inference, and of the transition
from the impression to the idea. Perhaps 'twill appear in
the end, that the necessary connection depends on the
inference, instead of the inference's depending on the
necessary connection." l

First, then, is the transition, which inference involves,
due to the reason, or to the mere association of ideas in
the imagination ? If reason determined us, it could only
be in the form of a conclusion from the premise that nature
is uniform, or that instances of which we have had no ex-
perience-must resemble those of which we have had expe-
i Bk. I, Ft. Ill, 6 (p. 87).

374 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

rience. But this is something it is entirely impossible to
establish, even with probability. The inference must,
therefore, be an affair of the imagination. At first this
seems unlikely, in view of the strength of belief, when
compared with that which attaches to the mere fancies of
the imagination. Hume is thus led to a consideration of
the nature of belief ; and he finds that the only difference
between an idea we believe, and a mere fancy, is the supe-
rior force and liveliness of the former. A belief is some-
what more than a simple idea ; it is a particular manner of
forming an idea ; and the same idea can only be varied by
a variation of its degree of force and vivacity.

What is it, then, that makes the idea of an effect so
lively that I believe in it ? This goes back again to the
general principle, that any present impression has the
power, not only of transporting the mind to such ideas as
are related to it, but also of communicating to them a share
of its own force and vivacity. The cause stands for such
a present impression ; and the peculiar strength of belief
which attaches to the causal inference is due to the fact
that, by constant conjunction, the relation has acquired the
force of custom, or habit.

Now as all objective knowledge, that goes beyond pres-
ent impressions, is based upon causation, custom governs
all our thinking, and custom only. "Thus all probable
reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. 'Tis not
solely in poetry and music we must follow our taste and
sentiment, but likewise in philosophy. When I am con-
vinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes
more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to
one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but
decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their
influence. Objects have no discoverable connection to-
gether ; nor is it from any other principle but custom, that
we can draw any inference from the appearance of one to
the existence of another." *

i Bk. I, Pt. Ill, 8 (P. 103).

The Growth of Empiricism 375

We are now ready to go back to the idea of necessary
connection, and see what light has been cast upon it. To
sum up the argument briefly : So long as I regard one
instance of causation only, I cannot discover anything
beyond the relations of contiguity and succession. " I
therefore enlarge my view to comprehend several instances,
where I find like objects always existing in like relations
of contiguity and succession. At first sight this seems
to serve but little to my purpose. The reflection on
several instances only repeats the same objects, and
therefore can never give rise to a new idea. But upon
farther inquiry, I find that the repetition is not in every
particular the same, but produces a new impression, and
by that means the idea which I at present examine. For,
after a frequent repetition, I find that, upon the appear-
ance of one of the objects, the mind is determined by cus-
tom to consider its usual attendant, and to consider it in a
stronger light upon account of its relation to the first ob-
ject. It is this impression, then, or determination, which
affords me the idea of necessity." 1

Now this conclusion amounts to neither more nor less
than this : that what we call power, or force, or causal
efficiency, exists not at all in objects •, but only in the mind.
In a discussion in which we need not follow him, Hume
shows how all attempts to give a positive content to these
terms, as objective realities, have failed. Once more,
there must be some impression at the basis of the term, if
it represents anything real ; and there is nothing in objects
to supply this impression. " Since the idea of power is a
new original idea, not to be found in any one instant, and
which yet arises from the repetition of several instances,
it follows that the repetition alone has not that effect, but
must either discover or produce something new, which is
the source of that idea." Now it is evident that the repe-
tition of like objects in like relations of succession and
contiguity, discovers nothing new in any of them ; and
iBk,i,Pt. Ill, 14 (P. 155).

376 A Student's History of Philosophy

it is equally certain that this repetition produces nothing
new, either in these objects or in any external body.
" These ideas, therefore, represent not anything that does
or can belong to the objects which are constantly con-
joined. But though the several resembling instances,
which give rise to the idea of power, have no influence on
each other, and can never produce any new quality in the
object, yet the observation of this resemblance produces a
new impression in the mind, which is its real model. For
after we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient
number of instances, we immediately feel a determination
of the mind to pass from one object to its usual attendant,
and conceive it in a stronger light upon account of that
relation. This determination is the only effect of the re-
semblance ; and therefore must be the same with power
or efficacy, whose idea is derived from the resemblance.
The several instances of resembling conjunctions lead us
into the notion of power and necessity. These instances
are in themselves totally distinct from each other, and
have no union but in the mind which observes them, and
collects their ideas. Necessity, then, is the effect of this
observation, and is nothing but an internal impression of
the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from
one object to another. . . . Necessity is something that
exists in the mind, not in objects ; nor is it possible for us
ever to form the most distant idea of it, considered as a
quality in bodies."

" I am sensible that, of all the paradoxes which I have
had, or shall hereafter have occasion to advance in the
course of this treatise, the present one is the most violent,
and that 'tis merely by dint of solid proof and reasoning I
can ever hope it will have admission, and overcome the in-
veterate prejudices of mankind. . . . The contrary notion
is so riveted in the mind, that I doubt not but my sentiments
will be treated by many as extravagant and ridiculous.
What! the efficacy of causes lie in the determination of
the mind ! As if causes did not operate entirely inde-

The Growth of Empiricism 377

pendent of the mind, and would not continue their oper-
ation, even though there was no mind existent to con-
template them, or reason concerning them. Thought may
well depend upon causes for its operation, but not causes
on thought. ... I can only reply that the case here is
much the same as if a blind man should pretend to find
a great many absurdities in the supposition that the color
of scarlet is not the same with the sound of a trumpet, nor
light the same with solidity. If we have really no idea of
a power or efficacy in any object, or of any real connection
betwixt causes and effects, 'twill be to little purpose to
prove that an efficacy is necessary in all operations. We
do not understand our own meaning in talking so, but igno-
rantly confound ideas which are entirely distinct from each
other. I am, indeed, ready to allow that there may be
several qualities, both in material and immaterial objects,
with which we are utterly unacquainted ; and if we please
to call these power or efficacy ', 'twill be of little consequence
to the world. But when, instead of meaning these un-
known qualities, we make the terms of power and efficacy
signify something of which we have a clear idea, and which
is incompatible with these objects to which we apply it,
obscurity and error begin then to take place, and we are
led astray by a false philosophy. This is the case when
we transfer the determination of the thought to external
objects, and suppose any real intelligible connection be-
twixt them ; that being a quality which can only belong to
the mind that considers them." l

4. Origin of a Belief in the External World. — In dis-
cussing the nature of causation, we have frequently been
led into falling in with the popular notion, and speak-
ing of objects as if they existed outside the mind. It is
time to recall the fact, however, that in reality it is only
our own ideas that we can directly know. And since the
principle of causation has now been resolved into mere ex-
pectation, due to custom, there is no way of getting outside
* Bk. I, Ft. Ill, 14 (pp. 163-168).

378 A Student's History of Philosophy

these purely subjective facts of consciousness. The world,
as with Berkeley, is a complex of sensations ; but not an
ordered and interpretable complex, which speaks to us
the language of a divine Author. By no possibility can it
logically lead us beyond itself and such empirically dis-
covered, habitual sequences as experience reveals. But
how, then, do we come to think that it is otherwise ? How
out of a flux of unrelated feelings, never repeated, do we
evolve an independent world of identical things, and iden-
tical selves ?

Briefly, Hume's answer is something as follows : " We
may observe that 'tis neither upon account of the involun-
tariness of certain impressions, as is commonly supposed,
nor of their superior force and violence, that we attribute
to them a reality and continued existence, which we refuse
to others that are voluntary and feeble. For 'tis evident
our pains and .pleasures, our passions and affections, which
we never suppose to have any existence beyond our per-
ception, operate with greater violence, and are equally
involuntary, as the impressions of figure and extension,
color and sound, which we suppose to be permanent beings.
The heat of a fire, when moderate, is supposed to exist in
the fire ; but the pain which it causes on a near approach,
is not taken to have any being except in the perception." *

These vulgar opinions, then, being rejected, we must
search for some other hypothesis. And Hume finds it
convenient to divide the question into two : what is the
cause of our belief, first in the continued existence of ob-
jects, and, second, in their distinct existence ? And after
a little examination, we shall find that all those objects to
which we attribute a continued existence, have a peculiar
constancy ; or, if they change, they show a coherence in their
changes. " These mountains, and houses, and trees which
lie at present under my eye, have always appeared to me
in the same order; and when I lose sight of them by
shutting my eyes, or turning my head, I soon after find
i Bk. I, Pt. IV, 2 (p. 194).

The Growth of Empiricism 379

them return upon me without the least alteration. My
bed and table, my books and papers, present themselves
in the same manner, and change not upon account of any
interruption in my perceiving them." So also, " when I
return to my chamber after an hour's absence, though
I find not my fire in the same situation in which I left
it, still I am accustomed in other instances to see a like
alteration produced in a like time, whether I am present
or absent."

But now how does this constancy and coherence of cer-
tain impressions go about to produce so extraordinary an
opinion as that of the continued existence of body ? The
answer is found in a peculiar tendency of the imagination.
" When we have been accustomed to observe a constancy
in certain impressions, and have found that the perception
of sun or ocean, for instance, returns upon us after an ab-
sence or annihilation with like parts, and in a like order,
as at its first appearance, we are not apt to regard these
interrupted perceptions as different (which they really
are), but on the contrary consider them as individually the
same, upon account of their resemblance." " This resem-
blance is observed in a thousand instances, and naturally
connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions
by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an
easy transition from one to another. An easy transition
or passage of the imagination, along the ideas of these
different and interrupted perceptions, is almost the same
disposition of mind with that in which we consider one
constant and uninterrupted perception. The thought slides
along the succession with equal facility as if it considered
only one object ; and therefore confounds the succession
with the identity." And so from this propensity arises
the fiction of the continued existence of objects; which is
intended to disguise as much as possible the interruption
of our ideas, and enable us to gratify our inclination to
regard them as identical. The same thing comes about
from the side of coherence. " The imagination, when set

380 A Student's History of Philosophy

into any train of thinking, is apt to continue even when
its object fails it, and, like a galley put in motion by the
oars, carries on its course without any new impulse. Ob-
jects have a certain coherence even as they appear to our
senses ; but this coherence is much greater and more uni-
form, if we suppose the objects to have a continued exist-
ence ; and as the mind is once in the train of observing
an uniformity among objects, it naturally continues, till it
renders the uniformity as complete as possible."

But now, although the imagination has a strong tendency
thus to regard objects as identical, and possessing a con-
tinued existence, just as soon as we consider the matter,
must not our reason tell us that it is not so ? Since our
perceptions, and objects, are one and the same thing, the
actual interruption of our ideas is always there, to contra-
dict the propensity for imagining them continuous. In-
stead of rejecting this last opinion, however, as logically
they should "have done, men have striven to retain both be-
liefs ; and a conflict has necessarily been the result. " In
order to set ourselves at ease in this particular, we contrive
a new hypothesis, which seems to comprehend both these
principles of reason and imagination. This hypothesis is
the philosophical one of the double existence of perceptions
and objects ; which pleases our reason, in allowing that
our dependent perceptions are interrupted and different ;
and at the same time is agreeable to the imagination, in
attributing a continued existence to something else, which
we call objects. This philosophical system, therefore, is
the monstrous offspring of two principles which are con-
trary to each other, which are both at once embraced by
the mind, and which are unable mutually to destroy each
other. Not being able to reconcile these two enemies, we
endeavor to set ourselves at ease as much as possible, by
successively granting to each whatever it demands, and by
feigning a double existence, where each may find some-
thing that has all the conditions it desires." 1 In a some-
i Bk. I, Pt. iv, 2 (pp. 194-198, 215).

The Growth of Empiricism 381

what similar way, Hume goes on to account for the fiction
of a substantial soul beneath our ideas.

5. Scepticism. — And so we have reasoned ourselves into
a frame of mind where the solid fabric of the world dis-
solves like a dream before our eyes, or passes into a
kaleidoscopic unreality of change. But can we really
accept this result? Is it possible honestly to believe it?
No ; Hume admits that no one will be permanently con-
vinced. As long as our attention is bent upon the subject,
the philosophical and studied principle may prevail ; but
the moment we relax our thoughts, nature will display her-
self, and draw us back to our former belief in the reality of
permanent and identical things. And yet if our reason
tells us that actually the contrary opinion is true, must we
not of necessity follow its leading ? But what is belief ?
Nothing, once more, but the liveliness and force with which
an idea strikes us. Reason, then, furnishes no assured test ;
indeed, reason has peculiar disadvantages of its own. The
moment we have set to work to reason, then a doubt as to
the validity of our reasoning is possible, nay, is forced upon
us. This we must justify by a new argument ; and this,
again, by another ; and all the time we are getting farther
and farther away from those clear and immediate impres-
sions, on which the possibility of belief depends, until at
last there remains nothing of the original probability, how-
ever great we may suppose it to have been, and however
small the diminution by every new uncertainty. Our im-
mediate and instinctive beliefs yield to our reason, which
for the moment carries with it the greater vividness. But
the more refined and intricate it becomes, the less this
vividness of belief can belong to it ; and the moment the
mind relaxes, we swing back to our natural opinions. The
mind is in a strait 'twixt the two ; now one is uppermost,
and now the other.

Is, then, absolute scepticism the final word of philosophy ?
Are we to refuse to believe at all, by reason of the dilemma
in which we find ourselves ? " Should it here be asked me,

382 A Student's History of Philosophy

whether I sincerely assent to the argument which I seem
to take such pains to inculcate, and whether I be really
one of those sceptics who hold that all is uncertain, and
that our judgment is not in any thing possessed of any
measure of truth and falsehood, I should reply, that this
question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I nor any
other person was ever sincerely and constantly of that
opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable neces-
sity, has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and
feel. - Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of
this total scepticism, has really disputed without an antago-
nist, and endeavored by arguments to establish a faculty
which nature has antecedently implanted in the mind, and
rendered unavoidable. My intention, then, in displaying
so carefully the arguments of that fantastic sect, is only to
make the reader sensible of the truth of my hypothesis,
that all our 'reasonings concerning causes and effects are
derived from nothing but custom ; and that belief is more
properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part
of our natures." *

The result of Hume's inquiry is, therefore, not to de-
stroy belief, — that is an impossibility, — but to do away
with the false assumption of its certain and demonstrable
character. We believe, not because we can prove our
opinions, but because we cannot help believing. If we are
of the opinion that " fire warms or water refreshes, 'tis only
because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise."
Our belief is due to custom and instinct, not to reason.
Accordingly, we can never guard ourselves against the
assaults of scepticism. " This sceptical doubt, both with
respect to reason and the senses, is a malady which can
never be radically cured, but must return upon us any
moment, however we may chase it away, and sometimes
may seem entirely free from it. 'Tis impossible upon any
system to defend either our understanding or our senses,
and we but expose them farther when we endeavor to
iBk.l,Pt. IV, i (p. 183).

The Growth of Empiricism 383

justify them in that manner. As the sceptical doubt
arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection on
those subjects, it always increases the farther we carry
our reflections, whether in opposition or in conformity to
it. Carelessness and inattention alone can afford us any
remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them ; and
take it for granted, whatever may be the reader's opinion
at this moment, that an hour hence he will be persuaded
there is both an external and an internal world." l

" I am first affrighted and confounded with that forlorn
solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When
I look abroad, I foresee on every side dispute, contra-
diction, anger, calumny, and detraction. When I turn
my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance.
All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me;
though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions
loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the
approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesita-
tion, and every new reflection makes me dread an error
and absurdity in my reasoning."

" After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings,
I can give no reason why I should assent to it, and feel
nothing but a strong propensity to consider objects strongly
in that view, under which they appear to me. The mem-
ory, senses, and understanding are all of them founded
on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas. Yet if
we assent to every trivial suggestion of the fancy, beside
that these suggestions are often contrary to each other,
they lead us into such errors, absurdities, and obscurities,
that we must at last become ashamed of our credulity."

" But, on the other hand, if the consideration of these
instances make us take a resolution to reject all the trivial
suggestions of the fancy, and adhere to the understanding,
that is, to the general and more established properties of
the imagination ; even this resolution, if steadily executed,
would be dangerous, and attended with the most fatal
i Bk. I, Pt. iv, 2 (P. 218).

384 A Student's History of Philosophy

consequences. For I have already shown that the under-
standing, when it acts alone and according to its most
general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not
the lowest degree of evidence in any proposition either
in philosophy or common life."

"Most fortunately it happens that, since reason is in-
capable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices
to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melan-
choly and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind,
or by some avocation and lively impression of my senses
which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game
of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my
friends ; and when, after three or four hours' amusement,
I return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and
strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to
enter into them any farther." 1

6. The Opponents of Hume. — The thoroughgoing na-
ture of Hume's conclusions was itself the promise of a new
epoch. So long as the impulse to knowledge exists in
man, he cannot rest content with such an outcome. Nor
can society be satisfied with so insecure a basis. Religious,
political, and moral faiths already seemed for educated men
to be endangered by the hostile criticism of the Rational-
ists ; nevertheless, there was still present, to steady men, a
confidence in the power of reason to reach grounded truth
— a confidence which received its most powerful support
from the notable success of science. But if that same em-
pirical study of facts, on which men prided themselves,
really carried with it the logical conclusions which Hume
maintained, then reason itself was no longer to be depended
on. And with reason, science too must fall, all its certainty
and necessity vanish, and man's knowledge reduce itself to
a mere expectation that things will happen as they have
been wont to happen in the past, with no surer ground for
it than the bare fact that we are accustomed so to believe.

1 Bk. I, Pt. IV, 7 (a condensed quotation, taken from Aikins' Philosophy of
Hume}.

The Growth of Empiricism 385

The attempt to go back of Hume's premises, and to
correct the presuppositions which led to his sceptical con-
clusions, was made independently by two philosophers.
The first was the Scotchman Reid, who found the root of
the trouble in the " new way of ideas " — the supposition,
namely, that it is only with our own ideas that we come in
contact. Instead of being, as Hume maintained, shut up
to the knowledge of our own sensations, Reid took his
stand on what he held to be the belief of common sense,
that we have an immediate intuition of external reality as
such. And we have a similar intuition of several universal
truths, such as the principle of causation, which are not
themselves mere ideas, but the original constitution of our
minds, and by which our empirical experience can be regu-
lated and judged. Reid was the founder of a consider-
able school — the so-called Scottish school — which has had
a strong influence on English thought, and which is repre-
sented by such men as Dugald Stewart and Sir William
Hamilton. But Reid's merits have almost been lost sight
of, in the fame of one who attempted what was essentially
the same problem, but with greater insight and depth.
This was the German philosopher, Kant. It was Hume
who helped set Kant on the track of a conception, which
was to revolutionize philosophy. First, however, it will be
necessary to speak briefly of certain other aspects of the
period just considered, and to note the beginnings of a
new influence, which also was to find philosophical ex-
pression in Kant.

LITERATURE

Hume, Chief Works : Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740) ; Es-
says (1741-1742) ; Inquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) ;
Inquiry concerning Principles of Morals (1751) ; Natural History of
Religion (1757); Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779).

Aikins, Selections.

Huxley, Hume.

Knight, Hume.

Green, Introduction to Hume.

2C

386 A Student's History of Philosophy

McCosh, Scottish Philosophy.

Seth, Scottish Philosophy.

Hyslop, Hume's Ethics.

Fraser, Thomas Reid.

Orr, David Hume and his Influence in Philosophy and Theology.

Elkin, Hume.

Calderwood, David Hume.

Laurie, Scottish Philosophy in its National Development.

§ 34. The Enlightenment. Deism. The Ethical Development

i. The Spirit of the Enlightenment. — In considering
the course of philosophical development from Descartes to
Hume, we have thus far been concerned chiefly with its more
technical and theoretical side. But there is another aspect
of it also, which it is of great importance to understand.
This has to do with the manner in which, along with other
influences, it affected the general life and culture of the
times, so as to give to this a distinct and peculiar character.
The result is what is known as the period of the Enlighten-
ment ; and this may now be considered briefly.

The Renaissance had been the product of a great wave
of enthusiasm, which for the time had carried everything
before it. To the fresh forces which had been suddenly
revealed in man, nothing seemed impossible. Cold caution,
a sober criticism of the mind and its powers, an under-
standing of the historical conditions in which the new
movements had their root, were felt to be unnecessary in
the flush of victorious anticipation.

But as the impetus slackened, a different attitude began
to grow up. The force of inspiration spent itself, and the
inevitable disillusionment followed. As the dreams of an
Eldorado, and of unlimited gold, which had inspired the early
voyages of discovery, gave place to the hardships of a new
land to be conquered and settled, so the confident faith in
the new spiritual powers that were to lay open the secrets
of the universe, grew more dim as time advanced. Meta-
physical interests began to lose their attraction. Men in
general were not ready indeed to accept the Pyrrhonism of

The Growth of Empiricism 387

such thinkers as Montaigne and Pascal ; but the sceptical
spirit, nevertheless, was beginning to tell. Perhaps, after
all, man was not made to know the ultimate truth of the
universe. Certainly his attempts so far had not met with
the success that had been hoped. Meanwhile there were
things close at hand which he might know. Let him turn
from transcendental inquiries, and busy himself with hu-
man interests which alone are really vital; the proper
study of mankind is man. And he will find plenty here
that is urgently demanding his attention.

Along with the spiritual revolution that had come about,
there had been inevitable changes in the structure of
society as well. But these changes had been rather
unconscious than premeditated ; and in many cases the
institutions, ecclesiastical and feudal, of Mediaevalism, still
persisted in one form or another under these changed con-
ditions, and weighed heavily upon the new ideals and ambi-
tions. Moreover, the old beliefs for which the Church
stood — beliefs which the thinkers of the Renaissance had
almost contemptuously discarded — were by no means
dead ; and now as the force of the new movement was
spent, they again came to the front and allied themselves
with the reactionary tendencies in the social and political
world, to oppose any further change. Even the Renais-
sance itself added something to the problem. Just as
chivalry degenerated into the caricature of itself which
Cervantes ridiculed, so the enthusiasm of the Renaissance
died away, only to leave behind its extravagances and ex-
crescences ; and these bubbles required also to be pricked.

The result was the period of the Enlightenment, which
belongs especially to the eighteenth century. The most
obvious features of the Enlightenment are its practical and
unimaginative character, its hatred of vague enthusiasms,
and misty ideals and ideas, its determination to apply the
test of a severely accurate reason to everything, and reject
outright whatever will not stand the test, and the constant
reference in all this, as the court of final appeal, to the one

388 A Student's History of Philosophy

undoubted fact — the individual himself, with his rights,
and his rational powers of understanding. The result is a
type of thought which does not enlist our sympathies very
strongly, but which, nevertheless, had a most valuable
work to do. Let us consider once more the situation which
it had to meet. After the long period of the Middle Ages,
man had once more become conscious of himself; had
recognized by the sudden bloom within him of unexpected
powers, that he was not merely a member of society or
of the Church, not merely one to take orders from some
higher power, whether man or God, but a free spirit, who
could sit in judgment upon whatever was offered to him for
his acceptance, and could demand that the world satisfy
his cravings for fulness of life. But the grip of vested
interests was too strong to be broken all at once. A long
period of conflict had to intervene before the individual
could be completely liberated, set off by himself, and recog-
nized with a- distinctness which should secure for him his
rights through all the future.

And this process was necessarily critical and negative.
First it must be shown what man is not. He must be
stripped of restraints which hold him in. He must be set
up over against society, and religion, and even moral law,
as having a nature not to be coerced by these things. He
must revolt against conventions which his inner life does
not realize, and prove his freedom by testing all things,
human and divine. This work was done by the Enlighten-
ment, and done so thoroughly, that the conception of the
individual which it worked out is the dominant conception
even to the present day. The result was one-sided. It
gave the individual his rights, indeed, but in trying to
make him independent of all that concrete environment
which institutions represent, it also emptied his life of real
content. But nevertheless, it represented a work that had
to be done before progress could be made. It was the
task of the succeeding period — a period not yet completed
— to remedy this one-sidedness and abstractness, with-

The Growth of Empiricism 389

out losing the positive advantage that the Enlightenment
had won.

The method of the Enlightenment, therefore, was pri-
marily the critical intellect — severe, dispassionate, destruc-
tive, with little of light and warmth in it Any sympathy
with the views they were tearing to pieces, and appreci-
ation of their relative truth — anything of what we now
call the historical sense — was in the thinkers of the
Enlightenment almost wholly lacking. It is not very
strange, indeed, that this was so. They were fighting that
which had all the weight of authority on its own side, and
which was far from being disposed itself to be conciliatory.
Nor, perhaps, could there have been a better weapon
against the great mass of unreasoning traditional beliefs,
than just the unsympathetic logical intellect, tinged with
ridicule, and appealing to those hard facts which common
sense can appreciate without difficulty, and which have an
obvious bearing on the more solid and practical interests of
human life. We may be inclined now to find fault with the
contemptuous rejection of the enthusiasms and deeper intu-
itions which cannot be compressed into a clear cut formula
— all the feeling side of life. But the Enlighteners had a
justification in their attitude. If any one can be allowed
to fall back upon feeling, that is the end of all argument.
What we need is clear ideas, facts that can be grasped
and defined. Feeling confuses thought ; and, furthermore,
it tends first of all to gather around those things to which
we have been used by custom, and so forms the mainstay
of all that opposition to progress which it was the function
of reason to demolish.

The necessary consequence was, however, that the
thought of the Enlightenment was superficial, lacking
insight and atmosphere, blind to the deeper elements of
the human spirit. Sundering himself as he did from the
life of the race, and the historical background which had
shaped his own opinions as truly as those he was criticis-
ing* judging everything without reference to its setting, and

390 A Student's History of Philosophy

by the sole test of an abstract logic, it is not strange that
the man of the Enlightenment should often have shown
a very unenlightened attitude toward beliefs which did not
fit into his logical scheme, and so seemed to him vague
and worthless, but which in reality were far truer, in the
highest sense, than anything to which his own insight
reached. The type has its classical expression in English
literature in Pope, and the Essay on Man.

The characteristic features of the Enlightenment took
their rise in England, where the greater peace and security
allowed an attention to disinterested inquiry earlier than
on the continent. From England it influenced the France
of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, where it attained a
peculiarly distinct and brilliant development. In Germany,
the influence of Leibniz continued to be dominant, but
Leibniz as systematized by Wolff, in a highly rationalistic
system, from which the most valuable elements were lost.
It was from this school that Kant, the philosopher of the
new era, was to spring. A brief account of a movement
so widespread will necessarily have to be very sketchy and
inadequate.

2. The Deistic Movement. — In England, it will be
enough, in addition to what has already been said in con-
nection with Locke, to notice two movements — the growth
of Deism, and the development of ethical theory. Deism
was an attempt to get rid of the supposed irrational ele-
ments of Christianity. It begins with a desire to explain
away the mysteries of Church dogma, and to show that
between revelation and reason there is no contradiction.
Thus, in Locke, it calls men back from theology to the
simplicity and reasonableness of the New Testament,
whose one essential article of faith is the Messiahship of
Christ. Revelation is not for the purpose of adding any
mysteries of faith, but serves only as a practical means of
convincing men through its miracles.

But soon the emphasis on the reasonableness of revela-
tion passed into the feeling that, if reason alone is compe-

The Growth of Empiricism 391

tent to reach God, revelation is superfluous. Accordingly,
the attempt to rationalize the Bible narratives and doctrines,
gave place to the much simpler attitude of open hostility,
which admitted their irrationality, and made the most of
it. Over against revealed religion, therefore, was placed
the Deistic creed of so-called Natural Religion. This nat-
ural religion showed all the limitations of the rationalistic
temper, and practically resulted in removing God as far as
possible from the world, and the immediate life of men.
It had little content beyond the belief in a God who made
the universe, and set it in motion, and who has laid down
certain laws of conduct for men in the moral law. Positive
religions are only corruptions of this natural and rational
religious creed. Of course this precluded any sympathetic
appreciation of their historical meaning, or of a possible
truth underlying their imperfect statements of doctrine.
They are due solely to the selfish cunning of priests and
rulers, and are, accordingly, to be attacked with every
weapon at command.

Among the more important Deists are Toland, Collins,
Tindal, Chubb, and Morgan. On the whole, Deism had
but little success in maintaining itself against the cham-
pions of revelation. It represented, indeed, a position of
unstable equilibrium. As it opposed the Biblical account
of God's dealings with the world, chiefly on the ground of
its inconsistency with His goodness and justice, it was com-
pelled to assume that the same criticism did not apply
to the workings of nature, in which alone it could look
for God. This found expression in the shallow optimism
of the period, and the dictum that whatever is, is right.
Accordingly, the opponents of Deism found little difficulty
in showing that the objections it brought against the God
of revelation could be turned with equal effect against
its own God of nature — a line of argument which was
worked out most effectively in Bishop Butler's famous
Analogy of Religion.

3. The Development of Ethical Theory. —The effect of

392 -<4 Student's History of Philosophy

the Deistic movement was to reduce religion essentially
to a life of moral conduct. Indeed, in the unimaginative
temper of the age, which was in most cases quite incapable
of entering into the deeper aspects of religious experience,
this was where practically the emphasis was laid, even by
those theologians who stood as opponents of Deism. But
now from this emphasis an important consequence arose.
The attempt to find for morality a foundation independent
of theology, brought about the first development of ethical
theory on a large scale in modern times. To the chief
phases of this we may turn briefly.

The starting-point of English ethics is Hobbes, and his
selfish theory of human nature. This naturally called forth
strong opposition, and nearly all the succeeding moralists
have Hobbes more or less directly in view. Among the
earlier theorists, the most important is Richard Cumberland.
Cumberland, denies that man is wholly selfish, and adds to
the egoistic motives of Hobbes, social and benevolent af-
fections also, which are equally original. Man is thus
social in his nature, and finds a direct satisfaction in doing
good to others, apart from the indirect benefits he may
hope to gain. Moreover, there is a necessary connection
between individual and social welfare, which makes it im-
possible to secure individual happiness, except by subor-
dinating oneself to the good of mankind. This connection
is decreed by God, who thus supplies the ultimate ground
for the obligation to perform those benevolent acts which
the welfare of mankind demands, and in which morality
consists.

Other attempts to give to ethics a foundation which
should not seem to destroy its rational justification, are
represented by Cudworth, Clarke and Wollaston, and
Shaftesbury. Ralph Cudworth — a Platonist — had re-
course to innate ideas of reason. Samuel Clarke, again,
attempted to find a criterion in the notion of conformity to
the fitness or harmony of things — a relation which, like
mathematics, is capable of being known as self-evident,

The Growth of Empiricism 393

and which is even independent of the will of God. With
William Wollaston, who was influenced by Clarke, this
takes the form that a wrong act is ultimately a false judg-
ment, or a lie. A rational being should act in accordance
with the true relations of things ; and it is because his act
implicitly denies this truth, that it is wrong. Thus the
murderer acts as though he were able to restore life to his
victim ; the man who is cruel to animals declares by his act
that the creature is a being devoid of feeling.

More important than any of the preceding names, is that
of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury's conception of the ethical
end is the full expression of human life, the complete car-
rying out of its potentialities into the flower of a beautiful
personality. In opposition to Hobbes, these potentialities
involve unselfish, social tendencies, as well as those that
are purely self-seeking. But morality does not have to do
simply with the former, as Cumberland had thought. It
is found rather in the harmonious interaction of the two,
by which each is given its rights ; and it is assumed that
there can be no ultimate conflict. Another significant side
of Shaftesbury's thought is his conception of the source
of our ethical judgments. This he finds in an instinctive
good taste in ethical matters, which the man of refinement
possesses, and which is entirely analogous to aesthetic
taste. The source of moral judgments thus goes back, not
to reason, but to feeling. Shaftesbury has a disciple in
Francis Hutcheson, who emphasizes this conception of a
moral sense, which he conceives as an innate faculty of
ethical judgment common to all men. The same general
tendency appears in Bishop Butler's conception of con-
science as the voice of God in human life.

Meanwhile, another tendency connects itself more di-
rectly with Hobbes. This went back to the common-sense
view of pleasure as the end which man seeks. Morality,
then, can only come in as this self-seeking is subjected to
some law, either the law of the state, or, going beyond
this, a law imposed by God. In either case, however, this

394 <d Student's History of Philosophy

looks in the direction of making morality essentially a
social matter, and so of setting up the happiness of society
as the criterion of the moral act. This tendency at last
succeeded in working itself out clearly in the Utilitarian-
ism of Jeremy Bentham, who made the phrase "the greatest
happiness of the greatest number " the watchword of later
English ethics. A further question must arise, however,
in regard to the motive which is to lead the individual to
adopt this standard, and act for the common good. In
Locke's case, as will be remembered, this is found ulti-
mately in the individual's own self-interest. God has
attached certain penalties, here and hereafter, to the vio-
lation of his laws, which make the life of virtue the only
way of procuring happiness in the long run. This receives
a bald statement in Paley's famous definition of virtue :
virtue consists in seeking " the happiness of mankind, in
obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlast-
ing happiness." A more careful psychological analysis, in
Hume and Adam Smith, attempted to show the impossibil-
ity of reducing all motives to interested self-seeking, and
brought the feeling of sympathy to the front as the real
spring of altruistic action.

LITERATURE

Berkeley, Alciphron.

Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century.
Cairns, Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century.
Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity.
Butler, Analogy of Religion, Sermons on Human Nature.
Collins, Butler.

Selby-Bigge, British Moralists.

Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times.
Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.

Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy during the Seven-
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

Patten, Development of English Thought.
Albee, History of English Utilitarianism.

The Growth of Empiricism 395

§ 35. The French Enlightenment. Voltaire and the Ency-
clopedists. The Materialists. Rousseau. Lessing and
Herder

I. The French Enlightenment. — The results of the Eng-
lish Enlightenment were introduced into France by Voltaire,
who had been influenced by Locke during a sojourn in
England. This influence took root in a brilliant circle of
Frenchmen, who, from their connection with the new
Encylopedia, which was to embody the knowledge that
mankind had so far attained, were known as the Encylo-
pedists. Connected more or less closely with this enter-
prise, were such men as Diderot, d'Alembert, Voltaire,
Holbach, Turgot, Montesquieu, Helvetius, and others. In
addition to some positive scientific achievements, the French
Enlightenment directed its weapons, as in England, against
the popular religious beliefs which seemed to it to be irra-
tional and harmful. But by reason of conditions in
France, the strife took on here a far sharper and more
virulent tone. The Deistic controversy which in free
England was largely a matter of scholastic discussion,
was in France a real battle against forces of obscurant-
ism and oppression which were very much in evidence.
Mediaeval institutions, both of Church and State, still main-
tained themselves, and the result was in both cases prac-
tical abuses of the worst sort. Against the intolerance and
oppression of a corrupt clergy, who used the instrument of
traditional belief as a weapon against all efforts at reform,
Voltaire and the Encyclopedists stood out as the deadliest
foes. They set themselves, with every resource of scien-
tific knowledge, clear reasoning, and biting wit, to discredit
the foundation on which the influence of their opponents
rested. It is this unceasing and fearless hatred of injus-
tice, which gives to the figure of Voltaire heroic pro-
portions, in spite of all his intellectual limitations, and
personal faults.

This practical aim, also, determined to a considerable

396 A Student's History of Philosophy

extent the course which the French Enlightenment was
to take, in opposition to the scepticism which had been
the outcome of English thought in Hume. As a weapon
against a real and dangerous foe, Hume's results were too
fine spun, too far from common sense, too impractical, to
appeal to the French reformers. In distinction from the
Idealism of England, the more significant side of the French
Enlightenment tended, in the fight against tradition, to a
thoroughgoing and consistent scientific view of the world
— that is, to Materialism — without bothering itself very
much about the theoretical difficulties of this view. In the
beginning, indeed, the Enlightenment was Deistic. It still
held to natural religion, and the somewhat vague and con-
tentless God who stands as the original source of the world.
But such remnants of a religious faith were not very deep-
seated, and they quickly tended to disappear altogether
as naturalism and sensationalism were carried out to their
logical results. Lamettrie, in his L'Homme Machine, re-
duces man, as Descartes had reduced the animal, to a
mere automaton — a body governed by purely physical and
necessary laws. The innumerable facts which show the
close dependence of the mind on bodily conditions were
insisted on with much skill and impressiveness. The con-
scious life is composed entirely of sensations, which are
directly dependent on bodily processes. This sensational-
ism was worked out theoretically by Condillac, who sup-
poses a statue endowed simply with the sense of smell,
and then tries to show how all the mental faculties can be
evolved out of this. And while Condillac did not draw
the ultimate consequences of this sensationalism, other
men stood ready to perform the task. Helvetius, in par-
ticular, carries the same principle into the practical and
moral realm. The sole motive of our acts is egoism and
self-interest, and the most exalted virtues reduce them-
selves to self-love, and a desire for pleasure.

These movements are summed up in Holbach, and the
System of Nature, where they take a form which is

The Growth of Empiricism 397

genuinely impressive. Materialism becomes a grim gos-
pel— a gospel of freedom from superstition and oppres-
sion. To Holbach's almost fanatical earnestness, religion,
and the tyranny of rulers, for whose authority religion is
the great bulwark, seem the ground of all men's woes.
The God of wrath and cruelty for which the Church too
often had stood, and which had been used to justify the
worst wrongs, can only be banished by doing away with
God altogether, and substituting Nature, with its unbend-
ing laws. Truth and religion are unalterably opposed.
" Nature invites man to love himself, incessantly to aug-
ment the sum of his happiness : Religion orders him to
love only a formidable God who is worthy of hatred ; to
detest and despise himself, and to sacrifice to his terrible
idol the sweetest and most lawful pleasures. Nature bids
man consult his reason, and take it for his guide : Religion
teaches him that this reason is corrupted, that it is a faith-
less, truthless guide, implanted by a treacherous God to
mislead his creatures. Nature tells man to seek light, to
search for the truth: Religion enjoins upon him to examine
nothing, to remain in ignorance. Nature says to man:
' Cherish glory, labor to win esteem, be active, courageous,
industrious ' : Religion says to him : * Be humble, abject,
pusillanimous, live in retreat, busy thyself in prayer, medi-
tation, devout rites, be useless to thyself, and do nothing
for others.' Nature tells children to honor, to love, to
hearken to their parents, to be the stay and support of
their old age: Religion bids them prefer the oracle of
their God, and to trample father and mother under their
foot, when divine interests are concerned. Nature com-
mands the perverse man to blush for his vices, for his
shameless desires, his crimes : Religion says to the most
corrupt: 'Fear to kindle the wrath of a God whom thou
knowest not ; but if against his laws thou hast committed
crime, remember that he is easy to appease and of great
mercy: go to his temple, humble thyself at the feet of his
ministers, expiate thy misdeeds by sacrifices, offerings,

398 A Student's History of Philosophy

prayers.' Nature says to man: 'Thou art free, and no
power on earth can lawfully strip thee of thy rights ' :
Religion cries to him that he is a slave condemned by
God to groan under the rod of God's representatives. Let
us recognize the plain truth, that it is these supernatural
ideas that have obscured morality, corrupted politics, hin-
dered the advance of the sciences, and extinguished hap-
piness and peace even in the very heart of man." *

Let us try, then, to banish the mists of prejudice, and
inspire man with courage and respect for his reason. It
is only thus that he can find a remedy against the evils
into which fanaticism has plunged him, and throw off the
fetters by which tyrants and priests everywhere succeed
in enchaining the nations. There is but one truth, and it
can never harm us. The ' truth ' which is to do away with
all these evils is the truth of science. " Let man cease
to search outside the world in which he dwells for beings
who may procure him a happiness that nature refuses to
grant ; let him study that nature, let him learn her laws,
let him apply his discoveries to his own felicity, let him
undergo without a murmur the decrees of universal force."
Matter and motion alone exist. Mind is nothing but an
occult term that accounts for nothing. All things alike
are necessary, and subject to mechanical law. Order,
purpose, beauty, are merely subjective. Man, instead of
being that for whom all things were created, is entirely
unimportant, an insect of a day. Necessity rules in the
moral, as in the physical world ; the particles of dust and
water in a tempest or a whirlwind move by the same
necessity as an individual in the stormy movements of a
revolution. There is no difference between the man who
throws himself out of a window and the man whom I throw
out, except that the impulse acting in the second comes
from without, the other from within his own mechanism.

And back of all this there lies also another motive,
which already foreshadows the coming Revolution. Hith-

1 Quoted from Morley's Diderot, p. 370.

The Growth of Empiricism 399

erto, the emphasis had been upon the tyranny of super-
stition ; now the sense of social inequalities and injustice,
and the tyranny of government, begins to come more to
the front. Let the great multitude of the oppressed shake
off the idle prejudices through which whole nations are
forced to labor, to sweat, to water the earth with their
tears, merely to keep up the luxuries and corruption of a
handful of insensates, a few useless creatures; let them
demand the rights which Nature gives them. As govern-
ment only derives its powers from society, for whose sake
alone it exists, society may at any time revoke these, if
it seems to its advantage to do so. It may change the
form of government, extend or limit the power intrusted
to its rulers, over whom it retains a supreme authority, by
the immutable law of nature that subordinates the part to
the whole.

2. Rousseau. — Meanwhile there had appeared, within
the circle of the Enlightenment, a remarkable person, who
was destined to be the forerunner of a new and important
movement. For a time he had cast in his lot with the
Encyclopedists, and had contributed to that enterprise.
But the incompatibility of their standpoint with his own
soon became apparent, and he passed to a bitter hostility
toward the whole principle of Rationalism.

This man was Jean Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss of French
descent, born in Geneva in 1712. In his Confessions
we have a record of his life and character, given with a
fidelity and frankness which is unsurpassed in literature.
In this book the startling weaknesses and inconsistencies
of his complicated nature stand out with remarkable dis-
tinctness. To put it in a single word, Rousseau was a
sentimentalist. He was a man with an extraordinary
capacity for feeling, combined with a weakness of will that
was abnormal ; a father who preached fervidly the duty
of each mother to suckle her own children, and who, mean-
time, left his own to the tender mercies of a public asylum,
without even taking the trouble to keep track of them;

400 A Students History of Philosophy

a philanthropist filled with love for mankind, who yet
could not live with any one by reason of his inordinate
vanities and caprices, and his irritable sensitiveness. " He
has only felt," says Hume, "during the whole course of
his life. He is like a man who was stript not only of his
clothes, but of his skin, and turned out in that situation to
combat with the rude and boisterous elements." His
vagaries frequently reached a point little short of madness.
Nevertheless, by his very extravagances he was able to
make an impression on the artificial age in which he lived,
of which a more balanced nature might have been inca-
pable. He died in 1778.

Before considering the influence of Rousseau, it may be
well to stop a moment and sum up the results which the
Enlightenment had accomplished. And the central fact
of the whole movement is its Individualism. We have
seen that before man can be in a position to work out his
own salvation, he must first see himself as a being inde-
pendent of the ready-made institutions into which he finds
himself born. Such institutions represent the past, not
the future. If they are not to harden into fetters of the
spirit, they must constantly be adjusting themselves to
new conditions ; and such a change can come about, not
from themselves, or from society as a whole, but only from
the initiative of individual men. And before man can be
in this way an intelligent shaper of his own destiny, he
must first recognize himself, his rights and powers, in inde-
pendence of the more or less arbitrary environment that
surrounds him.

The Enlightenment brought this recognition of the
reality of the individual into sharp relief. But in doing
this it ran the inevitable risk of going itself to an extreme.
From the conception of man simply as a dependent part
of the world, subject to authority, it passed to the concep-
tion of man as a mere self-centred unit, complete without
reference to other things. In its deification of the logical
reason, and dislike of all mysticism and unclear thinking,

The Growth of Empiricism 401

it was bent on setting off everything as sharply by itself
as possible, defining it in terms of its own nature alone,
and getting rid of all confusing complications. By human
convention all sorts of relations might be superinduced
upon a man ; but these were arbitrary, and for the most
part unjustifiable. To get at the real man, we must strip
them all away. So society, instead of being a necessary
expression of needs of man's nature, is only an arbitrary
contract, which men make for the sake of certain external
advantages. It is necessary, indeed, if these are to be
attained, but still is a lamentable curtailing of the privi-
leges men enjoy by nature.

Of course, with such a belief, there could be no recog-
nition of the organic way in which man, and all his powers,
are rooted in the past life of the race. It was thought
that, by a pure effort of will, he could separate himself
from this, and could judge things from the standpoint of a
purely individual reason, unmediated by his intellectual
and spiritual environment, and freed from all prejudices
and traditions. If anything did not fall in with this, it
was not to be interpreted sympathetically by reference to
the conditions of its development, but rejected outright as
sheer unreason, or the deliberate result of self-seeking
fraud. So religion, e.g., was carried back to the invention
of priests and rulers. Accordingly, it was thought that
institutions could be thrown off at any moment — that was
what the French Revolution attempted — and a start made
entirely de novo. It was not understood that they are
necessarily not a manufacture, but a growth, and that to
grow they must have roots in that very past which was
so much despised.

Such a conception of man is evidently poor, and devoid
of content. Strip him of his relations to society — and
that means to the forms which social life takes on — and
what is left of him ? His very life consists in these rela-
tionships which Rationalism was for doing away with as
mere restrictions. He is not first a man, and then a citi-

2D

402 A Student's History of Philosophy

zen, a father, a neighbor ; he is a man only in so far as he
is already these. The life of the free savage ceases to be
the life of a man just to the extent that it is sufficient to
itself. It was necessary, then, if progress was to have any
material to work upon, that this belief in the isolatedness
and self-sufficiency of man's nature should in turn be
overcome, and the connection with the world restored.
But it is to be restored in a different form. The outer
relations are to be internalized, and made to grow out of
man himself. They are to be recognized as having the
weight of inner authority, not simply of external. They
mean not bondage, but freedom — the only true freedom,
since through them alone the possibility of self-realization
is secured. And so, too, they are not stiff and unalter-
able, but plastic to the touch of the individual of whom
they are an expression. They are capable of being
changed by him, not arbitrarily, but in accordance with
an inner law. The individual is still real, and still free,
but not as a mere individual. In him there is a universal
element which gives him a kinship with the universe, and
makes the very act by which he realizes himself, the act
by which also the social whole, and the whole of the uni-
verse, gets its fulfilment.

The relation of Rousseau to this new movement, was in-
direct rather than fully conscious. In many ways he was
still a child of the Enlightenment, so far at least as his for-
mulated creed was concerned. Few, indeed, have given the
principle of individualism a sharper expression. The
whole burden of the cry with which he moved France to
its foundations is summed up in the phrase " a return to
nature." Away with all the artificial conventions and re-
strictions of society, which are false and unnatural to their
core ; let us go back to the simple life of primitive man,
when each, a free creature, with tranquil spirit and healthy
body, was at liberty to develop his own nature without let
or hindrance. Civilization is nothing but slavery, a huge
series of blunders, which carry us ever farther from the

The Growth of Empiricism 403

right path. " So long as men were content with their rus-
tic huts, so long as they confined themselves to stitching
their garments of skin with spines or fish bones, to deck-
ing themselves with feathers and shells, and painting their
bodies in different colors, to perfecting and adorning their
bows and their arrows — in a word, so long as they only
applied themselves to works that a single man could do,
and to arts that had no need of more hands than one, they
lived free, healthy, good, and happy, so far as their nature
would allow, and continued to enjoy among themselves
the sweetness of independent intercourse. But from the
moment one man had need of the help of another, the
moment they perceived it was useful for one person to
have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was
introduced, labor became necessary, and the vast forests
changed into smiling fields, which had to be watered by
the sweat of men, and in which slavery and wretchedness
were soon seen springing up and growing ripe with the
harvests." The working of metals, and agriculture, the
acquirement of property, the growth of civil society, are
successive steps in the process of enslavement. "The
first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, be-
thought himself of saying, This is mine, and found peo-
ple simple enough to believe him, was the true founder
of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, what
miseries and horrors would have not been spared the
human race by one who, tearing up the stakes, or filling
the ditch, should have called out to his fellows : Beware of
listening to this impostor ; you are lost if you forget that
the earth belongs to no one, and that its fruits belong to
all." l All subsequent history has consisted in deepening
the artificial inequalities which here got a foothold. They
can only be overcome by an entire reconstruction. The
supposed proofs that civilization represents a development
are merely specious. The science and culture in which
the Enlighteners took such inordinate pride, instead of

1 Discourse on Inequality (quoted from Morley, Rousseau, I, p. 1 66).

404 A Student's History of Philosophy

being self-evident proofs of our superiority to all the past,
are just another example of unfounded prejudice. Exam-
ined, they will be seen to have no meaning whatever in
terms of human welfare, except as they heighten the cor-
ruption of the age. Men were far better off before the
sciences arose. This is the argument of Rousseau's two
earliest treatises, — the Discourse on the Sciences and the
Arts, and the Discourse on the Origin and the Bases of the
Inequality among Men.

In his more sober moments, however, Rousseau did not
really intend to deny the value of the social life altogether,
but only to place it on a different basis. What he did pro-
test against was the notion that there was anything of real
worth in a civilization which consisted simply in a high in-
tellectual culture, and in the development of the arts, and
sciences, and inventions depending upon the intellect —
that is, in the whole ideal of Rationalism. For the concep-
tion of man as first of all intellect — cold, unimpas-
sioned, critical reason, before which all the sentiment and
enthusiasm of life dies away — he held the utmost detesta-
tion. In opposition to the Lockian psychology, which
makes man's life a mere play of ideas, Rousseau insisted on
the unity of the self ; and this essential and very inmost
man is — not intellect, but — feeling.

It was in his revelation of the power and beauty of the
feeling element in man's life, to a world incrusted with
blase1 artificiality, that the essence of Rousseau's contribu-
tion lay. For there was in feeling, on the one hand, a unify-
ing force to set against the purely analytic understanding.
That emotional outgoing toward nature, and sympathy
toward man, which feeling implies, was in a blind way,
indeed, but still effectively, the revelation of an essential
kinship with other things, which only needed to find
an adequate statement to revolutionize thought. Rous-
seau was quite conscious of this constructive side of his
message. I hate, he says, this rage to destroy without
building up ; and again : To liberate a man, it is not

The Growth of Empiricism 405

enough merely to break his chains. But more than this,
feeling supplies also the motive power necessary for set-
ting man at work to realize himself, and to remedy things
instead _; of simply criticising them. This power might,
indeed, when undisciplined, result in the horrors of a
French Revolution ; but it has also been the source of
numberless positive blessings.

Accordingly, this new insight is at work in all Rous-
seau's philosophy, influencing it even when it seems to
approach closest to Rationalism. Thus, his conception of
religion is still an abstract Deism ; but it is suffused with a
glow of emotion which is a promise of better things, and
which enables him to assert that he is the only man of his
age who really believes in God. It was because the material-
ism of his contemporaries offered him a world with which
he could come into no emotional relation, that he felt so
strongly against them. Religion is an affair of the heart,
not of the head. It does not depend on a belief in tradi-
tion, and what some other man has said. " Is it simple or
natural that God should have gone in search of Moses to
speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau ? " Nor can it be rea-
soned out beyond the reach of scepticism. But conscience
and feeling are as real as reason. " I believe in God as
fully as I believe in any other truth, because to believe or
not to believe are the things in the world that are least
under my control ; because, when my reason is wavering,
my faith cannot rest long in suspense ; because, finally, a
thousand motives of preference attract me to the side that
is most consoling, and join the weight of hope to the equi-
librium of reason."

And so on the side of social theory, where Rousseau's
greatest importance lies, the claims of feeling tend contin-
ually to carry him on to a more adequate conception of
man than the purely individualistic one. This makes him,
first of 'all, the Apostle of the common man, in whom are
represented those simple and fundamental traits of human-
ity which appeal to Rousseau, and which go back of rank,

406 A Student's History of Philosophy

and all external and artificial advantages. " It is the common
people who compose the human race ; what is not the people
is so trivial that it is not worth taking into account. Before
one who reflects, all civil distinctions disappear ; he sees the
same passions, the same feelings in the clown as in the
man of note and reputation ; he only distinguishes their
language, and a varnish more or less elaborately laid on."
And this democracy is continually on the point of passing
into a conception of the unity of man and society, which is
quite the opposite of Rousseau's starting-point; although
such a unity fails to get any clear and unambiguous
expression.

Like Hobbes and Locke before him, Rousseau bases
society on a contract, by which men agree, for certain
advantages, to give up that unrestricted individual freedom
which belongs to them by nature. But while this is some-
times put in -the form of an historical event, Rousseau does
not insist upon this aspect of it. In reality, it stands rather
for a statement of the conditions necessary to give social
life a rational and just foundation, in opposition to theories
which carry it back to force, or mere status. Society can
only have its real justification in the advantages it brings.
In spite of his earlier utterances, and the echo of these in
the famous words with which the Social Contract opens —
Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains — Rous-
seau is far from thinking that savage life is the ideal.
Rather, he recognizes that it is only in society that man
truly lives at all. " What man loses by the social contract
is his natural liberty, and an unlimited right to anything
that tempts him, which he can obtain ; what he gains is
civil liberty, and the ownership of all that he possesses."
A morality is given to his actions which they lacked before.
" His faculties exercise and develop, his ideas expand, his
sentiments become ennobled, his whole spirit is elevated to
such a point that, if the abuse of this new condition did not
often degrade him below that from which he came, he
ought to bless without ceasing the happy moment which

The Growth of Empiricism 407

took him from it forever, and which has made of a dull
stupid animal, an intelligent being — a man."1

The problem is, then, to substitute for an abstract and
savage freedom a substantial and moral one ; for a natural
equality, a political equality. In general, the medium of
this is a contract, according to which each one is to sink
his private, individual will in the general will, the will of
the whole. The special value of Rousseau's conception
lies in his tendency to regard this at bottom, not merely as
a giving up of rights for the sake of other external advan-
tages— life and security — but rather as a discovery of
one's true and permanent self. He is on the point, at least,
of recognizing the truth that the individual, capricious will
is not the real man after all ; that the true self is not antago-
nistic to, but inclusive of one's fellows, and so can have a
chance to develop only in society. Each individual may,
as a man, have a particular will, contrary to or unlike the
general will which he has as a citizen ; his particular inter-
est may speak to him quite differently from the common
interest. But this latter really represents him more ade-
quately than the former. The general will is not the mere
sum of the particular wills ; it is an organic unity. When
the individual is constrained to obey the general will by
society, he is not being enslaved, but is being " forced to be
free," forced to resist the temptation to sacrifice his lesser
to his larger self.

With Rousseau, however, this is hardly more than a sug-
gestion, and when he goes on to connect it with his govern-
mental machinery, he tends to give it too abstract and
external an interpretation to do justice to his deeper insight.
Concretely, the general will is the resultant of a popular
vote, in which every citizen participates. " Take from
these same wills the plus and the minus which destroy each
other, and there will remain for the sum of the differences
the general will."2 Such a vote, on a matter of general

1 Bk. I, 8. Harrington's translation. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.)
2Bk.II,3.

408 A Student's History of Philosophy

principle — and with reference to an individual application
of a principle, the general will cannot pronounce — does
away with private interests by making the question entirely
abstract. Each individual, inasmuch as he will consider
that the law he is passing is going to apply to himself, will
vote for that which seems to him abstractly the best, in
order, if need be, to get the advantage of it in his own case.
" Why is the general will always right, and why do all
desire constantly the happiness of each, unless it is because
there is no person who does not appropriate to himself the
word ' each,' and who does not think of himself while
voting for all ? " * Each submits necessarily to the condi-
tions he imposes on others ; " it is for the sake of not being
killed by an assassin that we consent to be killed if we
become assassins." Of course, in attempting to legislate
for a particular case, this common interest no longer exists,
and private interests have a chance to assert themselves ;
and so the general will can only act in the case of legisla-
tion that is entirely general in character.

It is natural to ask, however, how such a majority rule
can represent the general will, if this latter is really to be
denned as identical with the true will of the individual.
Must not the result be contrary to the will of the one who
votes against it, and so not an expression of himself, but
an enslavement ? The question points again to the inade-
quacy of Rousseau's theory to express his deeper thought.
He has an answer to the difficulty, indeed, but it is not a
very satisfactory one. The citizen consents to all the laws,
even those which are passed in spite of him ; for when he
votes, what is asked is "not whether he approves the
proposition or whether he rejects it, but whether or not
it conforms to the general will. Each one in giving his
vote gives his opinion upon it, and from the counting of
the votes is deduced the declaration of the general will.
When, however, the opinion contrary to mine prevails, it
shows only that I was mistaken, and that what I had sup-

The Growth of Empiricism 409

posed to be the general will was not general. If my indi-
vidual opinion had prevailed, I should have done some-
thing other than I had intended, and then I should not
have been free." 1

3. Lessing and Herder. — In France, Rousseau's ideas
were destined to be carried out practically in their most
extreme form, in the doctrinaireism of the French Revolu-
tion. It was in Germany, however, that their real signifi-
cance was first appreciated. Here they proved to be a
main factor among the influences which were to bring
about one of the great periods of intellectual develop-
ment in the history of the world. In Germany, possessed
hitherto of only a scanty literature, and, apart from Leibniz,
of hardly any philosophy worthy the name, there suddenly
appears both a literature and a philosophy of the first
magnitude. In both of these, the same principle is at
work. Both alike stand for the rediscovery of the value
of the inner life, as opposed alike to the authority of the
Middle Ages, and the cold intellectualism of the Enlighten-
ment. They demand the actualizing of the abstract free-
dom of man — the outcome of the individualism of the
Enlightenment — in forms of concrete worth and beauty.
A fresh sense of the possibilities of life and feeling arises
in the undisciplined eagerness, of the Sturm und Drang
period, for personal realization in every variety of experi-
ence. This abounding energy, restrained and regulated
by the sense of artistic proportion and law, which the new
appreciation of Greek art, through the labors of Winckel-
mann and Lessing, had made at home in Germany, created
an ideal of its own. Living itself became an art, a thing
of joyousness and beauty. A way of looking at things
sprang up which had almost nothing in .common with the
typical outcome of the Enlightenment. "We could not
understand," says Goethe, in speaking of the impression
which Holbach's System of Nature made upon himself and
his associates, " how such a book could be dangerous. It

i Bk. IV, 2.

410 A Student's History of Philosophy

appeared to us so dark, so Cimmerian, so deathlike, that
we could scarcely find patience to endure its presence."

So, also, through the medium of this same new sympathy,
there came a deeper sense of the meaning of the historical.
In Lessings case, this concerned itself chiefly with the
development of religion. For the Rationalist, as has been
said, there had been no middle ground between the truth
of a religion on the basis of reason, and its falsity, and
consequent origin in fraud and priestcraft. In Lessing
the thought is brought forward clearly and unambiguously,
that the dilemma is an unreal one. Absolute truth, indeed,
we cannot know ; but also there is no absolutely false.
Early religions are steps in the progressive revelation by
which God educates mankind ; the true religion of reason
can only come as the result of a long process leading up
to it, and so positive religions have a relative justification.
This is the keynote of Lessing's Education of the Human
Race ; and while it still is clothed in an inadequate form,
it makes a decisive break from the Enlightenment, and
opens up the way for a new appreciation of religion, and
of the whole historical life of man.

In like manner there is implied a different view of God.
God is no longer an abstraction apart from the life of the
world, to be reached in a cold intellectual way, as the result
of a process of reasoning. He is to be seen actually present
and energizing, in nature, in the course of human events,
in the heart of the spiritual experience, which all have
their reality and unity in him. Now we have seen that it
was Spinoza who, of all philosophers, insisted most strongly
on the unity and immanence of God. And as Spinoza had
failed of any great immediate influence, because he was so
far removed from the temper of the Enlightenment, so now,
in a soil prepared for him, he begins to attain a high de-
gree of importance. It is Spinoza, with his ei/ KOI Trav,
who is preeminently the philosopher of the German liter-
ary movement. A God distinct from the world is unen-
durable to the new feeling for the beauty of the universe,

The Growth of Empiricism 411

and the significance of the inner life. There is nothing to
satisfy us in a God who " sat like a scrupulous artist beat-
ing his brains, and making plans, comparisons, rejections,
and selections, who played with worlds as children with
soap bubbles, till he gave preference to the one which
pleased him most"; who, " in the great Inane of primeval,
inactive eternity, has his corner where he contemplates
himself, and probably ponders on the project of another
world."

The conception of development which, by Lessing, is
applied to the history of religion, is extended by Herder
to the whole life of man. The insight that everything
grows and develops, and that nothing is perfected at once,
pervades the whole of his work. A beginning is made of
a science of language, by regarding this, not as a thing of
divine origin, or a manufactured product, but as an organic
growth. The same sympathetic insight leads Herder to
take a special interest in primitive poetry and folk-lore,
which the artificial tastes of the preceding age had passed
by with scorn. And in his Ideas for the Philosophy of the
History of Mankind, the attempt is made, with a consider-
able degree of success, to bring the whole course of human
development under the conception of a unitary process.

LITERATURE

Rousseau, Chief Works: Emile (1762); Social Contract (1762);
Confessions (1782).
Morley, Voltaire.

Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopedists.
Morley, Rousseau.

Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State.
Caird, Essays on Literature and Philosophy.
Davidson, Rousseau and Education according to Nature.
Lessing, Education of the Human Race, Nathan the Wise.
Herder, Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind.

GERMAN IDEALISM

§ 36. Kant

Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg in 1724, and
spent his life without leaving his native province. The
story of his life is thus the story of the development of his
thought. He became Professor of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Konigsberg in 1 770. His Critique of Pure Reason,
published in 1781, raised him to the foremost position
among living philosophers, but his growing fame did not
serve to alter his manner of life. His simple habits grew
more and more regular and methodical as he grew older,
and his interests limited themselves more exclusively to his
abstract speculations. Heine's description of him is fre-
quently quoted : —

" The life of Immanuel Kant is hard to describe ; he has
indeed neither life nor history in the proper sense of the
words. He lived an abstract, mechanical, old-bachelor ex-
istence, in a quiet, remote street in Konigsberg, an old
city at the northeastern boundary of Germany. I do not
believe that the great cathedral clock of that city accom-
plished its day's work in a less passionate and more regular
way than its countryman, Immanuel Kant. Rising from
bed, coffee-drinking, writing, lecturing, eating, walking,
everything had its fixed time ; and the neighbors knew that
it must be exactly half-past four when they saw Professor
Kant, in his gray coat, with his cane in his hand, step out
of his house door, and move toward the little lime-tree
avenue, which is named, after him, the Philosopher's Walk.
Eight times he walked up and down that walk at every
season of the year: and when the weather was bad, his
servant, old Lampe, was seen anxiously following him with

412

German Idealism 413

a large umbrella under his arm, like an image of Provi-
dence. Strange contrast between the outward life of the
man, and his world-destroying thought. Of a truth, if the
citizens of Konigsberg had had any inkling of the mean-
ing of that thought, they would have shuddered before
him as before an executioner. But the good people saw
nothing in him but a professor of philosophy ; and when
he passed at the appointed hour, they gave him friendly
greetings — and set their watches."1

I. The Nature of Kan? s Problem. — It is difficult to
make any brief statement which will give an approximate
notion, even, of the importance of the revolution which
Kant was the means of bringing about in philosophy. One
needs to have studied both Kant and his successors, and to
have some appreciation of the main currents of thought in
recent times, before he can easily see into the significance
of Kant's new attitude toward philosophical problems.
Roughly, however, it may be said that this centres about
two points in particular ; and of these, the one it will be
convenient to consider first, is the new conception of ex-
perience and of thought which is involved.

We have seen that, according to Hume, the reality of
the world is dissolved into a host of unrelated feelings, or
sensations, which, summed together, compose the human
mind. But is this a tenable conception ? Is it not rather
suicidal ? Must there not be certain relating activities of
the mind, which are not themselves feelings, to work upon
the material of sense, before even feelings can be known,
and form a true experience ? If mere sensations were the
sole reality, would they not be shut up, each in its own
skin, and be wholly impervious to other sensations ? As a
matter of fact, however, sensations are not thus isolated.
Somehow or other they get related, they enter into a uni-
fied consciousness, which thus is more than the mere sum
of them taken together, since they are experienced not as
a collection of isolated units, but as an interconnected and

1 Quoted from Royce's Spirit of Modern Philosophy.

414 A Student's History of Philosophy

orderly whole. There is a term of which Kant makes a
great deal of use in the Critique — the term synthetic. A
synthetic judgment is one which goes beyond the meaning
of the subject term, and binds to this some new idea not
already contained there ; as when, for example, I see my
dog running across the field, and, adding to the idea of dog
a new qualification, I say, " My dog is chasing a rabbit."
On the other hand, if I say, " A dog is an animal," I am
only making explicit an idea already contained in the
concept 'dog,' and my judgment is analytic. We may
say, then, using this terminology, that there is to expe-
rience a synthetic side for which Hume does not account.
The relatedness of sensations, the unity which binds them
together, is a new element, which cannot be extracted from
the isolated sensations themselves. To know two sensa-
tions together implies a state of consciousness which is not
simply another sensation ; for if it were, how could it bind
together the first two ? It would only add another term to
the problem. Before sensations can be known, even in
the simple relations of resemblance, or of contiguity in
time or space, they must be brought into a unified con-
sciousness, which thus is no mere additional sense fact,
but an intellectual synthesis, presupposed by every possi-
bility of experience.

Kant, then, has pointed out that for the possibility of real
.knowledge, it is necessary to presuppose a certain frame-
work of thought relationships over and above the sense
content to which Hume had reduced knowledge. But now,
furthermore, the part which thought plays with reference to
the objects of knowledge is conceived by Kant in a special
and relatively novel way. Commonly in the past the rela-
tion of thought to its object had been understood in terms
of the relation of a copy or reproduction to its prototype.
For Kant, on the contrary, the relation is constitutive.
The world, in so far as it is a known world, is a construct
of thought. Any object, to be known, must enter into the
world of knowledge, the thought world ; and therefore be-

German Idealism 415

tween thought and its object there is no separateness, but
an identity. To be real, to be objective, is to have a fixed
place in this system of thought, not to exist beyond it.
An object ist only as it is for knowledge ; and so it is
actually built up out of these intellectual relationships
which Kant had pointed out. It is this which makes ex-
perience no mere string of subjective feelings, but an
ordered and orderly world of things.

For Kant, accordingly, the great principle of modern
thought, which gives to consciousness, or the self, the
fundamental place in the interpretation of the world, is
reasserted in a new form. The world for us is not a
datum given by some external power. It is not an objec-
tive fact independent of us, to be defended or criticised as
such. It is the product of the laws of our own under-
standing, acting, of course, in no arbitrary way, but in
accordance with fixed and definite principles, which are not
peculiar to our separate individuality. Human experience
gives the point of view for the interpretation of every-
thing that we can know ; between the world, and ourselves,
there is an inner identity.

Such, briefly, is the first of the two main aspects of
Kant's thought. We may turn now to a somewhat more
specific statement. And Kant's chief problem centres
about a fact to which already reference has several times
been made. Kant's metaphysical point of view is most
easily understood by reference to Hume. Kant had been
originally an adherent of the school of Wolff, who had
attempted to systematize the philosophy of Leibniz. But
he very soon had become dissatisfied with this. Wolff
was a Rationalist of the most extreme type. He had the
completest confidence that, by the use of certain abstract
principles of reason, we can attain a demonstrative knowl-
edge of ultimate verities. Kant found himself constantly
less able to share this confidence. The more he thought, the
more difficulty he found in the way of applying the a priori
method of geometry to the facts with which philosophy is

41 6 A Studenfs History of Philosophy

concerned. Is truth not attainable at all then ? this Kant
was not willing to admit. For a time he tried to take
refuge in Empiricism. But Hume had revealed to him
clearly the outcome of Empiricism — the overthrow of all
knowledge whatsoever.

Now the main problem which had engaged Hume —
the problem of causation — will suggest the nature of
Kant's central difficulty. Here is a supposed truth with-
out which it had abundantly appeared that philosophers,
to say nothing of scientists, could make no headway at all
in knowledge. But whence does it come ? It cannot be
derived from experience. Hume had shown this clearly.
With the difficulties in the rationalistic explanation Kant
had been long familiar. Here, then, is a point which
neither of the rival schools had found themselves able
satisfactorily to clear up.

"There cap be no doubt whatever that all our knowledge
begins with experience. By what means should the faculty
of knowledge be aroused to activity, but by objects which,
acting upon our senses, partly of themselves produce ideas
in us, and partly set our understanding at work to com-
pare these ideas with one another, and, by combining or
separating them, to convert the raw material of our sen-
sible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is
called experience? In the order of time, therefore, we
have no knowledge prior to experience, and with expe-
rience all our knowledge begins.

" But, although all our knowledge begins with experience,
it by no means follows that it all originates from expe-
rience. For it may well be that experience is itself made
up of two elements, one received through impressions of
sense, and the other supplied from itself by our faculty of
knowledge on occasion of those impressions. It is, there-
fore, a question which cannot be lightly put aside, but can
be answered only after careful investigation, whether there
is any knowledge that is independent of experience, and
even of all impressions of sense. Such knowledge is said

German Idealism 417

to be a priori, to distinguish it from empirical knowledge,
which has its sources a posteriori, or in experience. The
term a priori must, however, be defined more precisely,
in order that the full meaning of our question may be un-
derstood. We say of a man who undermines the founda-
tions of his house, that he might have known a priori that
it would fall ; by which we mean, that he might have
known it would fall, without waiting for the event to take
place in his experience. But he could not know it com-
pletely a priori; for it is only from experience that he
could learn that bodies are heavy, and must fall by their
own weight when there is nothing to support them. By
a priori knowledge we shall, therefore, in what follows,
understand, not such knowledge as is independent of this
or that experience, but such as is absolutely independent
of all experience. Opposed to it is empirical knowledge,
or that which is possible only a posteriori, that is, by ex-
perience.

" Evidently what we need is a criterion by which to dis-
tinguish with certainty between pure and empirical knowl-
edge. Now, experience can tell us that a thing is so and
so, but not that it cannot be otherwise. Firstly, then, if
we find a proposition that, in being thought, is thought as
necessary, it is an a priori judgment; and if, further, it is
not derived from any proposition except which is itself
necessary, it is absolutely a priori. Secondly, experience
never bestows on its judgments true or strict universality,
but only the assumed or comparative universality of induc-
tion; so that, properly speaking, it merely says, that so far
as our observation has gone, there is no exception to this
or that rule. If, therefore, a judgment is thought with
strict universality, so that there can be no possible excep-
tion to it, it is not derived from experience, but is absolutely
a priori. Necessity and strict universality are, therefore,
sure criteria of a priori knowledge, and are also inseparably
connected with each other."

Necessary and universal judgments go beyond expe-

2E

418 A Student's History of Philosophy

rience — so far Hume and Kant are agreed. But whereas
Hume had stopped here, and had said that therefore such
judgments do not exist as valid knowledge, Kant adopts
a different attitude. We cannot explain knowledge by
denying its reality; if there are universal truths which
everybody admits, the only thing to do is to accept these as
our data, and then go on to explain their possibility. " Now,
it is easy to show that in human knowledge there actually
are judgments, that in the strictest sense are universal, and
therefore pure a priori. If an example from the sciences
is desired, we have but to think of any proposition in math-
ematics ; if an instance from common sense is preferred,
it is enough to cite the proposition that there can be no
change without a cause. To'take the latter case, the very
idea of cause so manifestly implies the idea of necessary
connection with an effect, that it would be completely lost,
were we to derive it, with Hume, from the repeated associa-
tion of one event with another that precedes it, and were
we to reduce it to the subjective necessity arising from the
habit of passing from one idea to another." 1

If, then, Hume's sensationalism were the end of the mat-
ter, it would be utterly out of the question for us to say
that anything must be so. But as a matter of fact we have
two sciences, mathematics and physics, in which such neces-
sary a priori judgments are constantly made. To give
up the splendid results of science is impossible ; if, there-
fore, we cannot be content to accept a theory that takes
away their foundations, we must search further, and ask
ourselves what conditions are required to serve as a secure
basis for these results which every one admits. How, in
other words, is it possible to pass a judgment which does
not simply state the results of what we have learned in the
past, but which adds to our knowledge, and which yet, in
spite of the fact that it goes beyond what we have already

1 Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction. Watson's translation, pp. 7-10
(Henry Holt & Co.).

German Idealism 419

experienced, can be said to be, not probably, but necessa-
rily and universally true ?

But now a more important consideration remains.
" There is a sort of knowledge that even quits the field of
all possible experience, and claims to extend the range of
our judgments beyond its limits, by means of conceptions
to which no corresponding object can be presented in ex-
perience. Now, it is just in the province of this sort of
knowledge, where experience can neither show us the true
path, nor put us right when we go astray, that reason car-
ries on those high investigations, the results of which we
regard as more important than all that understanding can
discover within the domain of phenomena. Nay, we are
even willing to stake our all, and to run the risk of being
completely deluded, rather than consent to forego inquiries
of such moment, either from uncertainty, or from careless-
ness and indifference. These unavoidable problems, set
by pure reason itself, are God, freedom, and immortality,
and the science which brings all its resources to bear on
the one single task of solving them is metaphysic"

" Now, one might think that men would hesitate to leave
the solid ground of experience, and to build an edifice of
truth upon knowledge that has come to them they know
not how, and in blind dependence upon principles of
which they cannot tell the origin, without taking the
greatest pains to see that the foundation was secure.
One might think it only natural that they would long ago
have raised the question, how we have come into posses-
sion of all this a priori knowledge, and what may be its
extent, its import, and its value. But the fact is, that a
part of this knowledge — mathematical knowledge, for
instance — has so long been established as certain, that
we are less ready to suspect the evidence for other parts,
although these may be of a totally different nature.
Besides, when we are once outside the circle of experi-
ence, we are sure not to be contradicted by experience ;
and so strong is the impulse to enlarge our knowledge,

420 A Student's History of Philosophy

that nothing short of a clear contradiction will avail to
arrest our footsteps. Now such contradiction may easily
be avoided, even where we are dealing with objects that
are merely imaginary, if we are only careful in putting our
fictions together. Mathematics show us, by a splendid
instance, how far a science may advance a priori without
the aid of experience. It is true that by it objects and
conceptions are considered only in so far as they can be
presented in perception ; but it is easy to overlook the
limitation, because the perception in this case can itself be
given a priori, and is therefore hard to distinguish from a
mere idea. Deceived by this proof of the power of rea-
son, we can see no limits to the extension of knowledge.
So Plato forsook the world of sense, chafing at the narrow
limits it set to our knowledge, and, on the wings of pure
ideas, launched out into the empty space of the pure un-
derstanding. He did not see that with all his efforts he
was making no real progress. But it is no unusual thing
for human reason to complete its speculative edifice in such
haste that it forgets to look to the stability of the founda-
tion."1

The new philosophy, then, as opposed to all previous
thought/ is fundamentally a critical philosophy ; it is a
criticism of the faculty of knowledge. In the past, Meta-
physics has been the battle-ground of endless conflicts.
" There was a time when Metaphysic held a royal place
among the sciences, and, if the will were taken for the
deed, the exceeding importance of her subject might well
have secured to her that place of honor. At present it is
the fashion to despise Metaphysic, and the poor matron,
forlorn and forsaken, complains like Hecuba, Modo max-
ima rerum, tot generis natisque potens — nunc trahor exul,
inops. At first the rule of Metaphysic, under the dominion
of the dogmatists, was despotic. But as the laws still bore
the traces of an old barbarism, intestine wars and complete
anarchy broke out, and the sceptics, a kind of nomads,

1 Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction (Watson's translation, p. il).

German Idealism 421

despising all settled culture of the land, broke up from
time to time all civil society. Fortunately their number
was small, and they could not prevent the old settlers from
returning to cultivate the ground afresh, though without
any fixed plan or agreement. At present, after every-
thing has been tried, so they say, and tried in vain, there
reign in philosophy weariness and complete indifferentism,
the mother of chaos and night." 1

The trouble lies in the very nature of dogmatism. It is
due to the attempt of reason to advance without any previ-
ous criticism of its own powers. Such a dogmatic employ-
ment of reason can lead only to groundless assertions, to
which other assertions equally specious may always be
opposed, the inevitable result being scepticism. The
same defect, accordingly, taints dogmatism and scepticism
alike ; the only remedy is, neither to dogmatize, nor to
raise equally ungrounded doubts, but to subject the nature
of reason to a sober investigation, in order to determine
what it can, and what it cannot, hope to accomplish. This
is entirely different from scepticism. Hume " ran his ship
ashore for safety's sake on scepticism, whereas my object
is rather to give it a pilot, who, by means of safe astro-
nomical principles, drawn from a knowledge of the globe,
and provided with a complete chart and compass, may
steer the ship safely." 2

2. How are Necessary Judgments Possible ? — With this
general introduction, we may go on to consider in what
the special nature of Kant's results consists. And once
more, there are two main questions which he sets before
himself. The first is to show the conditions which render
possible those synthetic, a priori judgments, whose valid-
ity, in opposition to Hume, he proposes to defend. The
second is to show what light the answer to this problem
will throw upon the validity of those further a priori
judgments, which pretend to carry us into the supersen-
sible world, and upon which Metaphysics has relied to

1 Preface. Max Mullet's translation. 2 Prolegomena^ Introd.

422 A Students History of Philosophy

prove the existence of God, and other ultimate truths.
We shall consider these, therefore, in order.

A distinction has already been drawn between two ele-
ments of our experience. In addition to the sense mate-
rial, to which Hume had reduced all the conscious life,
there must also be certain relating activities of the mind
itself. Necessary and a priori truths must evidently de-
pend upon this latter factor. " That element in the
phenomenon which corresponds to sensation I call the
matter, while that element which makes it possible that
the various determinations of the phenomenon should be
arranged in certain ways relatively to one another, is its
form. Now, that without which sensations can have no
order or form, cannot itself be sensation. The matter
of a phenomenon is given to us entirely a posteriori, but
its form must be a priori in the mind, and hence must be
capable of being considered by itself apart from sensation." *

Of these forms of experience, there are two sorts. In
the first place, the sensuous basis of experience does not
come to us as absolutely raw material ; it has already been
actively shaped by the mind. It presents itself in sense
perception as already related in two ways — in space and in
time. It is on these "forms of sensibility " that the possi-
bility of geometrical truths rests. A long time before he
reached the final standpoint represented in the Critique
of Pure Reason, Kant had come to the conclusion, by
means of arguments which it is unnecessary to reproduce,
that space and time are not objective realities, but only
the subjective ways in which we cognize realities which
in themselves are non-spatial and non-temporal.

But now, for the orderly experience which we know,
it is not enough that the sensuous data should appear simply
in the forms of space and time. Within that framework
they must be subjected to other — intellectual — relation-
ships, in order to make a world of definite things. What,
then, are the essential intellectual elements, which go to

1 Critique of Pure Reason, p, 20 (First Ed.).

German Idealism 423

make up experience? Without following Kant into the
details of this deduction, it is enough to say that, by a
laborious process, he arrives at a certain number of these,
which he groups under four heads — quantity, quality,
relation, and modality. We can say, that is, necessarily
and universally, quite prior to experience, that any par-
ticular experience will be quantitative ; that it will possess
a certain degree of intensity ; that every change involves
a permanent substance as a background ; that all changes
take place in accordance with the law of cause and effect ;
and so forth.

But how, once more, is it possible to pass such judg-
ments that go beyond experience ? The answer is, in brief :
because otherwise experience itself would be impossible.
The necessity lies, not in things, but in ourselves. " In
metaphysical speculations it has always been assumed that
all our knowledge must conform to objects; but every
attempt from this point of view to extend our knowledge
of objects a priori by means of conceptions has ended in
failure. The time has now come to ask, whether better
progress may not be made by supposing that objects must
conform to our knowledge. Plainly this would better agree
with the avowed aim of metaphysic, to determine the nature
of objects a priori, or before they are actually presented.
Our suggestion is similar to that of Copernicus in astron-
omy, who, finding it impossible to explain the movements
of the heavenly bodies on the supposition that they turned
round the spectator, tried whether he might not succeed
better by supposing the spectator to revolve, and the stars
to remain at rest. Let us make a similar experiment in
metaphysic with perception. If it were really necessary
for our perception to conform to the nature of objects, I
do not see how we could know anything of it a priori ; but
if the sensible object must conform to the constitution
of our faculty of perception, I see no difficulty in the
matter." *

1 Preface. Watson's translation.

424 A Students History of Philosophy

Such is Kant's own statement of the matter ; it may be
well, however, to consider somewhat more carefully just
what he means. Kant finds the necessity he is in search
of, to repeat, not as something in nature, which is then
reproduced and known in our experience, but as some-
thing in experience which itself constitutes what we know
as nature. He reached this conclusion in the following
way : Suppose we take a geometrical truth ; how can we
say, absolutely and without exception, that the sum of the
angles of any triangle will equal two right angles ? So
long as it is a matter simply of our mental content, or
meaning, a perception of certain abstract spatial relation-
ships, we might get certainty by the mere fact of holding
steadfastly to one fixed meaning, and not allowing it to
change or become confused. But how do we know that
the world of actual things will conform to these geometrical
ideals of ours ? Not from experience ; that might tell us
that the proposition was true of all the objects we had ex-
amined in the past, but not that it would prove to be true
of the next one we might happen to meet. Things can
only come into our experience one by one; and by this
process, we can only tell the facts about the particular
cases we have run across up to date, not about the rest,
which as yet have not come into contact with us. The
necessity, that is, in so far as we can talk of necessity, can-
not lie in reality as it exists in itself, apart from our ex-
perience ; for since we cannot grasp the whole of infinite
reality at once, and since it is the conviction of a necessary
connection in our experience that is to be justified, the
coming of reality piecemeal into experience gives us no
ground for asserting anything whatever of that which still
is left outside. What follows, then ? Simply this, once
more : that if we grant the validity of necessary judgments
at all, it must be founded on the nature of our experience,
not on the nature of an external reality. Things, that is,
must follow the laws of mathematics, because they can only
become things, for us, by taking on that same spatial form

German Idealism 425

on which the truths of geometry are based. They must
conform to the structure of the mind whose nature it is to
cast everything into spatial relationships, before they can
become actual objects of our knowledge. If, then, our
experience is of such a nature that nothing can enter into
it without taking on a particular form, then we can say,
with certainty, that everything, in the future as well as in
the past, must have just this form and no other. We can
pass, in other words, a necessary, synthetic judgment a
priori ; and on no other condition can we do so. No mat-
ter what may be true of reality beyond experience, we can
be perfectly sure that, for us, everything in experience will
correspond to geometrical truths, because, unless it suc-
ceeds in taking on the spatial form on which geometry
rests, it will not become part of our experience at all, but
will remain for us non-existent.

In just the same way, we are to account for those other
necessary judgments — the intellectual ones. How can
we be sure, for example, that every effect must have a
cause, or that there must always be a permanent substance
underlying change ? Simply because our intellectual
machinery is so constituted that it will take no grist
which does not adapt itself to these particular forms of
substance and causality. A necessary judgment is pos-
sible, for the reason that we are not judging about things
in themselves, but about the necessary connection of ele-
ments in our own experience ; and we could have nothing
that it would be possible to call experience, if it were not
for certain necessary forms of relationship between the
elements of which it is constituted. In other words, if
I am to be an intelligent being, and have an experience
which also is intelligible, this experience must be to a cer-
tain degree coherent. If it is to be my experience, it must
be a unity ; I must somehow be present through it all, bind-
ing its parts together into a whole. It cannot be a simple
string of feelings succeeding one another in time, for such
a series would have no knowledge of itself as a unity.

426 A Students History of Philosophy

It is the " I " which binds these feelings together by
threads of intellectual relationships, which are not them-
selves a part of the series at all. This coherency in my
life does not merely imply the existence of groups of fleet-
ing sensations ; it necessitates, also, that I should be able
to recognize these, and so that they should stand for objects
that are identical and permanent ; and a permanent object
already involves the category of substantiality. Then,
too, the different objects, if they are to form part of a
single experience, must be reciprocally connected with
one another, as members of a common world ; and, again,
the past and future must have some intelligible and neces-
sary relation, since they also are parts of a single experi-
ence, in every point of which I find myself equally present :
and so we need the categories of reciprocity and causality,
as tools which the self necessarily requires, to help it unify
its life. Beyond our experience these categories may not
apply ; but since it is only such elements of reality as will
fit the mould in which our intellectual nature is cast, that
in any wise concern us, we can take the laws as absolute.
It is not, then, nature which imposes its necessity on us,
but it is we who give laws to nature. The truths of the
rationalist are not revelations of existence beyond ; they
show, instead, our own intellectual make-up. They are the
forms of experience, as over against its content.

It will be evident that, against this view, Locke's criticism
of innate ideas has no force. We have, says Locke, no in-
nate idea of causality, e.g., because many people have never
in their lives thought of the proposition that every effect
must have a cause. Now Kant also would admit this. If
we mean the conscious recognition of the principle, that is a
particular psychological fact in our minds, which may arise
only late in life, or conceivably never at all. But in another
sense — as a form of thought — the principle has been at
work from the very start. Every time I look to find the
explanation of something that has happened, every time
I connect two things together, I am implicitly making use

German Idealism 427

of the causal relation. And it is this existence which it
has as a form of synthesis, not the conscious recognition
which may or may not be attained by any particular indi-
vidual, whose a priori character Kant is vindicating.

3. No Knowledge beyond Experience. — The Critical
Philosophy, then, is an attempt to get at the necessary
elements in experience — necessary because apart from
them experience itself would be an impossibility. Only in
this way, Kant holds, can the validity of a priori judg-
ments be vindicated. To put the problem in a different
form, Kant has been trying to discover how it is that our
ideas can come to apply to the real world. And the an-
swer is, that these real things are themselves constituted
by the relationships which make up knowledge. It is
needful to keep constantly in mind this new conception of
the nature of objectivity and reality. The world of which
Kant is talking is nothing but the world of human ex-
perience, the world as it forms a part of the content of
our system of knowledge. When Kant says that our
thought constitutes nature, he does not mean, therefore,
that the great fabric of reality which, in our ordinary way
of viewing the world, we think of as existing eternally,
and as forming the ground out of which we, as transient
beings, have sprung, first gains the right to be by coming
under subjection to certain rules which our mind imposes ;
that we create all that is, as the subjective idealist might
maintain. To the "objective world "in this sense — the
eternal and fundamental background, which we are ready
to believe exists alongside and beyond our transient human
experience — he has so far no reference at all. When
Kant speaks of experience, and of the objective world as
an element in experience, it is definitely human experience
that he means. But now Kant also does not doubt that
beyond this lies a more ultimate reality, on which human
experience is based. Of this ultimate world, accordingly,
the world of things in themselves, what have we to say ?

And here we have reached the sphere of metaphysics,

428 A Student's History of Philosophy

whose validity we set out to examine. Philosophy is not
content with the series of endless conditions presented by
phenomena in space and time. It tries to get back of this
infinite regress, to the ultimate unconditioned reality, on
which finite things depend; and thus to furnish a basis
for those ideas which are the final goal of human thought
— God, freedom, immortality. So, back of the changing
content of human experience, it postulates a unitary sub-
stantial soul. The infinite world process it tries to grasp
as a whole. And, finally, the totality of existence, self and
world, it attempts to make conceivable by the concept of
God. Is now this attempt to understand in final and
absolute terms the nature of real existence feasible and
fruitful ?

Kant answers that it is not. The phenomenal world we
know. But the real, the noumenal, world is closed to our
theoretical understanding. And the reason is found in the
nature of knowledge. The Rationalists had supposed that
thought is an independent faculty, able to reach truth by
its own unaided exercise. For Kant, on the contrary, it is
only one element or aspect of knowledge. For any con-
crete act of knowledge, thought and sense are both alike
required ; and it is this indissoluble connection of thought
with the material of sense, that defeats the claims of
Rationalism to grasp reality. Sense material alone is
blind and unordered; it is not experience at all in an
objective sense. But thought also by itself is empty, a
mere form, which requires a content before it is objectively
valid.

When, accordingly, we attempt to apply the categories
of the understanding beyond the data of things in time
and space — beyond the merely phenomenal world — we
are involved in inevitable illusion. To endeavor, by means
of ideas which thus apply only to the conditioned objects
within experience, to pass to an unconditioned whole, is
clearly to leave experience behind, and the concrete sense
filling which makes experience possible ; and, in conse-

German Idealism 429

quence, the validity of our categories at once lapses. An
idea, for example, like that of causation, whose whole
function it is to bind together the elements of the else
chaotic and unordered world of particulars, can never take
us beyond the flux of finite and changing events to a self-
complete and uncaused absolute. " The light dove, pierc-
ing in her easy flight the air, and perceiving its resistance,
imagines that flight would be easier still in empty space."
The effort is hopeless. Of the nature of things in them-
selves we must always remain, therefore, intellectually at
least, in complete ignorance.

Kant, accordingly, goes on to examine these ideas in
connection with which philosophers had supposed they
could get a knowledge of ultimate reality, and to point out
the flaws and inconsistencies which they reveal. The mere
abstract unity of consciousness, which alone the fact of
experience necessitates, has no point of contact with the
substantial soul of metaphysics, all of whose qualities,
nevertheless, are derived from it, of course quite illegiti-
mately. So when we attempt, in reasoning about the
external world, to escape from the conditioned series of
causes and effects, the illegitimacy of our endeavor ap-
pears in the antinomies into which we fall. With equal
force we may argue that the world is limited in time and
space, and that it is unlimited ; that every compound sub-
stance in the world consists of simple parts, and that no
compound thing consists of simple parts ; that there does,
and that there does not, exist an absolute First Cause at
the end of the finite series. The arguments on both sides,
so Kant thinks, are logically sound ; and the fact that they
yet refute each other, shows that we have entered a realm
where we do not belong, and where, in the nature of the
case, truth is not to be attained by logic. " Both parties
beat the air and fight with their own shadows, because they
go beyond the limits of nature, where there is nothing they
can lay hold of with their dogmatical grasp. They may
fight to their heart's content ; the shadows which they are

430 A Student's History of Philosophy

cleaving grow together again in one moment, like the he-
roes in Valhalla, in order to disport themselves once more
in these bloodless contests."1 So, finally, of the idea of
God. The ordinary arguments for God's existence — the
ontological argument, the argument from causation, and
the argument from design — are critically examined, and
found to be inadequate. Starting from a set of particular
finite facts, which enter into an infinite series of relation-
ships with other facts, it is quite impossible to rise to the
knowledge of their absolute and unconditioned ground.
The ideas by which we attempt to go beyond the particu-
lar facts, are intended to apply only to relations between
these facts.

So much for these "Ideas of Reason" — God, the uni-
verse, the soul — on the negative side. They tell us nothing
of ultimate truth, because they have abandoned the facts of
sense experience, with reference to which alone the thought
forms have validity, and knowledge is possible. All our
wrangling about such questions arises " simply from our
filling the gap, due to our ignorance, with paralogisms of
reason, and by changing thoughts into things and hyposta-
sizing them. On this an imaginary science is built up,
both by those who assert and those who deny, some pre-
tending to know about objects of which no human being
has any conception, while others make their own represen-
tations to be objects, all turning round in a constant circle
of ambiguities and contradictions. Nothing but a sober,
strict, and just criticism can free us from this dogmatical
illusion, which, through theories and systems, deceives so
many by an imaginary happiness. It alone can limit our
speculative pretensions to the sphere of possible experi-
ence, and this not by a shallow scoffing at repeated failures,
or by pious sighs over the limits of our reason, but by a
demarcation made according to well-established principles,
writing the nihil ulterius with perfect assurance on those
Herculean columns which Nature herself has erected, in

1 Critique of Pure Reason^ p. 756. Miiller's translation.

German Idealism 431

order that the voyage of our reason should be continued
so far only as the continuous shores of experience extend
— shores which we can never forsake without being driven
on a boundless ocean, which, after deceiving us again and
again, makes us in the end cease all our laborious and
tedious endeavors as perfectly hopeless." *

But are these ideas, then, pure illusions ? If they are,
how does it happen that the human mind ever swings back
to them, and finds in them a perennial charm ? Kant goes
on to show, in conclusion, that there is a relative value and
validity which the ideas possess. They are not merely
arbitrary ; they stand for an impulse which is ineradicable.
The desire to grasp things as a whole is one which the
reason can never forego ; but since this aim is incapable
of being attained, the value of the ideas can only be a reg-
ulative value within experience, not one that is consti-
tutive, and that results in objective knowledge. They
stand as an ideal toward which knowledge is directed,
and, by keeping constantly before the mind the fact that
any particular synthesis of knowledge is still imperfect,
they remind us that we must not stop content, as if we had
already reached the goal. But this ideal of a perfect unity
is one which, as a matter of fact, lies forever beyond our
reach.

4. Freedom and God as Postulates of the Moral Life. —
So far, then, this is the result of the Critical Philosophy ;
is it possible to rest satisfied with it ? Certainly it seems
to do away with all that knowledge which has been consid-
ered most desirable in philosophy. The very conception
of a noumenal world, beyond the confines of our human
experience, is no more than problematical — a mere x, to
which no object corresponds. But still, so Kant thinks,
there is a real gain. If we cannot prove the existence of
a God, we have at least shut off all possibility of disproving
him. If our knowledge is only phenomenal, reason can
have no more right to deny that such a reality exists, than

p. 395.

432 A Student's History of Philosophy

to affirm it ; and the attempt to base a positive denial of
supersensuous realities — as materialism, e.g., does — on
the supposed validity of our sense experience, is put out of
the question. " I cannot share the opinion, so frequently
expressed by excellent and thoughtful men, who, being
fully conscious of the weakness of the proofs hitherto ad-
vanced, indulge in a hope that the future would supply us
with evident demonstrations of the two cardinal proposi-
tions of pure reason, namely, that there is a God, and that
there is a future life. I am certain, on the contrary, that
this will never be the case. But there is the same apodic-
tic certainty that no man will ever arise to assert the con-
trary with the smallest plausibility, much less dogmatically.
For, as he could prove it by means of pure reason only,
he would have to prove that a Supreme Being, and that a
thinking subject within us, as pure intelligence, is impos-
sible. But whence will he take the knowledge that would
justify him hi thus judging synthetically on things far be-
yond all possible experience? We may, therefore, rest so
completely assured that no one will ever really prove the
opposite, that there is no need to invent any scholastic
arguments." *

We cannot, then, by the use of the abstract logical rea-
son, attain any insight into the world of supersensible
realities. But now, since the possibility still remains that
a noumenal reality may exist, it is conceivable that, even
though we never can attain to it through knowledge, there
yet may be some other avenue of approach, which will
enable us, if not to know, at least to postulate it. Accord-
ing to Kant, there is such an avenue — the moral will;
and in the Critique of Practical Reason, the second of the
trilogy of works on which Kant's chief fame rests, he goes
on to modify to a certain extent the agnosticism of his first
Critique.

The advantages of our determination of the possibilities
of knowledge show themselves not least in connection

1 Ibid., p. 741.

German Idealism 433

with the problem of freedom. If the categories of our
thought life really applied to the noumenal world, there
would be no escape from determinism. The law of cau-
sality demands that everything to which it applies shall
be regarded as strictly necessitated. In so far as our acts
enter into the course of the world, they become a part of
that causal series where necessity rules ; and if this world
were the real and the only world, freedom would be ex-
cluded. But now if above the phenomenal world, the world
of natural causation, there exists the possibility, at least,
of another and a noumenal realm, we have a means of
extricating ourselves from the deterministic conclusion.
From one side — the empirical — an event might be strictly
determined. But this very causal relationship might itself
have its source in a higher causality — a causality in the
intelligible world outside the temporal series, and therefore
itself determining phenomena, instead of being determined
by them.

" Among the causes in the phenomenal world, there
certainly can be nothing that absolutely and from itself
could cause a series to begin to be. Every act that pro-
duces an event is, as a phenomenon, itself an event or
result, which presupposes another state to serve as cause.
Everything that comes to be is, therefore, merely a con-
tinuation of the series, and nothing that begins of itself
can enter into the series. Hence all the modes in which
natural causes act in the succession of time are them-
selves effects, for which there must again be causes in the
series of time. It is vain to seek in the causal connection
of phenomena for an original act, by which something
may come to be that before was not."

" But, granting that the cause of a phenomenal effect is
itself a phenomenon, is it necessary that the causality of
its cause should be entirely empirical? May it not be
that, while every phenomenal effect must be connected
with its cause in accordance with laws of empirical cau-
sality, this empirical causality, without the least rupture of

2F

434 ^ Student" s History of Philosophy

its connection with natural causes, is itself an effect of a
causality that is not empirical, but intelligible ? May the
empirical causality not be due to the activity of a cause,
which in its relation to phenomena is original, and which,
therefore, in so far as this faculty is concerned, is not phe-
nomenal, but intelligible ; although, as a link in the chain
of nature, it must be regarded as also belonging entirely
to the world of sense ? " a

It is conceivable, then, that as a phenomenon an act
may be strictly necessary, whereas, in its reality, as it
enters into the noumenal world, it is self-determined and
free. The possibility of freedom is thus not excluded ; but
have we any reason for believing in its actuality ? Briefly
the answer is : Yes ; it is necessary to postulate freedom
and an intelligible world, in order to satisfy the demands
of the moral law. For the essence of the moral life con-
sists in obedience to a law — the categorical imperative —
which prete'nds to be absolute and universal. It is an obe-
dience freed from all intermixture of personal interest and
self-gratification, which goes back simply to reverence for
the law as such. In an ethical system remarkable for its
lofty dignity and its stern rigor, Kant endeavors to estab-
lish, in all its strictness, this separation between moral
action, and action based on empirical motives and desires.
The latter forfeits all claim to moral value ; " nothing in
the whole world, or even outside of the world, can possi-
bly be regarded as good without limitation, except a good
will" " Even if it should happen that, owing to special
disfavor of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step-
motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to
accomplish its purpose, then like a jewel it would still
shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value
in itself. Its usefulness, or f ruitlessness, can neither add
nor take away anything from its value."2

But now, in its very nature, the moral law demands the

1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 543. Watson's translation.
*Metaphysic of Ethics (Abbott's translation, pp. 9, 10).

German Idealism 435

actuality of freedom. It calls upon me to will and to act
unconditionally, without regard to any considerations save
the moral " ought " ; and it has no meaning unless what I
ought to do, I can do. Freedom is thus the absolute pre-
condition of the validity of the moral life. But since, as a
part of the phenomenal world, my act is not free, there
must be another and noumenal realm, within which it has
that freedom which the moral life demands. The escape
from determinism does not lie in denying to my particular
empirical acts a causal explanation, but in denying the
ultimate validity of that whole world in which causality rules,
in favor of an intelligible world, which we cannot, indeed,
know, but whose existence we are compelled to postulate.

" The explanation of the possibility of categorical impera-
tives, then, is, that the idea of freedom makes me a mem-
ber of the intelligible world. Were I a member of no
other world, all my actions would as a matter of fact always
conform to the autonomy of the will. But as I perceive
myself to be also a member of the world of sense, I can
say only, that my actions ought to conform to the autonomy
of the will."1

So the guarantee of that intelligible world, the realm
of freedom, is, not knowledge, but the immediate realiza-
tion of the claims of the moral law ; it is practical, rather
than theoretical. The abstract reason, which the Enlight-
enment had deified, is definitely subordinated to a moral
faith. " Morality requires us only to be able to think free-
dom without self-contradiction, not to understand it ; it is
enough that our conception of the act as free puts no ob-
stacle in the way of the conception of it as mechanically
necessary, for the act stands in quite a different relation to
freedom from that in which it stands to the mechanism of
nature. From the critical point of view, therefore, the
doctrine of morality, and the doctrine of nature, may each
be true in its own sphere ; which could never have been
shown had not criticism previously established our una-

1 Metaphysic of Morality (Watson's translation, p. 255).

436 A Student's History of Philosophy

voidable ignorance of things in themselves, and limited all
that we can know to mere phenomena. I have, therefore,
found it necessary to deny knowledge of God, freedom, and
immortality, in order to find a place for faith." *

And with the intelligible world postulated to justify free-
dom and morality, we may note, briefly, the way in which
Kant uses these results, somewhat inconsequentially, it
might seem, to get back those very realities which the reason
has been proved incompetent to know. Although the desire
for happiness is entirely distinct from the content of the
moral will, yet, as man belongs to the phenomenal, as well
as to the intelligible world, happiness must have a place,
for him, in the idea of the highest good, which thus may
be defined as the union of happiness and virtue. And since
this is not, and cannot be, attained in the present world, an
endless life must be postulated for its achievement, or
reality will no longer appeal to us as fully and completely
rational. And, finally, in order to safeguard this moral
order of the world, and see to it that the end is secured, it
is necessary to conclude to the existence of a God. Such
a God is, however, purely intelligible, and free from all
intermixture of sense content. And as, consequently, he
comes in no sort of competition with natural — phenomenal
— laws, he is forever beyond the reach of attacks from
scientific materialism or scepticism.

At the start, mention was made of two points of special
significance in Kant's philosophy ; and it is the second of
these points at which we have now arrived. For Kant,
namely, the truths of the intellect are subordinate to the
truths of the practical will, or of the moral insight ; the
spiritual demands of life have, equally with scientific
thought, the right to induce belief, and in the end their
claim is even the more fundamental one. The special out-
come which this assumes in Kant is one which, since his
day, has come to be adopted very widely indeed. It is the
attitude which attempts to find a secure place for religious

1 Critique of Pure Reason, Preface (Watson's translation, p. 6).

German Idealism 437

ideals, by emphasizing the separation between these and
scientific knowledge. And the separation can be effected
by insisting, with Kant, upon the entirely phenomenal
character of the world which knowledge gives us. So far
as our human understandings are able to penetrate, we can
reach no more than conditioned objects in space and time ;
science and its laws represent here the final word. But
we are more than thinking beings. And if we once recog-
nize that the processes of thought do not sum up in any
final way the inner nature of the universe, then there is
left the possibility of a realm in which these other sides of
our nature may find a refuge, undisturbed by the fear of
contradiction from reason. It is true that we must people
this realm, not with objects of knowledge in the strict
sense, but rather with ideals, symbols, constructs of the
creative imagination. God is a term of poetry, not of
science. But though we cannot suppose that these ideals
of ours are in any sense literal copies of what really exists,
still we may have faith that the real world is not hostile to
our aspirations, but rather is in some true way symbolized
in them — a faith which the scientific reason cannot throw
doubt upon, since we now are moving in a sphere to which
reason cannot hope to attain.

We are left, then, with a gap between the results of
reason and the postulates of the spiritual life. Kant him-
self recognized to some extent the unsatisfactoriness of this
complete separation, and in a third work, the Critique of
Judgment, he tried to make it a little less absolute. There
are two facts in particular which seem to suggest that the
world in space and time, and the ideal world, the world of
purpose and meaning, are after all not so divorced from
one another as the previous results might go to show. In
the aesthetic experience, where the natural world shows
itself, alike in the beautiful object, and in the workings
of artistic genius, in unconscious harmony with the ideal
requirements of the mind ; and in the biological organism,
where we find ourselves constrained to use the concept of

438 A Student's History of Philosophy

end, or teleology, in any adequate definition, we have sug-
gestions of an inner unity and identity. But with Kant
these facts, though they are suggestive, do not lead to any
real reconstruction of his position. Such judgments still
represent no objective reality; they cannot be imported
into the absolutely real world in their human form.

A criticism of Kant cannot be attempted here. But there
is one distinction to which attention may be called — a dis-
tinction implied in his contrast between God as an object
of reason, and God as a postulate. What Kant has most
convincingly shown is, that God cannot be demonstrated
conclusively, in the rationalistic fashion, by merely ex-
tending the use of the abstract categories which intro-
duce order into our experience. But even though we
cannot demonstrate God, it is possible that we might
attain to a reasonable belief in him by another path.
We might avail ourselves of the process of analogical
reasoning ;* we might, that is, reach a probable knowl-
edge about the nature of the real world, by using the
analogy of the human self, the human experience, which
we know, without pretending that our proof possesses
theoretical necessity. And yet, unless we subscribe to the
rationalistic prejudice, which Kant shares, that nothing is
knowledge unless it bears the stamp of certainty, we should
still be moving in the sphere of mind and of the intellectual
processes. The use of the analogy will no doubt be backed
by other than theoretical needs; but still it will not thereby
be cut off absolutely from the life of reason.

If, then, we admit that reason is not confined to the field
of demonstration, the question that may still be asked is
this : is the nature of the human self, and human experi-
ence, such that it can be applied intelligibly and without
self-contradiction to the idea of God ? Granted that our
belief in God is probable rather than demonstrative
knowledge, and granted, also, that it cannot be used to
explain the particular facts of the world, but only to in-
terpret its general nature, is it still not possible that the

German Idealism 439

idea has an intelligible content, is capable of being thought
by the human mind ? This is a question to which Kant's
answer is much less clear and convincing than it might be.
That science and its laws cannot be regarded as a final
statement about the world, that there is possible an inner
and more intimate interpretation, and that here the needs
of the spiritual life have a right to play their part in deter-
mining our attitude — to have shown this, may be regarded
as Kant's most solid achievement. In what terms we
have a right to talk about this inner reality, and in what
relation it stands to the laws of the phenomenal world,
are, on the contrary, questions left by Kant in a shape
which can hardly be regarded as final

LITERATURE

Kant, Chief Works : Critique of Pure Reason (1781) ; Prolegomena
to any Future Metaphysic (1783) ; Principles of the Metaphysics of
Ethics (1785); Critique of Practical Reason (1788); Critique of
Judgment (1790) ; Religion within the Bounds of Pure Reason (1794).
Translations : Meiklejohn (Critique of Pure Reason) ; Max MUller
(Critique of Pure Reason) ; Watson (Selections) ; Abbott {Critique of
Practical Reason) ; Bernard {Critique of Judgment} ; Mahaffy and
Bernard (Prolegomena) ; Goerrvitz (Dreams of a Spirit Seer);
Hastie (Kant's Cosmogony) ; Cams (Prolegomena) ; Semple (Meta-
physic of Ethics).

Mahaffy and Bernard, Paraphrase and Commentary.

Stirling, Text Book to Kant.

Wenley, An Outline Introductory to Kanfs Critique of Pure Reason.

Abbott, Kanfs Theory of Ethics.

Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant.

Adamson, Philosophy of Kant.

Wallace, Kant.

Fischer, Kant.

Schurman, Philosophical Review, 1898, 1900.

Schurman, Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution.

Watson, Kant and his English Critics.

Seth, From Kant to Hegel.

Seth, Scottish Philosophy.

Jackson, Seneca and Kant.

440 A Student's History of Philosophy

Stuckenberg, Life of Kant.

Sidgwick, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant.

Paulsen, Immanuel Kant.

Everett, Fichte^s Science of Knowledge.

Watson, Schellings Transcendental Idealism.

Porter, Kanfs Ethics.

Morris, Kanfs Critique of Pure Reason.

Green, Lectures.

§ 37. The Idealistic Development. Fichte and
Schelling

I. The Idealistic Development. — In order to understand
the point of view of the development of Idealism in
Germany, it will be well to try to distinguish two differ-
ent attitudes that may be adopted with reference to the
term * thought,' or ' reason.' We may, on the one hand,
regard thought as the work of some individual thinker.
Thinking thus becomes a fact of psychology, something
distinct from other realities which exist alongside of it.
And this conception of thought as ' thinking ' is a natural,
and indeed an inevitable one. We commonly should in-
cline to say that there can be no thought which some one
does not think. Now when Kant speaks of thought, he
certainly has at times this in his mind — thought as a way
in which human beings conceive the world. It is only from
this standpoint that his distinction between phenomena
and noumena, and his consequent agnosticism with refer-
ence to things in themselves, have any basis. It is only
thought as human thought, that can differ from reality.

But meanwhile, the more immediate result of Kant's
work was in a different direction. There is a broader way
in which we may take the term 'thought.' We may think
of it, namely, on the side of its content, as the system of
rational knowledge, which includes all that is capable of
being known. From this standpoint, the individual thinker
is only one among a vast number of objects of knowledge ;
he is part of a rational universe which extends far beyond

German Idealism 441

him. This attitude also is to be found in Kant. His
criticism of knowledge is not, or does not intend to be, a
matter primarily of psychology. It is rather a logical in-
quiry into knowledge as a systematic structure, abstracted
from its connection with particular individuals. It attempts,
that is, to criticise each factor in knowledge by reference
to its place in a connected rational whole, as a necessary
element in a wider unity, rather than by reference to the
relation of any particular man's thought to an external
prototype.

Now it is this second attitude which is adopted by the
German Idealists. The connection of thought with the
psychological human self is almost entirely ignored. The
Self, or Ego, means for the Idealists not the individual ' me,'
but the unitary system of thought. One result is that
things in themselves immediately drop away. The dif-
ficulties in connection with the thing-in-itself are evident.
If it is unknowable, what right have we to say anything
about it ? Kant had tended to look upon it as the cause of
our sense experience; but causation applies only within
experience, not to the noumenal world. Why not, then,
simply let it drop away as a contradiction in terms, which
serves absolutely no useful end ? Do we consider it neces-
sary in order to furnish the content of knowledge ? But
the attempt to explain knowledge from what is not knowl-
edge is pure dogmatism, and no explanation at all ;
whereas, from the other side, as Kant has shown, things
may readily be explained as the construction of thought,
through the use of the categories.

Reality, then, is the reality of experience, or thought,
and not something that lies beyond. And the problem of
philosophy is to point out the systematic and logically
interdependent character of thought. The starting-point for
this development was the gaps left in Kant's theory of
knowledge. Kant's endeavor, as we have seen, had been
to trace back all experience to the synthetic unity of the
self; but he had failed to bring about a complete unifi-

442 A Student's History of Philosophy

cation of this experience. In the first place, there were
the two factors of sensation and thought, which Kant had
assigned to different sources, and so made partly incom-
patible with one another. Similarly, in the moral world,
there was almost a complete break between the moral law,
and concrete experience ; the ethical life, and the life of
sensuous impulse and desire. On a larger scale was the
distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal,
the theoretical and the practical, the realm of freedom
and the realm of necessity. The work of Kant's imme-
diate successors had to do with healing these divisions, and
making experience one. There are three names in par-
ticular— Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel — which are most
closely connected with this later development. And since
the ideas of chief value are summed up in Hegel's work,
the first two of these may be dismissed very briefly.

2. Fichte. — Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born in Lusatia
in 1762. His acquaintance with Kant's philosophy turned
the current of his life, and he became an enthusiastic dis-
ciple of the great thinker. An early writing which, on
its first appearance, had mistakenly been hailed as the
work of Kant, and praised as such, gave him an imme-
diate reputation ; and he was soon recognized as the only
man worthy to take up and carry on Kant's task. As
professor at Jena, his lectures aroused great interest ; but a
naturally self-confident and aggressive disposition kept him
continually in trouble, and occasioned at last the loss of
his position. His great work in awakening the German
people to the need of patriotic and united action in the
wars with Napoleon has caused his name to be remem-
bered, in his own country, even more as a patriot than as
a philosopher.

The basis of Fichte's philosophy is the attempt to take
seriously Kant's conception of the unity of experience.
If reason is in very truth one in all its operations, it ought
to be possible to deduce the various categories from a single
source, instead of leaving them, as Kant did, in compara-

German Idealism 443

tive isolation. Fichte finds this source in the pure
activity of the Ego, an activity which reflection discovers
to be involved in any fact of knowledge whatsoever, even
the simplest and most formal. The unity of the self in
all knowledge, and the recognition of this as primarily an
act, furnish the foundation of all of Fichte's system. In
this act, as Fichte says, the Ego posits itself, asserts its
own existence.

But so far we have only the pure unity of the Ego. In
order to get the actual world of experience, into which
differences enter as well as unity, Fichte has to take two
further steps. The Ego also affirms or sets up a not-self,
or object, and by so doing it establishes a check or limit to
the self. For concrete knowledge, then, the self and the
world now stand mutually limiting each other; and yet,
once more, they both go back to the same source — the
creative activity of the Ego.

Fichte's thesis is, then, that the deepest fact in the uni-
verse is free Spirit, and that the world is the creation of
Spirit, instead of being, as the materialist would hold, its
source. But now there is an obvious question that arises.
Why should the Ego thus set up an external world to limit
itself ? Why not be content with its original infinity and
indeterminateness ? The answer that Fichte gives will
bring up another and a specially characteristic side of his
philosophy. Here also he goes back to Kant, this time to
Kant's doctrine of the supremacy of the moral will. It is
because man is fundamentally an active moral being, that
he finds it necessary to set up an outer world. For the
moral life implies striving, action ; and this would be im-
possible, if the will were simply infinite and unlimited. It
must, to become conscious of itself, set for itself a limit,
in order that then it may overcome this limit. The world
is the stuff of moral action, the material which the will
creates, to give itself a field for its endeavor. " Not merely
to know, but according to thy knowledge to do, is thy
vocation." The answer to the question: Do things exist?

444 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

resolves itself simply into this: I have certain duties to be
fulfilled by means of certain materials. My world is the ob-
ject and sphere of my duties, and absolutely nothing more.

But it is, then, I myself, the particular individual, Johann
Gottlieb Fichte, who created the world I seem to find about
me? It is the weakness of Fichte' s system that his start-
ing-point, and many of his aguments, seem to lead to this;
but undoubtedly it is not what he intends. The Absolute
Ego is very different from the individual self, though the
relation of the two is far from being clear. Apparently,
the Absolute is not a personal God. Rather it is the moral
order of the world, which works in and through the appar-
ently separate striving selves. Such a " moral idealism "
has a counterpart, without the metaphysical groundwork,
in Matthew Arnold's "power that makes for righteous-
ness," and his conception of conduct as the greater part of
life ; while in Carlyle the essential spirit of Fichte is even
more completely reproduced.

3. Schelling. — Apart from the question as to the satis-
factoriness of a moral ideal, which involves the setting up
of a world simply for the sake of knocking it down again,
Fichte's philosophy is evidently too easy-going in its treat-
ment of the world of nature. In Schelling (1775-1854)
this side of the philosophical problem again assumes an
independent importance, though with no very solid results.
Schelling started in as a disciple of Fichte, but the same
thing happens as in the case of Fichte and Kant — the
disciple goes beyond his master, until the latter finds it
necessary to repudiate him. The feeling that the world of
nature needed a more elaborate treatment than was given
by merely postulating it as the material of the moral life
— a feeling fostered by Schelling' s connection with the
Romantic School of German poetry — led him to attempt
such a treatment, by trying to point out, in a semi-poetical
way, the traces of intelligence, of the Idea, in natural pro-
cesses and forms. But this gives rise to a dualism which
threatened to pass into a contradiction. On the one side,

German Idealism 445

nature is taken as a product of intelligence, the creation of
the Ego ; while on the other, intelligence, in man, itself
appears as the highest product of the process already
working in nature. Evidently it was impossible to stop
long at this point. It was necessary to find some unitary
principle to account for the origin of both nature and in-
telligence alike, since the two are now put on an equality.
And as a consequence, Schelling soon found himself led
to postulate a common root, in which the differences of
the two lose themselves in an abstract identity — a posi-
tion to a certain extent suggesting that of Spinoza.
From this abstraction — the night, as Hegel says, in which
all cows are black — it was of course impossible to get the
concrete facts of experience again. Accordingly, in his
later philosophy, which took successively a number of
forms, Schelling is compelled to have recourse to an in-
creasing mysticism. This later philosophy had, however,
but little influence ; it is Hegel who takes up the work
which Schelling had been unable to carry on.

LITERATURE

Fichte, Chief Works : Science of Knowledge (1794) ; Science of Rights
(1796) ; Science of Ethics (1798). Translations: Kroeger (Science of
Knowledge, Science of Ethics, Science of Rights) ; Smith (Popular
Works}.

Schelling, Chief Work: Transcendental Idealism (1800).

Everett, Fichte 'j Science of Knowledge.

Adamson, Fichte.

Thompson, The Unity of Fichte^s Theory of Knowledge.

Watson, Schelling^s Transcendental Idealism.

Seth, Hegelianism and Personality.

Seth, From Kant to Hegel.

Leighton, Typical Modern Conceptions of God.

§ 38. Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart
in 1770. More, perhaps, than any other of the great phi-

446 A Student's History of Philosophy

losophers, his personality is sunk in his work, so that out-
side of this there is but little of interest in his life. At
Tubingen, where he entered in 1788, he came in contact
with the group of young men of which Schelling was the
leader ; and to him he attached himself as a disciple, though
Schelling was five years his junior. Among his associates
he was regarded as a hard worker, but not as particularly
brilliant. With Schelling, he founded a philosophical
journal, to which he contributed various articles in defence
of the Schellingian philosophy. But meanwhile he was
coming to realize Schelling's deficiencies, and was pa-
tiently working out the thought which was to render him
an independent thinker. He broke with Schelling by the
publication, in 1807, of his first important work, the Phe-
nomenology of Spirit, in which the weakness of Schell-
ing's position is somewhat sarcastically criticised. From
this time on, his life is filled with the laborious working
out of his great principle, a labor which left him no time
for participation in the stirring political events that were
going on about him. His success was soon assured, and
he passed from Nuremburg to Heidelberg, and from Hei-
delberg to Berlin, where he became the dictator of the
German philosophical world. He died in 1831.

It is a matter of great difficulty to convey a clear notion
of Hegel's philosophy, by reason not only of the inherent
obscurities which have given rise to various interpretations
of its meaning, but also because of its extreme subtilty, and
of the concrete nature of its content, which covers the
whole field of experience and history. The following ac-
count, therefore, will have to be very general in its nature.

i . The General Nature of HegeVs Philosophy

I. Perhaps we may get a starting-point for understand-
ing Hegel's main thought most readily, by saying that it is
the philosophical expression of the new historical sense.
The word of experience is a progressive embodiment

German Idealism 447

of reason. Now for the man of the Enlightenment, reason
had been an abstract faculty, existing in the individual, by
means of which he was able to decide, affirmatively or
negatively, such questions as might be presented to him, —
the existence, e.g., of God or of matter, the obligatoriness
of moral law, the foundation of justice and society, or what-
ever it might be. For reason, accordingly, a thing was
either true or false, and that was all there was to say ; and
since the criterion existed within the individual man, he
was thus capable of pronouncing upon the Tightness or
wrongness of all human opinions and institutions immedi-
ately, on abstract theoretical grounds.

The historical method has changed all this. Instead of
leading us to judge everything by the particular standard
which happens to appeal to us as rational, it says : A thing
is to be judged by its surroundings, its environment, and
the part within this which it has to play; we must put
ourselves actually in the place of the reality which we
wish to estimate. In other words, instead of reason being
an external criterion, it exists only as embodied in the phe-
nomena of experience itself. We are not to set up a stand-
ard of our own by which to judge things ; we have only
to watch experience unfold, and detect, if we can, the laws
involved in this unfolding. Reason is objective in things,
not subjective in ourselves. Reality exists, and that reality
reveals itself in history. It is our part to accept it and try
to discover its meaning, not to condemn or praise. A thing
is condemned only by the logic of events ; and even this
means only that it no longer is able to perform its func-
tion, not that it did not once have a function which was its
sufficient justification. We can understand reality, there-
fore, only by taking it in all its concreteness, not by mak-
ing abstract statements about it. Philosophers have argued,
perhaps, that there is a God ; but of what value is such an
abstract assertion ? It has no meaning until we give it a
content, and that content is nothing less than the concrete
reality of life and history. Unless it lies wholly apart from

448 A Student's History of Philosophy

God, this is a manifestation of Him. The more we know
of it, the more we know what He is; and the less we
know, the less we know Him.

Now Hegel's contention is that experience is such a
system of reason with its own laws ; and his whole phi-
losophy is an endeavor to unfold and explicate these. This
is what he means by his assertion that Thought and Reality
are identical. This statement has sometimes been taken
to mean, either that our individual thoughts are the sole
reality, or that reality is a set of abstractions, opposed to
all sense and feeling elements. The first of these inter-
pretations is evidently absurd, and Hegel has not the least
intention of affirming it, although the relation of human
thought to the ultimate Thought involves difficulties which
perhaps he does not sufficiently consider. Nor, again, does
he mean that reality is a system of abstract thought con-
cepts ; for him, concrete experience is the starting-point
and the end. But this experience is rational throughout.
Every element of experience is connected by relations with
a rational whole, in which it has a definite place, and which
enables it to be thought understandingly. Each step
exists only as it is intelligibly set in this larger frame-
work ; and its existence and its intelligibility are one. The
reality of a thing is just its possession of significance, of
meaning, for the great process of experience into which it
enters.

And so, too, reality is absolutely coextensive with this
system of significant experience. There is no opaque
thing-in-itself lying beyond experience, no transcendent
truth to be reached by an abstract reasoning process, dis-
tinct from the reason that is in things themselves. That
which does not enter into experience is for us nothing at
all. The system of experience itself is reality, is God;
and God thus is the most certain thing in the world, im-
plicated in the existence of any reality whatsoever. The
course of history is the process, not simply by which man
comes to a consciousness of God and of the world, but

German Idealism 449

that by which God comes to a consciousness of Himself.
Spirit, then, and the laws of Spirit, are the real essence of
the universe, in terms of which everything whatsoever is to
be understood. We have no need to go out of our experi-
ence to find the truth of reality. Reality is present in this
very partial experience of mine ; it is the process as such,
of which my present life, and the life of each individual,
is but a moment or stage.

The problem of philosophy is, then, to show the mean-
ing of each factor of experience that has ever revealed
itself to man, through its relation to the rational whole to
which it belongs. The question which Kant left unsolved,
— the question how the various parts of experience fit to-
gether — must be renewed ; and instead of leaving these
parts in opposition, their organic relationship must be
shown. And the instrument by which this is brought
about is the concept of development — a development in
which the oppositions and contradictions of the world are
not denied and annulled, but combined in a richer whole,
which gives them each a relative validity. This gives the
schema of Hegel's dialectic method — a schema of three
stages, in which thesis is followed by antithesis, and that
again by the synthesis which includes them both. That
which at first we take as immediate and complete in itself,
presently, by reason of the fact that it is not such a com-
plete whole, but only a part of the entire reality, shows its
incompleteness by passing into its opposite ; and then fol-
lows the process of reconciliation, through which both sides
get their rights. Every partial truth is thus preserved,
and enters into the final truth of reality ; but it enters only
as a part, an aspect, and not as self-sufficient and complete.

What Hegel has in mind is abundantly in evidence in
the history of the intellectual experience. Most of us have
had occasion to recognize the fact that any ordinary truth,
if pushed too far, taken too absolutely, is apt to lead to
contradictions ; and that these contrary considerations have
to be kept in mind as limits or qualifications before we can

2G

4 SO A Student's History of Philosophy

reach any settled conclusion. Thus, for example, in the
practical realm, if I press too much what I call my abstract
rights, it is almost certain to lead me into wrong, or injus-
tice; concrete justice commonly means a balancing, a com-
promise. Or we may think of examples such as have al-
ready presented themselves on a large scale in the history
of thought. Thus the principle of authority and obedience
in the Middle Ages passed, by a natural reaction, into the
contradictory and equally one-sided principle of lawless
and arbitrary freedom of the individual in the Enlighten-
ment. The solution does not lie in denying either princi-
ple, but in combining them both in the conception of
concrete freedom, — a freedom which is not the mere
abstract possibility of doing anything, but which realizes
itself by limiting itself, by turning its undefined possibili-
ties into definite channels, and so by submitting itself to
the conditions and laws which are needed to accomplish
anything actual. The mental temper which insists upon
taking things in their isolation, which cannot see more than
one side of a truth at a time, which prides itself on being
clear cut and downright in its thinking, and will always
have it either that a thing is so, or that it is not so, without
compromise or limitation, represents what Hegel calls the
understanding, whereas that more comprehensive and ade-
quate way of looking at things in their relationships, their
many-sidedness, he distinguishes as reason.

The central thought of Hegel is, accordingly, that only
the whole is real. He is entering a protest against one-
sidedness and incompleteness. The partial fact is only an
abstraction, which needs to be brought into connection with
the whole in order to gain validity. Reality is not any par-
ticular stage of development, nor even the end of develop-
ment as a finished result ; it is the process of development
itself in its entirety — the concrete universal. "The bud
disappears in the bursting forth of the blossom, and it may
be said that the one is contradicted by the other ; by the
fruit, again, the blossom is declared to be a false existence

German Idealism 451

in the plant, and the fruit is judged to be its truth in the
place of the flower. These forms not only distinguish
themselves from one another, but likewise displace one
another as mutually incompatible. But their transient and
changing condition also converts them into moments in an
organic unity, in which not alone do they not conflict, but
in which one is as necessary as the other ; and this very
necessity first constitutes the life of the whole." 1

2. Accordingly, in his philosophical system, Hegel at-
tempts to explicate the reason that is in the world, by
applying his method to the content of experience. He
starts with a Logic. Here, beginning with the abstractest
concept possible — the concept of Being — Hegel tries to
show that the categories, or thought terms, which we use
in thinking the world — terms such as quantity and qual-
ity, substance and causality, essence, existence, and the
like — belong to a connected system of thought. They
pass one into another by a dialectical process, until they cul-
minate at last in the complete notion which includes them
all. This is essentially the notion of self-consciousness,
which thus remains the supreme category for interpret-
ing the world. Next we have the Philosophy of Nature,
in which this same Reason is examined in the form in
which it becomes externalized in the objective world. The
Reason which is present in nature advances, by one step
after another, from the purely mechanical realm, until it
attains its highest form in the human body; and this
serves as a transition to the Philosophy of Mind, or Spirit.
Here again there are three stages: the merely Subjective
Mind, as it is dealt with by Anthropology and Psychol-
ogy ; Objective Mind, as it actualizes itself in objective
social institutions ; and Absolute Spirit, where Spirit
finally attains to complete self-consciousness, and to the
unity of the subjective and the objective, in Art, Religion,

1 Quoted from Wisdom and Religion of a German Philosopher. (Paul,
Trench, Trubner & Co.)

452 A Student's History of Philosophy

and Philosophy. Such, briefly, is the course which devel-
opment pursues.

But now the question arises as to the sense in which
Hegel intends this development to be taken. Is it a true
development, a process which goes on in reality itself ?
There are difficult questions involved in an interpretation of
Hegel here. Perhaps the simplest and clearest way would
be to suppose that we have to do merely with a logical
process in our own minds. If we take a certain concept as
complete, then by reference to the completer reality of our
knowledge, it shows its partial nature, and leads us on to
its connection with this larger fact of which it is a part.
This, however, hardly does justice to all of Hegel's claims ;
and it seems not to cover fully a large portion of his work,
which is concerned with the actual experience of mankind,
and in which he is dealing with what most certainly is a
true development. In the philosophy of history, e.g., or
of religion, or in the history of philosophy, the reference
to the concrete growth of human knowledge and experience
is not a matter of option, but essential and fundamental.
It is doubtful whether Hegel can be made wholly consist-
ent and intelligible ; whether in his eagerness for system
he has not brought together conflicting motives without a
real reconciliation. In the end, he undoubtedly means to
deny that actual development in time is the final truth of
things. The end must somehow be present in the earlier
stages, must somehow be eternally complete and non-tem-
poral. But how our concrete experience, which assuredly
is in some real sense a growth, connects with this absolute
reality, or how it stands related to the conceptual devel-
opment of the Logic, Hegel does not very satisfactorily
clear up.

2. The Stages in the Development of Spirit

I. Logic. — The Logic represents probably Hegel's
greatest work. But its nature is such that no brief sum-

German .Idealism 453

mary can give any real understanding of it. Its value lies
in the acute analysis, in detail, to which it subjects the
chief concepts we are accustomed to use in thinking the
world, and the bringing to light of their essentially relative
character, the limitations which attend their application,
and their final interpretation in the light of mind as a self-
conscious and unitary organism. It begins with the sim-
plest possible category — that of Being. That it is,
represents the very least we can say of anything. But
now just because it is so very abstract, we cannot stop
with it. To say a thing is, and no more, is practically to
say nothing at all ; Being passes into its opposite — Not-
Being, or Nothing. And then the one-sidedness of both
terms leads to the third member of the triad — Becoming,
— which includes within itself the truth of each. This
represents the general process by which Hegel seeks to
unfold the entire content of the thought life. The Logic
as a whole falls into three sections. The first, which is
called the doctrine of Being, represents roughly the realm
of immediate, unanalyzed knowledge, and includes, beside
Being, such categories as Quality and Quantity, which
come to us apparently as immediate fact. The second
section bears the name of Essence, and is perhaps the most
important and enlightening of the three. It deals with the
concepts used in ordinary scientific analysis and explana-
tion, in which the fact is no longer taken immediately, but
is referred to something else as its ground ; and it includes
the categories of identity and difference, ground and con-
sequence, essence and phenomenon, substance and attri-
butes, cause and effect, and the like. Hegel is very
successful in pointing out here the difficulties into which
we get when we try to take these terms as standing for
separate things, when, for example, we attempt to under-
stand reality, or substance, as behind and distinct from its
appearances, or its qualities, instead of having its nature
actually expressed in these. The third section — that of
the Notion — reveals the higher truth of the other two, by

454 A Student's History of Philosophy

bringing them into relation to the teleological unity of self-
conscious thought, or Spirit.

2. Philosophy of Nature and Subjective Mind. — We
may turn next, then, to the more concrete application of
this logical framework to reality. And the Philosophy of
Nature I shall not attempt to consider. Nature is, indeed,
a necessary factor in the growth of Spirit, for which the
natural environment furnishes the plastic material of its
own self-expression. But the relation of Nature to the
rest of Hegel's system is extremely obscure, while the
treatment which it gets is confessedly the weakest part of
his whole philosophy. We can pass at once, therefore, to
the Philosophy of Spirit. In Subjective Spirit, Hegel
treats man purely as a part of nature, a thing in the world
which, though possessed of consciousness, is essentially one
thing among others. This is the field which is occupied
by what are called the sciences of Anthropology and
Psychology. It will not be necessary to dwell upon this,
the least important of the divisions of Spirit. In Objec-
tive Spirit, this inner life is given content in the form of
institutions, which at first appear foreign to the individual,
imposed upon him from without, but which nevertheless
have their real justification in their spiritual character, as
an expression of man's true self, apart from which his life
would have no real content.

3. Objective Mind, (a) Philosophy of Law, Ethics, So-
ciety. — Now we must remember — and this Hegel sets
himself to show in detail — that the reality and true
ground of all philosophy of the social and ethical life is
not in purely objective laws, to be gathered from institu-
tions as such, nor yet in purely individual motives, consti-
tuting the morality of the private conscience, but rather
in the concrete life of man in society, as a progressive
revelation and realization of man's nature. Accordingly,
when we begin with abstract right, we are not to think, as,
e.g., the French Revolutionists did, that the whole social
problem can be solved by reference to certain inherent

German Idealism 455

rights, assumed dogmatically, which belong to the essence
of man as a being distinct from the social whole. We
may, indeed, take the standpoint from which the human will
is looked upon as existing in itself, over against a world of
relations into which it has not yet entered, but we are
not to suppose that this is the real man ; the conception
is merely abstract and formal. However, for theoretical
purposes, we may suppose such a formal power of enter-
ing into relations, which are as yet undetermined ; and the
possessor of such a formal freedom is in legal terms a per-
son. Personality is thus the abstract basis of abstract right,
or law. Such law, by reason of its abstract character, is
necessarily only negative, made up of " Thou shalt nots " ;
it has no content, no concrete existence. To become real,
it must enter concretely into a relation to the objective world
which confronts it. That by which the will gives itself a
real standing, an objective existence, is possession or prop-
erty. And it is, accordingly, with what this act involves,
that abstract law is concerned.

Property, then, is an object, in so far as it has come,
through seizure, use, and alienation, into relation to a
human will, and been made an attribute of a " me " ; it is
objectified will. It is thus a necessity of concrete freedom,
and is proportionately sacred. It is to be noticed, how-
ever, that abstract law says nothing as to what or how
much property any individual should possess in any or-
ganic state, where differences are implied ; its abstract
equality does not mean a natural right to equality. This
is the fault in the reasoning of the Revolutionists. But
now this property relation is not really established, except
as my right is recognized and allowed by my neighbor. It
involves not simply my will, but the consenting will of an-
other, and thus is the objectification of this common will.
The relation between things becomes the relation between
wills. Persons are related to each other through their
properties; they can hold property only as they also
respect each other's property.

456 A Student's History of Philosophy

This obj edification of the common will forms the basis
of contract — a fact which, it is to be noticed, lies at the
bottom, not of all social relationships whatever, as earlier
philosophers had thought, but only of our relationships to
particular external things, which are not intrinsically con-
nected with the will. It is entirely different in the case of
institutions which, like marriage, are an expression of the
essential nature of man. As, therefore, contracts are arbi-
trary and accidental, there is no guarantee against their
passing into injustice or wrong. This may take the form
of unconscious wrong, or of fraud, or of crime, by which,
through my property, violence is used upon my will. But
since freedom is the basis of all right, by attacking the
freedom of another, the criminal is attacking himself and
his own right ; his act is self-contradictory and self-destruc-
tive, and force may legitimately be used to defeat it.

This is the foundation of the right of compulsion. And
as the crime exists, not in the external world, but in the
will of the criminal, compulsion thus appears as punish-
ment — the reaction, upon the will of the perpetrator, of
his criminal act, so that its essential self-contradictoriness
comes home to him. The punishment is the completion of
his own act, and is called for by justice to the criminal
himself. The offender, in receiving punishment, is really
being treated simply with the honor due to a presumptively
rational being. But such a reaction should not be in turn
arbitrary and individual — that is but adding one wrong to
another ; it should proceed from a reflective interpretation
of the principle that is involved. Here, therefore, is a de-
mand for a particular will that can, at the same time, will
the universal ; and thus we rise to the stage of subjective,
reflective will, or morality.

In Morality man becomes aware of the universal char-
acter of those acts which hitherto he has performed unreflec-
tively, and so with the possibility of discord ; his acts are
brought home to the conscience. But Conscience, so long
as it remains at the stage of mere self-determination, is still

German Idealism 457

incomplete. I may will the Good, but who shall tell me
what the Good really is ? " Duty for duty's sake," " Do
right though the heavens fall," sound very well ; but what
is right, and what is duty, in any particular case ? Thus
in the popular sense, Conscience often comes to mean sim-
ply what my particular desires or unintelligent prejudices
impel me to do. The action is the result of mere blind
feeling, and may as well be bad as right. There is need
not only of a self-determination, but of a self-determination
by reference to an objective standard. I transform the
realm of subjective morality into true ethical life, only as
I give up a purely individual private judgment, whose logi-
cal issue is anarchy, and become a member of an objec-
tively constituted society, whose authority I acknowledge
as guide, and whose institutions and customs I accept as
giving enlightenment, control, and definiteness to my moral
life.

Here, in the ethical relations of the family, civil society,
the state, and, finally, humanity, the true life and freedom
of the will is concretely realized. Abstract rights, and ab-
stract duties, become concrete and specific, and thereby
the individual liberates and elevates himself to real or sub-
stantial freedom. Only in society does man really exist,
really win the actual attainment of selfhood and individual-
ity, which are his birthright. It is in the family that the
individual first comes to himself — an institution no longer
by contract, but by the grace of God. The principle of the
family is love, which includes all the members, and unites
them by a living bond. The Family involves (i) marriage,
in which the physical union is transformed into a spiritual
one. The two persons submit to limitations, in order to
gain fuller self-realization ; only in marriage does man find
his completion. (2) The family property, which gains now
an ethical value by becoming common property. (3) The
education of the children to maturity.

And this forms the transition to the second stage of the
ethical world — civil society ; for the Family is inadequate

458 A Student's History of Philosophy

to the full nature of man. As the children leave the home,
and families separate, the need arises for another and
higher unity, to bring together this newly emerging inde-
pendence. In its first phase, this takes the aspect of an
external power, by which the conflicting interests of indi-
viduals are restrained, and a field for their activity secured.
It is society on the side of government, and represents that
ideal of society which the Enlightenment brought to the
front. Men are really separate existences, possessing pri-
vate interests, and bound to aggrandize themselves to the
top of their power. But since, if unrestrained liberty were
allowed, these conflicting interests would clash, it is desir-
able to give up a certain amount of liberty, in so far as it
conflicts with the liberty of others, in order to gain the ad-
vantage of the resulting security. Government is thus a
police arrangement, which brings men into outer harmony,
but adopts the policy of laissezfaire in all other directions.
Under this head, Hegel takes up various organs and func-
tions of civil society, and shows how, underneath them all,
the real motive force revealing itself is not such an abstract
conception of government, but rather the ideal which finds
its expression in the truer reality of the State or Nation.

It is this latter reality, as the organic unity of the feel-
ings, customs, and genius of a people, immanent in their
whole activity, — a moral personality, a temple whose build-
ing is of living stones, the work of God in history realizing
the moral order of the world, — which represents the frui-
tion and consummation of the moral life of humanity, and
makes man for the first time truly human. The State is
the true end of man, not merely a means. It is the recon-
ciliation of the private interests of the individual with the
universal aims, the interest of the public. As such, it
does not repress personality, as did the ancient state ;
rather it builds upon it. But personality is not mere in-
dividualism. The true person is a social person, who has
his rights and his duties only as a member of society. As
such, his rights and his duty are identical. Duty is not

German Idealism 459

imposed upon him by authority, but only by accomplishing
it does he find self-satisfaction. And duty exists only with
reference to those expressions of the universal will which
have been objectified in law and custom. The striving
for a morality of one's own is futile, and by its very nature
impossible of attainment. In regard to morality the say-
ing of the wisest man of antiquity is the only true one :
to be moral is to live in accordance with the moral tradi-
tions of one's country. These traditions are but the pro-
gressive revelation of the universal will, or spirit of the
national genius ; to alter them, one must not set himself
outside them as a judge, on the basis of his own private
conscience, but must rather act from within, as the organ
of the immanent Spirit advancing to a more complete
realization.

This idea of the state, Hegel considers (i) in its im-
mediate existence in the individual state ; (2) in the relation
of the single state to other states — external polity ; and
(3) as the universal Spirit of Humanity, superior to the
individual state, and realizing itself in the process of history.
As regards the internal constitution of the State, the essen-
tial principle is the organic relation of powers in a unity,
not the mechanical aggregate of mutual " checks," which
is the theory that the purely negative conception of gov-
ernment leads to. These essential factors are (i) the
power to define and determine the universal in the form
of law — the Legislative power; (2) the power to apply
this universal in particular spheres and to single cases —
the governing or Executive power; and (3) the power of
ultimate decision — the power of the Prince — in which
the different powers are brought together into an individual
unity. The highest form of the State, accordingly, Hegel
finds in the Constitutional Monarchy.

(£) Philosophy of History. — As the human being is
not a person except in relation to other persons, so the
State is not an individual save in relation to other states ;
and the highest phase of this, when it becomes internal-

460 A Student's History of Philosophy

ized, is found in that organic relation which constitutes
the History of Humanity. In his Philosophy of History,
which is one of Hegel's most characteristic and most
interesting works, he tries to unfold the "grand argument
of human existence," to trace the law of development
which runs through the whole past life of the race, to
discover the particular genius which each great world
power has displayed, and to relate this to the all-compre-
hending Idea, which is immanent in the entire process.

What, then, is the plot of this great drama ? Briefly,
History is progress in the consciousness of rational freedom.
It is the discipline of the uncontrolled natural will, bringing
it into obedience to a universal principle. In its first form,
in Asia, Spirit is still immersed in Nature. Law and
morality are regarded as something fixed and external ; they
need not concur with the desire of the individual, and the
subjects are consequently like children, who obey their
parents without will and insight of their own. In the law
men recognize not their own will, but one entirely foreign.
Justice is administered only on the basis of external
morality, and Government exists only as the prerogative of
compulsion. So, also, Religion and the State are not
distinguished, and the constitution generally is a Theocracy.
This is the childhood of History.

The Greek world may be compared with the period
of adolescence, for here we have individualities forming
themselves. This is the second main principle in human
history. In China the subject obeys an absolute fixed law,
with reference to which his own will is external and wholly
dependent, a mere accident. In Greece, the principle of
universality is impressed upon the individual himself, and he
finds himself in immediate harmony with the outer expres-
sion of this in Nature and the State ; he himself wills that
which is laid on the Oriental as an external constraint. In
opposition, then, to the absorption in Nature of the
Oriental world, the Greeks transform the natural into an
expression of spiritual truth. But since the freedom of

German Idealism 461

Spirit is conditioned by some stimulus which Nature sup-
plies, spirituality is not yet absolutely free, not yet abso-
lutely self -produced — is not self-stimulation. The idea is
not yet regarded abstractly, but is immediately bound up
with the real, as in a beautiful work of art. The Greek
Spirit is the plastic artist, forming the stone into a work of
art. The artist needs for his spiritual conceptions, stone,
colors, sensuous forms, to express his idea. Without such
an element, he can no more be conscious of his idea him-
self, than give it an objective form for the contemplation of
others, since it cannot in thought alone become an object
to him.

The Greek Spirit was not enduring, because the Idea
was too closely bound up with a particular material form;
it was not yet recognized as purely spiritual. In the next
phase of history the Idea becomes separated as an abstract
universality (in which the social aim absorbs all individ-
ual aims). This is the Roman State, which represents the
severe labors of the manhood of history. The State begins
to have an abstract existence, and to develop itself for a
definite object ; and in doing this there is involved a rec-
ognition of its members as abstract individuals — as
persons with definite rights before the law. But while
individuals have a share in the end of the State, it is
not a complete and concrete one, calling their whole being
into play. Free individuals are sacrificed to the demands
of the national objects. The geniality and joy of soul
that existed in the Athenian Polis have given place to
harsh and vigorous toil. Free, complete, substantial free-
dom is attained only in the fourth phase of world
history — the German. This would answer, in the com-
parison with the periods of human life, to its old age.
But while the old age of Nature is weakness, that of Spirit
is its perfect maturity and strength. Freedom has found
the means of realizing its ideal — its true existence.

4. Absolute Mind, (a) Art. — But the State still does not
represent the full experience of man, and political life is not

462 A Student's History of Philosophy

his highest and truest activity ; complete freedom he can
find only in the life of Spirit as such. Above, then, the life
of the State, there exist the free realms of Art, Religion, and
Philosophy, in which the opposition of the outer and the
inner is overcome still more completely, and man sees him-
self at last as he truly is — pure Spirit. In Art we see
the triumph of the idea over matter anticipated. The
material of the artist bodies forth the idea which he means
to express immediately, without the intervention of the
discursive reason. But still the material which the idea
employs is not perfectly plastic ; and this greater or less
rebelliousness of character furnishes the basis for the dis-
tinction between the various arts. In architecture, the ele-
mentary stage, idea and form are still distinct, and the
latter only symbolizes the former. So the cathedral may
symbolize religious aspiration, but it is still far removed
from the idea for which it stands. By its vast proportions
it may express solemnity and grandeur, but it cannot sug-
gest the finer shades of feeling.

This dualism partly disappears in sculpture. Sculpture
has this in common with architecture, that it employs as
its material gross matter ; but it is more capable of trans-
forming and spiritualizing this. It is able to utilize every-
thing, instead of leaving many details which are unessential
to the idea, as in architecture. But it cannot represent
the soul itself as revealed in the eye ; this belongs to paint-
ing. In painting, also, the material is somewhat less
gross; it is the plane surface, in which depth is repre-
sented only by appearance. It is still, however, objective
art, still bound to matter, and so, like architecture and
sculpture, incapable of expressing anything beyond a
moment of life. This limitation is overcome in music,
the subjective, immaterial art, which can reproduce all
the infinite variety of the inner life. But its subjectivity
is likewise a limitation. Music also symbolizes, and so is
capable of various interpretations. The union of the sub-
jective and the objective is brought about in the art of arts

German Idealism 463

— poetry. Poetry converts the vague and indefinite sound
which is the material of music, into articulate and definite
sound — language — in which the material is wholly sub-
ordinated to the idea, and so becomes adequate. Poetry
sums up in itself all the other arts : epic poetry corresponds
to the material arts ; lyric poetry to music; while the crown
of all, reconciling the two, and constituting the supreme
artistic expression of the highest civilization, is dramatic
poetry.

On the historical side, Oriental art is symbolical, de-
lighting in allegories and parables, and shows its inability
to cope with its material by its lack of form, and fondness
for exaggeration. In Greek art, symbolism is superseded
by direct expression, in which matter and idea perfectly
coincide ; but Greek art is defective through its very per-
fection. The idea is so completely identified with its
matter, that it becomes purely naturalistic ; the spiritual
character of the idea is sacrificed to mere physical beauty.
This fault is corrected in Christian art. Here art is re-
called from the physical world, and the ideal of physical
beauty is subordinated to that of spiritual beauty — the
worship of the Virgin follows the cultus of Venus. But
just because the moral ideal is so far beyond the power
of matter to embody, Christian art, despairing of ade-
quately expressing it, lapses into the contempt of form
which characterizes Romanticism.

(b) Religion and Philosophy. — That identification of
thought and the object, of the finite and the infinite,
which receives a partial expression in art, is raised to a
higher power in religion. Here, again, there is no ques-
tion, for Hegel, of proving the reality of God, and the truth
of religion, in the ordinary sense. He is interested rather
in the explication of that religious experience, which for
him is identical with God. The religious experience exists
as a fact given to philosophy to understand, not to create ;
and since God has His existence within experience, not
outside of it, the more supreme and comprehensive experi-

464 A Student's History of Philosophy

ence is, the more adequately God is revealed in it. Accord-
ingly, Hegel has no patience with the temper of the
Enlightenment, which would reject positive religions as
false and man-made, and confine its religious beliefs to
a few abstract dogmas of Deism. Religion exists just in
the process of religious development ; and the stages
of this development are to be interpreted, not judged,
except as they are judged by the further historical develop-
ment which passes beyond them.

The failure of art to embody the Idea fully, gives rise
to a new dualism — the religious dualism of the finite and
the infinite ; and the progress of religion is the healing of
this separation. The three elements of the religious idea

— God, man, and the relation between them — underlie
the successive stages of religious development. In Ori-
ental religions, the idea of the infinite prevails. God is
every thing (Pantheism), and man is nothing. God is what
the despot is in the political sphere — an all-potent being,
upon whose will men are wholly dependent, so that noth-
ing is left for man but submission. The religion of the
Greek, on. the contrary, is a religion of naturalism, and
the finite. Man is the final object of his worship. His
gods are essentially human attributes concretely em-
bodied, and raised by art to the position of types.

These two extremes are reconciled in Christianity, the
absolute religion, for which the important thing is neither
God by Himself, nor man by himself, but the concrete
unity of the divine and human in Christ — the God-man.
Christianity finds God, the infinite, implicated in the finite

— in human consciousness, and the process of the world.
Its dogmas, however, are to be taken in this way as
shadowing forth in terms of the imagination the eternal
progress of the Idea — not as metaphysical truth, nor as
the statement of historical facts that happened eighteen
hundred years ago. And for this reason — that religion
is still in the realm of imaginative representation — there
is a higher stage still. The truths which are but shadowed

German Idealism 465

forth in religion, get their clear, rational statement — the
Idea comes to a full consciousness of itself — in that de-
velopment of pure thought which constitutes the History
of Philosophy, and which has its outcome in the philosophy
of — Hegel.

$. Defects of Hegel's Philosophy. — Hegel's claim, that
at last the absolute had attained to full self-consciousness,
was hardly borne out by subsequent events. His influ-
ence, supreme at his death, was not destined to continue
long unchecked. Within his own school there was pres-
ently a split over the interpretation of his attitude toward
religious problems; while without, opponents sprang up
on every side, among whom Herbart may be specially
mentioned. The opposing forces were for a time success-
ful, and in the reaction, an exaggerated admiration gave
place to an equally extreme disparagement. We may
note, briefly, the chief weaknesses in Hegel's system,
which brought about this result.

And first, while his attempt to show the rationality of all
reality constitutes one of the main excellences of Hegel, there
can be no doubt that he exaggerated the extent to which
this rationality is a transparent one for human thought,
and its logically necessary character. If we were to judge
by many of the utterances of Hegel and his disciples, all
mystery is at last dispelled in the clear light of reason,
and the whole course of creation may be watched, as it
moves with logical necessity from one step to the next.
In opposition to this extreme and presumptuous gnosti-
cism, Kant, and his limitation of the human faculties to
mere phenomena, proved a welcome relief. The sense
of the ultimate mystery of things, the recognition of man's
dependence on a reality beyond him, and of the insuffi-
ciency of anything that he can call knowledge to measure
the immensity of existence, the pressure of the facts of
evil, sin, and suffering, of which Hegel never showed any ade-
quate appreciation — these things all tended again to come
to the front. Accordingly, on every side, in opposition
2 H

466 A Student's History of Philosophy

to the gnosticism and logical idealism of Hegel, there have
arisen the claims of faith, or intuition, as opposed to rea-
son ; the assertion of ultimate agnosticism ; or even, as in
Schopenhauer, the insistence on the positive irrationality
of things, as a final metaphysical creed; while for the
purely phenomenal knowledge which it is possible to at-
tain, we are directed to the sober methods of science.

And it is in particular by this insistence on the claims
of science, that the more recent thought is marked. It
was this which served as a chief cause for the discredit
into which Hegel's philosophy fell. For the spiritual side
of life, Hegel had done much ; but what of that great
independent world of things, on which the experience of
man depends, and which seems at times so indifferent, so
antagonistic even, to human interests ? Hegel's treatment
of this had been weak and fanciful, and he had even set
himself actively against what have proved to be fruitful
scientific ideas. Before a final philosophical rendering
could be made, it was necessary to turn once more to the
objective aspect of the world, and carry out, in all their
rigor, the^ principles on which science proceeds ; and this
was the great task of the scientific development which
dominates the thought of the nineteenth century.

And, finally, there was a new social spirit coming to
birth, which Hegel failed also to satisfy. For him, the
task of philosophy was simply to interpret the movement
of the Universal Spirit as it had already embodied itself in
social institutions ; it was not in any sense to prophesy, or
to construct ideals. The whole effort of Hegel had been
to show that truth is to be found in the actual, that be-
tween thought and reality, the ideal and the real, there is
no separation. Substantial freedom consists in accepting
the duties of our position in Society as we find it, not in
setting our finite wills in rebellion against the world spirit.
To the new temper which was beginning to demand so-
cial justice, and a reconstitution of society that should
give something for the mass of men to hope for, and re-

German Idealism 467

lieve the sufferings of those with whom the Idea had not
seen fit to concern itself, Hegel seemed to have nothing to
say. Indeed, to men of such a temper, he appeared even
a reactionary — one who had found the highest expression
of human freedom in that latest development of History,
the corrupt Prussian State of his day, beyond which it was
idle to attempt to look.

Without trying, then, to disentangle all the complexity
of recent philosophical thought, we may consider, briefly,
three or four of the more representative names and move-
ments : the return, in Schopenhauer, to the thing-in-itself
as a reality deeper than experience and thought ; the com-
bination of scientific method and social amelioration, with
an ultimate agnosticism, in the Positivism of Comte ; and
the rise of the theory and philosophy of Evolution in
Darwin and Spencer.

LITERATURE

Hegel, Chief Works : Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) ; Logic (1816) ;
Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (1817) ; Philosophy of Right
(1821); Philosophy of Religion; Esthetics; Philosophy of History;
History of Philosophy . Translations: Wallace (Logic, Philosophy of
Mind) ; Sibree (Philosophy of History) ; Dyde (Philosophy of Right) ;
Bosanquet, (Philosophy of Art} ; Hastie (Esthetics') ; Haldane (History
of Philosophy).

Sterrett, The Ethics of Hegel.

Stirling, The Secret of Hegel.

Caird, Hegel.

Kedney, HegeVs ^Esthetics.

Morris, HegeFs Philosophy of the State and of History.

Harris, Hegel's Logic.

Seth, From Kant to Hegel.

Seth, Hegelianism and Personality.

Wallace, Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel.

McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian Dialectic.

McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian Cosmology.

Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel.

Baillie, Origin and Significance of Hegel's Logic.

Hibben, HegeVs Logic.

Mackintosh, Hegel and Hegelianism.

PHILOSOPHY SINCE HEGEL

§ 39. Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1788. His father died
when he was a youth, and between himself and his mother,
who was a popular novelist of the day, so little sympathy
existed, that they found it desirable to live apart. Scho-
penhauer's system was conceived early in life, and his chief
work — The World as Will and as Idea — was published
in 1819. The cold reception which it received was a severe
blow to Schopenhauer's vanity, which was considerable ;
and it increased his disgust with the reigning philosophy.
He was thoroughly convinced that there was a conspiracy
among the school philosophers against him, and he could
find nothing too disparaging to say of them in turn, par-
ticularly of Hegel. He had come in contact with Hegel
at Berlin, where he was appointed Privatdocent in 1820.
He apparently had cherished hopes that he could easily
triumph over the great philosopher, whose popularity was
then at its height; and he deliberately set himself in ri-
valry, by choosing the same hour for his lectures. When,
consequently, he found his own lectures unattended, and
Hegel's classroom thronged, he was greatly disappointed
and embittered, and finally was led to give up all thought
of an academic career. The rest of his life was spent in
quiet at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Toward the close of his
life, the recognition he had failed of in his youth seemed
on the point of coming to him. His book began to be
talked about, and, especially in its pessimism, to find con-
verts, if not among the technical philosophers, at least
among the laity. This growing fame soothed his last days.
He died in 1860.

468

Philosophy since Hegel 469

i. The World as Will. — The two notable things about
Schopenhauer's philosophy are (i) his doctrine of the
Will as the thing-in-itself, and (2) the way in which he
founds on this basis the first systematic philosophy of Pes-
simism. Schopenhauer's whole doctrine relates itself to
Kant, to whom he professes to go back in opposition to
the idealistic tendency which culminated in Hegel. Ac-
cording to Kant, the world as we know it is a phenomenal
construction of the self. " ' The world is my idea ' — this
is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and
knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and
abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has
attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear
and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and
an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels
an earth ; that the world that surrounds him is there
only as idea, t.e., only in relation to something else — the
consciousness which is himself." *

But if the world is illusion, appearance, there also exists
back of it the reality which appears, — the thing-in-itself of
Kant, which Schopenhauer defends vigorously against the
attacks of the Idealists. Is, however, this thing-in-itself
unknowable ? Here Schopenhauer ceases to follow Kant's
leading. It is true we cannot reach it by the pathway of
the logical reason ; we cannot demonstrate it in the strict
sense of the word. It is rather the result of an intuition
of genius. But still we may attain to a highly probable
conception of its nature. For we ourselves are a part of
the real universe, and in ourselves we come upon reality at
first hand, through immediate experience. If, accordingly,
we can get at our own true nature, we may by analogy
extend this to other things as well, since it is natural to
assume that reality is all of a piece. Now the inner essence
of man's nature is will — this is the first insight of Scho-
penhauer. Man, that is, is not primarily a thinking, an in-

1 The World as Will and Idea. Translation by Haldane and Kemp, Vol. I,
p. I . (Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co.)

470 A Student's History of Philosophy

tellectual being, as philosophy has tended to assume ; he is
primarily active, willing. The reality of his own body is
given to him immediately as will. Will, and the movement
of the body, are one thing; my body is the objectivity of
my will. The various parts of the body are the visible
expression of desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels are objec-
tified hunger. The brain is the will to know, the foot the
will to go, the stomach the will to digest. It is only on the
basis of this active self-expansion that the thought life
arises. We think in order to do ; the active impulse pre-
cedes, and is the necessary basis for any conscious motive.
Now this thought, once attained, throws a flood of light
on the outer world. The eternally striving, energizing
power which is working everywhere in the universe — in the
instinct of the animal, in the life process of the plant, in
the blind force of inorganic matter — is not this just the
will which underlies all existence ? " If we observe the
strong and unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry
to the ocean, the persistency with which the magnet turns
ever to the north pole, the readiness with which iron flies
to the magnet, the eagerness with which the electric poles
seek to be reunited, and which, just like human desire, is
increased by obstacles ; if we see the crystal quickly take
form with such wonderful regularity of construction, which
is clearly only a perfectly definite and accurately deter-
mined impulse in different directions, seized and retained
by crystallization ; if we observe the choice with which
bodies repel and attract each other ; lastly, if we feel di-
rectly how a burden which hampers our body by its gravi-
tation toward the earth, increasingly presses and strains
upon it in pursuit of its one tendency, — if we observe all
this, I say, it will require no great effort of the imagination
to recognize, even at so great a distance, our own nature.
That which in us pursues its ends by the light of knowl-
edge, but here, in the weakest of its manifestations, only
strives blindly and dumbly in a one-sided and unchangeable
manner, must yet in both cases come under the name of

Philosophy since Hegel 471

Will, as it is everywhere one and the same ; just as the
first dim light of dawn must share the name of sunlight
with the rays of the full mid-day." a

Reality, then, is Will, which is one and indivisible. All
apparent multiplicity is due to those subjective forms of
merely human thought, which come between us and the
truth — namely, space and time. "As the magic lantern
shows many different pictures, which are all made visible
by one and the same light, so in all the multifarious phe-
nomena which fill the world together, or throng after each
other as events, only one will manifests itself, of which
everything is the visibility, the objectivity, and which
remains unmoved in the midst of this change." 2 But now
from will we must cut away all that action for intelligent
ends which characterizes the human will. Intelligence
is only a surface phenomenon — a form which existence
assumes for the attainment of its hungry striving, but a
form quite foreign to its real nature. In itself, will is blind
and irrational. In all its lower aspects it is without knowl-
edge ; the nests of birds and the webs of spiders are not
the product of intelligence, but of unforeseeing instinct.
It is only as its manifestations become more complex, that
it kindles for itself, in intellect, a light as a means of get-
ting rid of the disadvantages arising from this complexity.
The will is thus more original than the intellect ; it is the
blind man carrying on his shoulders the lame man who
can see.

2. The Philosophy of Pessimism. — And this gives the
basis for Schopenhauer's pessimism; it follows from the
very nature of will. All willing arises from want, and so
from deficiency, and so from suffering. " The satisfaction
of a wish ends it, yet for one wish that is satisfied there
remain at least ten that are denied. Further, the desire
lasts long, and demands are infinite ; the satisfaction is
short and scantily measured out. It is like the alms
thrown Ur a beggar, that keeps him alive to-day, that his
misery may be prolonged till the morrow. So long as we
*!,?. 153. 2 1, p. 199.

472 A Student's History of Philosophy

are given up to the throng of desires, with their constant
hopes and fears, so long as we are the subjects of willing,
we can never have lasting happiness or peace. It is
essentially all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear in-
jury or seek enjoyment ; the care for the constant demands
of the will continually occupies and sways the conscious-
ness." * The subject of willing thus is constantly stretched
on the revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve
of the Danaides, is the ever-longing Tantalus. No pos-
sible satisfaction in the world could suffice to still the
longings of the will, set a goal to its infinite craving, and
fill the bottomless abyss of its heart.

Life itself, therefore, is fundamentally an evil ; as
Calderon says : The greatest crime of man is that he was
born. " There is no proportion between the cares and
troubles of life, and the results or gain of it. In the
simple and easily surveyed life of the brutes, the empti-
ness and vanity of the struggle is more easily grasped.
The variety of the organizations, the ingenuity of the
means, whereby each is adapted to its element and its
prey, contrasts here distinctly with the want of any lasting
final aim ; instead of which there presents itself only
momentary comfort, fleeting pleasure conditioned by wants,
much and long suffering, constant strife, bellum omnium,
each one both a hunter and hunted, pressure, want, need,
and anxiety, shrieking and howling. And this goes on in
secula seculorum, or till once again the crust of the planet
breaks."

" Let us now add the consideration of the human race.
Here also life presents itself by no means as a gift for
enjoyment, but as a task, a drudgery to be performed;
and in accordance with this we see, in great and small,
universal need, ceaseless wars, cares, constant pressure,
endless strife, compulsory activity, with extreme exertion
of all the powers of mind and body. Many millions, united
into nations, strive for the common good, each individual

^.P- 253-

Philosophy since Hegel 473

on account of his own ; but many thousands fall as a
sacrifice for it. Now senseless delusions, now intriguing
politics, excite them to wars with each other; then the
sweat and the blood of the great multitude must flow, to
carry out the ideas of individuals, or to expiate their faults.
In peace, industry and trade are active, inventions work
miracles, seas are navigated, delicacies are collected from
all ends of the world, the waves engulf thousands. All
strive, some planning, some acting; the tumult is in-
describable. But the ultimate aim of it all — what is it ?
To sustain ephemeral and tormented individuals through
a short span of life, in the most fortunate case with endur-
able want and comparative freedom from pain, which,
however, is at once attended with ennui ; then the repro-
duction of this race and its striving. In this evident dis-
proportion between the trouble and the reward, the will
to live appears to us from this point of view, if taken ob-
jectively, as a fool, or subjectively, as a delusion, seized by
which everything living works with the utmost exertion of
its strength, for something that is of no value." *

" The enchantment of distance shows us paradises which
vanish like optical illusions when we have allowed our-
selves to be mocked by them. Happiness, accordingly,
always lies in the future, or else in the past, and the pres-
ent may be compared to a small dark cloud which the
wind drives over the sunny plain ; before and behind it
all is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow." 2 Pleasure
is merely negative, and only evil is real. We feel pain,
but not painlessness ; care, but not the absence of care ;
fear, but not security. Hence all poets are obliged to
bring their heroes into anxious and painful situations, so
that they may be able to free them from these. The
happiest moment of the happy man is the moment of his
falling asleep. " The earthquake of Lisbon, the earth-
quake of Haiti, the destruction of Pompeii, are only small
playful hints of what is possible. A small alteration of
1 m, pp. ii2ff. * m, P. 383.

474 ^ Student's History of Philosophy

the atmosphere causes cholera, yellow fever, black death,
which carry off millions of men ; a somewhat greater altera-
tion would extinguish all life. A very moderate increase
of heat would dry up all the rivers and springs. The
brutes have received just barely so much in the way of
organs and powers as enables them to procure, with the
greatest exertion, sustenance for their own lives, and food
for their offspring; therefore if a brute loses a limb, or
even the full use of one, it must generally perish. Even
of the human race, powerful as are the weapons it pos-
sesses in understanding and reason, nine-tenths live in
constant conflict with want, balancing themselves with
difficulty and effort upon the brink of destruction." *
" Whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but
from this our actual world? And yet he made a very
proper hell of it. And when on the other hand he came
to the task of describing Heaven and its delights, he had
an insurmountable difficulty before him, for our world
affords no material at all for this."2

It is wholly impossible, then, to find a purpose or
meaning in life. Why the whole tragi-comedy exists
cannot in the least be seen, since it has no spectators, and
the actors themselves undergo infinite trouble, with little
and merely negative pleasure. " What, then, is a short
postponement of death, a slight easing of misery or defer-
ment of pain, a momentary stilling of desire, compared
with such an abundant and certain victory over them all
as death ? What could such advantages accomplish taken
as active moving causes of a human race, innumerable
because constantly renewed, which unceasingly moves,
strives, struggles, grieves, writhes, and performs the whole
tragi-comedy of the history of the world, nay, what says
more than all, perseveres in such a mock existence, as long
as each one possibly can. Clearly this is all inexplicable
if we seek the moving causes outside the figures, and con-
ceive the human will as striving in consequence of rational
i III, P. 396. a I, P. 416.

Philosophy since Hegel 475

reflection after those good things held out to it, the attain-
ment of which would be a sufficient reward for its ceaseless
cares and troubles. The matter being taken thus, every
one would rather have long ago said : ' Le jeu ne vaut pas
la chandelle? and have gone out. But, on the contrary,
every one guards and defends his life, like a precious
pledge intrusted to him under heavy responsibility. The
wherefore and the why, the reward for this, certainly he
does not see ; but he has accepted the worth of that pledge
without seeing it, upon trust and faith. The puppets are
not pulled from without, but each bears in itself the clock-
work from which its movements result. This is the will
to live, manifesting itself as an untiring machine, an irra-
tional tendency, which has not its sufficient reason in the
external world." 1 It is this blind pressure, without goal or
motive, which drives us on, and not anything that we can
rationally justify. "We pursue our life with great interest
and much solicitude as long as possible ; so we blow out a
soap bubble as long and as large as possible, although we
know perfectly well that it will burst."2 Accordingly we
often see a miserable figure, deformed and shrunk with
age, want, and disease, implore our help from the bottom
of his heart for the prolongation of an existence, the end
of which would necessarily appear altogether desirable if
it were an objective judgment that determined here.
Surely, if one knocked on the graves, and asked the dead
whether they wished to rise again, they would shake their
heads.

3. The Way of Salvation. — Such are the facts of life ;
is there no deliverance ? Can we never for a moment be set
free from the miserable striving of the will, keep the sab-
bath of the penal servitude of willing, while the wheel of
Ixion stands still ? Yes, in a more or less complete way,
man may free himself from this all-devouring will to live.
The first and partial road to deliverance is through art.
Art has to do, not with the particular things of the phe-

1 III, p. 115. a I, p. 402.

476 A Student *s History of Philosophy

nomenal world, which can serve as a satisfaction to cur
desires, but rather with the eternal types which are repre-
sented in the objectification of the World Will — the stages
which it has assumed. Art is concerned with ideas. It
repeats or reproduces the eternal ideas grasped through
pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all the
phenomena of the world. In relation to these, the details
of the natural world, and the multitudinous events of his-
tory, are just as foreign and unessential and indifferent as
the figures which they assume are to the clouds, the form
of its eddies and foam flakes to the brook, or its trees and
flowers to the ice. Astonishment at the complete same-
ness of all its million phenomena, and the infallibility of
their occurrence, is really like that of a child or a savage,
who looks for the first time through a glass with many
facets at a flower, and marvels at the complete simi-
larity of the innumerable flowers which he sees. The
one source of art is the knowledge of the ideas; its
one aim the communication of this knowledge. "While
science, following the unresting and inconstant stream
of the fourfold forms of reason and consequent, with
each end attained sees farther, and can never reach a
final goal, any more than by running we can reach the
place where the clouds touch the horizon, art, on the con-
trary, is everywhere at its goal. For it plucks the object
of its contemplation out of the stream of the world's course,
and has it isolated before it. And this particular thing
which, in that stream, was a small perishing part, becomes
to art the representative of the whole, an equivalent of the
endless multitude in space and time. It therefore pauses
at this particular thing ; the course of time stops ; the
relations vanish for it; only the essential, the idea, is its
object."1

In the pure contemplation of these Platonic ideas, the
soul finds thus a momentary release from striving, and by
its disinterestedness it denies for a time the remorseless

1 1, p- 239.

Philosophy since Hegel 477

will to live. Knowledge breaks free from the service of
the will, and loses itself in the object; man forgets his
individuality, his will, and only continues to exist as the
pure subject, the clear mirror of the object — the pure,
will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge. The fac-
ulty of continuing in this state of pure perception, and of
enlisting in this service the knowledge which originally
existed only for the service of the will, is what we call
genius. Genius is the power of entirely renouncing one's
own personality for a time, so as to remain pure knowing
subject, clear vision of the world. The common mortal,
the manufacture of nature which she produces by the
thousand every day, is not capable thus of observation
that in every sense is wholly disinterested ; he can turn
his attention to things only so far as they have some rela-
tion to his will.

But such moments as art can give, are too fleeting for
complete deliverance — that can come about only by the
complete suppression of the will to live. This cannot be
attained by suicide. The destruction of its phenomenal
manifestation, the body, leaves quite unchanged that un-
derlying will which is the true cause of our misery. The
real source of the conditions we are trying to escape
remains untouched by death. " If a man fears death as his
annihilation, it is just as if he were to think that the sun cries
out at evening : Woe is me ! for I go down into eternal
night." x The suicide, therefore, goes to work the wrong
way. Instead of denying the will, he gives up living just
because he cannot give up willing. True deliverance
comes, not by rejecting life, but the desire for life ; not by
shunning sorrows, but by shunning joys. To the attain-
ment of this happy consummation, morality forms a step.
Morality is in essence the crushing out of the egoistic self-
assertion, which is ready to annihilate the world in order to
maintain its own self, that drop in the ocean, a little longer ;
it does this through the recognition of the fact that, after

1 1, P. 361.

478 A Student's History of Philosophy

all, it is only phenomenally that I differ from my neighbor.
In reality, each man must say to himself with reference
to other things : This art Thou. Down beneath the ap-
pearance of difference which the space and time forms
give, it is the same unitary will which constitutes your
life and mine ; and so our interests are not different, but
identical. The true root of all morality, therefore, is sym-
pathy; for sympathy is nothing but the obscure percep-
tion of this identity between myself and my neighbor.

But while morality is a partial abandonment of the
striving will, in so far as it sinks the law of mere self-
preservation in a sense of human brotherhood, it is only
the starting-point. He who through morality, however,
by renouncing every accidental advantage, desires for him-
self no other lot than that of humanity in general, cannot
desire even this long. And thus only do we reach the
final goal. True salvation only comes when all striving
ceases, when we mortify the deeds of the body by volun-
tarily crushing out all desire and all activity. " Every
gratification of our wishes won from the world is like the
alms which the beggar receives from life to-day, that he
may hunger again to-morrow; resignation, on the con-
trary, is like an inherited estate, it frees the owner forever
from all care." *

The highest ideal of life, then, is that ascetic starvation
of all the impulses, which results in the attainment of
Nirvana, the heaven of the extinction of consciousness.
" Then nothing can trouble a man more, nothing can move
him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which
hold us bound to the world, and, as desire, fear, envy,
anger, drag us hither and thither in constant pain. He
now looks back smiling and at rest on the delusions of this
world, which once were able to move and agonize his spirit
also, but which now stand before him as utterly indifferent
to him as the chessmen when the game is ended, or as in
the morning the cast-off masquerading dress, which worried

1 1, p. 504.

Philosophy since Hegel 479

and disquieted us in the night in carnival. Life and its
forms now pass before him as a fleeting illusion, as a light
morning dream before half waking eyes, the real world
already shining through it so that it can no longer deceive ;
and like this morning dream, they finally vanish altogether,
without any violent transition." Is it said that this is an
ideal of nothingness ? It is not denied. " Rather do we
freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abo-
lition of the will, is, for all those who are still full of will,
certainly nothing ; but conversely, to those in whom the
will has turned and has denied itself, this our world which
is so real, with all its suns and milky ways — is nothing." 1

LITERATURE

Schopenhauer, Chief Works : Fourfold Root of the Principle of
Sufficient Reason (1813); World as Will and as Idea (1819). Trans-
lations : Haldane and Kemp (World as Will and as Idea); Hille-
brand (Fourfold Root) ; Bax (Essays) ; Saunders (Essays).

Wallace, Schopenhauer.

Sully, Pessimism.

Caldwell, Schopenhauer's System in its Philosophical Significance*

Wenley, Aspects of Pessimism.

§ 40. Comte and Positivism

I. In the Positivism of the French philosopher Comte,
the claims of science receive a full recognition. Augustc
Comte, born in 1798, was influenced in early life by the
Socialist St. Simon, and it was from him that he got the
germ, at least, of the idea which was to make him more
than a philosopher of science, and lead him to subordinate
his scientific interests to the conception of man and society.
His Cours de Philosophic Positive, published in 1839-
1842, gave him a position among the most important think-
ers of his day. A school of Positivism soon appeared in
France, and in England men like J. S. Mill and Herbert
1 1> PP- S°4» 532.

480 A Student's History of Philosophy

Spencer, though never disciples in the strict sense, were
influenced by him. His death occurred in 1857.

Positivism means the definite abandonment of all search
for ultimate causes, and the inner essence of things, and
the turning of human attention rather toward the laws of
phenomena as the only facts alike knowable and useful.
Knowledge is of value because it helps us modify condi-
tions in the physical and the social world ; to do this we
need to know how things act, and that is all we need to
know. This limitation of all knowledge to phenomena
Comte hardly attempts to prove in detail. He assumes it
to be self-evident to all minds that are abreast of their age ;
it is the one great lesson which the history of human
thought has to teach. This is the outcome of Comte's
famous " Law of the Three Stages." Man starts in by
explaining the phenomena of nature theologically. He
attributes the activities of things to an arbitrary will, such
as he finds in himself. In its earliest and most thorough-
going form this is fetichism, which obviously leaves but
little room for the recognition of positive law. Later on,
the conception of a separate will in each material thing
becomes generalized, and we have the polytheistic stage.
Polytheism is more general and abstract in character than
fetichism ; the gods act through things, without things
themselves being alive ; and by reason of this greater
abstractness, the secondary details of phenomena are set
free for scientific observation.

The final stage of theological thought is monotheism.
Here we have everything brought back to a single abstract
will, and consequently a still wider extension of scientific
observation is made possible in connection with the details
of nature. Just because it is so abstract, however, mono-
theism cannot yield any permanent satisfaction, and must
give place to a strictly scientific explanation. But it can-
not do this immediately — a transition stage must intervene ;
and this is the stage of metaphysics. Metaphysics drops,
indeed, the idea of a personal will, but it substitutes there-

Philosophy since Hegel 481

for, not positive law, but metaphysical essences and pow-
ers, mere abstract repetitions of the gods of the previous
stage, the dry bones of the living creatures of poetry.
These furnish no real explanation, accordingly, but are only
the phenomena over again, with an abstract name substi-
tuted for the concrete facts. To the metaphysical stage
succeeds the final goal of human thought, \hzpositive stage,
which occupies itself solely with the facts of experience,
and the laws which they reveal, without making the
impossible attempt to penetrate behind phenomena to the
unknown real.

The first part of Comte's task, then, is to sum up in
organized form the laws of the various sciences. This
organization he tries to carry out by a definite hierarchy
of the sciences, beginning with the most abstract — mathe-
matics — and passing up, in the order of greater and greater
complexity, through astronomy, physics, chemistry, to biol-
ogy, each science basing itself on, and making use of, the
results of the science beneath it. But now there is one
great class of facts which has not been touched — the facts
of social life ; and here we come to the centre of Comte's
whole position, and that which gives him his greatest his-
torical importance. He will furnish a crown and climax
to his whole system, by founding a positive science of so-
ciety, a sociology. Not only will he thus bring within the
scope of the positive scientific method the whole round of
experienced facts, but he will also give to what has preceded
its unity and rational justification. For as each group of
sciences enters into the next higher group, so the whole
science of material nature gets its reason and end in the
service of humanity. Here we have not, indeed, an objec-
tive and absolute principle of unity for our philosophy,
a unity based on the inner essence of reality, which we
have seen to be unknowable ; but at least we have a sub-
jective and practical basis. That basis is humanity, whose
life we can modify because we know its laws ; and it is
for the service of humanity that science exists. Humanity

21

482 A Student's History of Philosophy

is our highest concept. Whatever the foundation of things
may be in itself, however indifferent or hostile to human
progress, at least things may up to a certain point be com-
pelled to enter the service of man. And only in so far as
knowledge can turn their laws into an instrument of ser-
vice, need we regard them.

2. The object of Comte in his Sociology is essentially
the same as that of Hegel — to discover definite laws in
the development of social experience. With Comte there
is the added purpose, however, of showing how these laws
point to a more adequate social state in the future. He is
trying, that is, to get a satisfactory social ideal, not as an
arbitrary construction, but as a carrying-out of those ten-
dencies and forces which are already at work in society.
The general form of the result which he reaches has already
been given in the principle of the three stages ; it is in the
elaboration of this, in its connection with the social as
well as the purely theoretic life, that the substance of his
social theory consists, and the basis is found for his pro-
posed reconstruction of society.

Very briefly, this connection is as follows : The theologi-
cal stage represents the socialization of the human race.
For any real social union, a certain community of belief is
required, and this common doctrine is furnished by the-
ology, least adequately in its earlier and fetichistic stage,
more completely in its latest, or monotheistic.

In this grade of social attainment, however, there are
certain defects involved. In the first place, the union of
the temporal with the spiritual power which exists in the
earlier stages of society, is detrimental to the best interests
of the latter. The great function of the priesthood is to
supply those moral and social sanctions which keep society
together; but this necessitates certain intellectual gifts
which are not identical with the gifts called for by the
immediate work of social administration. Unless the two
offices, therefore, are kept distinct, the more insistent and
practical needs will prevail, and this will involve the su-

Philosophy since Hegel 483

premacy of a lower order of intelligence, that will not be
adequate to the spiritual functions. It was the great merit
of the Middle Ages, the one period of history to which
Comte looks back continually with admiration, that they
brought about the separation of these two functions, giv-
ing to the priesthood a supremacy of guidance and advice,
while secular affairs, matters of action, were handed over
to a secular power. In this way the conflict between men
of action and men of thought was reconciled. Moral
and intellectual eminence could now win position, as it
could not in the practical field. At the same time, morals
were made independent of politics. They were released
from service to the particular state, which had kept them
dominated by the military spirit necessary for self-pres-
ervation, and were given a general and universal charac-
ter. This, in turn, reacted upon and moralized politics.
But now, in the second place, although this separation
of the spiritual and secular powers in the Middle Ages
represents on the formal side the ideal, monotheism was
unable to supply the adequate material by means of which
the spiritual power could construct those common beliefs
on which social unity must rest. This can only be accom-
plished on the basis of facts so compelling, as to insure
their general acceptance ; and so on the basis of Positiv-
ism. But before such a result can come about, there must
be a preliminary work of clearing the ground. This is
the work of the metaphysical stage, or of the period of the
Enlightenment. The function of the Enlightenment is
thus simply negative and revolutionary. By reference to
this negative task, all its characteristic dogmas have their
explanation ; they represent simply a denial of different
parts of the old social order based on theology. Such are
the doctrines of the right of private judgment, and of the
equality of all men, and the theory of government which
reduces it to mere police functions. Thus, because the
Enlightenment is in antagonism with the ancient order, its
tendency is to represent all government as being the enemy

484 A Students History of Philosophy

of society. Liberty of conscience, again, is the mere
abstract expression of that temporary state in which the
human mind was left by the decay of the theological phi-
losophy, and which must last until the social philosophy
appears, to supply a new positive content of belief.

The result is that a division arises between the heart
and the intellect. This must continue until the intellect
shows itself capable of producing a new system that can
more securely sustain the social order, and more com-
pletely satisfy the affections and spiritual aspirations of
man, than the fictions of theology had done. This recon-
ciliation is found in Positivism. In opposition to the indi-
vidualistic dogmas of the Enlightenment, Positivism goes
back for its ideal to the Middle Ages. Like the Middle
Ages, it insists upon the necessity of an independent spir-
itual power, which shall formulate the doctrines on which
society is to be founded, and morality based. But these
doctrines are no longer theological ; they are the outcome
of science. This regeneration of social doctrine must raise
up from the midst of anarchy a new spiritual authority,
which, after having disciplined the human intellect, and
reconstructed morals, will peaceably become the basis of a
final system of human society.

But now with knowledge placed thus upon a positive
basis, " freedom of conscience " can no longer have any
justification. This is merely provisional to the final deci-
sion, and if insisted upon as absolute, becomes an obstacle
to reorganization. When social and religious questions are
given scientific treatment, liberty of conscience is as much
out of the question as it is, e.g., in astronomy or physics.
There are few people who consider themselves fitted to
sit in judgment on an astronomical problem ; can it be
supposed that the most important and the most delicate
conceptions, and those which by their complexity are
accessible to only a small number of highly prepared
understandings, are to be abandoned to the arbitrary and
variable decisions of the least competent minds ? A disso-

Philosophy since Hegel 485

lution of the social state would necessarily ensue if this
were allowed. Social order must ever be incompatible
with a perpetual discussion of the foundations of society.
The convergence of minds requires a renunciation by the
greater number of their rights of individual inquiry, on
subjects above their qualifications, and requiring more
than any others a real and permanent agreement.

The spiritual power in the new society is thus a priestly
guild, made up of the highest order of intellects, working
in the intellectual realm, not for science on its own account
— specialism in science is forbidden — but for the inter-
ests of humanity. Such a priesthood is preserved from
all temptation to prostitute its position, by being entirely
removed from civil power, and confined simply to the
moral influence of advice and theoretical formulation.
What, now, is to be the constitution on the civil side?
Here another principle comes into play, which likewise has
been brought out by the survey of social development. This
development has been a progress from a military to an
industrial basis. The military organization necessarily
comes first. The industrial spirit supposes the existence
of a considerable social attainment, such as could not have
taken place till isolated families had been connected by
the pursuits of war. So, too, war has laid the foundation
of habits of regularity and discipline; while slavery, the
consequence of war, gives rise directly to habits of indus-
try. But with its work accomplished, military civilization
must give way to an industrial civilization.

At the present, many of the features of the old regime
still hold over ; but the new society will be placed con-
sciously and completely on an industrial basis. Here,
again, the "equality" of the Revolution finds no place.
Since society is an organism, different members have dif-
ferent parts to play, and thus necessarily have different
values and rewards. And as in the sciences, the princi-
ple of subordination can only be that of the degree of gen-
erality. The more particular the industrial function, the

486 A Student's History of Philosophy

greater the subordination ; the more general it is, and the
more it involves a coordination of activities, the higher
the rank which the wielder assumes. Accordingly, we
have a capitalistic regime, headed by the " captains of in-
dustry," and culminating in the banker, who, as exercising
the most general function, is the leader of society on the
side of its active work. In this general organization, all
workers will find their place, and so all distinction between
public and private functions will be dropped.

The dangers of this capitalism are to be avoided by the
growing moralization of society, by the moral influence
which the disinterested priesthood will exert, and by the
power on the part of labor to refuse cooperation — peace-
ful strikes. The positive foundation given to the laws
of conduct will exercise a compulsion unknown before.
Moral rules will have acquired a new energy and tenacity
when they rest on a clear understanding of the influence
which the actions and the tendencies of each individual
must exercise on human life. The mere fact that each
man is consciously working for the general welfare of so-
ciety will 'arouse a new enthusiasm. Other men would
feel, if their labor were but systematized, what the private
soldier feels in the discharge of his humblest duty — the
dignity of public service, and the honor of a share in
the action of the general economy. The priests and the
workers will be natural allies, and their union will be
enough to counteract the selfish tendencies of the civil
power, and keep it true to the service of humanity.

3. So much for the earlier form of Comte's philosophy.
In later years he lost much of the sanity of his earlier
views, and attempted to convert his philosophy into a
religion of humanity. Unable to satisfy the longings of
the heart by truth, Cojmte was led to substitute for this
poetry. The Grand Eire — Humanity — is worshiped as
the mediator between the outer world and man, and as
the real author of the benefits for which thanks were
formerly given to God — a worship to which was added

Philosophy since Hegel 487

that of the earth as the Great Fetich, and of space as the
Great Medium. An elaborate and fanciful ritual was
introduced to give impressiveness to this worship. Nor
was this a matter of choice merely. The paternalism
which was implicit in Comte's earlier thought comes more
and more to the front, in a rigid subordination of the un-
fortunate member of the new society to every whim and
vagary of the High Priest of Humanity. But as on this
side Comte's thought has had but little influence, we may
pass it by with this brief notice.

LITERATURE

Comte, Chief Work: Positive Philosophy (1830-42). Translation:
Harriet Martineau {Positive Philosophy}.
Mill, Comte and Positivism.

Caird, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte.
Watson, Outline of Philosophy.
Fiske, Darwinism and other Essays.
Mackintosh, From Comte to Benjamin Kidd.
Martineau, Essays.
Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory.
Morley, Auguste Comte (in Critical Miscellanies).
Levy-Bruhl, Philosophy of Auguste Comte.

§ 41. Utilitarianism and Evolution. Spencer

I. Utilitarianism. — Outside his own country, it was in
England that Comte's writings met with most sympathy
and favor. The prevailing English type of thought has
from the start been empirical and practical, rather than
speculative. It cares more for facts and results than for
the speculative grounds on which these are to be justified.
Accordingly, the more widely influential tendencies in
English philosophy have exhibited just that interest in
social reform, and that sense for scientific fact as opposed
to metaphysical theory, which are found in Comte. On
the practical side, this is most clearly represented in the
Utilitarianism of the school of Bentham and the Mills.

488 A Student's History of Philosophy

Based on an individualistic and hedonistic philosophy, the
spirit of Utilitarianism has yet always been thoroughly
social in its nature. Its hedonism has always been at bot-
tom, not private pleasure, but public use ; it has stood for
the need of establishing the alleged Tightness or wrong-
ness of any act, by its relation to human welfare. Its em-
piricism has set it in opposition to all a priori and innate
truths. And the source of this opposition has been at bot-
tom the practical one of hostility to the forces of conserva-
tism and tradition, which stand in the way of progress,
and justify existing wrongs. If all our beliefs rest ulti-
mately, not on intuitions of absolute truth, which there-
fore cannot be changed, but on the mere association of
ideas gathered from experience, there is nothing to hin-
der these associations from being broken up again, when
this is required by the demands of human progress;
and we can always bring them anew to the test of experi-
ence. Accordingly, Utilitarianism has gone hand in hand
with public reforms and political liberty. The movement
has its most attractive representative in John Stuart Mill.
His greatest philosophical achievement is perhaps his
Logic, which is the starting-point for the modern treat-
ment of inductive reasoning.

2. Psycho-Physical Parallelism. Fechner. — The two
great scientific doctrines of the nineteenth century are
also closely connected with England. For the honor
of the first formulation of the doctrine of the Conserva-
tion of Energy, by which a new unity has been given to
the mechanical interpretation of the universe, there are
rival claimants, one of them an Englishman ; and at least
the working out of the doctrine has been in considerable
measure due to English scientists. This Law of the Con-
servation of Energy has had one philosophical result so
important as to deserve a special mention. It has given
a new emphasis to the feeling, on the part of scientists,
that it is impossible to call in consciousness to serve in any
sense as an explanation of bodily acts. If the Law of

Philosophy since Hegel 489

Conservation is not to be violated, then the physical
universe forms a closed system in which there is no place
for a new influence, as such a consciousness would be, com-
ing in from the outside to modify the result. Accordingly,
there has been a wide-spread disposition to accept the
doctrine of the automatism of the physical body, and to
regard the psychical processes as simply running along-
side the physical movements, without exerting any influence
upon them. This is called the doctrine of psycho-physical
parallelism — a doctrine which has been further strength-
ened by the tendency of psychology, as an empirical
science, to find a physiological correlate to every aspect of
the conscious life.

This parallelism must, however, have some further ex-
planation in the nature of things ; and so there has been
a tendency to return to Spinoza's conception of an ultimate
identity of mind and body. The physical and the psychi-
cal are only two ways of looking at a single ultimate reality,
which is either unlike both of them, and so unknown, or
else is identical with the conscious series. This last hypoth-
esis was popularized by the German philosopher Fechner.
The reality of what we call our body is the conscious life
which we immediately experience ; it is only the outside
observer looking at this, who sees it as a material fact.
But then we must interpret every physical object in the
same way, and find the true being, not only of animals,
but of plants and inanimate things, in a conscious life like
our own, only less complex. All these minor conscious-
nesses have their unity in the one great life of God, as the
things which are their phenomenal appearances are brought
together in the all-embracing unity of scientific law. One
of the most persuasive recent advocates of this doctrine is
Friedrich Paulsen.

3. The Theory of Evolution. — But the doctrine whose
philosophical results have been most far-reaching, and
which, indeed, has tinged all the thought of the last half
century, has undeniably sprung from English soil. It is

490 A Student's History of Philosophy

not the purpose here to describe in detail the theory of
evolution; in its general outlines it is now familiar to
every one. The old conception of God, which places
Him outside the world, which He influences only arbi-
trarily and miraculously, and which, therefore, He has a
direct relation to only in so far as we get beyond the
sphere of natural law, had made a stand on the existence
of organisms. It had claimed that here, at least, an out-
side interference has evidently taken place. For the dif-
ferent organs — the eye, e.g., or the hand — are evidently
designed to perform their various functions ; and design
implies an outside designer, an intelligent cause. Each
separate species, then, must be regarded as created out-
right by an act of God.

Darwin's merit lay in the fact that he brought the world
of organic life, as previous science had brought the inor-
ganic world, under the reign of natural law, by pointing out
a vera causa, which at least would help account for the origin
of species without reference to such a miraculous agency.
It is a fact that no organism is an exact reproduction of a
preceding organism ; there are constant minute variations
in one direction or another from the parent forms. It is
also a fact that some of these variations are likely to be
more helpful to the animal than others. Some will be
in a direction to prove of advantage to it in dealing with
its environment, while others, again, will be useless, or posi-
tively detrimental. Now if the world were an easy place to
live in, if there were food in plenty for all, and no rivalry,
this would not be a matter of much consequence; but
such is not the case. Vastly greater numbers of all
kinds of animal life come into the world than can be
supported in it. There is as a result a continual struggle
for existence, and in the natural course of events, it
is the weaker individuals — the ones, that is, less adapted
to their environment — that go to the wall.

But here we have all the data for an explanation of
the existing adaptation of organisms, without the need of

Philosophy since Hegel 491

having recourse to an external designer. Grant that
variations are constantly taking place, some of which are
fitted to give the possessor a slight advantage in the
struggle for existence ; then this more favored individual
is likely to survive at the expense of his brothers and
sisters. And if, as our knowledge of heredity would
suggest, these inborn variations are transmitted to the ani-
mal's descendants, the basis is laid for a progressive devel-
opment which, given time enough, might result in all
the highly specialized forms of the present day. It is no
longer necessary to say, e.g., that animals in the north
have fur in order to protect them from the cold ; they
are protected from the cold, because they have fur. Thus
the whole aspect of the organic world has changed. In-
stead of having a number of distinct and permanent
species, which, if they are looked at simply in themselves,
seem too complex and teleological to be accounted for
as a purely natural product, we have a continuous stream
of process, in which nothing is fixed, but each step is
connected with the rest by a series of slight changes ; and
in which, therefore, each organ is to be explained, not sim-
ply by reference to its present stage, but by reference to
the whole development which here reaches a temporary
climax. And to this universal law of development, man is
of course no exception.

The theory of evolution was left by Darwin still incom-
plete. The importance of natural selection as an agency
is now, indeed, very generally admitted, but also it is
widely believed that it does not furnish a complete ac-
count. Indeed, it is plain that selection does not cause
advance in the first place. Selection can only take place
on the basis of an advance already made; and so the
question is brought back to the cause and nature of the
original variations which are afterward selected out, as well
as of the factor of heredity, which Darwin also took for
granted. The philosophy of evolution is, therefore, not
necessarily identical with Darwinism ; and, moreover, the

49 2 A Student's History of Philosophy

inconsistency of evolution with an ultimate teleology — a
conception of immanent purpose, as opposed to the external
design of the older argument — is not by any means shown.
The fact of a gradual development of organic forms may,
however, be regarded as practically established, and its
recognition has changed the whole aspect of human thought.
Not only in the biological sciences, but also in the realm
of human experience, the principle has been applied, and
is being applied, with results that are putting a new face on
all our knowledge. Here the evolutionism of Darwin comes
in contact with that of Hegel ; and in this contact, a recon-
struction of the conception is likely to be brought about.
The attempt to make the law of natural selection as promi-
nent in the social world as it has been supposed to be in
the physical, has hitherto not been successful. We may
expect to find the future devoting itself to the task of
coming to a better understanding of the way in which the
laws of these two diverse realms are related.

4. Herbert Spencer. — The most comprehensive attempt,
on the basis of the new science, to bring within a single for-
mula the complexity of the world, is that of Herbert Spen-
cer. Spencer was born in 1 820. His academic training was
slight ; his education did not proceed along the conventional
lines, but followed the direction of his natural preferences,
which were scientific and sociological, rather than literary
or historical. In his earlier years he engaged actively in
the profession of engineering. Intellectual interests became,
however, more and more predominant with him, and finally,
as the underlying principle which had been present in his
thinking from the start gradually became clear to his mind,
he determined deliberately to devote his life to expounding
it. The outline of a Synthetic Philosophy was drawn up,
to whose working out Spencer was to devote over forty
years of his life. The work was carried on under many
discouragements. At times he was at the point of being
compelled to abandon it through lack of money; and
throughout he was handicapped by a chronic semi-invalid-

Philosophy since Hegel 493

ism, brought on originally by overwork. But the work
was finally completed, substantially on the lines laid down
at the beginning. Spencer died in 1903.

There are two characteristics of Spencer's intellectual
temperament, on which the special character of his philos-
ophy is grounded. One is the tendency, alike natural to
him, and developed by his father's early training, to look
for causes — natural causes — of everything that he came
across. The second characteristic was his remarkable
powers of generalization. He had an unusual gift for feel-
ing the points of similarity between things widely different
on the surface, for penetrating to the common features of
apparently disconnected facts.

With these powers, Spencer was fortunate in becoming
possessed early in life by a single fruitful idea — the idea of
development. Of course the idea as such was far from
being a new one. Even in biology, the starting-point and
centre of modern evolutionary doctrine, it had been formu-
lated in a well-known hypothesis — that of Lamarck. But
by scientists as a whole it was not yet taken very seriously.
Spencer came in contact with this biological theory in a
book intended to controvert it ; but his sympathy remained
rather with the view he found criticised. Not that Spencer
had any special competency to solve the biological prob-
lem. It was simply a natural leaning due to his tempera-
mental bias. Organisms must have developed, he argued,
because the only other alternative is a supernatural crea-
tion, which is the denial of scientific intelligibility. Before
therefore Darwin's theory had convinced scientists that, as
a scientific explanation, evolution furnishes the most sat-
isfactory account of the origin of species, Spencer had
accepted this idea in its broader form as, in an almost
self-evident way, true of things generally, and had used it
to throw light upon a variety of problems.

Meanwhile there was gradually growing up in his mind
the recognition that if development rules the world, there
must be certain laws which hold concerning it that are of

494 A Student's History of Philosophy

universal application. This evolution of the Law of Evo-
lution was a gradual and somewhat laborious affair, which
finally took shape in the famous Spencerian formula : Evo-
lution is a continuous change from indefinite, incoherent
homogeneity, to definite, coherent heterogeneity of struc-
ture and function, through successive differentiations and
integrations.

The meaning of this is not so formidable as might appear
on the surface. Eliminating secondary matters, the main
point is simply this : that, on the one hand, development
involves a -growing specialization and division of labor,
while, on the other, these specialized organs and functions
are bound more and more intimately together to form an
organic unity or system. This is the sum and substance
of the evolutionary philosophy. Spencer tries to show,
also, not only that this is true as an empirical generalization,
but that it is necessarily true. After reaching it induc-
tively, he turns around, following his favorite method, and
attempts to prove that as a deduction from a certain — to
him — self-evident truth — the law of the persistence of
force — this is the course that events had to take. With-
out stopping to consider the cogency of this deduction,
we may simply ask wherein the value of the formula con-
sists.

And it seems evident that it cannot lay pretence to being
a complete philosophy. To suppose that the universe has
been accounted for, and its problems settled, when you
have said that things are all the time becoming more com-
plex and more unified, is to have a very limited notion of
the philosopher's task. It is a large and a very useful
generalization ; but a mere generalization never explains
anything. It is not even a true cause of certain particular
phenomena, as Darwin's law is. To this we may return
presently. Meanwhile, if we do not try to claim too much for
it, of its real and positive significance there can be no ques-
tion. This consists, in the first place, in a matter of the
right placing of emphasis. It brings to the front, and in-

Philosophy since Hegel 495

sists upon, an immensely important idea, that had been
neglected. While development does not settle the prob-
lems of philosophy, — on the contrary, it creates new ones,
— it does largely change their face ; and no question can
be settled finally without reference to it. Spencer was
very largely influential in making the idea a power in
modern thought, and thereby giving a new impulse to
every sphere of intellectual activity. He was fortunate in
becoming possessed of a fruitful conception just at the
moment when forces were preparing for its favorable re-
ception ; and by conceiving the new principle in a univer-
sal way, he came, even more than Darwin, to be regarded
as its high priest.

But the impression which he was able to make on his
generation would have been impossible, had it not been
for the remarkable fertility with which he was able to
apply it to the facts of experience in detail. Probably no
man in the last generation started a greater number of
fruitful scientific theories, in the most varied fields, than
did Spencer. Many, indeed most, of these theories are
now recognized as at best only partial. But they had the
merit of starting inquiry along lines which have led to
permanent results.

Spencer's work was along four main lines — Biology,
Psychology, Sociology, and Ethics. Omitting the first, we
may turn briefly to his Psychology. The thing of main
importance is, again, the new point of view for regarding
the psychological life. This is primarily a growth; and
so it can be best understood genetically, in the light of its
history. Taken thus, the apparently so diverse aspects of
the developed consciousness can be traced back to simple
undifferentiated forms of functioning. This genetic point
of view, and the corresponding emphasis upon the relation-
ship of mind to the developing biological organism, has
had far-reaching effects upon modern psychology. Of
Spencer's psychological doctrines in particular, perhaps
the most widely known relates to the much discussed

496 A Student's History of Philosophy

philosophical problem of innate ideas. Hitherto the
Empiricists, in denying the existence of metaphysically
valid innate ideas, had tended to ignore the fact that
actually human beings do not enter the world without any
bias whatever, a mere sheet of blank paper on which ex-
perience writes its lessons. We have ways of reacting,
even in the mental life, which are too general and neces-
sary to be easily explained through the accidents and un-
certainties of each man's personal experience. The theory
of evolution enabled Spencer, as he thought, to effect a
compromise between the warring schools. He agreed
with the Intuitionalists that each individual man does find
himself possessed of ways of apprehending the world
which go back of any experience in his own lifetime. But, on
the other hand, this does not mean that such ideas are to
be accepted as a divine and indubitable revelation inde-
pendent of all experience. To experience they go back,
and in terms of experience they can be explained, as the
Empiricists maintained; but it is the experience of our
ancestors, not ourselves. Innate in us, acquired in the
race, — this ^ Spencer thought would combine the relative
truth of both sides.

The biological conception Spencer applies likewise to
Sociology. Social institutions also are not made ; they
grow. The organic conception of society is now a com-
monplace, and Spencer did much to bring about its adop-
tion. Here also one aspect only of his social doctrine can
be briefly mentioned. There are two opposing tendencies
in modern social movements. One is the tendency to look
to the State for interference in behalf of desirable social
ends. The other is inclined to restrict such activity on
the part of the State, assigning to it nothing more than
police functions, while all further initiation is to be left
to private citizens. Of this Individualism, Spencer is the
chief modern representative. Primarily it is with him a
matter of temperament. His natural independence and
assertiveness of character make the thought of State inter-

Philosophy since Hegel 497

ference intensely disagreeable, as an interference with his
rights. The most fundamental moral right of a man is
the right to do as he pleases, unrestricted by anything
save the equal rights of others to the same freedom. If
man were a perfectly moral being, he would voluntarily
restrict himself to such limits. But a part of his inheri-
tance from a primitive state, where egoistic self-assertion
was necessary, is that tendency to disregard others' rights
which constitutes an imperfection in his adjustment to
present conditions; and so long as the existing mal-
adjustment continues, there is need of an organ to bring
about the mutual forbearance that society demands. This
organ is found in what we call government. But here
Spencer is able to get into connection with his formula,
and lend to his natural individualistic bias the weight of a
concordance with his philosophy. In two ways he justifies
his individualism. First, and chiefly, according to the
law of Evolution, functions become more and more spe-
cialized in definite organs. Now government is such a
special organ. Its one distinct and fundamental work is
to prevent mutual aggression. For that it is necessary ;
other social needs can be met by private initiative and
association. By the general law of things, it ought to
confine itself, therefore, to its special work. If it gets
beyond these bounds, and tries to do the work for which
there is other machinery, it will not only do this poorly,
but it will lose so much energy for the proper perform-
ance of its own special task.

There is another way in which the thing appeals to
Spencer — a way which brings to light one of the presup-
positions which, without his trying adequately to prove them,
form the background of Spencer's whole system. This is
the assumption that things work out in the evolving uni-
verse by purely natural laws, which it is quite impossible
for man to interfere with or modify. Natural laws repre-
sent for Spencer not merely facts to be recognized, but to
some extent, also, ideals that have a claim upon us. As

2K

498 A Student's History of Philosophy

one of his friends once said, " The laws of nature are to
him what revealed religion is to us." To attempt to inter-
fere with them is not only foolish and meddling, it is almost
impious as well. By reason of this attitude, which, it may
be noticed, is by no means a necessary consequence of evo-
lution, he was led still further to discount the value of hu-
man efforts for remedying social conditions. Things will
improve only when, in their own good time, the impersonal
laws of nature work themselves out ; our interference only
helps to keep alive those who are socially unfit, and whose
elimination in favor of a higher type is nature's method
of advance. Evils can only rectify themselves by a self-
adjusting process, which we cannot hasten, though appar-
ently we may hinder it.

In the Ethics, the idea of development is still further
applied, this time to the facts of the moral experience.
Here may be mentioned three points in particular : the use,
once more, of the distinction between the individual and the
race experience, to settle the quarrel over the so-called
moral sense, or moral intuitions; the explanation of con-
science, or, the feeling of obligation, as taking its origin
in social commands and restrictions ; and the attempt to
arbitrate between egoism and altruism, by making the
moral life a composite of the two. A more general point
is the application of evolution in the criticism of Utilitari-
anism. Spencer agreed with the Utilitarians that pleasure
and avoidance of pain represent in a way the end of life.
But he held Utilitarianism faulty for its inability to lay
down any rules for the attainment of this end save those
of pure empiricism — finding out by trial. To be a science,
ethics must be able to deduce its results; and for this
there is needed a more objective statement of the end than
the mere feeling of pleasure. Spencer found this in the
evolutionary conception of adjustment to environment.
Such an adjustment involves natural laws, and by dis-
covering such laws we can determine beforehand what
course of conduct will secure happiness, since this is to be

Philosophy since Hegel 499

found only in a perfectly adjusted functioning. Since
such a perfection of adjustment does not now exist, it fol-
lows that the principles of scientific ethics apply, strictly
and without modification, not to our present conduct, but
to a future society, where the process of evolution shall
have reached an equilibrium. When such a state shall
have been attained, all our troubles will be over, the idea
of duty will disappear as no longer needed, and we shall
all do the right by instinctive preference.

In conclusion, we may turn back to a point to which
reference already has been made. Our final estimate of
Spencer' s philosophy as a reasoned system must be consid-
erably affected by the fact that its main outcome is an em-
pirical generalization, which ignores most of the fundamental
problems that a philosophy needs to consider. The recogni-
tion of development is compatible, that is, with a variety
of opposing philosophies. Spencer has, it is true, an an-
swer to give to these further problems, or to many of them.
But his great deficiency lies in the fact that his answer,
for the most part, is in the form of a merely temperamental
attitude, implied or assumed as a background for his think-
ing, but seldom fairly brought to the light and scrutinized
on its merits. This attitude is that to which the name of
Naturalism has in recent times been given. Naturalism
means that the natural laws of science are taken as the
final word of explanation; that man, and human ideals, are
to be regarded as nothing but products of nature, to be fully
accounted for in terms which involve no more than can be
detected in those prior processes of the developing world
out of which they spring ; that the complex, therefore, can
always be reduced, without remainder, to the simple, the
higher to the lower. This may all be true ; but it needs
at least a far more adequate proof than it ever occurred to
Spencer to give. For him, it is almost wholly a matter of
assumption; and the one point at which he does fairly face
ultimate questions, is perhaps the weakest in his whole
system. This is his Agnosticism. It is possible, so he

500 A Student's History of Philosophy

thinks, to show that by the nature of our minds we are
necessarily shut out from a knowledge of ultimate reality.
We are as incompetent to think it as a deaf man to under-
stand sounds. The proof of our incapacity is briefly this :
that we can only think in terms of relating one thing to an-
other, of comparison, whereas Absolute reality, by definition,
is not relative, but absolute, and is in consequence beyond
our grasp. On the other hand, it is implied in all our relative
knowledge even, since there would be no sense in calling
this relative, were there not something absolute to which it is
contrasted. Although, then, we cannot think the Absolute,
we have a sort of vague, indefinite meaning, which assures
us that it really exists in some unknown form. That which
comes closest to a description of this unknown reality,
Spencer finds in the term Force.

The Unknowable supplies what for Spencer is the only
possible religion for the modern man of science. Histori-
cal religions are, of course, subject to a naturalistic explana-
tion, and are discredited by their origin. But hidden in all
positive religions, there is an irreducible minimum which
science does not touch. This is the feeling of awe in the
presence of 'the mysteries of the universe. If anything,
science tends to emphasize'the ultimate mystery of existence.
A feeling of awe, then, in the face of the unknowable force
from which all things spring, is the final form which reli-
gion is destined to take.

LITERATURE

Mill, Works.

Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy.

Darwin, Origin of Species, Descent of Man*

Huxley, Works.

Wallace, Darwin.

Romanes, Darwin and after Darwin.

Schurman, Ethical Import of Darwinism.

Fiske, Darwinism and other Essay s^ Cosmic Philosophy.

Watson, Outline of Philosophy.

Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel.

Philosophy since Hegel 501

Stephen, The English Utilitarians.
Bowne, Philosophy of Herbert Spencer.
Collins, Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy.
Hudson, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer.
Royce, Herbert Spencer.

§ 42. Conclusion

Man's attempt progressively to come to a knowledge of
the nature of the real world in which he finds himself, and
of which he is a part, is at the same time a revelation of
man to himself. It is the gradual freeing of himself from
a power which is strange and foreign to him, through the
recognition that his own life is bound up with this sup-
posed external reality, and that only by accepting it, and
putting himself in line with the forces that it represents,
can he attain a freedom and self-realization that is sub-
stantial and real. This we have tried to show is the
meaning of the history of philosophy. In so far as man
is truly free, he knows the truth ; and in so far as he has a
real insight into truth, he is free. There is thus no con-
tradiction between that practical philosophy which brings
a man's life into harmony with itself, and the theoretical
impulse, which is gratified by the widest possible knowl-
edge ; both have ultimately the same end in view.

In closing, it may be well to point out, in a few words,
some of the more general questions which our own time
has received as a legacy from the past. And the central
problem of all is still the problem which has come before
us all along as the conflict between science and religion,
mechanism and teleology, fact and ideal. How, in other
words, are we to reconcile what we know of the laws of the
outer world — laws of rigid mechanical necessity — with
the needs of Spirit, the demand for freedom, the existence
of ideals ? That the laws of nature have a validity in their
own realm, is the net result of the Age of Science — a
result which it is now time to take as established and im-
pregnable. But it is impossible, on the other hand, to adopt

502 A Student's History of Philosophy

this as a final creed, in the sense of a dogmatic materialism.
The claims of Spirit also may be taken as established. It
no longer is a question of suppressing either side, but rather
of finding some way in which both may have their claims
satisfied.

And, speaking briefly, we may say that modern philoso-
phy divides into two great camps, according as it holds,
or denies, that the way of reconciliation is something we
can comprehend by rational insight. On the latter side
stand the Positivist, the Kantian, the scientific, and the
theological Agnostic. For all these, we are brought back
as a final result, so long as we depend upon the reason,
merely to phenomena, and so to the scientific view of the
universe as the last word. If the other side is to get its
rights, we must have recourse to some other path, — to a
blind awe before the inscrutable mystery of existence ; or to
the attempt to find satisfaction in the play of poetic fancy ;
or to faith in a supernatural revelation ; or, again, to the giv-
ing up of all metaphysical ambitions, and the resolution to
content ourselves with life, especially social life, and what
we can make out of it. On the former side stand, with
endless shades of difference, the Spiritualist, the Theist,
the Idealist of the Hegelian or of the Berkeleyan type.
And since the whole possibilitity of the solution of the
question is dependent on the decision as to what knowledge
is, questions of Epistemology assume a special prominence
in recent thought.

But now, supposing some general knowledge, at least,
of reality to be possible — and few agnostics are so con-
sistent as to resist the temptation to characterize reality in
some more or less vague and general way — it will still
remain to ask what the nature of this reality is. And here
two questions in particular may be mentioned, which enter
largely into the philosophical discussions of the present
day. The first problem is frequently put in this way : Is
the essence of reality intellect, or will ? Or, as this might
be interpreted, is reality a fact complete once for all, like a

Philosophy since Hegel 503

thought content, or is it an active, changing, developing,
creative process ? What, in other words, do we mean by
that watchword of modern thought — evolution ? What is
the relation of change and progress to the ultimate state-
ment of things ? are they essential to it, or only an unreal
phenomenon ? It is the same question, of course, which
engaged Parmenides and Heracleitus at the very beginning
of philosophy ; but evolution has given the question a new
content, and a new importance.

Another fundamental question, which also has occupied
recent philosophy, is the one that may be called the problem
of monism, or of the individual, according to the side from
which it is taken up. What is the relation of apparent in-
dividuals to that whole, whose unity — a unity of one sort
or another — philosophy is bound to maintain ? If we put
it in its religious form, what is the nature of that which we
call an individual man, and what is his relation to God, or
the All ? That we cannot set aside the individual as purely
illusory is, again, the assured verd'-t of philosophy; but
what sort of reality can we give him ? If God is the whole,
does not that leave the human self a mere name ? If He
is not the whole, does not the universe fall apart into un-
thinkable bits of existence, which no power on earth or in
heaven can bring into connection, since there is no one
power which includes them all ? Metaphysically, it is the
dispute between Monism, the sole reality of a single being,
or Absolute, and Pluralism ; on the practical side, essen-
tially the same problem comes to light in the social realm.
What, in society, is the individual ? How is he related to
society and the state ?

An account of recent philosophy which would fall within
the compass of the present volume, could hardly be much
more than a list of names ; and such a treatment would
not serve the purpose which has here been proposed. But
for the sake of greater completness, a brief reference may
be made to a few of the more recent writers who have
made some special impression, particularly in English and

504 A Student's History of Philosophy

American thought. Probably of the philosophers of other
countries, to whom reference has not already been made, the
one who has had the most extensive influence on English-
speaking philosophers is Hermann Lotze. Lotze was among
the first to reemphasize, as against Idealism of the Hegelian
type, the rights of naturalistic and mechanical explanation
in the field of science. This he subordinated, however, to
a metaphysical Idealism, though the outlines of this are not
always entirely clear cut. Perhaps his most significant
doctrine is in connection with causality. The conceiv-
ability of causal interaction, which is involved in scientific
explanation, he tried to show would be excluded were the
elements really separate, as mere mechanism seems to
leave them. The possibility that one thing should influence
another is only intelligible, in case they are in reality parts
of a single whole, states of a unitary being. Thus science
itself points to an ultimate monism, which Lotze interprets
after the analogy of selfhood. Several influential Amer-
ican thinkers have been followers of Lotze.

In England, there have in the past century been three
large movements contesting the ground. In the earlier
part of the century, the main controversy was between the
common-sense philosophers, or Intuitionalists, of the Scot-
tish school, and the empirical and naturalistic tendencies
represented by the Utilitarians and the Evolutionists.
Here may be mentioned, in addition, the names of W. K.
Clifford, John Tyndall, Thomas Huxley, and G. H. Lewes.
On the whole, it may be said that in this controversy the
Empiricists had distinctly the best of it.

In the latter half of the century, however, a new antag-
onist to Naturalism arose, in the introduction of German
Idealism into England. Coleridge and Carlyle had already
made familiar, in an unsystematic way, something of the
underlying spirit of the German movement ; but in the
so-called Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian tendency, this be-
comes an independent philosophical development of con-
siderable importance. Among the earlier Hegelians may

Philosophy since Hegel 505

be mentioned, in particular, J. H. Stirling, Thomas Hill
Green, John and Edward Caird. The tendency was toward
an intellectualistic Monism or Absolutism, — a conception
of reality as an absolute system of Reason, in which the
side of thought, or knowledge, was at least predominantly
emphasized.

With this general type of thought, the majority of the
more significant names in recent English and American
philosophy have been in some measure connected. In
very recent years, however, there has appeared a strong
inclination to modify considerably the earlier form which
the movement took. On all sides, this has shown itself in
the tendency to make more of the concrete aspects of expe-
rience, as opposed to abstract rational relationships — a
tendency which has commonly led to the substitution of
the word " experience " for " thought." Among those who
have started out in general sympathy with the Hegelian
movement, but who have modified its teaching to such an
extent that they can hardly now be classed with it, it will
be enough to mention four names. Andrew Seth Pringle
Pattison has subjected Hegelianism to an effective criti-
cism, and especially with reference to its unsatisfactory
treatment of the idea of personality. F. H. Bradley, by a
new analysis of the nature of knowledge, has been led to
deny the main tenet of the school — the adequacy of what
we know as reason to the structure of reality. While
reality is still regarded as a unitary experience, it is held
that all our ways of thinking this are infected with insolu-
ble contradictions, and so are only more or less imperfect
approximations to what in its concrete nature we are incom-
petent to grasp. Josiah Royce, an American philosopher,
departs less widely from the Hegelian position. But by a
new emphasis upon the teleological nature of the world
whole, and a consequent getting away from pure intellect-
ualism, he represents what is essentially a new type of
theory. In particular, he has tried to solve more ade-
quately the problem of the nature of the individual, and to

506 A Student's History of Philosophy

harmonize its reality, and especially its ethical reality,
with a fundamental monism. A fourth tendency, repre-
sented by John Dewey, goes still further in insisting upon
the essentially practical character of all knowledge, to the
extent even of confining knowledge altogether to this in-
strumental value, and so of eliminating the concept of an
Absolute, and reducing reality to the flow of experience as
such. With this tendency, to which the name of Pragma-
tism has recently been given, certain aspects of the newer
psychology coincide. From this starting-point William
James has been led to adopt a very similar position to that
of Dewey.

INDEX

The asterisk indicates the important place in which the subject is treated.

Abelard, 2ii*ff., 220.

Academy, 68, 100*, 101, i6of., 184.

^nesidemus, 161.

^Esthetics, 117, 181, 290, 437, 461 ff.,

475 ff- g
Agnosticism, 428ff., 437, 438, 465,

469, 480, 499 f., 502.
Ambrose, 193.
Ammonius Saccus, 174.
Anaxagoras, 28 ff.
Anaximander, 13.
Anaximenes, 13.
Animism, 4.
Anselm, 209 f.
Antisthenes, 63*ff., 146.
Apollonius, 173.
Apuleius, 173.
•Aquinas, 2i6ff.
Arabian philosophy, 213.
Arcesilaus, 161.

Aristippus, 6o*ff., 87, I23f., 138.
Aristophanes, 42 f., 49.
Aristotle, 33, 49, 67, 100, 101 *ff., 119,

139, 140, 141, 166, 203, 213, 215 ff.,

221, 225.

Arnold, 444.

Asceticism, 97, 157, 1751!., 182, 189,

191, 478 f.

Association of ideas, 488.
Atomism, 29 f., 3 iff., 37 f., 100, 123,

I29ff., 308,
Augustine, I92ff.
Automatism, 274^, 284, 489.
Averroes, 213.

Bacon, Lord, 205, 220, 231 *ff., 249,
255-

Bacon, Roger, 221.

Belief, 374.

Bentham, 394, 487.

Berkeley, 346* ff., 366, 368 f., 371, 378,

502.

Bernard of Clairvaux, 21 1.
Boccaccio, 224.
Body, see Mind and Body.
Bradley, 505.
Brahe, Tycho, 226.
Bruno, 227 * ff ., 232.
Butler, 391, 393.

Caird, E., 505.

Caird, J., 505.

Carlyle, 83, 444, 504.

Carneades, 161.

Causation, 165, 270, 339, 37off., 385,

416, 423, 426, 433 ff., 441, 453, 504.
Change, I4ff., 22 f., 26, 29, 88, 94, 105.
Christianity, 157 ff., 184 ff., 199 f., 251,

464.

Chubb, 391.

Church, I94ff., 202 ff., 223, 251.
Church Fathers, 122, 185* ff.
Cicero, 136, i67*f.
Clarke, 392.
Clifford, 504.
Coleridge, 504.
Collins, 391.
Comte, 467, 479 * ff.
Conceptualism, 21 1 f.
Condillac, 396.
Consciousness, n, 32, 244, 269, 309 f.

See Soul and Self.
Contract, 246 ff., 324, 406 f., 456.
Copernicus, 226, 228, 232.

507

508

Index

Criterion of truth, 165, 262 f., 273.
Crusades, 213 f.
Cudworth, 392.
Cumberland, 392, 393.
Cynics, 60, 63*ff., 138.
Cyrenaics, 60* ff., 123.

D'Alembert, 395.
Darwin, 467, 490* f., 494.
Deduction, 107, 242, 243 f., 249, 262.
Deism, 254, 390*^,396, 405, 464.
Democritus, 31 * ff., 39, 123, 127, 133,

134.
Descartes, 193^, 232, 250, 254, 257 * ff.,

280, 284, 306, 307, 308.
Determinism, see Freedom.
Development, 102 ff., 108, 256, 449 ff.,

467, 493 ff., 502.
Dewey, 506.
Diderot, 395.
Diogenes, 65, 66, 120.
Dualism, 257, 277 f.
Duns Scotus, 219 f.

Eckhart, 225.

Eclecticism, 122, 1678.

Eleatic School^ 19, 20 ff.

Emanation, i8of., 189.

Emotions, 141, 296 ff.

Empedocles, 24* ff., 30, 31.

Empiricism, 238 ff., 255, 319 ff., 323 ff.,

365, 366ff.,4i6ff.,488.
Encyclopedists, 390, 395 * f., 399.
Energy, 307, 488 f.
Enlightenment, 254, 280, 306, 386 * ff.,

400 ff., 409 f., 435, 447 f., 450, 458,

464.

Epictetus, 148, 171.
Epicureanism, 66, 121, 122 *ff., 138,

'39, 155. J56» l67» 225.
Epicurus, I22*ff., 145, 1 60.
Epistemology, 18 f., 28, 33, 86 ff., 102 ff.,

249, 255, 293, 316 f., 319 f., 323 ff.,

348 ff., 364 f., 366 ff., 413 ff., 440 ff.,

446 ff., 502.
Erasmus, 225.
Erigena, 205 * f., 208.

Ethics, 1 8, 38, 46 f., 60 ff., 63 ff., 69 ff.,
109 ff., 123 ff., 138, 140 ff., 212, 245,
280 ff., 331 f., 345 f., 391 ff., 434 f.,
443 f., 456 f., 477 f., 488, 498 f.

Euclid, 1 66.

Euclides, 60.

Euhemerus, 61.

Euripides, 29, 41.

Evil, 18, 130, 152 ff., 174 f., 179, 188,
3178., 471 ff.

Evolution, see Development.

Fechner, 489.
Fichte, 442 f.
Freedom, 134, 155 f., 189, 195, 297 ff.,

314 ff., 398, 402, 419, 433 ff., 443 f.
French Revolution, 252, 256,398,401,

4°5» 409» 454 f-

Galileo, 226.
Gaunilo, 210.

Geometry, see Mathematics.
Geulincx, 277.
Gilbert, 232.

Gnosticism, 179, 185,456.
God, existence of, 210, 270 f., 286 ff.,
- 342, 356 ff., 362 ff., 405, 418, 429 ff.,

437 f., 447 f, 463 f.
Goethe, 409.
Gorgias, 24, 42.
Green, 505.

Hamilton, 385.

Hedonism, 6 1 ff., 123 ff., 396, 488.

Hegel, 256, 292, 442, 445 * ff., 468 f.,

492, 502.
Hegesias, 63.
Helvetius, 395, 396.
Heracleitus, 14*8., 28, 86, 88, 105,

502.

Herbart, 465.
Herder, 256, 411*.
Herodotus, 39.
Hippias, 42.
History, philosophy of, 196, 410 f.,

446ff.,459ff.
Hobbes, 232, 242 * ff ., 263, 324, 392,

393. 4o6.

Index

509

Holbach, 396 * ff., 409.

Hugo of St. Victor, 211.

Hume, 165, 255, 339, 365 *ff., 394,

396, 400, 413 ff.
Hutcheson, 393.
Huxley, 504.
Hylozoism, II, 227, 272.

Ideas, abstract, 86 ff., 103 ff., 206 ff.,

211 f., 249, 292, 350, 449 ff., 481.
Ideas, innate, 90, 262 f., 276 f., 319 ff.,

327 ff., 338 £.,426,488.
Immortality, 77, 97, 130 ff., 158, 183,

419, 436.
Individualism, 40, 44 ff., 82 ff., 253f.->

307, 388 ff., 400 ff., 454 ff., 496 ff.,

502, 505.

Individuality, see Self.
Induction, 237 ff.
Intuitionalism, see Innate ideas.

Jamblicus, 183.
James, 506.

Justice, 45 f., 74 ff., 454 ff.
Justin Martyr, 185.

Kant, 256, 339, 385, 390, 412* ff.,

440 ff., 449, 465, 469, 502.
Kepler, 226.
Knowledge, see Epistemology.

Lamarck, 493.

Lamettrie, 396.

Law, 17, 19, 45, 92, 134, 249, 292,

497 f.

Law, Roman, 198 f.
Leibniz, 254, 305* ff., 322, 390, 409, 41 5.
Lessing, 256, 409* f.
Leucippus, 31 f.
Lewes, 504.
Locke, 255, .319 f., 322 *ff., 353, 366,

>496, 394,^5, 404, 406, 426.
Logic, 24, 107 ff., 451, 452 ff.
Logos, 139, 169, 179.
Lotze, 504.

Lucretius, 123, 127, 128.
Luther, 225.
Lyceum, 102.

Malebranche, 277.
Manichaeans, 175, 179, 193.
Marcus Aurelius, 146, 171.
Materialism, 32, 139, 244, 249 f., 272,

348 ff., 396 ff.
Mathematics, 9, 35, 243 f., 259, 262 ff.,

279* 289, 305, 418, 420, 424 f.
Matter, 104, 271 ff., 307 f., 348 ff., 377 ff.
Megarians, 60, 68.
Melanchthon, 225.
Melissus, 23.

Metrodorus, 124, 126, 127.
Milesian School, n, 12 f.
Mill, 479, 487 f.
Mind and Body, 274 ff., 284 ff., 308,

313 ^ 488 f.
Modes, 293, 295, 337.
Monads, 308 ff.

Monism, 505. See Pantheism.
Montaigne, 226, 255, 387.
Montanists, 188.
Montesquieu, 395.
Morality, primitive, 5, 39.
Motion, 22 ff., 26, 27, 30, 32, 105,

243 f-» 273.
Mysticism, 175 ff., 187, 211, 225, 302,

445-

Naturalism, 499, 504.
Neo-Hegelianism, 504.
Neo-Platonism, 122, 173, I74*ff.,

185, 187 ff., 206, 225.
Neo-Pythagoreanism, 173, 185.
Nominalism, 206 * ff., 220 f, 223, 249.
Novalis, 280.

Occam, see William of Occam.
Occasionalism, 277 * f., 284, 313.
Ontological argument, 210, 430.
Origen, 186.

Paley, 394.

Pantheism, 139, I56f., 1758"., 189 ff.,

208, 230, 280 ff., 410 f., 464.
Paracelsus, 25, 230 f.
Parallelism, 284 ff., 307 f., 489.
Parmenides, 14, 22 *f., 26, 27, 30, 32,

502.

Index

Pascal, 255, 387.

Paulsen, 489.

Peripatetics, 118, 167.

Personality, see Self.

Pessimism, 63, 471 ff.

Petrarch, 224.

Phsedo, 60.

Phenomenalism, see Agnosticism.

Philo, i68*f., 173, 179.

Philosophy, nature of, 2f., 6, 8f.

Plato, 12, 1 6, 27, 33, 46, 47, 49, 56, 59,

67*ff., 102 ff., 107, 1 1 6, 126, 140 ff.,

1 68, 173, I75ff., 203, 206 f, 224,

420, 476.

Pleasure, 60 ff., 69 ff., in, 1 23(1., 135.
Plotinus, I74ff.
Plutarch, 173, 179.
Pope, 232, 390.
Positivism, 467, 478 ff., 502.
Pragmatism, 506.
Pr ingle Pattison, 505.
Proclus, 184.
Prodicus, 42, 44.
Protagoras, 29, 42, 45, 86 f.
Psychology, 76 ff., 109, 140 f., 244,

294 ff., 332 ff., 366 ff., 404, 454, 495.
Ptolemy, 166.
Punishment, 456 f.
Pyrrho, 160, 161.
Pythagoras, 33*ff., 173.
Pythagoreans, 33*ff., 68, 173, 225.

Qualities, primary and secondary, 272 f.,

Rationalism, 210 ff., 253 ff., 257 ff., 280,

3i9f-» 399, 401 ff., 410, 415 ff., 438.
Realism, 206 ff.
Reason, 30 f., 109 f., 140^,217^,364^,

381, 447 ff. See Thought.
Reformation, 223, 225.
Reid, 385.
Relativity, doctrine of, I7f., 161 ff., 295,

42 iff., 500.
Religion and science, 21 f., 39, 1276%

133, i56f-» 396 ff.
Religion, philosophy of, 61, 410, 463 f.,

500.

Renaissance, 206, 213, 214, 223* ff.,

233, 386 f.

Revelation, 187^, 236 f., 248, 345.
Richard of St. Victor, 211.
Roscellinus, 206 f.
Rousseau, 125, 126, 25 5 f., 399 *ff.
Royce, 505.

Scepticism, 24, 37«., 87f., 121 f.,

i6off., i66f., 225, 255 f., 264 ff., 362,

38 iff., 386 f., 420.
Schelling, 442, 444 ff.
Scholasticism, 203 * ff., 231, 233, 238 ff.,

271.

Schopenhauer, 466, 467, 468 * ff.
Science, 9, 13, 16, 25, 32, 36, 37 f.,

io8f., 127 ff., 165, 220 f., 237 ff.,

243 f., 273 f., 285, 398, 479 ff., 488 ff.,
501.

Scottish School, 385, 509.

Self, 4f., 48, 56, I9off., 194, 199, 253,

257, 266 ff., 342, 349, 368 ff., 406 f.,

4 1 5 f. , 425 f., 443 ff . See Soul.
Seneca, 120, 126, 142, 147, 157, 158,

171.
Sensationalism, 87, 244, 365, 3668.,

396, 413 ff.
Sense perception, i8f., 33, 161 ff., 244,

310, 333 ff., 413 ff., 422 ff.
Sextus Empiricus, 161, 165.
Shaftesbury, 393.
Smith, Adam, 394.
Social philosophy, 78, 82 ff., H5f.,

244 ff., 324, 399, 402ff.,457ff.,466f.,
482 ff., 496.

Socrates, 10, 15, 31, 43, 46, 49 * ff., 60,
61, 63, 64, 67 f., 69,98, 119.

Sophists, 38, 41 * ff., 55, 93, 107, 252.

Soul, 4, 32, 36, 77 f., 94 ff., 109 f., 132,
139, 308 ff., 356 f., 429. See Self.

Space, 23, 31, 359 f., 422, 424 f.

Spencer, 467, 480, 492 * ff.

Spinoza, 22, 230, 232, 278 * ff., 306 ff.,
410, 445, 489.

State, see Social Philosophy.

Stewart, 385.

Stirling, 505.

Index

Stoicism, 66,121, 124, 137 * ff., 161,
165, 167, 170 ff., 190 f., 198 f., 225.

Substance, 278, 283, 292, 306 ff., 338,
341 ff., 353, 423, 425.

Sufficient reason, law of, 316 f.

Syllogism, io8f., 164, 238.

Synthetic judgments, 414.

Tauler, 225.

Teleology, 30 f., 32, 93 f., 103 f., 108,

130 f., 139, i52ff., 286 ff., 307, 312 ff,.

316, 438, 491 f., 501, 505.
Tertullian, 185.
Thales, 12 * f., 16.
Theodorus, 61, 62.
Thought, i8f., 33, 55 f., 88 ff., 104 ff.,

i64f., 276 f., 413 ff., 44off-, 448,

502 f. See Reason.
Thucydides, 29, 39.
Time, 422.
Tindal, 391.
Toland, 391.
Transmigration, 35.

Turgot, 395.

Twofold truth, 218, 236, 436 f.

Tyndall, 504.

Universals, 206 ff ., 249, 292.
Utilitarianism, 394, 487 f., 498 f., 504.

Virtue, 52, 60, 63 ff., 691!., liiff.,

140 ff ., 394.
Voltaire, 390, 395 *.

Walter of St. Victor, 211.

Will, 194, 219, 436, 443, 469 ff., 502.

William of Champeaux, 211.

William of Occam, 2i8ff., 223.

Winckelmann, 409.

Wolff, 390, 415.

Wollaston, 393.

Xenophanes, 20 ff.

Zeno of Elea, 23 f.

Zeno, the Stoic, 137*, 160.

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