m
;.,-
LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
MRS. MARIE B. WOLFARD
STUDIES OF
GOOD AND EVIL
A SERIES OF ESSAYS UPON PROBLEMS
OF PHILOSOPHY AND OF LIFE
BY
JOSIAH ROYCE
PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1906
COPYRIQHT, 1898,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY 01' CAUFOHMA
SANTA BAKBAKA
INTRODUCTION.
THE essays which constitute the present volume, despite
the variety of their topics and of the occasions under which
they were prepared, have an unity which is already indicated
in the title, but which may well be more explicitly set forth
in this introduction.
As a teacher of philosophy, the author of the papers
here collected has several times given expression, in for-
mer books, to theories upon fundamental metaphysical
issues.* These theories belong to a type not unfamiliar
in the present speculation, namely, to the type of post-
Kantian idealism. But the philosophical idealist is inter-
ested not only in stating his fundamental convictions, but
also in applying them to more concrete problems, especially
to relatively practical problems. If idealism means any-
thing, it means a theory of the universe which simply must
not be divorced from empirical considerations, or from the
business of life. It is not, as many have falsely supposed, a
theory of the world founded merely upon a priori specula-
tion, and developed solely in the closet It is, and in its best
historical representatives always has been, an effort to inter-
* Reference may be made to The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (Boa-
ton, 1885), to The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (BotOon, 1892), and to the
author's most mature statement of the argument for ideuliam In The Con-
ception of God (New York, 1897).
ill
iv STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
pret the facts of life. The present is hardly the place to
summarize the grounds upon which an idealistic interpreta-
tion of the world depends. In a very brief summary, these
grounds have been indicated in one of the essays of the
prevent volume, namely, the sixth, entitled The Implica-
tions of Self-Consciousness. But to many readers funda-
mental metaphysical arguments are sure to be less enlight-
ening than studies of more familiar issues in the light of
philosophical considerations. To such readers, as well as to
more technical philosophical students, the present essays are
an appeal.
I have thus indicated, to readers who may not already
know, the general philosophical position which these papers
in common undertake to illustrate. Yet I can not wish to
leave upon the reader's mind the impression that he is deal-
ing merely with the predetermined product of the thought
of a particular school. Idealistic philosophizing is, from the
nature of the case, subject to wide individual variations.
Without any effort to make extravagant claims for philo-
sophical originality, any life-long student of this region of
inquiry finds it very natural to be aware that in trying to
contribute to the subject he has not merely been reporting
the opinions of other people or giving in his adherence to a
traditional doctrine. I have always insisted that my own
idealism does not make me in any sense worthy of being
called a follower, say, of Hegel, although of the importance
of Hegel's thought I am well aavare, and although, on occa-
sion, in former publications, I have given expression to the
obligations which, in common with other students, I feel
towards Hegel's doctrine. In many respects I must insist
that I have been quite as strongly influenced by Schopen-
hauer or by Fichte as by Hegel; nor can any student of
recent idealism be unaware that his strongest obligations
are, after all, to the general tendencies of contemporary
speculation. In any case, if it is not one's duty to be wholly
INTRODUCTION. v
original, it is certainly one's natural purpose, and as far as
possible, one's obligation, to be, in philosophical matters,
relatively independent, both as regards the manner in which
one reaches one's conclusions, and as regards the kind of in-
sight that one seeks to impart to one's readers. In common,
therefore, with other philosophical students, I am not un-
willing to have my own opinions judged by and for them-
selves. Accordingly, I have hoped that a collection of
papers like the present, containing various, and necessarily
individual applications of doctrine to special problems, may
serve to indicate in what sense the philosophical theses
that I have to maintain possess a genuinely individual
character.
I have called these papers Studies of Good and Evil.
The title is in its nature wide. It commits the essays con-
tained in this volume merely to one common character.
They are all, directly or indirectly, contributions to the
comprehension of the ethical aspects of the universe. The
papers are of very various relations to technical philosophical
issues. Four of them are essays in literary and philosoph-
ical criticism. One is directly concerned with the effect of
the " Knowledge of Good and Evil " upon the character of the
individual man. One is a contribution to the metaphysical
" Problem of Evil " in its most general sense. Five, while
dealing with metaphysical and psychological problems con-
nected with the nature and relationships of our human type
of consciousness, are somewhat more indirect contributions
to the ethical interpretation of our place in the universe.
One is an historical study of a concrete conflict between
good and evil tendencies in early California life.
In publishing papers most of which are the product of
accidental calls, and were originally adjusted to various
occasions, one runs a certain risk of giving the impression
not merely of miscellaneous contents, but of minor incon-
sistencies in statement and in the point of view. Yet to
vi STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
attempt by artificial devices to bring such papers into a
purely external unity by erasing all signs of the original
occasions to which they were adapted may in its turn remove
the very character that I have most desired to preserve in
the present volume. It is here simply not a philosophical
system as such, nor even a systematic applied ethics, nor yet
a rigidly connected series of discourses concerning good and
evil that I have desired explicitly to present to the reader.
I have merely wished to show how a certain philosophical
theory, whose more systematic statement I have in part
already given elsewhere, may be applied to the study now
of this and now of that issue relating to good and evil. I
have deliberately chosen, therefore, in general not to erase
the marks of the origin of the individual papers. Several
were lectures, and appear in the text as such. Two or three
were contributions to periodical literature specially called
out by particular occasions. All may serve to show a cer-
tain philosophical doctrine at work, and endeavoring not
to remain an abstract theory, but to busy itself about the
issues of life.
The series begins with a paper entitled The Problem of
Job. This was originally the result of a call from a minis-
terial convention. It was later published in The New
World. It deals in a most general, and I hope not at all an
evasive way, with the metaphysical and religious " Problem
of Evil." It presupposes, and does not endeavor either to
justify or with any elaboration to explain, the idealistic
theory of the nature of reality. Both my form of this
theory, and my general application thereof to the problem
of evil, were first set forth in The Religious Aspect of Phi-
losophy. In my later work, The Spirit of Modern Philoso-
phy, published in 1892, the closing chapter is devoted to a
similar application of idealism to the problem of evil. The
present discussion does not therefore stand alone. The the-
ory of evil here in question brings me perhaps into a some-
INTRODUCTION. vii
what more intimate relation with characteristic statements
presented and defended by Hegel, than is the case in some
of my other philosophical theses. Yet, in the present essay
on the problem of Job, special attention is given to the psy-
chological basis upon which every metaphysical generaliza-
tion concerning the nature and justification of evil may
be, I think, properly said to be founded. Still, the reader
who chooses to compare with this paper the papers in the
former books mentioned, may be able to form a clearer
judgment both of the meaning, and of the ground of the
theory here presented than would be possible from this dis-
cussion alone.
If the theory of evil here in question is at all well found-
ed, one of the most convincing practical solutions of the
problem of evil must be presented wherever we find a good
man triumphantly struggling with a profound problem of
evil in his own life. Hence as the second paper of the
present volume, I have ventured to set a psychological
study of a personal experience of John Bunyan an experi-
ence known to us as narrated by himself. This personal
experience of Bunyan has been, as I think, despite all the
elaborate biographical study that has been given to the poet's
career, still too much neglected. In the present analysis, I
have made use of certain concepts that have now become
familiar in modern psychiatrical literature. Yet I do not
believe that a psychological analysis of such experiences as
these in any wise hinders our interpretation of their ethical
or, for that matter, of their poetical meaning. Bunyan felt
himself to be struggling with the " Tempter," with the De-
mon in personal presence. We have now the power to rec-
ognize, much more exactly than Bunyan could do, the nerv-
ous nature of this enemy. Yet in a deeper ethical meaning,
the " demon's " presence is none the less a geriuine fact when
you have interpreted the psychological causation of the pro-
cess in more modern forms. For Bunyan himself, the prob-
viii STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
lem was indeed one of moral struggle, and when he won,
and when, as he says, he brought of the " spoils of battle "
and offered them in the temple of the Lord for the help of
his suffering brethren, he gave us an instance of a concrete
solution of the problem of evil whose philosophical signifi-
cance is not made less by the fact that Bunyan's theology is
no longer acceptable in Bunyan's form. This paper was
originally written for the American Psychological Associa-
tion, and appeared in the Psychological Review.
The third paper in the volume that on Tennyson and
Pessimism appeared in a college student's journal, The
Harvard Monthly. Published as it was a considerable
number of years ago, this essay is obviously unsatisfactory
if viewed as a characterization of the genius of Tennyson,
who is now so much better known to us through his pub-
lished biography. Yet to my mind as I wrote it the princi-
pal interest of the paper lay in its theory of the relation be-
tween good and evil. The poem which forms the text of the
discussion had in my mind a merely illustrative value.
The fourth paper of the volume discusses another general
aspect of the relations between good and evil. Here the
original occasion of the paper was somewhat polemic. An
essay by Professor George Simmel of Berlin, published in
the International Journal of Ethics, provoked some criti-
cism, and I was asked to take part in the controversy ; but
the purely objective significance of the issue served in the
end to keep the merely polemic aspect rather in the back-
ground. The idealistic theory of the meaning of evil here
gets again presented, but this time in reference to the deli-
cate ethical question as to how far " the knowledge of evil "
contributes to moral perfection. I hope that this paper,
taken in connection with the foregoing, may serve to give
the reader a general survey of the principal applications of
the whole doctrine.
These more direct studies of good and evil prepare the
INTRODUCTION.
IX
way for a metaphysical issue, namely, that of the ethical
interpretation of reality, both human and extra-human.
This book makes of course no effort to contribute more
than fragments to the stupendous philosophical undertak-
ing thus suggested. What fragments belong here are easily
characterized. From our modern point of view, the ethical
interpretation of the universe is hindered by two especially
serious difficulties. It is hindered, in the first place, by the
general presuppositions of modern naturalism. In the sec-
ond place it is hampered by our incomplete appreciation of
the meaning and the essential limitations of the human type
of consciousness. But a study either of naturalism or of the
nature of human consciousness, must necessarily lead one
into very theoretical regions, where the ethical problems
themselves are, for the time being, in the background. Yet,
since our consciousness is the basis of all the good and evil
that we human beings know, and since our relations with
Nature form a most problematic aspect of life, both theo-
retical and practical, I have supposed that the essays from
the fifth to the ninth in the present volume might serve to
contribute in a genuine way to the issues suggested by my
title. The fifth essay states, in the form of a critical paper
suggested by a well-known lecture of Huxley, the problem
with regard to the general relation between natural law and
the demands of ethics. This paper appeared in the Inter-
national Journal of Ethics. The sixth essay states the gen-
eral case for an idealistic interpretation of the universe in
its relations to self -consciousness. This paper originally
appeared in the New World. The question what finite con-
sciousness with all its burdens of good and evil may under
these circumstances be and mean, is then treated first in
some psychological particulars in the seventh essay, on the
Anomalies of Self -Consciousness, and then in connection
with cosmological problems, in the eighth essay, on the
Relation between Human Consciousness and Nature. The
x STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
theory of evolution indicated in the latter part of this essay
is one to which I am expecting to give a more detailed state-
ment in forthcoming books. These papers were originally
printed in the Psychological Review, and in the Philosoph-
ical Review.
The theory of the social basis of self -consciousness, which
is common to the seventh and to the eighth essays, is a the-
ory which has many points in common with the views al-
ready published by Professor Baldwin in his well-known
works on Mental Development in the Child and in the
Race. Professor Baldwin, in his own papers on this sub-
ject, has frequently referred in the kindest way to my own
work, whether published or unpublished. In return, I can
only express both my sense of my general agreement, as to
the social theory of self-consciousness, with Professor Bald-
win, and my cordial recognition of his priority both in state-
ment, and in publication, with respect to a number of the
most important features of this theory. Students of social
phenomena may find some interest both in the purely psy-
chological aspects of this theory of finite self-consciousness
and in my own suggested cosmological extensions of the
theory. Such students of general idealism as find the theory
of absolute self-consciousness too abstract and seemingly too
a priori to win their easy assent, may also be interested in
seeing by what means at least one student of idealism en-
deavors to bridge the gulf that at the outset seems to sepa-
rate any psychological theory of consciousness from any
idealistic theory of reality. As a fact, I myself can find no
hostility between the psychological interpretation of con-
sciousness and the philosophical interpretation of reality in
terms of consciousness. The differences between the two
are founded, in part, upon the empirical nature of the psycho-
logical material as contrasted with the general logical nature
of the arguments for idealism ; and, in part, upon the differ-
ence in the point of view between a psychological and a
INTRODUCTION. x j
philosophical study. But a difference in point of view cer-
tainly does mean hostility in doctrine. And every interpre-
tation of experience involves at once a recognition of the
facts of experience, and a consideration of their general
logical meaning. Sooner or later psychology and philoso-
phy must join hands afresh ; and the more closely, in view
of the fact that of late, for many minds, they have seemed to
part company. It belongs to the future to suggest many of
the ways in which this ultimate reconciliation will take
place. I think it is the right of any philosophical student
who feels also, as I do, an interest in empirical psychology,
to undertake a suggestion, however fragmentary, of the
union to be brought about, and to base this suggestion even
upon the facts already accessible.
The ninth essay, originally contributed to the Harvard
Monthly, is here given as a supplementary statement con-
cerning certain general aspects of the nature of human con-
sciousness. It is intended to bring a little more clearly to
light a point whose philosophical and psychological signifi-
cance seem to me to have been overlooked, namely, the
fact that what gives us the most difficult aspect of the world-
problem, and what most impresses upon us the tragedy of
good and evil, as well as what, on the other hand, gives our
human psychology its specific character, is the purely arbi-
trary fact of the " Limitation of Span " which characterizes
the human type of consciousness. My own thesis is that
the mere removal of this one limitation would in and of
itself involve a lifting of the veil that is proverbially said to
" hide " the reality. For reality, according to my idealism, is
simply the Whole of what one actually means from the finite
point of view. This " whole of what one means," viewed as
a concrete whole, viewed as a significant and self-possessed
unity of conscious life, is, for this idealism, the Real World.
It is also the Divine Life. Therein the problem of evil is
seen as solved. The limitations which exclude us, in our
Xll
STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
character as human beings, from the concrete possession of
this ultimate solution, are not limitations that are to be in-
terpreted as involving any ultimate separation between us
and the reality. The " separation " exists in truth only as a
certain characteristic limitation of conscious span, where-
by our own finite meaning does not become perfectly clear
to us, and our own conscious processes are not themselves,
to their own very depths, presented to our fleeting finite
moments of consciousness. In order to grasp the nature of
reality, it would therefore not be necessary to be something
else than what we are, but only to be the Whole of what we
now in substance and essence already are. From grasping
this wholeness of our own meaning we are hindered, at any
moment, by the mere narrowness of the moment's view of
its own sense, and not by any gulf which separates us from
real Things in Themselves. The arguments for such a doc-
trine need of course their own room. But the application of
the doctrine both to the theoretical problems of human self-
consciousness, and to the practical problem of evil, may be
made clearer by means of the group of essays now in ques-
tion.
The book closes with a return to decidedly more special
issues. Two philosophers are made the topics of a critical
study and portrayal ; and in both cases the portrayal takes
up more space than the criticism. I have endeavored to
make the criticism itself rather immanent than external.
In addition, one historical incident, in itself extremely in-
significant, but, in its illustrative character, as interesting as
many another fragment of human life, is made the topic of
a discussion whose length has to be frankly explained by
the persona] and local interests that guided the author in
preparing this study. But all these three concluding studies
have in common their obvious relation to good and evil.
All three of them are instances of the way in which I
should try to express the idealistic spirit Idealism has
INTRODUCTION. xiii
meaning only in case you can judge whatever facts and
experience you please, or whatever varieties of philosoph-
ical opinion you may take into account, in the light of
idealistic insight. Of these three concluding essays the
first, or, in the order of the papers in this volume, the tenth,
discusses Meister Eckhart, the German mystic, a figure who
has been comparatively neglected by those students of phi-
losophy who have written in English. From a scholarly
point of view I distinctly feel the limitations of this por-
trayal. Meister Eckhart has been the topic of some impor-
tant recent researches, since the discovery of his Latin tracts ;
and these researches in some respects modify the views of
his historical position which were formerly maintained. I
have not been able to take explicit account of these most
recent investigations. On the other hand, I have endeav-
ored to limit what I had to say of Eckhart 's historical rela-
tions to what may be considered, on the whole, fairly sure,
without entering upon more doubtful considerations. The
general theoretical interest of a paper of this sort lies in the
intimate relations which must always exist between philo-
sophical idealism and traditional mysticism. These intimate
relations I fully admit. Their practical as well as their the-
oretical interest I wholly recognize, and yet I am very sure
that one is unfair to the modern idealist who characterizes
his doctrine as identical with the mysticism even of an Eck-
hart. The actual contrast between the idealistic and the
mystic point of view I have several times discussed, notably
in the concluding essays of the book called The Spirit of
Modern Philosophy, and in passing, in some passages in the
third essay of the present volume. The practical danger
of seeking one's relation to the absolute in wholly remote
realms, apart from concrete human experience, is not only
insisted upon in the earlier papers of the present volume, but
is also further illustrated by such concrete cases as are dis-
cussed in the essay that, in this volume, immediately follows
x iv STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
the paper upon Meister Eckhart. And once more, the theo-
retical solution of the problem is to be sought, as I take it,
in considerations bearing upon the form of human con-
sciousness. That in some respects our own consciousness
would have to be transformed before its relations to reality
became directly clear, is of course precisely the idealistic
thesis. On the other hand, this transformation must not
mean, as the mystics desired it to mean, an ignoring of what
there is positive, rational, significant, about the human type
of consciousness itself ; just as the practical solution of the
struggle with evil can not lie in such a virtue as that which
Eckhart made central, namely, the virtue which he called
" Departedness " of soul Abgescheidenheit. The whole dis-
cussion of the concrete problem of evil, as given in the ear-
lier essays of the present volume, ought to make clear to any
fair-minded reader the genuine contrast between the central
insights of idealism and the characteristic assertions of the
mystic. On the other hand, it is unquestionable that the
mystic and the idealist have much in common, namely,
precisely what the idealist would call the truth of the mys-
tical doctrine ; and there can be no doubt of the enormous
historical importance of mysticism in keeping alive the
sense of the intimacy of our human relation to the divine
Reality. Nor can any portrayal of mysticism be fair which
is not intimate and sympathetic. Nor yet can any criticism
of mysticism be fair which goes far beyond the immanent
criticism that mysticism, once fully portrayed, passes upon
itself. I have endeavored to let Meister Eckhart, as prac-
tical adviser of his disciples and hearers, himself state the
case of the good and evil of the present life, and I feel that
hardly a word need be added to transform this practical out-
come of his own doctrine into that willingness to accept
finitude even while seeing in finite life an infinite meaning
a willingness which is to my mind the very essence of the
idealistic spirit
INTRODUCTION.
XV
Immediately after this characterization of the mediaeval
mystic, I have permitted my study of California local his-
tory to follow as the eleventh paper. I can conceive of no
better way to express the intimate relation of every frag-
ment with the whole, in the universe as idealism conceives
it, than just some such way as this ; and if any reader, after
fairly reading the papers of the present volume, wonders
why this particular constellation of papers was chosen, I fear
that I shall have written for him quite in vain.
A series of philosophical essays may well close with the
characterization of a philosopher, and I offer as my twelfth
paper, although not without some hesitation, my contribu-
tion to the estimate of a recent French philosopher, J. M.
Guyau. Here again the subject of the essay has been too
infrequently presented to English readers. Here again one
has a doctrine affiliated with modern idealism, yet by no
means identical with such idealism, as I myself should en-
deavor to represent, and here again one has a distinctly ethi-
cal philosophy, with whose discussion these studies of the
problem of good and evil may well close. The similarity
between the "sociological" theory of the finite world in
Guyau's latest book, and my own variety of this same
theory, as stated in the eighth essay of the present volume,
is plain, and is one reason the more for printing this final
paper.
A few further notes concerning the origin and special
occasions of the various papers of this volume will be found
in connection with each. The papers on Meister Eckhart
and on Guyau appear here for the first time in print. The
account of the Squatter Riot of 1850 in Sacramento was pub-
lished in the Overland Monthly, in 1885.
CONTENTS.
FAB
I. THE PROBLEM OF JOB 1
II. THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN 29
III. TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM 76
IV. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL .... 89
V. NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION .... 125
VI. THE IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS . . . 140
VII. SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANOMALIES OF SELF-CON-
SCIOUSNESS 169
VIII. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 198
IX. ORIGINALITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS 249
X. MEISTER ECKHART 261
XL AN EPISODE OF EARLY CALIFORNIA LIFE : THE SQUATTER
RIOT OF 1850 IN SACRAMENTO 298
XII. JEAN MARIE QUTAU 349
xvii
STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
i.
THE PROBLEM OF JOB.
IN speaking of the problem of Job, the present writer
comes to the subject as a layman in theology, and as one
ignorant of Hebrew scholarship. In referring to the origi-
nal core of the Book of Job he follows, in a general way,
the advice of Professor C. H. Toy ; and concerning the text
of the poem he is guided by the translation of Dr. Gilbert
What this paper has to attempt is neither criticism of the
book, nor philological exposition of its obscurities, but a
brief study of the central problem of the poem from the
point of view of a student of philosophy.
The problem of our book is the personal problem of its
hero, Job himself. Discarding, for the first, as of possibly
separate authorship, the Prologue, the Epilogue and the
addresses of Elihu and of the Lord, one may as well come
at once to the point of view of Job, as expressed in his
speeches to his friends. Here is stated the problem of which
none of the later additions in our poem offer any intelligible
solution. In the exposition of this problem the original
author develops all his poetical skill, and records thoughts
that can never grow old. This is the portion of our book
which is most frequently quoted, and which best expresses
the genuine experience of suffering humanity. Here, then,
tin- philosophical as well as the human interest of our poem
centres.
1
STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
Job's world, as he sees it, is organized in a fashion ex-
tremely familiar to us all. The main ideas of this cosmol-
ogy are easy to be reviewed. The very simplicity of the
scheme of the universe here involved serves to bring into
clearer view the mystery and horror of the problem that
besets Job himself. The world, for Job, is the work of a
being who, in the very nature of the case, ought to be intel-
ligible (since he is wise), and friendly to the righteous, since,
according to tradition, and by virtue of his divine wisdom
itself, this God must know the value of a righteous man.
But here is the mystery this God, as his works get known
through our human experiences of evil, appears to us not
friendly, but hopelessly foreign and hostile in his plans and
his doings. The more, too, we study his ways with man, the
less intelligible seems his nature. Tradition has dwelt upon
his righteousness, has called him merciful, has magnified his
love towards his servants, has described his justice in bring-
ing to naught the wicked. One has learned to trust all these
things, to conceive God in these terms, and to expect all this
righteous government from him. Moreover, tradition joins
with the pious observation of nature in assuring us of the
omnipotence of God. Job himself pathetically insists that he
never doubts, for an instant, God's power to do whatever
in heaven or earth he may please to do. Nothing hinders
God. No blind faith thwarts him. Sheol is naked before
him. The abyss has no covering. The earth hangs over
chaos because he orders it to do so. His power shatters the
monsters and pierces the dragons. He can, then, do with
evil precisely what he does with Rahab or with the shades,
with the clouds or with the light or with the sea, namely,
exactly what he chooses. Moreover, since he knows every-
thing, and since the actual value of a righteous man is, for
Job, an unquestionable and objective fact, God cannot fail
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 3
to know this real worth of righteousness in his servants,
as well as the real hatefulness and mischief of the wicked.
God knows worth, and cannot be blind to it, since it is as
real a fact as heaven and earth themselves.
Yet despite all these unquestioned facts, this God. who
can do just what he chooses, " deprives of right " the right-
eous man, in Job's own case, and "vexes his soul."
becomes towards him as a " tyrant," " persecutes " him " with
strong hand," u dissolves " him " into storm," makes him a
" byword " for outcasts, " casts " him " into the mire," ren-
ders him " a brother to jackals,' 1 deprives him of the poor
joy of his " one day as a hireling," of the little delight that
might come to him as a man before he descends hopelessly
to the dark world of the shades, " watches over " him by
day to oppress, by night to " terrify " him ** with dreams and
with visions " in brief, acts as his enemy, " tears " him " in
anger," " gnashes upon " him " with his teeth." All these
are the expressions of Job himself. On the other hand, as.
with equal wonder and horror the righteous Job reports,
God on occasion does just the reverse of all this to the no-
toriously and deliberately wicked, who " grow old," " wax
mighty in power," "see their offspring established," and
their homes "secure from fear." If one turns from this
view of God's especially unjust dealings with righteous and
with wicked individuals to a general survey of his provi-
dential government of the world, one sees vast processes
going on, as ingenious as they are merciless, as full of hints
of a majestic wisdom as they are of indifference to every indi-
vidual right
A mountain that falleth U battered.
And a rock is removed from it* place ;
The waters do wear away stooea,
It* flood* aweep the earth V dart away ;
And the hope of frmil nun thou deatroyert.
Thoa *uhdu't him for aye, aad he goea ;
Marring hi face thou rejected him.
4 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
Here is a mere outline of the divine government as Job
sees it. To express himself thus is for Job no momentary
outburst of passion. Long days and nights he has brooded
over these bitter facts of experience, before he has spoken at
all. Unweariedly, in presence of his friends' objections, he
reiterates his charges. He has the right of the sufferer to
speak, and he uses it He reports the facts that he sees. Of
the paradox involved in all this he can make nothing.
What is clear to him, however, is that this paradox is a
matter for reasoning, not for blind authority. God ought
to meet him face to face, and have the matter out in plain
words. Job fears not to face his judge, or to demand his
answer from God. God knows that Job has done nothing
to deserve this fury. The question at issue between maker
and creature is therefore one that demands a direct state-
ment and a clear decision. " Why, since you can do pre-
cisely as you choose, and since you know, as all-knower, the
value of a righteous servant, do you choose, as enemy, to
persecute the righteous with this fury and persistence of
hate ? " Here is the problem.
The human interest of the issue thus so clearly stated by
Job lies, of course, in the universality of just such experi-
ences of undeserved ill here upon earth. What Job saw of
evil we can see ourselves to-day whenever we choose. Wit-
ness Armenia. Witness the tornadoes and the earthquakes.
Less interesting to us is the thesis mentioned by Job's friends,
in the antiquated form in which they state it, although to
be sure, a similar thesis, in altered forms, is prevalent among
us still. And of dramatic significance only is the earnest-
ness with which Job defends his own personal righteousness.
So naive a self-assurance as is his is not in accordance with
our modern conscience, and it is seldom indeed that our day
would see any man sincerely using this phraseology of Job
regarding his own consciousness of rectitude. But what is
to-day as fresh and real to us as it was to our poet is the fact
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 5
that all about us, say in every child born with an unearned
heredity of misery, or in every pang of the oppressed, or in
every arbitrary coming of ill fortune, some form of inno-
cence is beset with an evil that the sufferer has not deserved.
Job wins dramatic sympathy as an extreme, but for the pur-
pose all the more typical, case of this universal experience
of unearned ill fortune. In every such case we therefore
still have the interest that Job had in demanding the solu-
tion of this central problem of evil. Herein, I need not say,
lies the permanent significance of the problem of Job, a
problem that wholly outlasts any ancient Jewish contro-
versy as to the question whether the divine justice always
does or does not act as Job's friends, in their devotion to
tradition, declare that it acts. Here, then, is the point
where our poem touches a question, not merely of an older
religion, but of philosophy, and of all time.
H.
The general problem of evil has received, as is well
known, a great deal of attention from the philosophers.
Few of them, at least in European thought, have been as
fearless in stating the issue as was the original author of
Job. The solutions offered have, however, been very nu-
merous. For our purposes they may be reduced to a few.
First, then, one may escape Job's paradox by declining
altogether to view the world in teleological terms. Evils,
such as death, disease, tempests, enemies, fires, are not, so
one may declare, the works of God or of Satan, but are nat-
ural phenomena. Natural, too, are the phenomena of our
desires, of our pains, sorrows and failures. No divine pur-
pose rules or overrules any of these things. That happens
to us, at any time, which must happen, in view of our nat-
ural limitations and of our ignorance. The way to better
things is to understand nature better than we now do. For
this view a view often maintained in our day there is no
6 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
problem of evil, in Job's sense, at all. Evil there indeed is,
but the only rational problems are those of natural laws. I
need not here further consider this method, not of solving
but of abolishing the problem before us, since my intent is,
in this paper, to suggest the possibility of some genuinely
teleological answer to Job's question. I mention this first
view only to recognize, historically, its existence.
In the second place, one may deal with our problem by
attempting any one, or a number, of those familiar and
popular compromises between the belief in a world of nat-
ural law and the belief in a teleological order, which are
all, as compromises, reducible to the assertion that the pres-
ence of evil in the creation is a relatively insignificant, and
an inevitable, incident of a plan that produces sentient crea-
tures subject to law. Writers who expound such compro-
mises have to point out that, since a burnt child dreads the
fire, pain is, on the whole, useful as a warning. Evil is a
transient discipline, whereby finite creatures learn their place
in the system of things. Again, a sentient world cannot get
on without some experience of suffering, since sentience
means tenderness. Take away pain (so one still again often
insists), take away pain, and we should not learn our share
of natural truth. Pain is the pedagogue to teach us natural
science. The contagious diseases, for instance, are useful in
so far as they lead us in the end to study Bacteriology, and
thus to get an insight into the life of certain beautiful crea-
tures of God whose presence in the world we should other-
wise blindly overlook ! Moreover (to pass to still another
variation of this sort of explanation), created beings obvi-
ously grow from less to more. First the lower, then the
higher. Otherwise there could be no Evolution. And were
there no evolution, how much of edifying natural science
we should miss ! But if one is evolved, if one grows from
less to more, there must be something to mark the stages of
growth. Now evil is useful to mark the lower stages of
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 7
evolution. If you are to be, first an infant, then a man, or
first a savage, then a civilized being, there must be evils
attendant upon the earlier stages of your life evils that
make growth welcome and conscious. Thus, were there no
colic and croup, were there no tumbles and crying-spells in
infancy, there would be no sufficient incentives to loving
parents to hasten the growing robustness of their children,
and no motives to impel the children to long to grow big !
Just so, cannibalism is valuable as a mark of a lower grade
of evolution. Had there been no cannibalism we should
realize less joyously than we do what a respectable thing it
is to -have become civilized ! In brief, evil is, as it were, the
dirt of the natural order, whose value is that, when you
wash it off, you thereby learn the charm of the bath of
evolution.
The foregoing are mere hints of familiar methods of
playing about the edges of our problem, as children play
barefoot in the shallowest reaches of the foam of the sea.
In our poem, as Professor Toy expounds it, the speeches as-
cribed to Elihu contain the most hints of some such way of
defining evil, as a merely transient incident of the disci-
pline of the individual. With many writers explanations
of this sort fill much space. They are even not without
their proper place in popular discussion. But they have no
interest for whoever has once come into the presence of
Job's problem as it is in itself. A moment's thought re-
minds us of their superficiality. Pain is useful as a warn-
ing of danger. If we did not suffer, we should burn our
hands off. Yes, but this explanation of one evil presup-
poses another, and a still unexplained and greater evil,
namely, the existence of the danger of which we need to be
thus warned. No doubt it is well that the past sufferings of
the Armenians should teach the survivors, say the defense-
less women and children, to have a wholesome fear in future
of Turks. Does that explain, however, the need for the exist-
8 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
ence, or for the murderous doings of the Turks ? If I can
only reach a given goal by passing over a given road, say
of evolution, it may be well for me to consent to the toil-
some journey. Does that explain why I was created so far
from my goal ? Discipline, toil, penalty, surgery, are all
explicable as means to ends, if only it be presupposed that
there exists, and that there is quite otherwise explicable, the
necessity for the situations which involve such fearful ex-
penses. One justifies the surgery, but not the disease ; the
toil, but not the existence of the need for the toil ; the pen-
alty, but not the situation which has made the penalty neces-
sary, when one points out that evil is in so many cases
medicinal or disciplinary or prophylactic an incident of
imperfect stages of evolution, or the price of a distant good
attained through misery. All such explanations, I insist,
trade upon borrowed capital. But God, by hypothesis, is
no borrower. He produces his own capital of ends and
means. Every evil is explained on the foregoing plan only
by presupposing at least an equal, and often a greater and a
preexistent evil, namely, the very state of things which ren-
ders the first evil the only physically possible way of reach-
ing a given goal. But what Job wants his judge to explain
is not that evil A is a physical means of warding off some
other greater evil JB, in this cruel world where the waters
wear away even the stones, and where hopes of man are so
much frailer than the stones ; but why a God who can do
whatever he wishes chooses situations where such a heaped-
up mass of evil means become what we should call physical
necessities to the ends now physically possible.
No real explanation of the presence of evil can succeed
which declares evil to be a merely physical necessity for
one who desires, in this present world, to reach a given goal.
Job's business is not with physical accidents, but with the
God who chose to make this present nature ; and an answer
to Job must show that evil is not a physical but a logical
THE PROBLEM OP JOB. 9
necessity something whose non-existence would simply con-
tradict the very essence, the very perfection of God's own
nature and power. This talk of medicinal and disciplinary
evil, perfectly fair when applied to our poor fate-bound
human surgeons, judges, jailors, or teachers, becomes cru-
elly, even cynically trivial w,hen applied to explain the
ways of a God who is to choose, not only the physical means
to an end, but the very Physis itself in which path and goal
are to exist together. I confess, as a layman, that whenever,
at a funeral, in the company of mourners who are immedi-
ately facing Job's own personal problem, and who are some-
times, to say the least, wide enough awake to desire not to
be stayed with relative comforts, but to ask that terrible and
uttermost question of God himself, and to require the direct
answer that whenever, I say, in such company I have to
listen to these half-way answers, to these superficial plashes
in the wavelets at the water's edge of sorrow, while the
black, unfathomed ocean of finite evil spreads out before
our wide-opened eyes well, at such times this trivial speech
about useful burns and salutary medicines makes me, and I
fancy others, simply and wearily heartsick. Some words
are due to children at school, to peevish patients in the sick-
room who need a little temporary quieting. But quite other
speech is due to men and women when they are wakened to
the higher reason of Job by the fierce anguish of our mortal
life's ultimate facts. They deserve either our simple silence,
or, if we are ready to speak, the speech of people who our-
selves inquire as Job inquired.
in.
A third method of dealing with our problem is in essence
identical with the course which, in a very antiquated form,
the friends of Job adopt This method takes its best known
expression in the doctrine that the presence of evil in the
world is explained by the fact that the value of free will in
10 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
moral agents logically involves, and so explains and justifies,
the divine permission of the evil deeds of those finite beings
who freely choose to sin, as well as the inevitable fruits of
the sins. God creates agents with free will. He does so be-
cause the existence of such agents has of itself an infinite
worth. Were there no free agents, the highest good could
not be. But such agents, because they are free, can offend.
The divine justice of necessity pursues such offenses with
attendant evils. These evils, the result of sin, must, logi-
cally speaking, be permitted to exist, if God once creates the
agents who have free will, and himself remains, as he must
logically do, a just God. How much ill thus results depends
upon the choice of the free agents, not upon God, who wills
to have only good chosen, but of necessity must leave his
free creatures to their own devices, so far as concerns their
power to sin.
This view has the advantage of undertaking to regard
evil as a logically necessary part of a perfect moral order,
and not as a mere incident of an imperfectly adjusted phys-
ical mechanism. So dignified a doctrine, by virtue of its
long history and its high theological reputation, needs here
no extended exposition. I assume it as familiar, and pass at
once to its difficulties. It has its share of truth. There is, I
doubt not, moral free will in the universe. But the presence
of evil in the world simply cannot be explained by free will
alone. This is easy to show. One who maintains this view
asserts, in substance, " All real evils are the results of the
acts of free and finite moral agents." These agents may be
angels or men. If there is evil in the city, the Lord has not
done it, except in so far as his justice has acted in readjust-
ing wrongs already done. Such ill is due to the deeds
of his creatures. But hereupon one asks at once, in pres-
ence of any ill, "Who did this?" Job's friends answer:
"The sufferer himself; his deed wrought his own undo-
ing. God punishes only the sinner. Every one suffers
THE PROBLEM OP JOB. 11
for his own wrongdoing. Your ill is the result of your
crime."
But Job, and all his defenders of innocence, must at once
reply : " Empirically speaking, this is obviously, in our visi-
ble world, simply not true. The sufferer may suffer inno-
cently. The ill is often undeserved. The fathers sin ; the
child, diseased from birth, degraded, or a born wretch, may
pay the penalty. The Turk or the active rebel sins. Ar-
menia's helpless women and babes cry in vain unto God
for help."
Hereupon the reply comes, although not indeed from
Job's friends : " Alas ! it is so. Sin means suffering ; but
the innocent may suffer for the guilty. This, to be sure, is
God's way. One cannot help it. It is so." But therewith
the whole effort to explain evil as a logically necessary re-
sult of free will and of divine justice alone is simply aban-
doned. The unearned ills are not justly due to the free will
that indeed partly caused them, but to God who declines to
protect the innocent God owes the Turk and the rebel
their due. He also owes to his innocent creatures, the babes
and the women, his shelter. He owes to the sinning father
his penalty, but to the son, born in our visible world a lost
soul from the womb, God owes the shelter of his almighty
wing, and no penalty. Thus Job's cry is once more in place.
The ways of God are not thus justified.
But the partisan of free will as the true explanation of
ill may reiterate his view in a new form. He may insist
.that we see but a fragment Perhaps the soul born here as
if lost, or the wretch doomed to pangs now unearned, sinned
of old, in some previous state of existence. Perhaps Karma
is to blame. You expiate to-day the sins of your own former
xi>tencea Thus the Hindoos varied the theme of our fa-
miliar doctrine. This is what Hindoo friends might have
said to Job. Well, admit even that, if you like ; and what
follows ? Admit that here or in former ages the free
12 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
deed of every present sufferer earned as its penalty every ill,
physical or moral, that appears as besetting just this sufferer
to-day. Admit that, and what logically follows ? It fol-
lows, so I must insist, that the moral world itself, which this
free-will theory of the source of evil, thus abstractly stated,
was to save, is destroyed in its very heart and centre.
For consider. A suffers ill. B sees A suffering. Can
B, the onlooker, help his suffering neighbor, A ? Can he
comfort him in any time way ? No, a miserable comforter
must B prove, like Job's friends, so long as B, believing in
our present hypothesis clings strictly to the logic of this
abstract free-will explanation of the origin of evil. To A he
says : " Well, you suffer for your own ill-doing. I therefore
simply cannot relieve you. This is God's world of justice.
If I tried to hinder God's justice from working in your case,
I should at best only postpone your evil day. It would
come, for God is just. You are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick,
in prison. What can I do about it ? All this is your own
deed come back to you. God himself, although justly pun-
ishing, is not the author of this evil. You are the sole origi-
nator of the ill." "Ah !" so A may cry out, "but can you
not give me light, insight, instruction, sympathy ? Can you
not at least teach me to become good ? " " No," B must re-
ply, if he is a logical believer in the sole efficacy of the
private free will of each finite agent as the one source, un-
der the divine justice, of that agent's ill : " No, if you de-
served light or any other comfort, God, being just, would
enlighten you himself, even if I absolutely refused. But if
you do not deserve light, I should preach to you in vain, for
God's justice would harden your heart against any such
good fortune as I could offer you from without, even if I
spoke with the tongues of men and of angels. Your free
will is yours. No deed of mine could give you a good free
will, for what I gave you from without would not be your
free will at all. Nor can any one but you cause your free
THE PROBLEM OP JOB. 13
will to be this or that. A great gulf is fixed between us.
You and I, as sovereign free agents, live in God's holy world
in sin-tight compartments and in evil-tight compartments
too. I cannot hurt you, nor you me. You are damned for
your own sins, while all that I can do is to look out for my
own salvation." This, I say, is the logically inevitable re-
sult of asserting that every ill, physical or moral, that can
happen to any agent, is solely the result of that agent's own
free will acting under the government of the divine justice.
The only possible consequence would indeed be that we
live, every soul of us, in separate, as, it were absolutely fire-
proof, free-will compartments, so that real cooperation as to
good and ill is excluded. What more cynical denial of the
reality of any sort of moral world could be imagined than
is involved in this horrible thesis, which no sane partisan of
the abstract and traditional free-will explanation of the
source of evil will to-day maintain, precisely because no
such partisan really knows or can know what his doctrine
logically means, while still continuing to maintain it Yet
whenever one asserts with pious obscurity, that " No harm
can come to the righteous," one in fact implies, with logical
necessity, just this cynical consequence.
IV.
There remains a fourth doctrine as to our problem.
This doctrine is in essence the thesis of philosophical ideal-
ism, a thesis which I myself feel bound to maintain, and, so
far as space here permits, to explain. The theoretical basis
of this view, the philosophical reasons for the notion of the
divine nature which it implies, I cannot here explain.
That is another argument But I desire to indicate how the
view in question deals with Job's problem.
This view first frankly admits that Job's problem is,
upon Job's presuppositions, simply and absolutely insolu-
ble. Grant Job's own presupposition that God is a being
14 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
other than this world, that he is its external creator and
ruler, and then ail solutions fail. God is then either cruel
or helpless, as regards all real finite ill of the sort that Job
endures. Job, moreover, is right in demanding a reasona-
ble answer to his question. The only possible answer is,
however, one that undertakes to develop what I hold to be
the immortal soul of the doctrine of the divine atonement.
The answer to Job is : God is not in ultimate essence an-
other being than yourself. He is the Absolute Being. You
truly are one with God, part of his life. He is the very soul
of your soul. And so, here is the first truth : When you
suffer, your sufferings are God" 8 sufferings, not his exter-
nal work, not his external penalty, not the fruit of his neg-
lect, but identically his own personal woe. In you God
himself suffers, precisely as you do, and has all your con-
cern in overcoming this grief.
The true question then is : Why does God thus suffer ?
The sole possible, necessary, and sufficient answer is, Be-
cause without suffering, without ill, without woe, evil, trag-
edy, God's life could not be perfected. This grief is not a
physical means to an external end. It is a logically neces-
sary and eternal constituent of the divine life. It is logically
necessary that the Captain of your salvation should be per-
fect through suffering. No outer nature compels him. He
chooses this because he chooses his own perfect selfhood.
He is perfect. His world is the best possible world. Yet
all its finite regions know not only of joy but of defeat and
sorrow, for thus alone, in the completeness of his eternity,
can God in his wholeness be triumphantly perfect.
This, I say, is my thesis. In the absolute oneness of God
with the sufferer, in the concept of the suffering and there-
fore triumphant God, lies the logical solution of the problem
of evil. The doctrine of philosophical idealism is, as regards
its purely theoretical aspects, a fairly familiar metaphysical
theory at the present time. One may, then, presuppose here
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 15
as known the fact that, for reasons which I have not now to
expound, the idealist maintains that there is in the universe
but one perfectly real being, namely, the Absolute, that the
Absolute is self-conscious, and that his world is essentially
in its wholeness the fulfillment in actu of an all-perfect
ideal. We ourselves exist as fragments of the absolute life,
or better, as partial functions in the unity of the absolute
and conscious process of the world. On the other hand, our
existence and our individuality are not illusory, but are
what they are in an organic unity with the whole life
of the Absolute Being. This doctrine once presupposed,
our present task is to inquire what case idealism can
make for the thesis just indicated as its answer to Job's
problem.
In endeavoring to grapple witli the theoretical problem
of the place of evil in a world that, on the whole, is to be
conceived, not only as good, but as perfect, there is happily
one essentially decisive consideration concerning good and
evil which falls directly within the scope of our own human
experience, and which concerns matters at once familiar
and momentous as well as too much neglected in philoso-
phy. When we use such words as good, evil, perfect, we
easily deceive ourselves by the merely abstract meanings
wliich we associate with each of the terms taken apart from
the other. We forget the experiences from which the words
have been abstracted. To these experiences we must return
whenever we want really to comprehend the words. If we
take the mere words, in their abstraction, it is easy to say,
for instance, that if life has any evil in it at all, it must
needs not be so perfect as life would be were there no evil
in it whatever. Just so, speaking abstractly, it is easy to
say that, in estimating life, one has to set the good over
against the evil, and to compare their respective sums. It
is easy to declare that, since we hate evil, wherever and just
so far as we recognize it, our sole human interest in the
3
16 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
world must be furthered by the removal of evil from the
world. And thus viewing the case, one readily comes to
say that if God views as not only good but perfect a world
in which we find so much evil, the divine point of view
must be very foreign to ours, so that Job's rebellious pes-
simism seems well in order, and Prometheus appears to
defy the world-ruler in a genuinely humane spirit. Shocked,
however, by the apparent impiety of this result, some teach-
ers, considering divine matters, still misled by the same
one-sided use of words, have opposed one falsely abstract
view by another, and have strangely asserted that the solu-
tion must be in proclaiming that since God's world, the real
world, in order to be perfect, must be without evil, what we
men call evil must be a mere illusion a mirage of the
human point of view a dark vision which God, who sees
all truth, sees not at all. To God, so this view asserts, the
eternal world in its wholeness is not only perfect, but has
merely the perfection of an utterly transparent crystal, un-
stained by any color of ill. Only mortal error imagines
that there is any evil. There is no evil but only good in the
real world, and that is why God finds the world perfect,
whatever mortals dream.
Now neither of these abstract views is my view. I con-
sider them both the result of a thoughtless trust in abstract
words. I regard evil as a distinctly real fact, a fact just as
real as the most helpless and hopeless sufferer finds it to be
when he is in pain. Furthermore, I hold that God's point
of view is not foreign to ours. I hold that God willingly,
freely, and consciously suffers in us when we suffer, and
that our grief is his. And despite all this I maintain that
the world from God's point of view fulfills the divine ideal
and is perfect And I hold that when we abandon the one-
sided abstract ideas which the words good, evil, and perfect
suggest, and when we go back to the concrete experiences
upon which these very words are founded, we can see, even
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 17
within the limits of our own experience, facts which make
these very paradoxes perfectly intelligible, and even com-
monplace.
As for that essentially pernicious view, nowadays some-
what current amongst a certain class of gentle but inconse-
quent people the view that all evil is merely an illusion
and that there is no such thing in God's world I can say of
it only in passing that it is often advanced as an idealistic
view, but that, in my opinion, it is false idealism. Good
idealism it is to regard all finite experience as an appear-
ance, a hint, often a very poor hint, of deeper truth. Good
idealism it is to admit that man can err about truth that lies
beyond his finite range of experience. And very good
idealism it is to assert that all truth, and so all finite ex-
perience, exists in and for the mind of God, and nowhere
outside of or apart from God. But it is not good idealism
to assert that any facts which fall within the range of finite
experience are, even while they are experienced, mere illu-
sions. God's truth is inclusive, not exclusive. What you
experience God experiences. The difference lies only in
this, that God sees in unity what you see in fragments. For
the rest, if one said, " The source and seat of evil is only the
error of mortal mind," one would but have changed the
name of one's problem. If the evil were but the error,
the error would still be the evil, and altering the name
would not have diminished the horror of the evil of this
finite world.
v.
But I hasten from the false idealism to the true ; from
the abstractions to the enlightening insights of our life. As
a fact, idealism does not say : The finite world is, as such,
a mere illusion. A sound idealism says, whatever we expe-
rience is a fragment, and, as far as it goes, a genuine frag-
ment of the truth of the divine mind. With this principle
before us, let us consider directly our own experiences of
18 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
good and of evil, to see whether they are as abstractly op-
posed to each other as the mere words often suggest. We
must begin with the elementary and even trivial facts. We
shall soon come to something deeper.
By good, as we mortals experience it, we mean something
that, when it comes or is expected, we actively welcome, try
to attain or keep, and regard with content. By evil in gen-
eral, as it is in our experience, we mean whatever we find in
any sense repugnant and intolerable. I use the words re-
pugnant and intolerable because I wish to indicate that
words for evil frequently, like the words for good, directly
refer to our actions as such. Commonly and rightly, when
we speak of evil, we make reference to acts of resistance, of
struggle, of shrinking, of flight, of removal of ourselves
from a source of mischief acts which not only follow upon
the experience of evil, but which serve to define in a useful
fashion what we mean by evil. The opposing acts of pur-
suit and of welcome define what we mean by good. By the
evil which we experience we mean precisely whatever we
regard as something to be gotten rid of, shrunken from, put
out of sight, of hearing, or of memory, eschewed, expelled,
assailed, or otherwise directly or indirectly resisted. By
good we mean whatever we regard as something to be wel-
comed, pursued, won, grasped, held, persisted in, preserved.
And we show all this in our acts in presence of any grade of
good or evil, sensuous, aesthetic, ideal, moral. To shun, to
flee, to resist, to destroy, these are our primary attitudes
towards ill; the opposing acts are our primary attitudes
towards the good ; and whether you regard us as animals or
as moralists, whether it is a sweet taste, a poem, a virtue, or
God that we look to as good, and whether it is a burn or a
temptation, an outward physical foe, or a stealthy, inward,
ideal enemy, that we regard as evil. In all our organs of
voluntary movement, in all our deeds, in a turn of the eye,
in a sigh, a groan, in a hostile gesture, in an act of silent
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 19
contempt, we can show in endlessly varied ways the same
general attitude of repugnance.
But man is a very complex creature. He has many or-
gans. He performs many acts at once, and he experiences
his performance of these acts in one highly complex life of
consciousness. As the next feature of his life we all ob-
serve that he can at the same time shun one object and grasp
at another. In this way he can have at once present to him
a consciousness of good and a consciousness of ill. But so
far in our account these sorts of experience appear merely
as facts side by side. Man loves, and he also hates, loves
this, and hates that, assumes an attitude of repugnance
towards one object, while he welcomes another. So far the
usual theory follows man's life, and calls it an experience of
good and ill as mingled but exclusively and abstractly op-
posed facts. For such a view the final question as to the
worth of a man's life is merely the question whether there
are more intense acts of satisfaction and of welcome than of
repugnance and disdain in his conscious life.
But this is by no means an adequate notion of the com-
plexity of man's life, even as an animal. If every conscious
act of hindrance, of thwarting, of repugnance, means just
in so far an awareness of some evil, it is noteworthy that
men can have and can show just such tendencies, not only
towards external experiences, but towards their own acts.
That is, men can be seen trying to thwart and to hinder
even their own acts themselves, at the very moment when
they note the occurrence of these acts. One can consciously
have an impulse to do something, and at that very moment
a conscious disposition to hinder or to thwart as an evil that
very impulse. If, on the other hand, every conscious act
of attainment, of pursuit, of reinforcement, involves the
awareness of some good, it is equally obvious that one can
show by ono's acts a disposition to reinforce or to emphasize
or to increase, not only the externally present gifts of for-
20 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
tune, but also one's own deeds, in so far as one observes
them. And in our complex lives it is common enough to
find ourselves actually trying to reinforce and to insist upon
a situation which involves for us, even at the moment of its
occurrence, a great deal of repugnance. In such cases we
often act as if we felt the very thwarting of our own pri-
mary impulses to be so much of a conscious good that we per-
sist in pursuing and reinforcing the very situation in which
this thwarting and hindering of our own impulses is sure to
arise.
In brief, as phenomena of this kind show, man is a being
who can to a very great extent find a sort of secondary sat-
isfaction in the very act of thwarting his own desires, and
thus of assuring for the time his own dissatisfactions. On
the other hand, man can to an indefinite degree find him-
self dissatisfied with his satisfactions and disposed to thwart,
not merely his external enemies, but his own inmost im-
pulses themselves. But I now affirm that in all such cases
you cannot simply say that man is preferring the less of
two evils, or the greater of two goods, as if the good and the
evil stood merely side by side in his experience. On the
contrary, in such cases, man is not merely setting his acts
or his estimates of good and evil side by side and taking the
sum of each ; but he is making his own relatively primary
acts, impulses, desires, the objects of all sorts of secondary
impulses, desires, and reflective observations. His whole
inner state is one of tension ; and he is either making a sec-
ondary experience of evil out of his estimate of a primary
experience of good, as is the case when he at once finds
himself disposed to pursue a given good and to thwart this
pursuit as being an evil pursuit ; or else he is making a sec-
ondary experience of good out of his primary experience of
evil, as when he is primarily dissatisfied with his situation,
but yet secondarily regards this very dissatisfaction as itself
a desirable state. In this way man comes not only to love
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 21
some things and also to hate other things, he comes to love
his own hates and to hate his own loves in an endlessly
complex hierarchy of superposed interests in his own in-
terests.
Now it is easy to say that such states of inner tension,
where our conscious lives are full of a warfare of the self
with itself, are contradictory or absurd states. But it is easy
to say this only when you dwell on the words and fail to
observe the facts of experience. As a fact, not only our
lowest but our highest states of activity are the ones which
are fullest of this crossing, conflict, and complex interrela-
tion of loves and hates, of attractions and repugnances. As
a merely physiological fact we begin no muscular act with-
out at the same time initiating acts which involve the in-
nervation of opposing sets of muscles, and these opposing
sets of muscles hinder each other's freedom. Every sort of
control of movement means the conflicting play of opposed
muscular impulses. We do nothing simple, and we will no
complex act without willing what involves a certain meas-
ure of opposition between the impulses or partial acts which
go to make up the whole act. If one passes from single acts
to long series of acts, one finds only the more obviously this
interweaving of repugnance and of acceptance, of pursuit
and of flight, upon which every complex type of conduct
depends.
One could easily at this point spend time by dwelling
upon numerous and relatively trivial instances of this inter-
weaving of conflicting motives as it appears in all our life.
I prefer to pass such instances over with a mere mention.
There is, for instance, the whole marvelous consciousness of
play, in its benign and in its evil forms. In any game that
fascinates, one loves victory and shuns defeat, and yet as a
loyal supporter of the game scorns anything that makes
victory certain in advance ; thus as a lover of fair play pre-
ferring to risk the defeat that he all the wlu'le shuns, and
22 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
partly thwarting the very love of victory that from moment
to moment fires his hopes. There are, again, the numerous
cases in which we prefer to go to places where we are sure
to be in a considerable measure dissatisfied ; to engage, for
instance, in social functions that absorbingly fascinate us
despite or even in view of the very fact that, as long as they
continue, they keep us in a state of tension which makes us,
amongst other things, long to have the whole occasion over.
Taking a wider view, one may observe that the greater part
of the freest products of the activity of civilization, in cere-
monies, in formalities, in the long social drama of flight, of
pursuit, of repartee, of contest and of courtesy, involve an
elaborate and systematic delaying and hindering of ele-
mental human desires, which we continually outwit, post-
pone and thwart, even while we nourish them. When stu-
dents of human nature assert that hunger and love rule the
social world, they recognize that the elemental in human
nature is trained by civilization into the service of the high-
est demands of the Spirit. But such students have to recog-
nize that the elemental rules the higher world only in so
far as the elemental is not only cultivated, but endlessly
thwarted, delayed, outwitted, like a constitutional monarch,
who is said to be a sovereign, but who, while he rules, must
not govern.
But I pass from such instances, which in all their uni-
versality are still, I admit, philosophically speaking, trivial,
because they depend upon the accidents of human nature.
I pass from these instances to point out what must be the
law, not only of human nature, but of every broader form
of life as well. I maintain that this organization of life by
virtue of the tension of manifold impulses and interests is
not a mere accident of our imperfect human nature, but
must be a type of the organization of every rational life.
There are good and bad states of tension, there are conflicts
that can only be justified when resolved into some higher
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 23
form of harmony. But I insist that, in general, the only
harmony that can exist in the realm of the spirit is the har-
mony that we possess when we thwart the present but more
elemental impulse for the sake of the higher unity of expe-
rience ; as when we rejoice in the endurance of the tragedies
of life, because they show us the depth of life, or when we
know that it is better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all, or when we possess a virtue in the mo-
ment of victory over the tempter. And the reason why
this is true lies in the fact that the more one's experience
fulfills ideals, the more that experience presents to one, not
of ignorance, but of triumphantly wealthy acquaintance
with the facts of manifold, varied and tragic life, full of
tension and thereby of unity. Now this is an universal and
not merely human law. It is not those innocent of evil
who are fullest of the life of God, but those who in their
own case have experienced the triumph over evil. It is not
those naturally ignorant of fear, or those who, like Sieg-
fried, have never shivered, who possess the genuine experi-
ence of courage : but the brave are those who have fears,
but control their fears. Such know the genuine virtues of
the hero. Were it otherwise, only the stupid could be per-
fect heroes.
To be sure it is quite false to say, as the foolish do, that
the object of life is merely that we may " know life " as an
irrational chaos of experiences of good and of evil. But
knowing the good in life is a matter which concerns the
form, rather than the mere content of life. One who knows
lifo wisely knows indeed much of the content of life; but
he knows the good of life in so far as, in the unity of his
experience, he finds the evil of his experience not abolished,
but subordinated, and in so far relatively thwarted by a
control which annuls its triumph even while experiencing
its existence,
24 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
VI.
Generalizing the lesson of experience we may then say :
It is logically impossible that a complete knower of truth
should fail to know, to experience, to have present to his
insight, the fact of actually existing evil. On the other
hand, it is equally impossible for one to know a higher good
than comes from the subordination of evil to good in a total
experience. When one first loving, in an elemental way,
whatever you please, himself hinders, delays, thwarts his
elemental interest in the interest of some larger whole of
experience, he not only knows more fact, but he possesses a
higher good than would or could be present to one who was
aware neither of the elemental impulse, nor of the thwarting
of it in the tension of a richer life. The knowing of the
good, in the higher sense, depends upon contemplating the
overcoming and subordination of a less significant impulse,
which survives even in order that it should be subordinated.
Now this law, this form of the knowledge of the good, ap-
plies as well to the existence of moral as to that of sensuous
ill. If moral evil were simply destroyed and wiped away
from the external world, the knowledge of moral goodness
would also be destroyed. For the love of moral good is the
thwarting of lower loves for the sake of the higher organ-
ization. What is needed, then, for the definition of the
divine knowledge of a world that in its wholeness is per-
fect, is not a divine knowledge that shall ignore, wipe out
and utterly make naught the existence of any ill, whether
physical or moral, but a divine knowledge to which shall
be present that love of the world as a whole which is ful-
filled in the endurance of physical ill, in the subordination
of moral ill, in the thwarting of impulses which survive
even when subordinated, in the acceptance of repugnances
which are still eternal, in the triumph over an enemy that
endures even through its eternal defeat, and in the discov-
THE PROBLEM OF JOB. 25
ery that the endless tension of the finite world is included
in the contemplative consciousness of the repose and har-
mony of eternity. To view God's nature thus is to view his
nature as the whole idealistic theory views him, not as the
Infinite One beyond the finite imperfections, but as the be-
ing whose unity determines the very constitution, the lack,
the tension, and relative disharmony of the finite world.
The existence of evil, then, is not only consistent with
the perfection of the universe, but is necessary for the very
existence of that perfection. This is what we see when we
no longer permit ourselves to be deceived by the abstract
meanings of the words good and evil into thinking that
these two opponents exist merely as mutually exclusive
facts side by side in experience, but when we go back to the
facts of life and perceive that all relatively higher good, in
the trivial as in the more truly spiritual realm, is known
only in so far as, from some higher reflective point of view,
we accept as good the thwarting of an existent interest that
is even thereby declared to be a relative ill, and love a ten-
sion of various impulses which even thereby involves, as
the object of our love, the existence of what gives us aver-
sion or grief. Now if the love of God is more inclusive
than the love of man, even as the divine world of experi-
ence is richer than the human world, we can simply set no
human limit to the intensity of conflict, to the tragedies of
existence, to the pangs of finitude, to the degree of moral
ill, which in the end is included in the life that God not
only loves, but finds the fulfillment of the perfect ideal. If
peace means satisfaction, acceptance of the whole of an
experience as good, and if even we, in our weakness, can
frequently find rest in the very presence of conflict and of
tension, in the very endurance of ill in a good cause, in the
hero's triumph over temptation, or in the mourner's tearless
refusal to accept the lower comforts of forgetfulness, or to
wish that the lost one's preciousness had been less painfully
26 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
revealed by death well, if even we know our little share of
this harmony in the midst of the wrecks and disorders of
life, what limit shall we set to the divine power to face this
world of his own sorrows, and to find peace in the victory
over all its ills.
But in this last expression I have pronounced the word
that serves to link this theory as to the place of evil in a
good world with the practical problem of every sufferer.
Job's rebellion came from the thought that God, as a sover-
eign, is far off, and that, for his pleasure, his creature suffers.
Our own theory comes to the mourner with the assurance :
"Your suffering, just as it is in you, is God's suffering. No
chasm divides you from God. He is not remote from you
even in his eternity. He is here. His eternity means mere-
ly the completeness of his experience. But that complete-
ness is inclusive. Your sorrow is one of the included facts."
I do not say : " God sympathizes with you from without,
would spare you if he could, pities you with helpless exter-
nal pity merely as a father pities his children." I say :
" God here sorrows, not with but in your sorrow. Your
grief is identically his grief, and what you know as your
loss, God knows as his loss, just in and through the very
moment when you grieve."
But hereupon the sufferer perchance responds : " If this
is God's loss, could he not have prevented it ? To him are
present in unity all the worlds ; and yet he must lack just
this for which I grieve." I respond : " He suffers here that
he may triumph. For the triumph of the wise is no easy
thing. Their lives are not light, but sorrowful. Yet they
rejoice in their sorrow, not, to be sure, because it is mere
experience, but because, for them, it becomes part of a stren-
uous whole of life. They wander and find their home even
in wandering. They long, and attain through their very
love of longing. Peace they find in triumphant warfare.
Contentment they have most of all in endurance. Sover-
THE PROBLEM OP JOB. 27
eignty they win in endless service. The eternal world con-
tains Gethsemane."
Yet the mourner may still insist : '' If my sorrow is God's,
his triumph is not mine. Mine is the woe. His is the
peace." But my theory is a philosophy. It proposes to be
coherent. I must persist : " It is your fault that you are
thus sundered from God's triumph. His experience in its
wholeness cannot now be yours, for you just as you this
individual are now but a fragment, and see his truth as
through a glass darkly. But if you see his truth at all,
through even the dimmest light of a glimmering reason,
remember, that truth is in fact your own truth, your own
fulfillment, the whole from which your life cannot be di-
vorced, the reality that you mean even when you most
doubt, the desire of your heart even when you are most
blind, the perfection that you unconsciously strove for even
when you were an infant, the complete Self apart from
whom you mean nothing, the very life that gives your life
the only value which it can have. In thought, if not in the
fulfillment of thought, in aim if not in attainment of aim,
in aspiration if not in the presence of the revealed fact, you
can view God's triumph and peace as your triumph and
peace. Your defeat will be no less real than it is, nor will
you falsely call your evil a mere illusion. But you will see
not only the grief but the truth, your truth, your rescue,
your triumph."
Well, to what ill-fortune does not just such reasoning
apply ? I insist : our conclusion is essentially universal. It
discounts any evil that experience may contain. All the
horrors of the natural order, all the concealments of the
divine plan by our natural ignorance, find their general re-
lation to the unity of the divine experience indicated in ad-
vance by this account of the problem of evil.
" Yes," one may continue, " ill-fortune you have dis-
covered, but how about moral evil ? What if the sinner
28 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
now triumphantly retorts: 'Aha! So my will is God's
will. All then is well with me.' " I reply : What I have
said disposes of moral ill precisely as definitely as of physi-
cal ill. What the evil will is to the good man, whose good-
ness depends upon its existence, but also upon the thwart-
ing and the condemnation of its aim, just such is the sinner's
will to the divine plan. God's will, we say to the sinner, is
your will. Yes, but it is your will thwarted, scorned, over-
come, defeated. In the eternal world you are seen, pos-
sessed, present, but your damnation is also seen including
and thwarting you. Your apparent victory in this world
stands simply for the vigor of your impulses. God wills
you not to triumph. And that is the use of you in the
world the use of evil generally to be hated but endured,
to be triumphed over through the very fact of your presence,
to be willed down even in the very life of which you are a
part.
But to the serious moral agent we say : What you mean
when you say that evil in this temporal world ought not to
exist, and ought to be suppressed, is simply what God means
by seeing that evil ought to be and is endlessly thwarted, en-
dured, but subordinated. In the natural world you are the
minister of God's triumph. Your deed is his. You can
never clean the world of evil ; but you can subordinate evil.
The justification of the presence in the world of the morally
evil becomes apparent to us mortals only in so far as this
evil is overcome and condemned. It exists only that it may
be cast down. Courage, then, for God works in you. In
the order of time you embody in outer acts what is for him
the truth of his eternity.
IL
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN.
THE casuistry of the numerous forms of insistent mental
processes of a pathological character has of late years become
very extensive. The names and sub-classes of these mor-
bidly insistent kinds of feeling, thought, or volition have oc-
casionally been multiplied beyond any reason, until, in
view of the endless "manias" and "phobias" 1 that some
writers have been disposed to dignify with special titles, I
myself have sometimes wondered whether it would not be
wise for some one, in the interests of good sense, to try to
check this process by defining, as a peculiarly dangerous
type of insistent impulses, a " new mental disorder," to be
described as the " mania " for multiplying words ending in
mania or in phobia. Meanwhile, despite this inconven-
ience, and despite numerous hasty speculations upon the
whole subject, there can be no doubt that the theoretical
interest of these morbidly insistent mental processes is great,
and that the pathological secret and the genuine natural
classification of these disorders will be such as well to repay
the trouble of the most minute study of cases, if only that
secret ever comes to be made out, and that natural classifi-
cation is ever set up. And while we wait for further light,
the careful preliminary scrutiny of cases is indeed the only
course open to students of psychology.
The present paper is but a very modest contribution to
the casuistry of the morbidly insistent mental processes. I
30 STUDIES OF GOOD 'AND EVIL.
have no new phobia or mania to define, and in any case I
speak only as student of psychology. The medical reader
might be able to see much more in the documents to which
I here wish to attract his attention than I am able to see.
My task is simply one of summary and report. The case to
which I wish to call attention is meanwhile one of peculiar
interest, namely, that of the author of the Pilgrim's Prog-
ress. The principal document concerned is John Bunyan's
remarkable confession, entitled Grace Abounding to the
Chief of Sinners, an autobiographical statement which
Bunyan wrote and published, as the title-page tells us, " for
the support of the weak and tempted people of God." This
little book is, from the literary point of view, of very high
interest, ranking, as I suppose, amongst all the author's
works, second only to the great Pilgrim's Progress itself.
As a record of human experience, the Grace Abounding
will never lose its charm, both for lovers of religious biog-
raphy, and for admirers of honesty, of sincerity, and of sim-
ple pathos. Nothing that can be said as to the psychological
significance of the author's recorded experiences will ever
detract from the worth of the book, even when viewed just
as the author viewed it, as a "support " for the " weak and
tempted." Bunyan, as we shall see, had at one time a de-
cidedly heavy and morbid burden to bear. But, like many
another nervous sufferer of the " strong type " (Koch's
starker Typus), Bunyan carried this burden with heroic
perseverance, and in the end won the mastery over it by a
most instructive kind of self-discipline. In view of this
fact, a clearer recognition of the nature of the burden,
from the psychological point of view, rather helps than
hinders our admiration for the author's genius, and our re-
spect for his unconquerable manhood. It is this sort of
case, in fact, that renders the study of the nervous disorders
so frequently associated with genius, a pursuit adapted, in
very many instances, not to cheapen our sense of the dig-
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNTAN. 31
nity of genius, but to heighten our reverence for the
strength that could contend, as some men of genius have
done, with their disorders, and that could conquer the nerv-
ous " Apollyon " on his own chosen battle-ground.
But an estimate of Bunyan's genius belongs not here. I
venture only to say that I write as an especially profound
admirer of this wonderful and untaught artist, whose home-
ly style shows in almost every line the born master, whose
simple realism in portraying human character as he saw it
amongst the live men about him often puts to shame the
ingenuity of scores of cunning literary craftsmen in these
our own most realistic days, and whose few highest flights
of poetic imagination, such as the closing scenes of the first
part of the Pilgrim's Progress, belong without question in
the really loftiest regions of art. Range of invention, self-
control in production, perfect objectivity in the portrayal of
human life these are leading traits in the work of this
man ; and these things, as well as others that we shall later
see, forever forbid our classing Bunyan, taken as a whole,
amongst the weaklings. It is perfectly consistent with this
fact, however, when we find this admirable man and artist
living, for a bitter and instructive period of his early years,
a life of stern conflict with a nervous foe of a fairly recog-
nizable and, under the circumstances, decidedly grave type.
How, unaided and ignorant, he won the victory, is in itself
an interesting tale. And, for the rest, the case tends to
throw light on the interesting problem as to how far the
presence of elaborate insistent mental processes of a morbid
type is of itself a sufficient indication of the depth of the
" degeneracy " of constitution of the subject who is for a
time burdened with them.* That Bunyan's malady must
* The frequent association of the morbidly insistent processes with the
nervously " degenerate " type is a commonplace in the literature of the sub-
ject, and a few yean since it was, 1 believe, an almost if not quite universal
4
32 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
have had a certain constitutional basis will, I suppose, ap-
pear decidedly probable to most readers of the following
summary. Yet it will be hard to question the fact that,
quite apart from his special creative abilities, Bunyan's
general constitution his extraordinary and persistent
power of work, his long endurance of very serious mental
and physical hardships, his reasonably lengthy life of sixty
years (ended by an acute disease, due to an exposure), his
apparently even temper and self-possession in later years,
his sustained influence over men as leader, adviser, and
preacher when taken altogether, must give us an idea of
his inherited organization that will, in any event, stand in a
fairly strong contrast to the impression that the temporary
nervous disorder of his early manhood, if it were taken
alone, would leave upon our minds.
But a deeper estimate of such things I must leave to
more competent judges. I have here only to present the
facts.
I.
John Bunyan was born November 30, 1628, and died
August 31, 1688. The principal known facts of his life
which bear in any way upon the question of his health and
constitution, apart from the narrative in the Grace
Abounding, are as follows : * Bunyan was a native of the
dogma that considerable masses of insistent fears, impulses, or thoughts
occurred only as part of the " stigmata " of degeneracy. The possibility of
the development of even elaborate systems of such insistent impulses upon
a basis of wholly acquired neurasthenia was maintained by Dr. Cowles, in
his well-known paper on Insistent and Fixed Ideas in the American Jour-
nal of Psychology (vol. i. p. 222 sq.), and has also been asserted by others.
* I use, for the most part, the principal recent biography, that of John
Brown (2d edition, London, 1886) an elaborate and extremely patient re-
search into every discoverable detail relating to Bunyan's family and for-
tunes. Other recent accounts are those of Venables (in the " Great Writers "
series, London, 1888) and of Froude (in the " English Men of Letters"
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNYAN. 33
little village of Elstow, near Bedford. His family can be
traced in Bedfordshire as far back as 1200. In the sixteenth
century, an ancestor of Bunyan, and the wife of this ances-
tor, appear in court records as brewers and bakers. Thomas
Bunyan, his grandfather, was "a small village trader."
Difficulties in the courts are the occasion of some of the
records preserved of these ancestors, but the difficulties
named are petty, e. g., minor violations of excise laws, dis-
respect to churchwardens, and perhaps religious nonconfor-
mity. * Bunyan's father was notoriously, like Bunyan
himself, a " tinker " or " brasier," probably, says Brown,
" neither better nor worse than the rest of the craftsmen of
the hammer and the forge." Tinkers had, to be sure, in
that time and place, a reputation as rather hard drinkers ;
but on the other hand they wandered much on foot, and so
lived freely out of doors. Bunyan's father lived until 1676,
dying at seventy-three years of age. The poet's mother was
of a poor but very honest and thrifty family ; she died
when John Bunyan himself had reached the age of fifteen.
Little more is known of the family before we reach our
poet himself. He was not an only child. One sister is
known to have died early. One brother is known to have
lived until 1695.
Of John Bunyan's childhood history we shall see a little
soon. In youth he was apparently, until after the time of
his marriage, of pretty lusty health. The " wicked " early
life of which he speaks so severely in his Grace Abounding
proves, on the whole, to have been, physically speaking, a
wholesome life, during all the time preceding his marriage
and his conversion. Alcoholic excesses and unchastity are,
in the opinion of all his modern biographers, nearly or quite
cries). The ground hut thus been very thoroughly gone over, for all
literary purpoaea, in recent yean.
Brown, pp. 27-81.
34: STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
excluded by what we most certainly know of liim at this
time. At about sixteen years of age Bunyan was enrolled in
the army, probably on the Parliamentary side, and remained
some two years in service, but apparently without any physi-
cal ill effects. He married at twenty years of age, both him-
self and his wife being very poor. He now followed his
trade as tinker. Within the next four years fall, first his
conversion, and then the experiences of which we are princi-
pally to speak in what follows. In these years, furthermore,
falls also the birth of his first child, a daughter who was
very early blind. In 1653, after he had passed through
these principal experiences, he joined the church in Bed-
ford. In 1654 his second child was born, also a daughter.
In 1655 he began that career as preacher which he contin-
ued thenceforward, so far as he was permitted to do so, until
the end. In 1660 he was imprisoned in the county jail at
Bedford, for violating the law by acting as an irregular
preacher ; and there he remained, in a confinement which
varied in its degrees of strictness, for some twelve years.
The physical strain of this imprisonment must have been
great, and the mental anxieties involved were of the sever-
est, as we learn from his own account ; yet Bunyan plainly
experienced no return of his previous mental troubles with
anything like their old force. He was now often weak in
body and depressed in mind, but never long despairing.
He busied himself both in preaching to his fellow-prisoners
and in writing. He was released in 1672. For three years
thereafter he was at liberty. In 1675-6 he suffered a second
imprisonment, during which it was, according to recent re-
search, that he wrote the Pilgrim's Progress.* Thenceforth
he continued working as writer and preacher to the end.
The list of his works contains " sixty pieces," says his first
bibliographer, " and he was sixty years of age." One stand-
* Brown, p. 254 ; Venables, p. 151.
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 35
ard edition occupies four volumes octavo. His works are,
of course, largely theological. They are certainly laborious
productions, even apart from the genius involved ; for this
man was never trained to write.
As to his health otherwise, we know that after 1653 there
was a time in his early life when, as he says, " I was much
inclining to a consumption, wherewith, about the Spring, I
was suddenly and violently seized with much weakness in
my outward man, insomuch that I thought I could not live."
Other times, still later, he mentions, when he was " very ill
and weak '' ; and he notes great depression of spirits as char-
acteristic of his state at all such times.* Brown t holds,
concerning Bunyan, that " at any time he was far from
strong " as to physical health. But when one considers his
remarkable activity both as writer and preacher, and the
long and severe strains to which he had been subject before
he reached sixty years of age, and when one remembers also
the possibly hypochondriac nature of the disorders of which
his own account, as just cited, speaks, it seems hard, after
all, to form any exact opinion as to the actual degree of the
physical weakness of his constitution. One is disposed to
set the work done and the external sufferings endured over
against the rather meagre record of later illnesses in his life.
14 His friend," says Brown (a friend, namely, who wrote an
account of Bunyan), " tells us that though he was only sixty
he was worn out with sufferings, age, and often teaching."
One remembers hereupon that a persecuted genius who
had written 44 sixty pieces" without having received any
sort of early scholarly training, and who had passed
more than twelve years in unjust imprisonment, and all
* " The Tempter did beset me strongly (for I find ho is much for as-
saulting tho soul when it begins to approach towards tho grave, then in his
opportunity)." Grace Abounding (Clarendon Press Ed.), p. 876.
t Op. cit., p. 890.
36 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
his life in struggle, had a right to be somewhat worn at
sixty.
He died of " a violent fever," or, as others say, of " the
sweating distemper," after having been exposed to " heavy
rains and drenched to the skin " while on a preaching jour-
ney. Bunyan was twice married. He had in all three
daughters and three sons. His first child, born during the
time of his early disorder a daughter was, as observed
above, blind, and died before him. Descendants of another
of his daughters are the only descendants of Bunyan still
known to survive. The later history of the family is in-
complete, but, as reported by Brown, contains nothing of
any note for our present purpose no record, namely, of re-
markable disease or ability.
Of Bunyan's outward seeming, in his later years, we
have two good accounts by contemporaries. One runs
thus:
" As for his person, he was tall of stature, strong-boned,
though not corpulent, somewhat of a ruddy face, with spar-
kling eyes ; . . . his hair reddish, but in his latter days time had
sprinkled it with gray ; his nose well set, but not declining
or bending, and his mouth moderately large ; his forehead
something high, and his habit always plain and modest.
He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough
temper, but in his conversation mild and affable, not given
to loquacity or much discourse in company, unless some
urgent occasion required it; observing never to boast of
himself or his parts, but rather to seem low in his own
eyes and submit himself to the judgment of others. . . .
He had a sharp quick eye, accomplished with an excellent
discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick
wit"
The other account speaks of his countenance as " grave
and sedate," and of a sort to " strike something of awe into
thorn that had nothing of the fear of God." The writer adds
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 37
that his memory was " tenacious, it being customary with
him to commit his sermons to writing after he had preached
them." Bunyan's executive ability in church management
and discipline is also noted in this account. As to his
eloquence as a preacher, all accounts agree. This* great
" dreamer," then, was also, in his later years, a man of de-
cided practical power, dignified in bearing, accustomed to
control other men.
II.
So much, then, for the man as a whole. As to the ex-
periences of his early manhood, recorded in the Grace
Abounding, biographers in general have felt their perplex-
ing intensity and abnormity, but have been accustomed
either to refer them once for all to Bunyan's theological
associations and ideas, or else to conceive them as indeed
somehow pathological, but then to define their abnormal
nature with the utmost looseness and confusedness.*
Patent, then, as are the reported experiences, beautifully
as Bunyan confesses them, transparently as he unveils him-
self, one still has to go almost alone in trying to portray
their actual connections ; for biographer after biographer
* Macaulay, for instance, in his Miscellanies, declares that, at a certain
point, Bunyan's mind began to be u fearfully disordered " ; but he then
proceeds, with a very undiscriminating analysis of the data, to define Bun-
yan's mental symptoms so that, if this analysis were sound, they would
make up a case of what we should now define as u hallucinatory delirium.' 1
This Bunyan's disorder very certainly was not, in any fashion whatever.
Taine, who, as psychologist, should have seen more clearly, is, in his way
(in the account of Bunyan in the English Literature), almost equally con-
fused as to Bunyan's true temperament and condition, and even imagines
the calm and self-possessed art of Pilgrim's Progress to be the outcome of
the " inflamed brain " whose sufferings are depicted in the Grace Abound-
ing. But the Bunyan of 1650 was not yet the Bunyan of the Pilgrim'?*
Progress of 167.5. Venables and Brown, well as they summarize the salient
facts, fail to sec their psychological significance. Froude also appears to
go wholly astray in this respect
38 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
has passed these connections by with blindfold eyes. Yet
the story, read in its psychological aspect, is as follows :
As a child Bunyan showed some of the familiar signs
of the sensitive brain. He is not at all concerned, in his
Autobiography, to gossip as to any minor matters. He tells
us almost nothing of the externals of his life. He is wholly
concerned in setting forth what God has done for his soul.
He feels it worth while, however, to describe to us, in be-
ginning the narration of his spiritual conflicts, certain of
his early mental experiences. In childhood, so we learn, his
" cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming " were very
marked faults. To quote his own words : " So settled and
rooted was I in these things, that they became as a second
Nature to me. The which, as I have with soberness considered
since, did so offend the Lord, that even in my Childhood He
did scare and affright me with fearful Dreams, and did terrify
me with dreadful Visions. For often after I had spent this
and the other day in sin, I have in my Bed been greatly
afflicted, while asleep, with the apprehensions of Devils and
wicked Spirits, who still, as I then thought, laboured to
draw me away with them, of which I could never be rid."
To these persistent nocturnal terrors there were added still
other and evidently often waking troubles, "thoughts of
the Day of Judgment," which gave him fears and "dis-
tressed " his " soul," " both night and day," so that " I was
often much cast down and afflicted . . . yet could I not let go
my sins." These experiences came " when I was but a child,
nine or ten years old." " Yea," he adds, " I was also then
so overcome with despair of life and heaven, that I should
often wish either that there had been no Hell, or that I had
been a Devil supposing they were only Tormentors ; that
if it must needs be that I went thither, I might be rather a
Tormentor, than tormented myself." Of such early suffer-
ings we have several accounts besides the foregoing sum-
mary statements.
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 39
Childhood experiences of this sort have to be estimated
as important in direct proportion to their depth and in
inverse proportion to their dependence upon the sugges-
tions to which a given child is subjected. These dreams
were, plainly, in some instances, very elaborate and detailed.
Bunyan's later youthful ignorance, so freely confessed,
concerning all theological matters indicates, however, that
these fears and this despair were no part of any very co-
herent system of childish thoughts on religious topics. The
content of his "terrible dreams" was of course derived
from what he heard at church and elsewhere ; but a suf-
ficient basis, in these suggested ideas, for such marked
trouble, seems very improbable. That the nocturnal terrors
and the despair were in part primary symptoms of nervous
irritability, one can thus hardly doubt. As to the depth of
the experiences themselves, the very fact of Bunyan's care-
ful report of them is, under the circumstances, convinc-
ing. For his Autobiography is, as has just been noted,
extremely reticent as to all matters that he does not con-
sider essential parts of the tale of God's dealings with his
soul.
In youth, at what seems to have been the healthiest
period of his life, these dreams left him, and were "soon
forgot ... as if they never had been." And now began
the wilful and sinful time which Bunyan later so unspar-
ingly condemns. That his sins did not include unchastity
or drunkenness seems, as aforesaid, clear to all his recent
biographers, and for good reasons too, into which I need not
here enter. Bunyan was now a very active and daring lad,
who, in his almost complete ignorance, as Froude and
others have observed, had no other way of expressing his
genius than by " inventing lies to amuse his companions,
and swearing they were true " (Froude's expression), and
by showing extraordinary ingenuity as the chief swearer
and wild talker of the village, so that even " very loose and
40 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
ungodly " wretches, as Bunyan tells us, were shocked by
the flood of bad language in which this still unconscious
poet was moved to voice his latent powers. These offenses,
and the still worse crime of playing tip-cat on Sundays,
abide later in Bunyan's memory as evidences of the depth
of his lost condition during these days. Meanwhile, despite
the vulgarity of his surroundings, and the restless way-
wardness of his life, Bunyan would otherwise appear to
have been, on the whole, an exceptionally pure-minded
youth. His early education, obtained in a local school, was
extremely meagre.
His boyish marriage must have involved serious respon-
sibilities. He and his young wife had at first not " so much
household stuff as a Dish or Spoon " between them. But
the wife, " whose Father was counted godly," had, as her
inheritance from this now dead father, two religious books,
which Bunyan read with her, yet, so far as he was con-
cerned, without " conviction." But ere long these books
and his wife's speech " did beget within me some desires to
religion," and for a while Bunyan attended church busily,
" still retaining my wicked life," but already feeling some
doubtful concern as to his own salvation, and much admi-
ration for the formal side of church worship. A sermon
against Sabbath-breaking brought him bis first "convic-
tion." After service and dinner, that day, when his full
stomach had made him already cheerfully forget his tran-
sient remorse, he went, as usually on Sunday afternoons, to
play his game of cat. But having struck the cat one blow
from the hole, " just as I was about to strike it a second
time, a Voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my Soul,
which said, Wilt thou leave thy sins arid go to Heaven, or
have thy sins and go to Hell ? At this," he goes on, " I
was put to an exceeding maze. Wherefore, leaving my
Cat upon the ground, I looked up to Heaven, and was as if
I had, with the Eyes of my understanding, seen the Lord
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 41
Jesus looking down upon me, as being very hotly dis-
pleased with me. and as if he did severely threaten me."
The result of this sudden internal vision, of which he said
nothing to his comrades, was an immediate sense of his gen-
eral sinfulness, and an overwhelming despair, which kept
him standing " in the midst of my Play, before all that
were then present," until, with a swift dialectic character-
istic of all his later experiences, he had reasoned out the
conclusion that it was now too late, since he had sinned so
much, and that the only hope was to go back to sin, and
take his fill of present sweets. " I can but be damned, and
if I must be so, I had as good be damned for many sins as
damned for few." He thereupon went on with the game,
and in the immediately subsequent days swore, played, and
" went on in sin with great greediness of mind."
The automatic internal vision, seen with " the eyes of the
understanding," but seen more or less suddenly, with extraor-
dinary detail and with strong emotional accompaniment, ap-
pears henceforth as a frequent incident in Bunyan's inner
life, and later became, of course, the main source of his pe-
culiar artistic power. He was plainly always a good vis-
ualizer. But this automatic organization of his images was
an added characteristic of the man, and an invaluable one.
This " power of vision " remained, as the Pilgrim's Progress
itself shows, late in life; and without it our "dreamer's"
genius could not be conceived. In his times of depression
these visions, in later days, took on the shading of his
mood ; but in themselves they were of course signs, not of
depression, but of poetic power. Apart from other and seri-
ous causes of disturbance they plainly never approached
near to any hallucinatory degree ; and Bunyan always de-
scribes them so as to distinguish them clearly from hal-
lucinations, even when his condition, as described, is one of
great agitation.
Shortly after this time the reproof of a neighbor again
42 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
startled Bunyan from his reckless ways, and he resolved to
begin in earnest the work of reform. The result was a pe-
riod of a year (or probably somewhat less), during which he
undertook nothing less than a systematic course of consci-
entious self -suppression. He " left " his swearing at once,
and in a way that astonished himself. He gave up his
games as vain practices; after a long struggle he even
abandoned dancing. He read the Bible ; he lived a life of
reform that astonished his neighbors ; " for this my conver-
sion was as great as for Tom of Bethlem to become a sober
man." Inhibition of all outwardly suspicious deeds became
the one rule of his life. He still wholly lacked what he
later regarded as true piety, and he indulged in some spir-
itual pride in view of the approbation of his neighbors ; but
he cultivated a painful scrupulosity. We can well conceive
how the material cares that beset this very poor but now
married youth, and this sudden change from a careless life,
of numerous relaxations, to an existence wherein every act
was a matter of scruple, and wherein the opinions of all his
neighbors were now so much taken into account, must have
involved a considerable strain. The immediate consequences
were characteristic of the whole case.
in.
" Now you must know," says Bunyan, " that before this
I had taken much delight in Ringing,* but my Conscience
beginning to be tender, I thought such practice was but
vain, and therefore forced myself to leave it, yet my mind
hankered. Wherefore I should go to the Steeple-house,
and look on it, though I durst not ring. . . . But quickly-
after, I began to think, How if one of the Bells should.
* I. e., of course, in ringing the chimes of the village church. Venablcs
has skilfully pointed out, in various passages of Bunyan's writings, how
deep a train of associations this practice later involved for the poet
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNYAN. 43
fall ? Then I chose to stand under a main Beam, that lay
overthwart the Steeple, from side to side, thinking there I
might stand sure. But then I should think again, Should
the Bell fall with a swing, it might first hit the wall, and
then rebounding upon me, might kill me for all this Beam.
This made me stand in the Steeple-door ; and now, thought
I. I am safe enough ; for, if a Bell should then fall I can
slip out behind these thick Walls, and so be preserved not-
withstanding. So after this I would yet go to see them
ring, but would not go further than the Steeple-door. But
then it came into my Head, How if the Steeple itself should
fall ? And this thought, it may fall for aught I know,
when I stood and looked on, did continually so shake my
mind that I durst not stand at the Steeple-door any longer,
but was forced to flee for fear the Steeple should fall on my
head."
The parallel between Bunyan's case and that of Dr.
Cowles's patient, whose experience is so fully described in
the remarkable paper before cited, will from this point on-
wards become interesting to us. It is noteworthy that Dr.
Cowles's patient, after some history of childhood fears,
beginning at about ten years of age, became, for a time.
" well of these morbid experiences," * but afterwards, in
youth, experienced a fresh form of her previous disorder,
and met this relapse at first in the form of " feelings of hesi-
tation in performing simple acts," with a consequent neces-
sity of repeating many such acts to be sure that they were
right " From this point," says Dr. Cowles of his patient,
"all the rest follows in its morbid train." The fortunes of
Bunyan were to be, up to a certain point, decidedly similar.
The childhood period, with its warning terrors, had given
place for a time to a healthy youth. But the elementary
conscientious fears which now appeared, and which forced
288.
44 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
the lately reckless Bunyan to outward acts of unreasonable
timidity, were soon to give place, as in Dr. Cowles's patient,
to far more insistent and systematized impulses. In both of
these cases the topics about which the insistent impulses
finally systematized were matters of inner conscientious
scruples. In both cases the general outward bearing and
conduct long remained as far as possible normal, except
where the inner sufferings of the patient must perforce
break through and show themselves. In Bunyan's case it
is interesting that these first signs of the coming storm were
motor reflexes of a timid and partly of a morbidly inhibi-
tory sort, produced irresistibly at the sound of those bells
which he had so much loved to hear, and which, as Vena-
bles has shown by quotations from his later works, he
never afterwards learned to forget.
The conversation of certain poor and godly people about
this time revealed to Bunyan that, with all his legality, he
had not yet learned what the true spiritual life is ; and
herewith began a second stage of his conversion. The con-
sequence was much continuous meditation upon this higher
religious life, and "a softness and tenderness of Heart,"
whereby his mind became " fixed on Eternity," and, for the
time, refused " to be taken from Heaven to Earth." Theolog-
ical controversy with companions added itself to the fore-
going to intensify Bunyan's interest in the secret of true
faith. He now constantly read the Bible, which, however,
to him, in his environment, seemed rather a collection of
texts than of connected treatises. Henceforth his inner life
was full of a not uncommon, but in his case especially
significant, associative process, whereby he was largely at
the mercy of any single text of his now well-thumbed Bible
that at any moment might chance to occur to him, wholly
separated, of course, from its context He might be de-
pressed. At such a time a threatening or discouraging text
would come to mind ; this or that Scripture would " creep
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNYAN. 45
into his soul," and wound him, or chill him all through.
He could in but very small degree resist the effect of
chance association by recalling the original relations or the
meaning of this text as determined by its actual setting at
the place where it occurs. No, this " word " had come to
him alone ; alone he must interpret it and apply it to his
case. Did its serious import overwhelm him ? Then there
was no way but to hunt at random, either in his Bible, or in
the recesses of his chance associations, for some other
" word " to set over against the first. Then would follow
very possibly long processes of this mere balancing of texts.
One " word " must be quoted against another, one series of
texts must be neutralized by texts whose immediate emo-
tional effects were more comforting. Bunyan also developed,
in connection with such tasks, a peculiarly skilful sort of
inner dialectic whereby he estimated the force of each text.
He reasoned very subtly with these his own shadows. The
decision of nearly every such crisis was determined in the
end, however, less by the conscious dialectic itself than by
the chances of association. At last, perhaps after days, in
the later stages of his malady after months, of conflict, some
decisive word would come to mind, would more or less irre-
sistibly "dart" into his soul, would even half seem to be
spoken within him (a few times with the force of a pseudo-
hallucination, and only once or twice with almost complete
hallucinatory vigor). The "word" that association thus
made victorious might by its very clearness, or by the
strength of its emotional setting, banish all the former
" words " from mind ; and for the time doubts would leave
him. Or again u two Scriptures " would " meet " in his heart,
and one of them would triumph. This process is frequently
exemplified in the Grace Abounding, and was of course
largely determined, apart from the abnormal capriciousness
of his associative processes, by Bunyan's religious opinions
and companionships. But this method of thinking was of
4C STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
course an inconvenient complication in view of his now
imminent disorder.
At the stage of his pilgrimage here reached, he began to
read Paul's epistles with eagerness. They did not decrease
his dialectical tendencies. One day, when alone on the
road, he found himself wondering gloomily, as he had been
doing for some time, whether he really had saving faith or
110. Whereupon the "Tempter," who of course, in our
author's account, has to bear the responsibility for many of
Banyan's insistent impulses, and for a large part of his as-
sociative processes, suggested, as he had several times done
before, that there was no way for Bunyan to prove that he
had faith save by trying to work some miracle; "which
Miracle at that time was this, I must say to the Puddles that
were in the horse-pads, Be dry, and to the dry places, Be
you the Paddles. And truly, one time I was going to say
so indeed ; but just as I was about to speak, this thought
came into my mind, But go under yonder Hedge and pray
first that God would make you able. But when I had con-
cluded to pray, this came hot upon me, That if I prayed,
and came again and tried to do it, and yet did nothing not-
withstanding, then be sure I had no Faith, but was a Cast-
away and lost. Nay, thought I, if it be so, I will never try
yet, but will stay a little longer."
In this account it is of course the hesitancy and the
brooding, questioning attitude that is symptomatic, and not
the logic of the quaint reasoning process, which, in view of
Bunyan's presuppositions, is normal enough in form. To
such breedings the dreamer added about this time one very
elaborate symbolic inner vision of his unhappy state as re-
lated to the state of the godly people whose faith he envied.
The vision, which, as reported, is a fine instance of the auto-
matic visualizing process already characterized, need detain
us here no further. It is noteworthy that Bunyan reports
it without any surprise, as an incident of a type very familiar
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 47
in his inner life. The striving with chance Scripture pas-
sages continued, and now often drove him to his " wit's
end." The comforting passages were occasionally hit upon,
but only to give way soon to doubts. His questions as to
what faith is, and whether he was of the elect, had already
reached the limits of the normal. He was " greatly assaulted
and perplexed, and was often/' he says, " when I have been
walking, ready to sink where I went with faintness in my
mind." This is one of the few hints that we get of Bunyan's
physical state at this time. The " Tempter " was meanwhile
quite capable of suggesting, as regards Bunyan's relation to
his fellows in the faith, that these [viz., the known ''godly
people" aforesaid] being converted already, "they were all
that God would save in those parts ; and that I came too
late, for these had got the Blessing before I came." This
thought was insistent enough to cause Bun y an great dis-
tress, and even anger at himself for having lost so much
time in the past After really desperate and lonely strug-
gles with such wavering hopes, gloomy fears as to his salva-
tion, and insistent questions and doubts on the whole sub-
ject, he at length forsook his solitude, and appealed for help
to the " godly people " themselves, who took him to their
pastor, Mr. Gifford.
But herewith Gifford only made Bunyan's case for the
time worse by assuring him that he was a very grievous
sinner, and by drawing his attention away from the uni-
versal problems about faith and election back to the par-
ticular facts concerning the vanity of his wicked heart
The result was a new stage, wherein all the elements pres-
ent in the two previous stages of his experience were mor-
bidly combined, and the associative processes so inimical to
his peace were rendered more automatic and systematic
thuri ever. The first stage, it will be remembered, had been
one of systematically insistent scrupulosity as to the details
of his conduct, with elementary inhibitions and fears. The
48 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.'
second stage had been one of large and more " tender " emo-
tional states, and of generalized breedings and doubts as to
faith and election, accompanied with occasional feelings of
general physical weakness and faintness. But now this
elaborate process of morbid training came to combine both
generalized and specialized elements. The first effect was
that instead of the " longing after God " which had charac-
terized the immediately previous state of mind, Bunyan
now found in himself a perfect chaos of " Lusts and Cor-
ruptions," " wicked thoughts and desires which I did not
regard before." He must " hanker after every foolish van-
ity. 1 ' His heart " began to be careless both of my Soul and
Heaven ; it would now continually hang back, both to and
in every duty ; and was as a Clog to the Leg of a Bird to
hinder her from flying. Nay, thought I, now I grow worse
and worse ; now am I further from Conversion than ever I
was before. Wherefore I began to sink greatly in my Soul,
and began to entertain such discouragement in my Heart
as laid me low as Hell. If now I should have burned at the
stake, I could not believe that Christ had love for me : alas.
I could neither hear him, nor see him, nor feel him, nor
savour any of his things. I was driven as with a Tempest ;
my Heart would be unclean ; the Canaanites would dwell
in the land." To this fairly classic description of his general
state Bunyan now adds for the first time a mention of the
presence of insistent " unbelief," whereof we shall soon hear
more. Meanwhile, however, as he adds in a most charac-
teristic fashion : " As to the act of sinning, I was never more
tender than now. I durst not take a pin or a stick, though but
so big as a straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would
smart at every touch ; I could not now tell how to speak my
words, for fear I should misplace them. Oh, how gingerly
did I then go in all I did or said ! I found myself as on a
miry Bog that shook if I did but stir ; and was as there left
both of God and Christ and the Spirit, and all good things."
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 49
When a man has once got so far into the u Slough of
Despond " as this, there is indeed no way but to go on.
Such insistent trains of morbid association cannot be mend-
ed until they first have grown worse. The process of sys-
tematization continued in this case, much as in that of Dr.
Cowles's patient.* There were for Bunyan, to be sure, the
occasional remissions, due to the temporary success of this
or that Scripture passage. So, in one instance, the effective
suggestion came from without, through a sermon on the
text, Behold, thou art fair, my Love ; behold, thou art fair
a sermon whose pedantically multipled headings Bunyan
years later remembered with perfect clearness. As he was
going home after the sermon the two words, My Love, came
into his thoughts, and " I said thus in my heart, What shall
I get by thinking on these two words f " Whereupon " the
words began thus to kindle in my spirit, Thou art my Love,
thou art my Love, twenty times together, and still as they
ran thus in my mind they waxed stronger and warmer, and
began to make me look up. But being as yet between hope
and fear, I replied in my heart, But is it true f At which
that Sentence fell in upon me, He wist not that it was true
vh ich was done by the angel. Then I began to give place
to the Word, which with power did over and over make
this joyful sound within my soul, Thou art my Love, thou
art my Love; and nothing shall separate me from my
Love ; and with that Romans eight, thirty-nine, came into
my mind. Now was my heart full of comfort and hope . . .
yea, I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God
that I could not tell how to contain till I got Home." But
this mood of course proved to be unstable, and Bunyan soon
" lost much of the life and savour of it."
"About a Week or a Fortnight after this," continues Bun-
yan, " I was much followed by this Scripture, Simon, Simon,
Cowles, he. ctt., pp. 240-245.
50 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
Satan hath desired to have you. And sometimes it would
sound so loud within me, yea, and as it were call so strongly
after me, that once above all the rest, I turned my head over
my shoulder, thinking verily that some Man had, behind
me, called to me ; being at a great distance, methought he
called so loud." This pseudo-hallucination of hearing,
secondary, be it noted, to the now frequent and insistent
automatic motor process of internal speech, whereby Bun-
yan obviously found such texts forced upon his attention,
concluded this special episode, and this particular text, as he
expressly tells us, came no more. Hallucinations of hear-
ing form no part of this case in any but this secondary,
transient, and "borderland" form a fact, of course, which
has to be clearly borne in mind in estimating the phenom-
ena. Later reflection, of a sort perfectly normal upon Bun-
yan's presuppositions, convinced him afterwards that this
visitation was a heavenly warning that a " cloud and a
storm was coming down " upon him ; but at the time he
" understood it not." The minuteness of the account here-
abouts is evidence, both of the depth of the experiences, and
of the remarkable intactness of Bunyan's memory amidst
all this condition of irritable nervous instability of mood
on the one hand, and of morbidly persistent brooding on
the other.
IV.
But now for the culmination of the disorder a culmina-
tion which appeared in three successive and intensely inter-
esting periods or stages, each one of which Bunyan narrates
to us with extraordinary skill and vigor.
" About the space of a month after," he continues, " a
very great storm came down upon me, which handled me
twenty times worse than all I had met with before." Of
this " storm " the primary element, as we should now say,
was a melancholic mood, of a depth and origin to him un-
accountable. Former moods had been largely secondary,
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 51
as would appear, to his doubts, although primary states of
depression had also played their part. But this time the in-
sistent impulses appeared as obviously quite secondary to
the mood. The latter " came stealing upon me, now by
one piece, then by another ; first all my comfort was taken
from me, then darkness seized upon me, after which " (the
order is noteworthy) " whole floods of blasphemies, both
against God, Christ, and the Scriptures, were poured upon
my spirit, to my great confusion and astoiiisliment. These
blasphemous thoughts were such as also stirred up questions
in me, against the very Being of God, and of his only be-
loved Son; as, whether there were, in truth, a God, or
Christ, or no ? And whether the holy Scriptures were not
rather a fable, and cunning story, than the holy and pure
Word of God ? The tempter would also much assault me
with this : How can you tell but that the Turks had as
good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet the Saviour as
we have to prove our Jesus is ? And could I think that so
many ten thousands in so many Countries and Kingdoms,
should be without the knowledge of the right way to
Heaven (if indeed there were a heaven), and that we only
who live in a corner of the Earth should alone be blessed
therewith. Every one doth think his own religion
rightest, both Jews and Moors and Pagans! And how if
all our Faith, and Christ, and Scriptures should be but
a Think-so too 9 "
Bunyan of course sought to argue with these doubts, but
this expert in the dialectics of the inner life now very nat-
urally found all the weapons in the enemy's hands. He
would try using the " sentences of blessed Paul " against the
"tempter." But alas! it was Paul who had taught both
Bunyan and the " tempter " how to argue with subtlety, and
now the reply at once came, in interrogative form : How if
Paul too were a cunning deceiver, who had taken "pains
and travail to undo and destroy his fellows"? Bunyan 's
52 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
only remaining comfort was at this point the usual one of
the patients afflicted with such harassing enemies. He was
aware, namely, that he hated his own doubts, and was so,
in a way, better than they. But, as he expressively words
it: "This consideration I then only had when God gave
me leave to swallow my Spittle ; otherwise the noise and
strength and force of these temptations would drown and
overflow and, as it were, bury all such thoughts." Mean-
while insistent motor impulses of a still more specific sort
occurred. Bunyan frequently felt himself tempted "to
curse and swear, or speak some grievous thing against God."
He compares his state to that of a child whom a gipsy is
stealing and carrying away, "under her apron," "from
friend and country." " Kick sometimes I did, and also
shriek and cry ; but yet I was bound in the wings of the
temptation, and the wind would carry me away." Nor
were the fears of hopeless insanity, so common in such
patients, absent from Bunyan 's mind, so far as his knowl-
edge permitted him to formulate them. " I thought also of
Saul, and of the evil spirit that did possess him ; and did
greatly fear that my condition was the same with that of
his." The sin against the Holy Ghost was of course sug-
gested to Bunyan's mind amongst other possible crimes, and
it seemed at once, of course, as if he " could not, must not,
neither should be quiet " until he had committed that.
" Now, no sin would serve but that ; if it were to be com-
mitted by speaking of such a word, then I have been as if
my Mouth would have spoken that word, whether I would
or no ; and in so strong a measure was this temptation upon
me, that often I have been ready to clasp my hand under
my Chin, to hold my Mouth from opening ; and to that end
also I have had thoughts at other times, to leap downward
into some muck-hill hole or other to keep my mouth from
speaking."
But to follow further this chaos of motor processes is,
THE CASE OF JOHN BTJNYAN. 53
for our purposes, hardly necessary. A system there indeed
was amidst the chaos, but this system is now manifest
enough. Suffice it that the whole race had now to be run.
At prayer Bunyan was tempted to blaspheme, or the
" tempter " moved him with the thought, Fall down and
worship me. At the sacraments of the church, which, al-
though not yet a member of the church, he attended as
spectator, in hope of comfort, he was also " distressed with
blasphemies." There were still no true hallucinations, but
"sometimes I have thoughts I should see the devil, nay,
thought I have felt him, behind me, pluck my Clothes."
As to mood, Bunyan was now usually " hard of heart" " If
I would have given thousands of pounds for a Tear, I could
not shed one ; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one."
Others " could mourn and lament their sin." But he was,
as he saw, alone among men, in this hardness of heart, as in
the rest of his troubles. The unclean thoughts and blas-
phemies aforesaid were likely, as is obvious, to appear as
reflexes, of an inhibitory type and meaning interestingly
analogous to his earlier conscientious scruples themselves.
For these blasphemies were excited by and opposed to any
pious activity, precisely as the old conscientious fears had
been excited by and inhibitory of any activity which his
natural heart had most loved. Hearing or reading the
Word would be sure, for instance, to bring to pass the blas-
phemous temptations. The "tempter" was a sort of in-
verted conscience, busily insisting upon whatever was
opposed to the pious intention. Meanwhile Bunyan of
course complains of that general confusion of head of
which all such sufferers are likely to speak. When he was
reading, "sometimes my mind would be so strangely
snatched away and possessed with other things, that I have
neither known, nor regarded, nor remembered so much as
that sentence that but now I have read." This " distrac-
tion " was often at prayer-time associated with insistent
54: STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
inner visual images, as of a " Bull, a Besom, or the like," to
which Bunyan was tempted to pray.
Bunyan attributes to this condition an endurance of
about a year. Detailed and obviously trustworthy as his
psychological memory is, his chronology seems to suffer,
very naturally, with a tendency to lengthen in memory
the successive stages of his affliction. One can hardly find
room, in the known period occupied by the entire experi-
ence, for such lengthy separate stages as the writer assumes.
The present, or first culminating period of the malady,
finally passed off by a gradual decline of the insistent
symptoms a decline assisted, as would appear, by a con-
troversial interest which Bunyan was just then led to take
in the " errors of the Quakers," to whose condemnation he
devotes a paragraph of his text, hereabouts, in his Autobi-
ography. The objective turn which such controversial
thoughts gave his mind was used, as he himself feels, by
the Lord, to " confirm " him.
One would suppose that the foregoing story, written
with the most moving pathos by Bunyan, ought of itself
to be a sufficiently obvious confession, even to readers of
comparatively little psychological knowledge. The long-
trained habits of verbal and emotional association which
are exemplified in these repeated experiences with the re-
membered passages of Scripture, the systematized attitudes
of conscientious fear and inhibition which date back to the
beginning of our author's conversion, the obvious essential
identity between all these mental habits, and those which
Bunyan's " tempter," his inverted conscience equally fear-
compelling, equally inhibitory of his present ardent desires
represented, whenever this "tempter" disturbed him at
prayer, even as his conscience had in former days learned
to disturb him at bell-ringing all these phenomena give us
a most instructive object-lesson concerning the familiar
processes by which the human brain, whether in health or
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNYAN. 55
in disorder, gets moulded. The emotional instability that
lies at the basis of this particular morbid process an insta-
bility without which, of course, just these habits could never
have become such formidable enemies is perfectly clear
before us. Of the precise physical basis of this instability
we can indeed only form conjectures ; but we know that
this was an extremely sensitive brain, and that the child-
hood dreams and terrors had been of a type such as to fur-
nish obvious warnings that this mind needed especial care.
We know too that such care was in so far lacking, as this
still very young man had now to suffer the anxieties of pro-
viding for his family at a moment when his troubles about
his soul were intense, and when his poverty was great.
Meanwhile, one aspect of the symptoms, which we have
already noticed, is as obvious as it has been, in the past,
neglected by Bunyan's readers. This man, a born genius
as to his whole range of language- functions, had been from
the start a ready speaker, had developed in boyhood an
abounding wealth of skilfully bad language, and had then,
in terror-stricken repentance, suddenly devoted himself for
iiumy months to a merciless inhibition of every doubtful
word. We observe now that insistent motor speech-func-
tions were the most marked and distressing of his mental
enemies, and that both the tempter, and that comforter
whose strangely suggested Scripture passages occasionally
consoled Bunyan's heart, tended to speak, "as it were,"
within the suffering soul. When one considers, still fur-
ther, the careful way in which, by his own description,
Bunyan excludes from his case all hallucinatory elements
except the few pseudo-hallucinations, how can one doubt
the type of patient with whom one has to deal ? Memory,
as one sees, is remarkably intact Any tendency to patho-
logical delusion is obviously lacking ; for that Bunyan is
beset by the " tempter," is for him a mere statement of the
obvious facts in the light of his accepted faith, and is, from
56 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
his point of view, a strictly normal and inevitable hypoth-
esis, which he never in any morbid fashion misuses. For
the rest, he retains throughout as clearly critical an attitude
towards his case as the situation in anywise permits ; other-
wise we should never have come to get this beautiful con-
fession.
And yet, as said, the biographers have repeatedly missed
nearly all these psychological aspects of the case, and that,
too, whatever their theory of the poet's experiences. Some,
as pointed out, have endeavored to conceive all this as mere-
ly the deep religious experience of an untutored genius. Re-
ligious experience it indeed was ; nor does its deep human
interest suffer from our recognition of its pathological char-
acter. Genius there also, indeed, is, in every word of the
written story. But the specific sequence of the symptoms
thus recorded, and the striking parallel with such modern
cases as that of Dr. Cowles's patient (who was surely no
ganius, and whose morbid conscience busied itself with far
more earthly matters than the religious issues central in
Bunyan's mind) these things forbid us to doubt that the
phenomena are characteristic of a pretty typical morbid
process, which has certainly gone on in very many less ex-
alted brains than was that of Bunyan. Other biographers
have spoken, as Macaulay did, of " fearful disorder," but
have had no sense of the clear difference between an hallu-
cinatory delirium, which could only develop either in a very
deeply intoxicated or exhausted, or else in a hopelessly
wrecked brain, and a disorder such as this of Bunyan's,
which could get thus dramatically systematized only in a
sensitive but nevertheless extremely tough and highly or-
ganized brain, whose general functions were still largely
intact. So sympathetic an observer as Froude, on the
other hand, almost wholly ignoring the pathological aspect
of the case, can actually suppose that Bunyan's " doubts
and misgivings " were " suggested by a desire for truth " ;
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 57
because, forsooth, from the point of view of a nineteenth-
century thinker : " No honest soul can look out upon the
world, and see it as it really is, without the question rising
in him whether there be any God that governs it all."
Froude imagines, therefore, that Bunyan later went no
further in doubt largely because "critical investigation
had not yet analyzed the historical construction of the
sacred books." But surely thus to argue is wholly to miss
what it is that makes a given sort of questioning, or of
other impulse, normal or morbid, for a given man, and
under given circumstances. And here is perhaps the place
to define more precisely this very matter in our own way.
Morbidly insistent impulses, of whatever sort, are, oddly
enough, never morbid merely because they insist For all
our most normal impulses are, or may become, insistent
One has a constantly insistent impulse to breathe, a fre-
quently insistent impulse to eat; and one's life depends
upon just such insistences. Insistent desires keep us in
love with our work, take us daily about our duties, guide
our steps back to our homes, seat us in our chairs to rest
are with us, in their due order, from morning to night,
whether we bathe, dress, walk, speak, write, or go to bed.
To run counter to such normally insistent impulses pains,
and may in extreme cases very greatly distress, or even in
the end quite demoralize us. Insistence of will-functions
is, then, so far, a sign of health, and means only the kindly
might of sound habit An "imperative impulse" of the
morbid sort is therefore, in the first place, one that, under
the circumstances, opposes instead of helping our normal
process of " adjustment to our environment" But herewith
we have still only defined, so far, that element of the mor-
bid impulse which the latter shares in common with all de-
fective mental processes. The peculiar differentia, however,
of all such forms of morbidly insistent thoughts, fears, temp-
tations, etc., as are the ones now in question, is that their
58 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
tendency to bring one out of " harmony with his environ-
ment " is subjectively expressed, for the sufferer himself, in
the form of a sense that the fear, thought, or other impulse in
question is opposed to his fitting relation to his environment
as he himself conceives that relation. The hallucination
or the delusion gives one a pathologically falsified environ-
ment, and then one's adjustment objectively fails, because
one knows not rightly the truth to which one ought to be
adjusted. Confusedness, or mere incoherence of ideas and
impulses, or other such general alteration of consciousness,
equally means failure, but here also without any completer
subjective sense of what one's failure objectively involves.
But thepresent sort of sufferer from morbidly insistent im-
pulses, whether or no he conceives his environment rightly,
still knows how he conceives it, and has his general plans of
thought and will ; but he himself, meanwhile, finds, within
himself, "in his members," "another law warring against
the law " which he has accepted as his own. Without pretty
definite plans, then, there can be no such morbidly insistent
impulses as are these of Bunyan's tale. Failure or strong
tendency to failure, in the adjustment, as conceived and
planned by the sufferer himself such failure being due to
this inner conflict this it is that makes us here speak of
morbidly insistent impulses.
But not even thus do we define all that it is necessary
to bear in mind in judging such cases. Impulses, feelings,
thoughts, more or less inimical to our deliberate plans, are
constantly, if but faintly, suggested to us, by our normal
overwealth of perceptions and of associations. Without
such overwealth of offered perceptions and associations, we
should not have sufficient material for mental selection ; yet
such overwealth is necessarily full of solicitations, tempting
us, with greater or less clearness, to abandon or to interrupt
our chosen plans of action. Nor is there any fixed limit to
the range of those "imaginations as one would," that, as
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNYAN. 59
Hobbes already pointed out, may at any moment be initiated
in a man's inner life by chance experience and association.
Therefore, mere opposition between our chance impulses
and our plans is a perfectly normal experience.
Normal impulses then are insistent And normal trains
of impulse, or plans of conduct, are constantly besieged by
the faint but more or less inimical distractions of normal
experience. When, then, is any single impulse, as such,
abnormal ? When it insists ? No, for breathing is an insist-
ent impulse. When it opposes the current trains of cohe-
rent thought or volition ? No, for every momentary inner
or outer distraction tends to do that ; and there is hardly
any known impulse or thought or feeling of which a nor-
mal man may not at almost any moment be reminded,
through the chances of perception and of association. What
then is the subjective test of the abnormal in impulse ? One
can only find it in this : Association chances to suggest any
impulse inimical to one's actually chosen plans for " adjust-
ment to the environment" So far there is no essential de-
fect This happens to anybody. But normally the cohe-
rence of one's series of healthily insistent or of voluntary
impulses is so great, or the strength of the intruder soon be-
comes, under the influence of the opposed ruling interests,
so faint, that this intruder is erelong sent below the level
of consciousness, or harmlessly "segmented/' and that with
an ease and a speed proportioned to the incongruity and to
the felt inconvenience of this enemy itself. But in the
abnormal cases, things go otherwise. Perhaps the intruding
impulse is not a chance one, but is itself part of a previously
established system of inhibitory habits. Or perhaps it is
supported by numerous now partly or wholly unconscious
motives, say by masses of internal bodily sensations (as in
case of pathological fears, or of certain physical temptations
of abnormal vigor). In all such cases it may prove too
strong to be controlled. Or again, the general condition of
CO STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
the sufferer is one of irritable weakness. The sustained
coherence of normal functions is then already impaired by
nervous exhaustion ; the main trains of association hang
weakly together; their general power of resistance, so to
speak, is lowered. The intruding impulse, on the contrary,
is then the mental aspect of a suggested nervous excitement
that, beginning at one point, quickly spreads to others, and
for the time takes possession of the functions of this un-
stable brain. And now, in any of these cases, we have a
failure to resist the intruder, a failure which the sufferer
himself bittei'ly feels. Objectively, the failing adjustment
appears as hesitation, or as useless repetition of acts, or as
unaccountable impulsive '' queerness " of conduct, or even
as helpless inactivity, with various quasi-melancholic symp-
toms silence, hiding, self-roproach, lamentation. Within,
the sufferer, who, to suffer decidedly from this sort of mal-
ady, must be a person of highly organized plans and of self-
observant intelligence, feels a prodigious struggle going
on. All seems to him activity, warfare, self -division, tu-
mult
In judging of such a case, one must therefore carefully
avoid being deceived either by the imperativeness or by the
quaintness of the particular impulses involved. All de-
pends upon their relations in a man's mental life. The in-
tense interests of the inventor, of the man of science, of the
rapt public speaker, are not necessarily at all analogous to
the "obsessions" of the sufferer from insistent impulses,
although the former are, like breathing, imperative. Nor
are the merrily absurd impulses of a gay party of young
people at a picnic abnormal, merely because they are for the
time incoherent, and are thus opposed to serious thought
and conduct. No, it is the union of a tendency toward in-
coherence in feeling and conduct, with an imperative resist-
ance to the actual and conscious plans, whereby the sufferer
deliberately intends to be in some chosen fashion coherent
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 61
it is this union of incongruity with insistence that con-
stitutes the subjective note of the morbidly insistent im-
pulse.
These are commonplace considerations. I should not
introduce them here were not the literature of this whole
topic so often affected by confusions of conception. In the
light of such obvious considerations, Froude's refusal to see
the abnormity of Bunyan's insistent questions or " blasphe-
mies " as to the being of God, and the like, becomes suffi-
ciently insignificant as affecting our present judgment Any
man may by chance, in his mind, come momentarily to ques-
tion anything. That is so far a matter of passing associ-
ation, and involves nothing suspicious. A modern or, for
that matter, an ancient thinker may moreover persistently
question God's existence. If the thinker is a philosopher,
or other theoretical inquirer, such doubts may form part of
his general plans, and may so be as healthy in character as
any other forms of intellectual considerateness. But if a
man's whole inner life, in so far as it is coherent, is built
upon a system of plans and of faiths which involve as part
of themselves the steadfast principle that to doubt God's ex-
istence is horrible blasphemy, and if, nevertheless, after a
fearful fit of darkness, such a man finds, amidst "whole
floods " of other " blasphemies,'* doubts about God not only
suddenly forced upon him, but persistent despite his horror
and his struggles, then it is vain for a trained sceptic of an-
other age to pretend an enlightened sympathy, and to say to
this agonized nervous patient : " Doubt ? Why, I have
doubted God's existence too." The ducklings can safely
swim, but that does not make their conduct more congruous
with the plans and the feelings of the hen. The profes-
sional doubters may normally doubt. But that does not
make doubt less a malady in those who suffer from it, and
strive, and cry out, but cannot get free.
This observation, that the symptomatic value of these
62 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
insistent impulses lies solely in the relation between the
impulses themselves and the organized mental life, the
plans, insight, and chosen habits of the patient, reminds us
also in this case that Bunyan's experiences clearly indicate
the essential psychological equivalence of several of the va-
rious sorts of manias and phobias which some authors, im-
agining that the content rather than the relations of the im-
pulses concerned is important, have so needlessly chosen to
distinguish. Bunyan was tempted to doubt, fear, question,
blaspheme, curse, swear, pray to the devil, or to do whatever
else conscientious inhibition and irritably weak speech-func-
tions had prepared him to find peculiarly fascinating and
horrible. There was no importance in the mere variety of
the wicked ideas that the one " tempter " suggested. The
evil lay in the systematized character of the morbid habits
involved, and in the exhausting multitude of the tempter's
assaults.
v
The malady was now, after the passage of this acute stage,
all the more certainly in possession of the man. The tempo-
rary remission was sure to prove deceitful. In Dr. Cowles's
patient, after once the morbid habits had become system-
atized, to a degree similar to the one now reached in Bun-
yan's case, there was apparently no way out of the gloomy
labyrinth. Whatever devices were tried led, so long as
the patient was under Dr. Cowles's observation, to renewed
struggles with conscientious scruples and with ingeniously
subtle inner temptations, and the sufferer, whatever her tem-
porary stages of relief, was doomed to walk round and round
the charmed circle of doubt, of temptation, of elaborate self-
invented exorcising devices, of failure, of self-reproach, and
of despair. It was to be Bunyan's good fortune to escape in
the end from his tempter. How he was thus to escape, the
next and most agonizing of his acute stages was to deter-
mine. The sufferer from such morbid systems is at best, as
THE CASE OP JOHN BUNYAN. C3
all the evidence shows, in a very serious position. That
very strength of certain of his highest brain-functions
which is one condition of the development of his weakness
as to other functions, makes all the harder the task of teach-
ing him wholly new mental habits. Yet without such
wholly new habits he can never escape. Hence the evil prog-
nosis which most observers now unite in attributing to this
type of disorder, viz., to the chronic malady of insistent im-
pulses with intercurrent acute stages. But there is one
rather desperate chance which most writers on the subject
have, as I think, generally neglected. Suppose there appears,
in the life of the chronically affected patient, a new insist-
ent impulse, such that yielding to this particular impulse
brings the patient into some wholly new relation to his en-
vironment. Suppose, thereupon, that a novel and profoundly
different life, even if this be a very painful life, is forced
upon him in consequence of his yielding. The result may
be a condition of things in which, diseased though he still
is, the old cares and temptations are entirely set aside by the
fresh experiences given through the new environment If
the patient has now strength enough to bear the pangs and
the fresh and strongly contrasted nervous distresses of this
changed life, he may actually have time to reform his men-
tal habits before the old " tempter " is able, for his part, to
organize his own inimical nervous tendencies upon the new
battle-field. The substituted pangs themselves may then
pass before the old are renewed. Then indeed, some day,
tin- old enemy will come back, but the patient will have be-
come, meanwhile, another man, and the whole system of
his formerly insistent opponents will have been broken up.
He will thus find himself thrown back, in some sense, to the
earlier stages of his own case; he will once more have only
elementary doubts and fears to oppose. But these his expe-
rience will have taught him to circumvent ; and so, at any
rate with a certain degree of defect, he may have become
G
04 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
cured. The elements will survive, but will 110 longer sys-
tematize.
This possible good fortune, to be won, if at all, by passing
through the fiercest fire of painful impulse, Dr. Cowles's
patient tried in vain to find, when she experimented at pre-
tending to poison herself, or, later, deliberately wounded
herself with a pistol, not hoping to commit suicide, but only
seeking to expiate her faults, and to get peace from her
tempter, through novel pangs. Bunyan, without dreaming
of such relief, actually won it through what seemed, at the
time, the most hopeless of all the woes that had yet beset
him.
" For after the Lord had, in this manner, thus graciously
delivered me from this great and sore Temptation . . . the
Tempter came upon me again, and that with a more grievous
and dreadful Temptation than before. And that was, To sell
and part u-ith this most blessed Christ, to exchange him
for the things of this life, for anything."
The new temptation had its own typical mental context,
different from that of the previous stage. This was now no
single member of a " flood of blasphemies." It stood nearly
alone, as an equivalent for all the rest of the earlier tempta-
tions. Still, however, the impulse to sell Christ was merely
an imperative motor speech-function. No other word seems
ever to have substituted itself for the word sell ; and the
only further act involved in yielding to the temptation was
a purely formal inner assent to the " selling." The proposed
transaction involved, as a matter of course, no actually con-
ceived exchange whatever. Nevertheless, in a most inter-
esting fashion, the imperative impulse now appeared as a
reflex, which tended, in consciousness, to enter into a sort of
" agglutinative " combination (to use one of Wundt's well-
known adopted phrases), with any object of passing percep-
tive interest ; so that the special form of the experience was
that the tempter moved Bunyan to sell Christ for this or
THE CASE OP JOHN BUXYAX. 65
for ttiat, whatever the insignificant thing might be that
Bunyan was at the moment attending to, or handling, or
dealing with in any active way. The painfulness, the asso-
ciated fear, and the violence of the thought, were all of the
most intense sort ; and this reflex character made the temp-
tation infect Bunyan 's whole life most horribly ; " for it did
always, in almost whatever I thought, intermix itself there-
with, in such sort that I could neither eat my food, stoop
for a pin, chop a stick, or cast mine eye to look on this or
that, but still the temptation would come, Sell Christ for
this, or sell Christ for that ; sell him, sell him."
The struggle this time very soon led Bunyan to that
grave stage where the sufferer from insistent impulses re-
sorts to apparently senseless motor acts that possess for him
an exorcising significance. " By the very force of my mind,
in laboring to gainsay and resist this wickedness, my very
body also would be put into action or motion by way of
pushing or thrusting with my hands or elbows, still answer-
ing as fast as the destroyer said, Sell him ; I will not, I will
not . . . no, not for thousands, thousands, thousands of
worlds." This kind of elaboration rapidly grew to its own
hopelessly extravagant extremes. But in vain. A few
added doubts, of the old inhibitory type, meanwhile ap-
peared in the background, but the tempter had now, so to
speak, learned his game, and had no need to waste his forces
upon general devices of inhibition. This one suggestion was
enough. The loathsome triviality of the motor impulse
itself, in its pettiness, and the vast dignity of the eternal
issues imperilled, as Bunyan felt, by its presence, combined
to give the situation all the dreadful and inhibitory features
that had earlier been spread over so wide a mental range of
evil interests.
" But to be brief, one morning, as I did lie in my bed, I
was, "as at other times, most fiercely assaulted with this
temptation, . . . the wicked suggestion still running in my
G6 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
mind, Sell him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a man
could speak. Against which also, in my mind, as at other
times, I answered, .ZVb, no, not for thousands, thousands,
thousands, at least twenty times together. But at last, after
much striving, even until I was almost out of breath, I felt
this thought pass through my heart, Let him go, if he will !
and I thought also that I felt my heart freely consent there-
to. Oh the diligence of Satan ! Oh the desperateness of
man's heart !
" Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a Bird that
is shot from the top of a tree, with great guilt, and fearful
despair. Thus getting out of my Bed, I went moping into
the field ; but God knows, with as heavy a heart as mortal
man, I think, could bear ; where, for the space of two hours,
I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all recovery,
and bound over to eternal punishment."
VI.
The nervous crisis thus passed served to introduce a con-
dition of extremely lengthy, quasi-melancholic, but to Bun-
yan's consciousness wholly secondary, depression. The
hopeless sin was committed. Like Esau he had sold his
birthright. There was now "no place for repentance."
This, the third stage of the culmination of the malady, was
marked by an almost entire quiescence of the insistently
sinful impulses ; for what had the victorious tempter now
left to do ? There were no more minor hesitancies, no
loathsome motor irritations. One overwhelming idea and
grief inhibited all these inhibitory symptoms. The insistent
associative processes with the Scripture passages became,
however, for a good while, all the more marked, automatic,
and commanding. Thus the whole mental situation was
profoundly altered. The secondary melancholic depression
expressed itself occasionally in praecordial anxiety. " I have
felt also such a clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 67
of this my terror, that I was, especially at some times, as if
my breast bone would have split asunder." But Bunyan
even now never long lost his dialectic skill ; and hopeless
as seemed his case, he from the first set about trying to think
of a way of escape from destruction, being throughout
" loath to perish " a fact which, viewed in its results, indi-
cates the relative intactness of his highest mental functions
amidst all his gloom.
Except for the automatic processes with the Scripture
passages, Bunyan 's condition of secondary melancholic de-
pression had, therefore, despite its depth and its fantastic
background, many of the more benign characters of normal
grief. It had, at the worst, its occasional remissions. It
left his reasoning powers formally unaffected. And it had
the painful but really invaluable character that, just be-
cause his fate seemed decided, he had a long and almost
total rest from the irritating motor processes, whose depend-
ence upon his past habits of conscientious anxiety is thus
all the more confirmed. For this restless anxiety, the pretty
steady assurance of damnation was now substituted. This,
as the event proved, Bunyan 's heroic disposition was strong
enough to endure, despite the " splitting " sensations in the
breast, despite the long days of grief and of lonely lamenta-
tion; despite his inability to get any comfort or help
from his few advisers. The case was still grave enough,
but this light melancholia proved to be a decidedly kinder
disorder than the foregoing one, and it led the way over
to recovery.
In the long tale which follows, in Bunyan 's Autobiogra-
phy, ;nul which is largely devoted to the description of the
inner conflicts amongst the Scripture passages (of whose
automatic evolutions poor Bunyan's consciousness was now
lon^ tin- merely passive theatre), there are but few things
further to be noted for our purpose. But these few are ex-
instructive.
68 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
The gradual emergence from despair is obviously due, on
the whole, to the vis medicatrix naturae. Bunyan's gen-
eral physical health gradually improved. His conscientious
habits of life, freed now from the tempter's teasing inter-
ferences, had a chance to become healthily fixed and uncon-
scious. He grieved too deeply to long for distractions, and
never thought of returning to his youthful sins as a relief
from despair. The doubts and other motor inconveniences
were of course still in the background of his mental life,
but it is interesting to note how, whenever they appear, they
are now simply overshadowed and devitalized by the fixed
presence of the ruling melancholic ideas. The tempter is
thus at length known as a relatively foreign and mocking
other self, whose power over Bunyan's will grows less even
while his triumph is supposed to be final. He "becomes
humorous," as Froude observes. Bunyan, so the tempter
suggests in his old metaphysical way and with the old
doubting subtlety Bunyan had better not pray any more,
since God must be weary of the whole business ; or if he
must pray, let it be to some other person of the Trinity in-
stead of to the directly insulted Mediator. Could not a new
plan of salvation be devised by special arrangement, the
Father this time kindly acting as mediator with the other-
wise implacable Son, to meet Bunyan's exceptional case ?
But such suggestions, which in an earlier stage would have
been " fearful blasphemies," now have to stand in contrast
to the fixed and central grief which constitutes Bunyan's
own personal consciousness. Bunyan knows by the very
contrast that these suggested words of the tempter are not
his own. This is the mere fooling of the exultant devil. It
is meaningless. For Bunyan is consciously on the side of
the grief itself, and the humorous tempter is the sole owner
of the blasphemies, which therefore serve all the more to
" confirm " the sufferer in his painful faith. A better device
than this for the " segmentation " of insistent questionings
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 69
could not have been imagined by any physician learned in
the cure of souls. The victorious tempter had unwittingly
dug his own grave. He could never again get possession of
this man's central self, nor use this brain as a foundation
for systematized evil habits.
Another instructive aspect of the slow process of recov-
ery lies in the fact that Bunyan was, towards the end, able,
at some moments, and despite his always busy dialectic pro-
cesses, to win that attitude of complete resignation, of aban-
donment of all feverish conscious strugglings and pleadings
with fate that attitude which, as experience shows, is so
often the beginning of a final recovery from all forms of
deeper mental distress. Such an attitude is consistent, as it
was in Bunyan, with a good deal of cool consideration, and
with much activity of thought ; but it was still effectively
assumed. There is, for such sufferers as Bunyan, and for
many others, a mood of gentler despair that is often essen-
tially healing, because, as compared to their old feverish-
ness, it is peaceful. It is the sort of despair that Edgar Poe
has put on record in the admirably psychological lines For
Annie. It is the mood that says, to the tempestuous striv-
ing self of former days, " Ich haV meine Sache auf Nichts
gesetzt." 1 One is lost ; only eternal mercy can save ; one
finally is content to leave all to fate or to God, and to "lie
quietly," like the conscious corpse of Poe's poem, glad a
little that the "fever called living is ended at length."
Bunyan is remote enough in type from Poe's lover ; and he
was never content long to lie quiet But still, at moments,
tliis essentially curative element also is present in this stage
of his experience. The automatic play of the remembered
Scripture passages became with him more and more com-
plex, imposing, unpredictable an inner fate that he often
h -Iplessly watched as one watches the breaking of great
waves on the beach. Plainly God must be directing tin-
process. Bunyan could only pray that God's will might bo
70 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
done, and hope that so many kind glimpses of light would
not have been shown to an utter outcast. " God and Christ,"
he says, " were continually before my face," and, painful as
the experience was, since he was facing his judge, this kept
down, as he himself recognizes, all the old temptations to
" atheism." At last " I saw . . . that it was not my good
frame of heart that made my Righteousness better, nor my
bad frame that made my Righteousness worse; for my
righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yester-
day, to-day, and forever." And " now," he says, in nar-
rating this last experience, "did my chains fall off my
Legs indeed." Such is the healing virtue of true resigna-
tion.
The episodes of this whole long final stage were of course
numerous and of Protean character. There was through-
out, despite the prevalence of the general despair, consider-
able instability of mood. Intervals of peace, resulting from
this or that " sweet glance " of a " Promise," were sometimes
followed by the wildest fits of gloom. Two or three times the
borderland pseudo-hallucinations of speech returned. Once,
in particular, at a moment of this sort, the accompanying
experience of calm " made a strange seizure upon my spirit ;
it brought light with it, and commanded a silence in my
heart of all those tumultuous thoughts that before did use,
like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow and make a
hideous noise within me." And this sudden transformation
of mood, produced by a comforting voice that was " as if
heard," was so great that, many years later, though writing
in a very cautious and self-critical spirit, Bunyan could not
refrain, in a later edition of the Grace Abounding, from
inserting this incident, and adding his private opinion that
this might indeed have been " an Angel " that " had come
upon me." Yet no element of actual delusion was, at the
time, involved in the experience. As for the Scripture pas-
sages, their automatic effects were such that Bunyan ere
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 71
long found himself awaiting with interest what would hap-
pen when two, already known and often studied " words "
should, by chance, " meet in my heart " an event which
might prove to him of the most critical importance, al-
though, beforehand, he could do positively nothing to has-
ten or to effect this event by any voluntary consideration
of the passages. Only when the suggested passages were
numerous, and the " meeting " had already often occurred,
could he devote himself, with his accustomed dialectic
skill, to considering with care the outcome and its mean-
ing a thing which, just before his recovery, he learned
to do, in some cases, very coolly and with great delibera-
tion.
The passing of this stage of despair was attended, at the
end, with many of the usual exaltations and confusions of
convalescence. " I had two or three times, at about my
deliverance from this temptation, such strange apprehen-
sions of the grace of God, that I could hardly bear up under
it ; it was so out of measure amazing, when I thought it
could reach me, that I do think, if that sense of it had
abode long upon me, it would have made me incapable of
business/'
VII.
The cure had come to pass, but it was, and remained, a
cure with a pretty well-defined defect. The tempter could
never again obtain control. The diseased habits were re-
duced to their elements, and were unable to systematize
themselves afresh. The elements, however, proved, as one
would expect in such a case, too deeply founded in this
wonderful constitution ever to be eliminated. At the end
of the Grace Abounding Bunyan, with the simplest humil-
ity, records the temptations to which his soul is now perma-
nently subjected. His moods of spiritual interest and
emotion are to a very considerable extent unstable, do what
he may. There are times when he is " filled with darkness,"
72 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
however much, at other times, he may have been exalted.
His heart becomes, at the dark times, " dead and dry," and
he can then find no " comfort." He is also still occasionally
tempted " to doubt the being of God and the Truth of his
Gospel " ; and this is always the " worst " of moods.
Furthermore, in his preaching, the tempter often besets him
" with thoughts of blasphemy," which he is " strongly
tempted to speak " " before the congregation " ; or again, a
strange confusion of head comes upon him as he preaches,
and straitens " him, so that he feels " as if I had not known
or remembered what I have been about, or as if my head
had been in a bag all the time of the Exercise." More sub-
tle assaults of the tempter also come while he preaches
condemnations of this or that which he knows it to be his
duty to utter, or on the other hand movings " to pride and
liftings up of heart." For a while after his malady, when
he had joined the church, he was tempted to blaspheme
during the sacraments. In any of his illnesses, peculiarly
black and cowardly thoughts always come. At the begin-
ning of his imprisonment he long felt himself to be a hope-
less coward, unable because unworthy to suffer for the faith,
and the tempter mocked this weakness with all the old
subtlety.
But now here is the important thing all these perma-
nent enemies are still, and remain for the rest of Bunyan's
life, in no wise uncontrollable. His deeper consciousness is
beset, but never overwhelmed, by them. His attitude
towards them becomes objective, resigned. They teach him
to "watch and be sober." They are useful to him, since
"they keep me from trusting my heart." Of one of his
later hours of darkness he says : " I would not have been
without this Trial for much. I am comforted every time I
think of it, and I hope I shall bless God forever for the
teaching I have had by it. Many more of the dealings of
God towards me I might relate, but these out of the spoils
THE CASE OF JOHN BUNYAN. 73
won in Battle have I dedicated to maintain the house of
God." The words are typical of all the later inner expe-
rience of Bunyan ; and it is to this spirit in the man that we
owe his immortal works.
Of his mental regimen after his recovery a word may
yet be said. A wise instinct guided the much-tried wan-
derer in the darker world to forsake henceforth his solitude,
to join himself "unto the people of God," to try to be
objectively serviceable, and to keep in touch with the needs
of his brethren. His gift of speech hereupon soon discov-
ered itself. He was erelong set to preach. His power won
multitudes of listeners during all his years passed out of
prison. In prison he wrote busily, and preached to his fel-
low-prisoners at every opportunity. The motor speech-
functions, whose inhibition had led to such disastrously
rebellious insistent habits, were never again suffered to
remain without absorbing and productive exercise. The
decidedly healthy self-contempt engendered by the experi-
ence of his own weakness only served to make him more
objective in his whole attitude towards life. Henceforth
he knows every man to be of himself naught He has
therefore, as Froude points out, no favorites, and portrays, in
his literary work, Talkative, and Ignorance, and Mr. Bad-
man, with as much cool devotion to the task and with as
much artistic faithfulness, as Christian. He spares no one,
himself least of all. Yet he sympathizes with every manner
of human weakness, for his own inner life has furnished
him with a brief abstract and epitome of all human frailty.
His mastery is the mastery of the genius who has really en-
tered the Valley of the Shadow and has passed through.
Hence the seeming of the man in the eyes of those who
knew him in later life, and who could not easily have sus-
pected, in this modest yet commanding presence, the piteous
weaknesses of his younger years, had he himself not so
instructively told the wonderful story.
74 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
Our result can be briefly stated. This is unquestionably
a fairly typical case of a now often described mental disor-
der. The peculiarities of this special case lie largely in the
powers of the genius who here suffered from the malady.
A man of sensitive and probably somewhat burdened nerv-
ous constitution, whose family history, however, so far as it
is known to us, gives no positive evidence of serious heredi-
tary weakness, is beset in childhood with frequent nocturnal
and even diurnal terrors of a well-known sort. In youth,
after an early marriage, under the strain of a life of poverty
and of many religious anxieties, he develops elementary
insistent dreads of a conscientious sort, 'and later a collection
of habits of questioning and of doubt which erelong reach
and obviously pass the limits of the normal. His general
physical condition meanwhile failing, in a fashion that, in
the light of our very imperfect information concerning this
aspect of the case, still appears to be of some neurasthenic
type, there now appears a highly systematized mass of in-
sistent motor speech-functions of the most painful sort,
accompanied with still more of the same fears, doubts, and
questions. After enduring for a pretty extended period,
after one remission, and also after a decided change in the
contents of the insistent elements, the malady then more
rapidly approaches a dramatic crisis, which leaves the suf-
ferer for a long period in a condition of secondary melan-
cholic depression, of a somewhat benign type a depression
from which, owing to a deep change of his mental habits,
and to an improvement of his physical condition, he finally
emerges cured, although with defect, of his greatest ene-
my the systematized insistent impulses. This entire mor-
bid experience has lasted some four years. Henceforth,
nnder a skilful self-imposed mental regimen, this man,
although always a prey to elementary insistent temp-
tations and to fits of deep depression of mood, has no
return of his more systematized disorders, and endures
THE CASE OP JOUN BUN VAN. 75
heavy burdens of work and of fortune with excellent
success.
Such is the psychological aspect of a story whose
human and spiritual interest is and remains of the very
highest.
m.
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM*
THE bitter criticism that greeted the appearance of Lord
Tennyson's second Locksley Hall shows how much people
still loved the first Locksley Hall, and how little they had
learned from it. An almost universal opinion declared the
new poem to be a purely abnormal product, whereas the first
poem, according to the same opinion, was something quite
natural and healthy. The new Locksley Hall was thus de-
nounced as a sort of treason. This cruel father, people said,
sacrifices the child of his own youth. This worn-out old
hero shows himself at last before all the world as a coward,
and whines where once he sang the battle-hymn. This Tory
lord now bids crouch whom the rest bade aspire. Such was
the general sense of popular criticism, at least in this country.
And, at first sight, what could be more natural than this
judgment ? The first Locksley Hall gave us a view of life
so honest, so youthful, so modern, so comprehensible, that it
would seem as if nobody capable of feeling what young men
feel, could fail to adopt that view, or, having adopted it, could
abandon it without regret. If now the creator of this old
ideal appears as its denouncer and destroyer, can we who
loved the old poem do anything but condemn the final
mood of its maker.
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
76
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM. 77
But this popular view was no less plausible than unjust.
In fact the second Locksley Hall is, despite a certain falling
off of technical skill, still substantially the fulfillment of the
first. Whatever unhealthiness exists in the latest poem, is
in germ in the original one, and, on the whole, the new
poem, notwithstanding a number of frantic opinions and of
unpleasant lines, is healthier, more manly, more devout,
and even more cheerful, in a deeper sense of the word cheer-
ful, than was the first poem. Neither poem is truly sound.
Both suffer from the same disease. Both illustrate Tenny-
son's characteristic weakness. But of the two the old man's
poem, if artistically inferior, is ethically higher, and for this
reason is far more satisfying. Such is the thesis that this
paper wants to defend.
What has made people blind to this is the fact that the dis-
ease from which both of these poems suffer is a very preva-
lent disease. It is a cause of numerous modern superstitions,
and casts a gloom over many lives. We need to become
conscious of its nature, and to get rid of it from our own
minds. For my part, then, I am thankful to our poet for
the second Locksley Hall, because, taken with the first, it il-
lustrates so well and so instructively a great man's conflict
with this, the favorite disease of his age. I should be glad
if people saw this truth more readily, and I venture upon
the few hasty suggestions which follow for the sake of
helping others, possibly, to direct their attention to the
matter.
A devout man is one who believes that there is some-
thing in the world which demands both his worship and his
loyalty, and who, accordingly, tries to worship and be loyal.
Now, if any man seeks to be devout, his great difficulty is
that he is all the while in the midst of petty and disheartening
things, which at once attract, corrupt, pain and horrify him.
In his religious faith, or in his poetry, or in his dreams, he
therefore tries somehow to neutralize, or to explain away, or
78 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
at the worst occasionally to forget, this baseness of the details
of life. Only when he can somehow either transcend or for-
sake these coarse facts, has he the chance to feel the desired
devotion. " If, therefore, there is anything divine in the
world," he says to himself, u I shall not find it while I am
joined to these cloying and hateful experiences." And so
he asks of his religious teachers, or of his poets, or of the
others who have spiritual wares to offer him, that they shall
somehow purge his soul, from time to time, of the corrup-
tion of finite things, and show him that divine good, what-
ever he chooses to call it, which is to be the true object of
his loyalty.
Now, since this is the natural desire of a good man, it is
also but natural that everybody at some time tries to take
the shortest road to this goal of spiritual freedom. To get
above the petty and coarse things of life, we must forget
them, so we say. This seems the only fashion of escape.
In consequence of this resolve, we often ask of our poets not
so much that they shall transcend, as that they shall disguise
or deny, or ignore, the coarseness of the real world. " Hide
it," we say to them, " declare it unreal, dream it away, talk
of it as illusion. Deliver us from evil by simply destroy-
ing the very idea of it, so long as we are in your company."
When we make this demand of our poets, we ask them to be
romantic, and the poets who habitually appeal to this de-
mand are called the romantic poets. As is well known,
however, Lord Tennyson himself is a romantic poet. Al-
ways one of the most devout of men, he gives as his ideal
of the devout mood something that can be realized only
through a more or less complete separation from the world
of concrete life. He offers us the things of the spirit in
sacred places, not elsewhere. His realm of divine truth is
and always was for him a dream-land, to be reached through
mystical exaltation, or by the ecstatic fancies of hopeful
youth. He has believed in God, but in a God that hideth
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM. 79
himself, and that still showeth himself, on rare and roman-
tic occasions, to the devout. This is the God of the Holy
Grail, or of the wondrous mystical experience during the
night scene on the lawn, in the In Memoriam. This God,
to tell the truth, seems afraid of his own world. He doubt-
less knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust, but he
regards us meanwhile with a distant, although mildly piti-
ful negligence. On occasion he lets us catch glimpses of
himself, but there is neither rule nor rationality about the
coming of these glimpses. "Look at me if you can," the
divine truth says to us. Otherwise we seem to form no part
of its business. We are not the sort of people that it habit-
ually meets in a social way.
All this is only a malter-of-fact statement of the romantic
spirit, familiar to us, of course, in many poets besides Lord Ten-
nyson. But it is needful to remind ourselves what this spirit
means, in order that we may see just now how it expresses
itself in the first Locksley Hall. In that poem, to be sure,
there is nothing of what one usually calls mysticism. There
is, in fact, no theology at all. Hence, indeed, the essentially
modern sound of the verses. Lord Tennyson's age is doubt-
less out of harmony, and from the first has been out of har-
mony, with the more esoteric and theological element in
his romanticism. Yet this age has no sort of objection to
divinely significant truth, if only you can express it in
t mis of well-known astronomical, physical, or biological
theories, and can make it sound unmiraculous. That, in a
fashion, was what the first Locksley Hall did, by means of
a few skilful and even prophetic phrases. What the age
views with great dislike, namely, the expression of the
higher truth in traditional or in mystical forms, was what
the first Locksley Hall ingeniously avoided. Hence people
who make little or nothing of In Memoriam, who find all
the Idyls of the King at their best too fanciful, and who
think the Holy Grail quite unintelligible, may still admire
80 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
endlessly the dreams about the far-off future in Locksley
Hall.
Yet Locksley Hall is percisely as romantic and as full
of the remote ideals as is the Holy Grail. You may state
the thing in mediaeval terms if you like, or in terms of fan-
cies about flying-machines and international Federations.
Yet the result is precisely the same. The world that you
move in is, in both cases, the old romantic world, the land
of magic fire, of talismans, and of a beautiful darkness.
You are on a quest for the ideal. It is a sort of creature
that won't be caught in a commonplace way. You must
go on knightly wanderings, and lose yourself in deserts and
oceans. The mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and you
go. Your business is somewhat indescribable. You are
sure only that it is vastly important. Its most prominent
feature is that it takes you away from earthly relations.
You are shamed through all your being to have loved so
slight a thing as an actual flesh-and-blood woman, who, of
course, must have been quite incapable of understanding
such a nature as yours. Nevertheless, after all your misfor-
tunes, the crescent promise of your spirit has not set, and
you propose to do something on a grand scale. The out-
come of the business will be some sort of ineffable glory for
future humanity. The distance beacons, and not in vain.
You cry " forward," quite ignorant, of course, of just what
the word means, but sure that if we only get far enough
away from where we are, we shall not fail to find perfection.
The good is something absolutely and fatally destined to be
reached by us, although it is also of a certainty something
so very remote that we have not the least idea when we
shall reach it Such, then, is your Holy Grail, your increas-
ing purpose that runs through the ages, your divine truth.
Your description of its features may vary, but it always has
the same " unmistakable marks," by which you may know
it wheresoever you go.
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM. 81
This summary may perhaps seem mere scoffing. The
matter has, of course, another side. This devotion to a
vague and romantic ideal, which is chiefly defined by the
fact that it is a good way off, has its strong features. The
purity of intention is, in Lord Tennyson's poems, undoubted.
Their educating value, in their place and time, is of the
highest How much we owe to this teacher of the ideal in
a sordid age, who may know ? But if, for the sake of awak-
ing our enthusiasm, these vague dreams of abstract perfec-
tion are invaluable, we must never forget two things about
them : first, that they are never the only expressions, never
the highest expressions, of the love of ideals ; and, second,
that the invariable outcome of such dreams, unless they
give place to some more solid sort of idealism, is sooner or
later hateful and pessimistic despair. This romantic ideal-
ism of so many among Tennyson's poems, is, therefore, not
only vague, but essentially transient. In case of the mood
of Locksley Hall, also, the idealism must give place to a
deeper and less romantic devotion, or else it must end in
out and out pessimism. The second Locksley Hall espe-
cially shows us in what sense the first Locksley Hall was
already, in germ, a pessimistic poem.
For in the first Locksley Hall, if we will be honest with
it, there is plainly great faith that God is the God of the
future ; but in no true sense does he appear as the God of
tin- present. The present is a world of wicked squires, who
drink wine and love dogs, of false and fickle cousins who
probably lie awake o' nights weeping because they feel
themselves unworthy of our high regard and in general
of social lies and sickly forms. There are a few good people
in it, in the foremost ranks of time, namely ; but their con-
cern is not with its absurdities, but with the service of the
ideal future humanity. The noble youth of the poem is
simply a pessimist as to the world that now is. It is out of
joint, and he is not born to set that world right, but rather
82 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
to forget it. His optimism concerns the world that is not,
but some day shall be. Of that, all sorts of amusing things
are true. God's attention is plainly devoted to the realms
of dreams, and the divine plan has no place for the squire
and the cousin. This of course is optimism with a ven-
geance, but is it not also in a much deeper sense pessimism ?
God is not in this place, and Jacob, on a famous occasion,
made a blunder. God is somewhere else, sleeping, as it
were, or on a journey, and we must set out to find him.
Nay then, is not this optimism of progress, this assurance
that the divine truth is still playing truant, a very dark
thought, after all ? " One increasing purpose," indeed ! But
so far it has culminated in the squire and the social lies
aforesaid. What is wanted is still a very great increase of
this " purpose." For thus far we have to curse very frank-
ly, in the poem, pretty much all, save our noble selves, that
the " purpose " has produced. Where then is the " promise
of his coming ? " Or rather, what is it all but a bare and
wearisomely reiterated promise, whose fulfillment is only in
dream-land, and is apparently there to stay for as long as
we can definitely foresee. But then the "distance beacons."
Yet it is only distance, only the far-off. There is no mean-
ing in life save what that far-off gives to it. Das Dort ist
niemals Hier. At heart then, despite all our fervor, we are
only pessimists. The good is somewhere, just as " oats and
beans and barley grows where you nor I nor nobody knows."
And that is the whole tale of our airy and meaningless
hopes. We have only to wake up to this fact to turn all
our enthusiasm into disaster and gloom.
Now in so far as the second Locksley Hall is truly pes-
simistic at all, its pessimism is simply the explicit statement
of the sense of this very thought. Unless God is here, says
in substance the poet of the second Locksley Hall, how do
you know that he is anywhere else ? Unless the present has
divine meaning, how worthless the dreams of a far-off starry
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM. 83
future, dreams comparable only to the fancies about the
perfect life that may dwell in the other planets :
Hesper Venus were we native to that splendour or in Mare,
We should see the Globe we groan in, fairest of their evening stare.
Could we dream of ware and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite,
Roaring London, raving Paris, in that point of peaceful light i
Might we not in glancing heavenward on a star so silver- fair
Yearn, and clasp the hands and murmur, " Would to God that we were
there! "
" What are men that He should heed us ? " cried the king of sacred song ;
Insects of an hour, that hourly work their brother insects wrong,
While the silent Heavens roll, and Suns along their fiery way,
All their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles a day.
Such are the thoughts that finally determine the poet to
give up the optimism of progress. The process of the world,
such as it is, is far too vast to be expressed in merely tem-
poral terms. Kegarded in tune merely, there is doubt about
all this plan. There seems at all events to be rhythm as
well as growth :
Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good,
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.
And so much that we take to be progress, after all, turns
out not to be such! Still again, where we are in doubt
about the reality of anything that we have called progress,
we become appalled at once by the magnitude of the powers
of the world. How, looking at them externally, can we be
sure of their meaning ?
Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the immeasurable sea,
Bway'd by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known to you or me.
To be sure, even now we can repeat our youthful dreams of
the future peace and perfection of humanity. Perhaps there
will come an " end after madness " for our poor earth :
84 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion killed,
Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till'd,
Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles,
Universal ocean softiy washing all her warlcss Isles.
But then, not only are these things hard, even as dreams
(" Who can fancy warless men ? "), but just behind all that
is the picture of the physical death of our planet, a death
sure to come at last. Is not the moon dead ? " The moon-
light is the sunlight, and the sun himself will pass." For
the old dreams we therefore have left only the gloomiest of
mysteries, and the saddest of assurances.
But, after all, does not the true secret of this pessimism
lie in our original abandonment of the real world about us
for that world of dreams ? When we sought the ideal far
off, and refused to recognize it in human life as it is, were
we not already just what we have found ourselves to be,
pessimists ? Can we not then escape our outcome by aban-
doning our romantic mood ? To a certain extent, Tennyson
undertakes to do this in the new Locksley Hall, and this is
what makes me say that there is, with all the weakness and
the gloom of this latest poem, a far healthier view of life, in
many of its lines, than we find in the old Locksley Hall.
First then, in general, the poet distinctly recognizes at
last that, if this is God's world, what others have called the
" perfection in imperfection " of just these struggles, sins,
tears, strivings and loves about us to-day, must be the ex-
pression of God's will. The sins are none the less sins that
they and the struggle with them are alike necessary to the
genuine realization of the good. We need cry out no less
against evil whilst we still hold evil to be, not the transient
absence of the god of Evolution from his world, but the
living strife in the midst of which the true God maintains
himself in his world. This view of evil is the one that
among recent poets, Browning has especially been coramis-
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM. 85
sioned to illustrate afresh for us. This is what he has said
in all his best poems. But this view is the one that Tenny-
son's romanticism has always tried to escape. Tennyson
has lamented the evils of life, but has never been ready to
take them for what they are, the evils of God's own world.
They have seemed to him the accidents of God's remoteness.
In this latest poem he somewhat haltingly recognizes, amidst
all his complaints, the inevitable fact. The good simply is
not and cannot be realized, save in the midst of the conflict
with evil. Yet that truth makes the good no less good, and
the world no less divine. Through all his despair the poet
now at last turns towards this light as his only guide :
Follow you the Star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine.
Forward, till you see the highest Human Nature is divine.
Follow Light, and do the Right for man can half-control his doom
Till you find the deathless Angel seated in the vacant tomb.
It is with this new sort of faith in mind that the poet
says of our earth, not, as of old, that it is a joy to see her
spinning down the ringing grooves of change, but that
Ere she reach her earthly best, a God must mingle with the game.
He feels too that there are " those about us whom we
neither see nor name." He is sure that, amid all the mys-
teries of the heavens, mysteries upon which the word Evo-
lution throws no sort of light, there must still be a living
presence:
Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by,
Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye,
Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro' the human soul,
Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless outward in the Whole.
This faith is still vague, it is still clouded, it still loves
romantic forms of speech. But after all it is more genuine
than that blind old trust in whatever might happen to fill
86 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
the remote future. For if this mysterious world is even
now the world of a divine plan, boundless both in the
whole and in the atom, if we wait not for some far-off
divine event, but believe in the actually present God, then
our lives become, for all their horror and their problems, at
any rate genuine lives. It is a game, at worst, this life of
ours, and not a procession. We play it, and do not simply
watch it to see what is some day to follow :
You, my Leonard, use and not abuse your day,
Move among your people, know them, follow him who led the way,
Strove for sixty widow'd years to help his homelier brother men,
Served the poor, and built the cottage, raised the school and drained the fen.
The man who does his commonplace business in the living
present is, after all, the true man. He fights the good fight,
and the good is nothing if it is not the good fight.
The particular true man, however, whom Leonard, the
" grandson " of the new poem, is to follow, is none other,
be it noticed, than the old squire himself, that dog-loving
creature, who used to hunt in dreams, and behave otherwise
disagreeably. There is a beautiful completeness about the
late apology which the poet now makes to that much
abused person. Every reader will be amused by the apolo-
gy. But possibly some reader may not note its full signifi-
cance. Returning, as the poet does from the world of vain
dreams to the world of human beings, he finds not only
horrible and gloomy things, such as fill him with fear, but
true and genuine things, such as express God's own heart
Among these things are the very relationships that the
romantic youth had affected to despise. Amy, to be sure, is
gone, long since. But the old squire has lived even until
yesterday. The poet has come at last to be present at his
funeral. And when one sums up the squire's hearty,
simple, benevolent, unromantic life, one sees what it
meant;
TENNYSON AND PESSIMISM. 87
Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic Squire,
Kindly landlord, boon companion youthful jealousy is a liar.
After all, it is the straightforward and manly life that
is praiseworthy. Once it seemed to us mere Philistinism,
and perhaps in its narrowness it may often have been noth-
ing better. But narrowness is not cured by negations.
" Forsake this present life because it is narrow," our roman-
tic youth had said. Now we see that it is in this present
life, not out of it that we are to find God. Take this com-
monplace life, and without denying it, without forsaking it,
make it no longer narrow. Make it large and full, but
keep it concrete : that is the lesson that the old squire has
taught us, and we thank him for it as he lies dead. We
liave no better advice for Leonard than that he shall fol-
low this example.
Thus then, Tennyson's latest pessimism is not without
its brighter comrades, courage, and faith in the real world.
In so far as our poet has reached this view he has distinctly
progressed from disease toward health. The old man thinks
gray thoughts, for he is gray ; but not all his thoughts are
of death. Experience has brought him the end of romantic
dreams, and his only hope is now in the actual.
One hears nowadays, very often, of youthful pessimism,
prevalent, for instance, among certain clever college stu-
dents. When I hear of these things, I do not always regret
them. On the contrary, I think that the best man is the
one who can see the truth of pessimism, can absorb and
transcend that truth, and can be nevertheless an optimist,
not by virtue of his failure to recognize the evil of life but
by virtue of his readiness to take his part in the struggle
against this evil. Therefore, I am often glad when I hear
of this spread of pessimistic ideas among studious but unde-
veloped youth. For I say to myself, if these men are brave
men, their sense of the evil that hinders our human life,
will some day arouse them to fight this evil in dead earnest,
88 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
while, if they are not brave men, optimism can be of no
service to cowards. But in any case I like to suggest to
such brave and pessimistic youth where the solution of their
problem must lie. It surely cannot lie in any romantic
dream of a pure and innocent world, far off somewhere in
the future, in Heaven, or in Isles of the Blessed. These
things are not for us. We are born for the world of manly
business, and if we are worthy of our destiny, we may pos-
sibly have some good part in the Wars of the Lord. For
nothing better have we any right to hope, and to an honest
man that is enough. We may be glad that our poet won
at last the possession of this truth.
TV.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL*
IN a remarkable paper on Moral Deficiencies as deter-
mining Intellectual Functions, published in the July num-
ber of this Journal, the learned author has made a very
interesting contribution to that famous discussion which
was begun, according to a very respectable tradition, in the
Garden of Eden, and which, in much more recent times,
was continued in the incomparable conversation between
Mephistopheles and the student in Faust. Every thought-
ful consideration of so interesting and momentous a question
is welcome, and no reader can doubt the thoughtfulness,
and in many ways the instructiveness, of the admirably
candid and fearless essay referred to. In attempting, as I
shall here do, to explain some of the relations between moral
and intellectual development from a point of view not
wholly identical with that of the author of this former
paper, I shall do best to give my argument as little as possi-
ble the directly controversial form. Something of contro-
versy will indeed creep into these paragraphs; but the
matter at issue is in fact too real and tragic to warrant very
much of the weighing of the accuracy or adequacy of this
or of that individual phrase which one may chance to find
in the speech of one's conscientious fellow-student. Our
International Journal of Ethics, October, 1893. The paper was sug-
gested by one written by Professor Gcorg Siinmel, of Berlin.
89
90 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
words easily differ, and may even be open to grave mis-
understandings never more so than when we write on the
intricate relations which obtain between moral defect and
intellectual skill. It is easy therefore to misinterpret or to
misuse another's expressions upon such subjects ; and this
fact, while it certainly seriously increases the responsibility
of any one who feels called upon to give public utterance to
his views as to such delicate problems, makes doubtless
only the more unprofitable too detailed a controversy over
words that have once been uttered. It is, after all, the
cause involved that is here of moment. For the problem :
To what extent does an experience of evil add to our intel-
lectual ability ? is indeed so complex as to make only too
possible expressions of opinion that, by reason of the diffi-
culty of the subject, may prove to be erroneous, and that, by
reason of the practical moment of the issue in question, may
in consequence easily cause the judicious to grieve.
Meanwhile, of the reality of the issue itself there can be
no doubt. The words rendered, Eritis sicut Deus, scientes
bonum et malum, were felt by the author of the original
tale to embody a paradoxical truth that, for us who come
after him, has only grown more wealthy in its paradoxes ai^
time has gone on. As for the part later played, in the dis-
cussion, by Mephistopheles, in the passage just referred to,
the significance of these as of other utterances of Faust's
tempter lies just in the fact that they contain, in all their
cruel irony, an aspect of the real truth. Moral goodness, as
an attainment, is doubtless something very different from
innocence. And attained goodness is only won through a
conflict with the forces of evil, which involves a pretty deep
knowledge of evil. But knowledge of evil, in us men (and
for excellent "psycho-physical" reasons, too) frequently
leads to sin, and very commonly does so, in any given indi-
vidual, before it actually leads the individual himself to the
possible goodness that lies for him beyond and above this
THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOOD AND EVIL. 91
knowledge of evil. Therefore, on the way that leads the
triumphant towards the goal of attained goodness, there will
be found many who pause by the way, and who are con-
tent, after their fashion, with this or that sort of knowledge
of evil, and with the sin in which, in their cases, this knowl-
edge has actually involved them. Among these numerous
wayfarers, moreover, there will be found many in whom
such knowledge is a very marked feature of their whole
mental life. Some of them, accordingly, will be very clever
and ingenious persons, and will owe much of their wit to
their lack of innocence. As against the innocent the
dwellers, as it were, in Eden these knowing sinners can
always assert that there is something more advanced more
Godlike, in fact, as the serpent said in their wisdom, than
in the ignorance of those who cannot conceive of sin. And
thus insight and moral defect will come to have that fre-
quent actual association, which the writer of the paper here
referred to has noticed as a fact in the life of the world,
and which is, in truth, the source of so serious a tragedy in
human life. For it is precisely this association which often
helps to make evil so keenly attractive in the eyes of the
young and curious. But if one examines more closely, one
finds that the paradox of the serpent is but one special case
of an universal paradox of all human consciousness. And
it is only necessary to state this paradox in its extremest
form to deprive it of half its susceptibility to misunder-
standing. There will, of course, indeed, always remain a
great number of perplexing special problems in this as in
all regions of our life ; but at least we shall no longer be
misled in our principjes of judgment, when once we have
grasped the deepest source of the difficulty. The common
mistake, in dealing with all such matters, is the half-truth,
and it was just in the half-truth that the wisdom of the
original serpent consisted. Even so, however, to point out
in succession now this, now that case where an intellectual
92 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
advance results from some particular moral deficiency, may
be to any extent confusing and disheartening. To discover,
however, a principle so universal that it would determine a
priori the existence of many such paradoxical cases in any
moral world, even the best, so soon as that world were con-
ceived as more than one of transparently empty innocence
this is an undertaking worthy of the serious moralist ;
and, properly set forth, such an undertaking can be in no
wise either confusing to the little ones, or disheartening to
the earnestly-minded. And, after all, why should science,
in its cool regard for truth, need to be disheartening when
the truth happens to be inspiring, or choose to be confusing
in order to prove itself to be dispassionate.
As a fact I find, since writing the body of what follows,
that the author of the essay here in question actually recog-
nizes, in its universality, precisely that principle which I am
about to expound afresh, and has elsewhere,* in the already
published first volume of his treatise on ethics, discussed in
a general and significant way the close relation which exists
between the ethical worth of the individual and the presence
of evil tendencies and temptations in his consciousness.
Little or nothing of what I here write will therefore seem
new to him, and therefore it is indeed better that I avoid
the controversial tone. But in the essay now in question,
on the Moral Deficiencies, our author has written as if he
had forgotten or chosen to neglect his own former dis-
cussion. This his former discussion itself, moreover, has
just come into my own hands, and the following essay,
written before I had seen the first volume of the Einleitung
in die Moralwissenschaft, must therefore be regarded as, on
the whole, far less a reply than an independent contribu-
tion to our topic. Where what I shall here say agrees,
* See Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, by Georg Simmel. Berlin,
1892, vol. i., 3tes Kapitel, on Sittliches Verdienst und Schuld.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 93
then, with our author's former chapter, in his published Ein-
leitung the chapter on Verdienst und Schuld I shall only
be supplementing his more recent essay by the thoughts
presented in his previous publication. Where my own
views run altogether counter to his, the contrast may still
be of service.
I.
It is an old observation, which recent research only makes
more impressive and concrete, that all organic processes in-
volve a certain balance of opposing forces, and that, in par-
ticular, there is in all of them such an union of conflicting
tendencies as is, for instance, expressed by saying that the
phenomena of physical life involve at every instant, as a part
of themselves, all the essential phenomena of the death of
tissues. As I read, at the moment, in the current journals,
I come upon two very recent expressions of this now fairly
commonplace fact. In an article on The Nerve-Cell,* by a
well-known English expert, I find, in an argument upon the
functions of nerve-fibers, the words, "Since the chemical
processes which accompany death of living tissue appear to
be very similar to the chemical processes which accompany
activity, as is seen, for example, in the case of muscle, it is
very possible," etc. ; but the rest of the argument concerns
us not here. Meanwhile, a paper in the Revue Philoso-
phique, on the movements of lower and higher organisms,t
contains, in the author's summary of some recent discus-
sions of the chemical processes at the basis of such move-
ments, the statement, " Nothing more resembles the phenom-
ena of the irritation (of living tissues) than those of death ;
and it was a stroke of genius in Claude Bernard to insist as
* The Nerve Cell Considered an the Basis of Neurology, by Professor
Schafer. Brain, 1893, Parts LXI and LXII, p. 159.
t Origine et Nature du Mouvement Organique, by J. Soury. Revue
Ph'loaophique for July, 1893; see, in particular, p. 65.
94 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
much as he did on the truth that every function of life is a
function of organic death ; that in every movement of man
and of the animals ' the active substance of the muscle is
destroyed and burned,' just as the brain, in thinking, is
consumed ; and in a word, that life is death (La vie c'est la
Now, here is mentioned an union of opposing tendencies
in one of the best-known and most-frequently studied of
organic processes. I need not for the moment insist upon
the true analogy, which some at first sight would think a
strained one, between these objective physical phenomena
and certain others which are observable in the subjective
world, among the activities of consciousness. Of that genu-
ine analogy I shall indeed speak in a moment. But just
now I shall confine myself to the mere interpretation of
phrases. And here, for the first, what it concerns us to
note is that there does appear, in the account of the vital
processes, a necessity of stating their nature in essentially
paradoxical terms, and that yet nobody is likely, in this
region, to fall a prey to certain apparently easy misunder-
standings of the meaning of the phrases used. La vie c'est
la mort : it is not hard, in the light of the concrete facts of
the metabolism of tissues, as the biologists explain them to
us, to understand the significant half-truth, the apt para-
dox, of such an expression. But suppose that some one
began to draw conclusions as to the implication of these
words if taken in too abstract a sense. Suppose that one
passed from the processes to the products. Suppose that he
said, " If the processes of life are essentially processes of
death, surely it follows, then, that all live things are, as
such, dead things." This consequence would no longer be
a happy paradox, a half-truth. It would be nonsense. The
process is an union of balanced but opposing tendencies.
But the product can not be expressed in merely negative or
in indifferent terms. Living involves, yes, as it were, at
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 95
every step, consists, in dying ; but life is utterly different
from death.
Well, without insisting just yet on the reality of the
analogy of such, without dwelling on anything but the
parallelism of the phrases, suppose that we do find, in our
conscious life, processes whose nature has to be expressed
in a paradoxical language similar to the one thus occasion-
ally used in biology. Shall we let this necessity deceive
us ? Shall we be so neglectful of the complications of
truth as to seem to forget that you may have to affirm of a
process what would be nonsense if affirmed of the product,
or if so affirmed as to confuse product and process ? To
become morally wise, for instance (if moral wisdom involves
an understanding of moral issues), involves becoming ac-
quainted with impurity. Shall we accordingly say, "All
the morally wise, as such, are impure ? " Or, taking another
vit-w of the case, shall we conceive the "moral man " just
as a product, in whom, by definition, there is to be no evil,
and shall we then say, " The moral man lacks the physical
experience which gives the immoral one so thorough a
comprehension of the immorality of others ? " * Surely
such views are confusions. It is as if we either said, on
the one hand, " The live tissue must lack all the essential
characters by which either dead or dying tissues resembles
one another ; " or, on the contrary, " All the living tissues,
as such, are dead." No, if the matter is merely one of com-
prehending phrases, we need not even take the physiological
processes as our basis for illustrating this sort of confusion.
If we are determined to confuse a process with either a
stage or an outcome of a process, regarded as something
fixed and stationary, we may as well turn Eleatics at once.
Surely (for so in substance argued Zeno), the flying arrow,
The Utter, though not the former, of these supposed assertions is an
actual quotation from the article that has suggested the present one.
8
90 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
whenever it moves, is somewhere. But somewhere means
a place yes, one place. And so, as of old, ' the flying
arrow rests " rest precisely as all the live things are
dead, and precisely as the morally wise man remains essen-
tially impure. For the process of wisely conceiving the
moral truth involves as a moment the " psycho-physical "
impurity of thinking evil ; and the process of the arrow's
flight involves of necessity that the arrow should be some-
where in order that it may fly. As a fact, however, the
arrow that rests in its place does not move, the tissue that
merely disintegrates is dead, and it is the thought that
dwells in impurity, that is impure not the thought that
comprehends impurity only to overcome it*
But I indeed am not content thus merely to dwell upon
the analogies of phrase involved in the similarity between
our current accounts of biological and of moral processes.
I insist upon the actual and enlightening analogy of the
two sorts of processes themselves. In so far as the life of
a conscious being runs parallel to the biological processes of
his organism, it is not surprising that just such a balancing
of opposing tendencies, just such a unity of conflicting
activities, just such a Heraclitean KoXAicrn; dp/iow'a T>V 8ia-
fapovrajv, as is everywhere found on the physiological side,
should be represented in our consciousness in more ways
than one. For the just mentioned relation of the death and
the activity of tissues is but a single case of the presence of
this union of opposing tendencies on the physiological side ;
and more complex instances of such union, instances that
reach the grade of the co-operation of antagonist muscles in
* Here again it is well to say that these words were written before I had
seen the Einleitung in die Moral wissenschaft, where, vol. i,p. 268, the con-
trast between " ruhende Qualitdt " and "Prozess " is admirably applied to the
very case now before us. It is strange that the essay on Moral Deficiencies
seems so much to have neglected this aspect
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 97
a voluntary movement, are already pretty obviously repre-
sented in consciousness. We are well aware that we give
complex voluntary movements precision by " holding our-
selves back. 1 ' We know that true freedom of action is
inseparable from elements of self-restraint and of self-con-
trol. We consciously rejoice in ruling ourselves. We are
aware, in general, that our will, in every organized form,
involves a consciousness of opposing tendencies a con-
sciousness which very obviously has not only this its con-
scious aspect, but its whole psycho-physical embodiment
and expression. And from this point of view we get
already a general notion of the true analogy that connects,
in the one world of life, the most complex organic functions
those to which our consciousness corresponds, with those
simpler physical processes which characterize all life, and
which make the union of contrary tendencies so familiar
an affair throughout the organic realm. It is therefore
more, then, than an analogy of phrases, it is a real resem-
blance of type, which makes the lesson gained from a gen-
eral survey of such organic activities useful when we turn
to a study of the facts of consciousness.
But this resulting lesson, so far, is, that if I am talking
of something conceived as the product or outcome of an
inic process such a product as " a live organism," or u a
man," or " virtue," or " intellect " I must not be sur-
to find, in the process of which this product is not
icrely the result but the embodiment (the tvipytui, in Aris-
>tle's sense), factors which, taken by themselves, are dis-
ictly opposed in their character to the positive but highly
stract definition that the product, if conceived merely as
>mething finished and at rest, would necessarily possess.
Fust as in the living and active tissue I find, as an essential
of its activity, that going on which, if it were alone,
rould mean death, just as in the voluntary movement I
id that stimulation of the antagonist muscles going on
98 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
which, if it were alone, would mean an utter defeat of the
intended movement, just as every important nervous stimu-
lation seems to involve, as part of itself, the excitation of
processes that tend to inhibit it, so, too, I must expect to
find in all forms of the higher life, and, in particular, of
the moral life, a similar complexity of structure. And I do
find, as a part of moral excellence, be it of whatever grade
you will, that there are tendencies present which, if they
were alone, would be the very opposite and the destruction
of every such excellence. And this must be the case, not
because of the weakness of man, but because of the organic
dignity and consequent complexity of virtue ; and not be-
cause the moral world is a mere maze of perplexing con-
fusions, but because the very principle of every organic life
is the combination in harmony of opposing tendencies.*
II.
And now, in the next place, for some illustrations
(drawn directly from the moral world itself) of the way in
which this union of opposing tendencies works in that re-
gion. Then we shall be able to apply our result to some of
the special problems suggested by our author.
It is of the essence of moral goodness that positively
good deeds should be the result of what we call choice
that is, that morality should be a matter not of fate, but of
consciousness. There is no virtue in digesting wholesome
food when I am in sound health and have once eaten it
There may be virtue in choosing, against momentary appe-
tite, a wholesome food instead of a tempting but pernicious
dainty. But if the moral processes are thus processes of
* Here again 1 have to go over ground which the aforesaid 3ts Kapitel
of the first volume of the Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft has on
the whole admirably treated, while the essay on the Moral Deficiencies
has strangely neglected the same considerations.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 99
conscious choice, it follows that every such choice involves
a knowing of something against which one chooses, as well
as s( >mething in favor of which one decides. But that against
which one chooses is necessarily a motive, an interest, a so-
licitation, a temptation. For the moral choice is an inner
one ; the rejected alternative is not an outer enemy, but an
internal " spring of action " (to use Dr. Martineau's phrase),
If so, then of necessity every distinctly moral choice involves
the previous presence of a certain tendency to choose the
wrong. Yes, moral choice is essentially a condemnatibn of
the rejected motive, as well as an approval of the accepted
motive. Otherwise it could be no moral choice. A being
possessed of but one motive could have no conscience. But
if this be so, then the consciousness of every moment of
moral choice involves, also, a consciousness a confession,
if you will of the presence in the chooser of that which he
himself regards as evil. He not only coldly knows, he in-
cludes, he possesses, lie is beset with some evil motive ; and,
nevertheless, he conquers it. This is involved in the very
formal definition of a moral act. You might as well try to
define the king without his subjects, or the master without
his servant, or the captor without his captive or his prize, as
to define a moral deed without the presence in the agent of
some evil motive. The case, then, is here quite parallel to
UK- case of the relation of life and death in the functions of
tin- active tissues. Once define a given man as moral in
respect of any one given deliberate act of choice, and then,
indeed, you can no longer without contradiction conceive
him as failing to possess at least one significant psychical
experience of evil namely, the experience of precisely that
rvil motive which he has then and there deliberately rejected
as evil. Had he not first known that evil motive, and
known it ;us vrrily his own, he certainly could not have
<l-hl>cratcly chofwm against it. Or am I moral because I
choose not to act on the motives that I can only abstractly
100 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
conceive, as possible and remote temptations, which attract
others and not me ? If so, how vast my morality ! Like
the moralizing schoolmaster in Hegel's Philosophy of His-
tory, who is represented as warning his class against the
ambitious passions of the great men of history, I can place
my virtues above those of Alexander, for, unlike that glory-
seeking man of blood, I have no ambitious desire to con-
quer Asia, or to overthrow Darius, but I leave all nations to
fare as God pleases.* This sort of virtue is indeed cheap,
and " moral " men in this sense are as plenty as are the
weaklings ; while if one points out that we possess such
virtues not in so far as we comprehend life, and are skilful,
but in so far as we are limited, and ignorant of life, and
unskilful, I have no objection to offer to such an argument.
Only the virtues of Hegel's schoolmaster are simply not
virtues in actu, and one cannot even be sure that they are
virtues in potentia until the virtuous schoolmaster has
proved by his deeds his capacity for self-conquest. Put the
schoolmaster in Alexander's place, and what will he do
with Darius and with Asia ? Who can tell ? Nay, he
himself cannot tell, and that is just why he is here igno-
rant both of the temptations of Alexander, and of the vir-
tues that Alexander might have possessed, but perhaps did
not possess. Here, then, ignorance conditions not only the
lack of temptation, but the entire absence of the correspond-
ing virtues as well.
Hegel skilfully said, "Die Tugend ist nicht ohne
Kampf ; sie ist vielmehr der hochste, vollendete kampf" t
* Hegel, Werke, IX, p. 40 : Woraus soglcich folgt dass er, der Schul-
meister, ein vortrefflicherer Mensch sey, als jene (Caesar u. Alexander) well
er solche Leidenschaften iricht besasse, und den Beweis dadurch gebe,
dass er Asieii nicht erobere, den Darius, Porus, nicht besiege, sondern
freilich wohl lebe, aber auch leben lasse.
t Logik, Werke, IV, p. 63. I venture to refer to my own discussion of
tliis general topic, and to my statement of Hegel's view of it, in my Spirit
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 1Q1
" Virtue is not without strife, but is rather the highest, the
fulfilled strife." But forgetting this perfectly obvious con-
sideration, people often so ignore the element of conflict in
the process, while they think only of the assumed perfec-
tion of the product, that when some one suggests, in the
interest of the " intellectual functions," how an insight
into life must involve a knowledge of evil, people at once
assume that the washed-out soul of the colorless and inane
person whom they have imagined as the model good man
cannot possess such knowledge, and thereupon they lament
the sad conflict which seems to result between the interests
of virtue and those of insight into life. As a fact, how-
ever, the whole case stands thus : The good man as such is
neither an innocent nor an inane person, but a knowing, a
warm-blooded, a passionate servant of the good. Mean-
while, neither virtue nor knowledge exists in abstracto
among us men. There exists always some concrete virtue,
which shows itself in good choices in favor of this or of
this good, as against that or some other evil end, or motive.
And as to knowing, it too is no abstraction, but there exists
always some concrete knowledge, which is knowledge of
this or of that thing. We therefore, to be sure, cannot
compare the virtuous man in the abstract with the knowing
man in the abstract, to see whether the two concepts can be
made to agree. Doubtless many stupid men, meanwhile,
have some virtues, and many of the base are clever. No-
body, moreover, has all virtues, or all knowledge. The
only possible comparison is therefore between two men as
to a particular virtue, either in exercise or in potentia, or
between the same men as to the knowledge of a particular
thing. Well, this being so, let it be a question of the
actual and conscious exercise, in a deliberate and not in a
of Modem I'hilosophy, p. 210, ?., and in my Religious Aspect of Philoso-
phy, pp. 462-469.
102 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
merely accidental way, of a given virtue, as concretely
applied to a given case. Let one man choose the positive
exercise of that virtue ; let another, with equal deliberation,
wilfully reject it. Which now of these two is just then the
more knowing as to the motives involved in this virtue ? I
say that, so far as we have yet defined the case, there is no
difference in intellectual capacity denned as between the
two. Both know the good and the ill involved. For
neither could consciously choose unless he in some measure
knew both the good and the ill. The good man knows
the ill, and is aware of the temptation to do it ; otherwise
his " virtuous " act would be a matter of blind health, like
his digestion, or of mere lack of interest, like his present
avoidance of any wicked ambition to conquer Asia. He
knows the rejected ill, he is tempted, and he deliberately
resists and overcomes the temptation (whether with or
without free will I decide not here). The other also knows,
but chooses the ill. Which is so far the more knowing ?
The virtuous man can surely say, " Show me thy knowl-
edge without thy virtue, and I will show thee my knowl-
edge by my virtue. For by knowing the ill and the good
it is that I choose the good with open eyes." Of the later
knowledge which for the sinner alone, not for the good
man, results from the consequences of this sin, I shall
speak hereafter.
Doubtless one may indeed still insist that, unless by the
actual assertion of a freedom of indeterminate choice, the
foregoing precise equality of knowledge between these two
men cannot in the end be maintained. Well, be it so. I
am, as I have said, not here arguing the free-will issue.
Admit, if you please, that there must be a difference of
motive between the two, and therefore a difference of
knowledge : the question will then once more arise, Which
of them is, at the moment of choice, the more knowing ?
For the same reasons as before, both of them alike must at
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. U3
least in some genuine measure know both of the motives
between which they choose. Else there is mere blind
prevalence of interest without any clear deliberation.
Shall one say, as to the different degrees of knowledge
now subsisting, It is the chooser of the good who knows
not the full allurements of the other's temptation ? Or
shall one say, It is the sinner who is blind to those mani-
fold excellencies whose presence to consciousness deter-
mines the good man's choice ? Here, if anything, the
chances are largely in favor of the greater knowledge of
the virtuous chooser, since in general strong temptations
are comparatively elemental, while the reasons in favor of
goodness are in nature usually complex and abstract. A
mere boy can have a full sense of many temptations to
vice ; it takes reflection to see fully all the reasons why
vice is intolerable. But herewith, as soon as one admits
differences of knowledge, as between these two, one enters
afresh the realm of the indeterminate. My object was only
to show that in order to have the same choice presented, in
its essential features, to two agents, one virtuous, one vicious
in his decision, it is necessary to have essentially the same
lotives, and so the same elements of knowledge present in
both cases. What further differences of knowledge there
be is indeed a matter of accident ; but the chances are
at least even that the good chooser is more knowing than
the sinner.
But if this is so whenever an individual case of compari-
is taken up, how far, then, extends the possible growth,
in insight into life, of those agents who grow in active vir-
tue; and how does their possible collective insight con-
cerning mere temptations compare with that of the sinners ?
[f every active virtue involves a knowledge of evil in order
to be a conquest over evil the presence of temptation in
order that the active virtue maybe a victory over tern pla-
in then what insight into life is there that will not some-
104 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
where form part of the insight, and so of the virtue, of some
virtuous agent ? No, it would seem that there is no insight
into life that is alien from every possible virtue, and that
no sinner can say to all the good, " I comprehend tempta-
tions that no one of all of you can possibly understand."
For had the sinner not only possessed his temptation, but
won the victory over it, he would now be, with reference
to that temptation alone, surely no less than he is, in insight
or in being, and he would then have stood among the
virtuous, where even now there may well stand some one
who has been tempted in all points as he was, but who is,
in this matter, without sin. I still postpone, to be sure, a
discussion of the knowledge that the sinner gets from the
consequences of his sin from the experiences that follow
upon it.
This view of the nature of virtue is, however, indeed ap-
parently open to one or two more or less plausible objec-
tions, which it may be well still to mention.
" If this view of virtue is right," some imaginary objector
may say, "then it must follow that a good man is good
merely in proportion to the number and the gravity of his
resisted temptations. But if so, then a man who should be
constantly tempted to murder his mother, to steal church
property, to be a cannibal, and to kidnap and eat children,
and who nobly resisted all these temptations, would be a
more virtuous man than one who was never thus tempted,
but who lived without friction the devoted life of a phi-
lanthropist, and of a public servant, always loyal and chari-
table of heart. As this result is absurd, it follows that
virtue indeed implies, as the author of the essay here in
question asserts, a certain ignorance of evil motives."
This objection is obvious, but trivial. No one would be
deceived by the parallel assertion in case of the organic
processes before referred to. Life involves disintegration
of tissue, and so constant death, always counteracted, indeed,
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 1Q5
by the processes of tissue-building. The more life, and the
more activity of tissue the more disintegration, and the
more building up. And so, for instance, in a warm-blooded
animal, a more rapid dying process goes on than in a cold-
blooded animal. It does not follow that, in a given organ-
ism, the life would grow in general vigor if disintegrating
processes at random were set up, and were then just counter-
acted, in the struggles of a pathological condition, by the
upbuilding processes that preserved the life. The death-
process is not alien from my physical life, but is a part of it.
The more active the life that I get, the more dying will be
going on in my tissues. But the simple converse of this
proposition very surely does not follow. I do not neces-
sarily produce more life by introducing more death into
my tissues. What is clear is, that if some disintegrating
disease is present in my tissues, then I get life, if at all, by
conquering this pathological disintegration. But without
just that form of disintegration, I might, indeed, have a
richer life.
Just so it is too with the process of virtue. Any actively
virtuous man can say, at the moments of deliberate exercise
of virtue, " My virtue involves as one of its elements temp-
tation to evil. Hence in doing good I know evil." Igno-
rance of a given evil may be per accidens a condition of a
iven virtue, but every active virtue involves some knowl-
of evil. On the other hand no sinner can say, " My
inowledge of temptation depends upon my viciousness, and
if I had been good at the moment of choice in respect of the
deeds wherein now I am evil, I should ipso facto have
diminished my intelligence, in acquiring my virtues, since
I should then have failed to know these temptations," For
here the answer is simply : You could have known these
temptations just as truly if you had resisted them. You
would then have no less insight as to temptation, but much
more virtue as to life. But these things being granted, it
1U6 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
may well be that some virtues are better worth knowing
than other virtues, just as some life is more vigorous than
other life ; so that virtues whose knowledge involves the
knowing and resisting of pathological temptations may
be far less interesting, both to the afflicted sufferer from
the pathological enemy, and to the lover of conscious or
of moral life in general, than are other active virtues,
based upon the conquest over more normal temptations
Meanwhile, there can be no doubt whatever of the moral
excellence of the man who, being burdened with a distinctly
pathological temptation, nobly resists it, just as there can be
no doubt that he loses no intellectual skill or insight, but
rather cultivates both, by resisting his temptation. But
since, unfortunately, the burdened man as much lacks
knowledge of the normal life as the normal man fails to
comprehend the depths of abnormality, the real problem
here is, Which of these two sorts of knowledge of life is
most worth having ? And this question is in no respect
any longer a question of the relative value for the intellect
of virtue and of vice, but it is a question of the relative
value for the intellect of two sorts of knowledge, whereof
one is normal, the other unhealthy, but whereof both alike
may involve either virtue if a temptation is known and
conquered, or vice, if the temptation is known and pre-
ferred.
For the rest, the kindly and public-spirited philanthropist
of our example is indeed as virtuous as his burdened, but still
triumphant brother, only in case the philanthropist really
struggles as seriously as the latter with his own much more
elevated, but none the less genuine moral problems and
temptations. And the moral order actually demands of him
that he shall do so. He has more talents ; from him, then,
more moral life is required. He may think that he finds in
himself only kindliness; but if he looks sharply as he goes,
he will erelong find in himself sloth, or pride, or self -com-
THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOOD AND EVIL. 1Q7
placency, uot to speak of a horde of more elemental if still
normal passions. If he contends with these and with their
outcome, he will get as rich an experience of the evils of his
own world as his weaker brother gets of the evils of his.
In general, then, it is here not our virtue that is responsible
for our ignorance, but rather our inevitable ignorance of
life that limits the scope of our virtues. The healthy man
cannot have the virtues of the sick man, nor the patholog-
ically burdened soul the sort of goodness that distinguishes
the genius in holy living ; not, however, because virtue
means ignorance of life, but because the naturally limited
insight into life which each man possesses limits his possible
virtues. But within his limits, the more any given man
knows of life the more chance he has to be virtuous, if he
chooses to be so.
Another objection, and a common one, to the foregoing
view of virtue has reference to the influence of training
upon the exercise of active virtues. The virtuous man of
Aristotle's original definition is such not merely by reason
of his acts, but by reason of the attained character that, in
the long run, he earns by his acts. The habitual and suc-
cessful resistance of any given type of temptations involves.
of necessity, the gradual elimination of at least those special
temptations. The cultivation of active virtues leads towards
a virtuous perfection of disposition in which just these
active virtues no longer have to be cultivated. In so far
it is indeed true that the aim of the good man is to acquire
an ignorance of certain evils which he now knows only too
well. If he actively exercises virtue only in the presence
of an actual knowledge of evil motives present in himself,
he aims, nevertheless, at the ultimate attainment of a state
in which these evil motives will no longer have meaning
for him. In this fashion, then, it would seem that the
attainment of holiness is, in some sense, the attainment of
ignorance ; and so once more the argument of our author
108 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
would receive a certain confirmation, and the price of pos-
sessing certain "intellectual functions" would be the re-
taining of certain " moral deficiencies."
Once more, however, the general biological analogies
will aid us in comprehending the true sense of the facts
here brought before us. The question is now the familiar
one as to the relation of habit and consciousness.* I am not
conscious of the detailed execution of what is so completely
an habitual function of my organism that I accomplish
this function swiftly and without hesitancy. I am con-
scious in general only of my relatively hesitant functions
in so far as they are hesitant. This, again, is a psychological
commonplace. On the other hand, the more by practice I
exercise my consciousness of a given process, and so perfect
any now hesitant function, the more I tend to bring its
execution below the level of my consciousness. In this
sense, to be sure, we find another paradox and one of a
most familiar and characteristic sort in the life of the
highest organisms. Consciousness, namely, is working, as
it were, on all levels, in the direction of its own extinction,
in so far as it is a consciousness of just this unfamiliar ob-
ject ; very much as the living tissues are constantly busy
in compassing their own death, precisely in so far as they
are tissues with just this energy becoming free in their pro-
cesses. I am conscious of a given function, and so of the
objects to which this function is related, because the func-
tion is relatively novel, is imperfectly learned, is not thor-
oughly habitual. But it is precisely this unfamiliarity of the
function and of its object that is unsatisfactory to me. I
try to perfect my mastery over this function and to render
its objects perfectly familiar. I train the function until it
is smooth-running, facile, free from hesitancy, and so until
* In thjs aspect this question is interestingly discussed in the Einleitung
in die Moralwissenschaft, vol. i, p. 227 et aeq.
THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOOD AND EVIL. 109
it is no longer an object of consciousness. I now ignore
both the function and its familiar objects. This I am every-
where tending to do, precisely in so far as I engage in any
special business of consciousness. I am conscious of the
syntax of a foreign tongue while I am learning that
tongue ; but the object of my conscious toil is to learn the
language so well that I shall forget its syntax and speak its
sentences with absolutely unreflective fluency.
But now, on the other hand, although consciousness thus,
as it were, aims to compass, on every stage, and in each of
its special functions, its own extinction, still, all of us who
love insight talk of consciousness as being an end in itself,
and are conscious that we want not less, but more of it.
Our general aim as conscious beings is opposed, in this
paradoxical way, to each and every one of the special aims
of our own consciousness, in so far as the latter is a pro-
cess whereby the unfamiliar is rendered familiar, and is so
gradually brought below the level of consciousness, while
our general aim as conscious beings is not to get less, but
more, concrete insight, and so more consciousness.
Here again, La vie c'est la mort. " Die to live " is a
philosophical motto that Professor Edward Caird loves to
repeat in his writings. It may be important to vary the
phrase, as, with the aid of M. Soury, I have here tried to do.
But Professor Caird is unquestionably right as to the sub-
stance of the thing. Consciousness, like living tissue, loves
to feed on its own process of endless self-extinction. And
tht- way in which it thus feeds is obvious enough. When I
have no longer to be conscious of the syntax of the new lan-
guage, I shall have acquired a new organic power namely,
th<- power to be conscious of the relatively new and unfa-
miliar things that I shall want to say in that language. The
more numerous the familiar and so unconscious habits that I
have come to possess, the more capacity I have acquired to
adjust myself to complex novel situations, and so to have, in
HO STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
general, more consciousness. As for the paradox of the
whole situation, it is also a case of the general paradox of
the will, as noted by Schopenhauer. The will wants to live.
But life means specific desires, and each specific desire long-
ing, as it does, for the possession of its object, really longs for
the quenching of its restless fires in the dark Lethe of a ful-
fillment that means its extinction as this desire. The will,
then, in longing for life, longs for that which in every con-
crete manifestation, as this specific desire, it longs to see ex-
tinguished. Schopenhauer's paradox is but the expression,
in conscious terms, of the essence of all those organic pro-
cesses to which our consciousness runs parallel, and of
which it is a very inadequate expression. As for Schopen-
hauer's pessimistic comment on this essential restlessness of
the inner world, the discussion of that belongs elsewhere.
Restlessness does not, as a fact, mean misery, and a wise joy
in the genuine paradoxes of life is of the essence of the
highest reason.
There is, then, nothing peculiar about the problem in-
volved in the case of the growth of the virtuous man
towards a perfection wherein he ceases to be conscious,
both of his former defects, and of the active vii'tues whereby
he overcame these defects. Above all, the problem is in no
wise one of an opposition between " moral deficiencies "
and " intellectual functions." Such as it is, the paradox ap-
plies equally, and for the same reasons, to the intellectual
and to the moral functions. The one sort has here no ad-
vantage over the other. The intellectual skill involved in
any stage of our human consciousness, in aiming at its own
perfection in the form of the acquisition of finished, ha-
bitual, intelligent functions, aims at what, as a fact, when
attained, will involve its own extinction as this particular
conscious activity. Just so, any growing and active virtue
aims at its own extinction, as this particular virtue, by
means of the establishment of virtuous habits that will
THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOOD AND EVIL. m
render the exercise of this conscious virtue no longer neces-
sary or even possible. But virtue thus no more aims at its
own extinction in general than intellectual skill aims at its
own general abolition, or than Schopenhauer's will, in
longing for fulfillment, ceases in general the desire to live.
This must pass this desire this stage of growing intellect
or goodness ; but there is more that is desirable, there is
more virtue, just as there is more wit, beyond. This
is the universal rule of conscious life. Die Leidenschaft
flieht, die Liebe muss bleiben. When I have so well learned
this virtue as no longer consciously to possess it, but to be
possessed by it as by a mere instinct, well, then, indeed my
active moral goodness will indeed cease as to this matter ;
but, on the other hand, I shall consciously be able to pos-
sess far more, and more complex, active virtues, than ever,
for I shall have more powers, and so be able to undertake
harder tasks, to go on new quests, and to fight stronger
moral enemies. When I shall have mastered my present
intellectual puzzles, and accordingly shall have forgotten
their details in the possession of unhesitating and uncon-
scious functions, I shall then be able to possess not less but
more consciousness ; for I shall have more unconscious func-
tions upon which to build new insights.
The parallelism of virtue and of intellect in respect of
the "deficiencies" thus involved in progress is here perfect.
Whatever happens to the one happens to the other.
niing is based upon forgetting, conscious power upon
uiK-onscious habit, the new life upon the extinction of the
immediate presence of the old. "Moral deficiency," if re-
garded as a lower state in a progressive growth, involves
"intellectual functions " only in the same sense as that in
which intellectual deficiency itself involves such present
intellectual functions.
It is, then, one sign of intellectual power, just as it is one
sign of moral power, to have forgotten, as well as to have
112 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
remembered, many things. Such " deficiencies " are neces-
sary moments of our human perfection. To a vain young
man, full of the learning freshly acquired at school, the old
and erudite scholar may often justly say, " Yes, you indeed
have many things in mind that I now ignore ; but see, I
have myself forgotten far more than you ever knew."
Even so, a persistent sinner, vaunting his present knowl-
edge of temptation as against the state of the virtuous man
who has outgrown and learned to ignore the movings that
are still clearly present to the consciousness of the sinner,
may say, " I know life ; for I know these temptations, and
you are no longer aware of them." But a by-stander,
considering the life of the virtuous man, and seeing in him
the hero of many past conflicts, may retort, " Ay, but he
has forgotten, because he has transcended, more temptations
than you ever knew." Which " deficiency " is the prefer-
able one ?
To sum up, then : The knowledge and presence of evil
form, in very manifold and complex ways, a moment in the
consciousness and in the life of goodness. And this must
be so. It is no confusing chance puzzle of the moral world ;
it is a necessary result of the very essence of all life, which
is everywhere an union of opposing elements. The knowl-
edge of this fact is not disheartening, but inspiring ; since all
the seriousness of the moral world depends upon it. As to
the relation of " deficiencies " and " functions," so far as we
have yet seen, the close parallelism of the intellectual and
moral processes, as well as their intimate interdependence,
taken together with the general nature of life just insisted
upon, renders this relation extremely, and yet very intelli-
gibly, intimate on both sides. First, in both the intellectual
and the moral life, every " function," of necessity, depends,
in the lives of us human individuals, upon a corresponding
" deficiency." We think in order to grow wiser, and there-
fore all our thinking is due to relative ignorance. We
THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOOD AND EVIL. H3
choose the right in order to avoid the tempting wrong ; and
therefore all moral functions depend upon present moral
imperfections. Meanwhile, as to the cross-relation of moral
deficiency and intellectual function, the rule holds that,
since active goodness involves knowledge of temptation, the
morally deficient have herein no essential intellectual ad-
vantage over the doers of good. As to the ignorance or in-
tellectual deficiency of the being higher in the scale of life
as against the being lower in the scale and burdened with
temptations unknown to the higher being, it here follows
(1) that the " deficiency " of knowledge in question is shared
by both beings, in so far as neither fully understands
the other ; (2) that in neither case does this deficiency of
knowledge as to the other being, or possession of knowledge
as to one's own moral office and temptations, determine by
itself either any moral excellence or any moral defect, since
either of the two beings is doing active moral work not in
so far as he is by nature high or low in the scale, but in so
far as he rightly deals with his own temptations. We call
the higher being more virtuous, when he does well, not be-
cause, being ignorant of baser temptations, he fails to resist
them, but because his virtues, when once they exist, seem to
us as a part of a normal and more finished life, better worth
knowing than his fellows'. As to moral progress, that does
indeed involve a transcending, and so a forgetting, of ear-
lier and simpler virtues ; but here moral progress is simply
parallel to all intellectual progress.
In general, then, intellectual functions seem to involve
moral deficiencies in precisely the same sense as that in which
MM iral functions themselves involve moral deficiencies, and
as that in which intellectual functions also involve intellec-
tual deficiencies, every function in our life involving the
presence of its own antagonist, and being successful in so
far as its antagonist comes to form an organic moment in its
own process, instead of being it its turn the triumphant and
114 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
absorbing factor. But, on the other hand, it does not follow
that you can produce a given function, intellectual or moral,
by simply introducing the corresponding antagonist or de-
ficiency into a given organic process. All active virtue im-
plies temptation ; but it does not thence follow that by in-
creasing temptation you increase virtue, or that you remain
virtuous by nursing your temptation in order to resist it.
Change and progress play the same part here that they do
elsewhere in the great drama of life. And if living is con-
stant dying, it does not follow that the more death there
is the more life there will be.
in.
So much for the main principles involved in our present
issue. But now let the question be no longer of principles,
but of cases. Moral deficiency shall be essentially involved
in certain intellectual functions, or shall determine the lat-
ter. When ? First, for so it may appear, whenever the
comprehension of certain forms of evil itself involves such
a participation in the evil as amounts to sin. But when
does this take place ? " The task of understanding," so one
answers, " certain elementary passions of the human soul is
very difficult from the height of official station, as well as
in the normal and correct life led by many scholars " ; and
so " undeniably this is a point in which a theoretical knowl-
edge gains depth from an experience of comparative im-
morality, either present or past." *
In judging of such assertions one's first reply is, Distin-
guo. The " elementary passions " of the human soul are
indeed the most common source of sin ; but they are not
themselves sins in so far as they are elementary passions,
but in so far as, in a given context of life, they are persist-
ently preferred, despite the fact that they prove to be in-
* These quotations are, as before, from our author's cited article.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 115
capable of organization, or destructive of existent rational
good order. They are evil, in other words, in so far as they
are anarchical, fighting against an already established or-
ganism, and not in so far as they are " elementary." It is
in a context that they become temptations ; and the sinful-
ness of an "elementary passion " always depends on its re-
lations to the other interests of life. It is as related to such
a context that a virtuous man finds what would be an
innocent accident of his organization a solicitation to evil.
Experience of passion, of the " elementary " in life, is there-
fore as such never a sin. The fault of a man is not that he
has elementary passions, but that he cannot make out what
to do with them, or do it when he has made it out
In saying this I speak simply the voice of the wholesome
consciousness, of the Greek as of the modern man, as
against any merely superstitious asceticism which con-
demns some natural impulses as essentially diabolical. The
wise man does not regret the elementary impulses of his
temperament as such, whatever these impulses may be.
What he does regret is that they are so ill reduced to order,
so poorly trained to an objectively significant service.
Even the " pathological temptations " before referred to are
pathological not by reason of the elementary impulses in-
volved, but by reason of the union of such impulses into
complex groups of motives hostile to the general peace of so-
ciety, and to the whole rational system of a man's inner life.
It is not needful to waste here many words over this
matter, which has been endlessly discussed. Hatred is a
fairly " elementary " passion. Shall one call it essentially
a bad "spring of action" because it is necessarily "mali-
cious " ? On the contrary, if we find superstitious men in
the world who let cobras multiply, because of a superstitious
kindliness, we shall wish that these men had more hatred
of snakes, as well as less superstition. All depends upon
where and when and what you hate in other words, upon
116 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
the context of your passion. If hatred in battle makes
given soldiers fight better against the enemies of their
country, then surely, if patriotism is a virtue, this virtue
may demand, for these men, the cultivation of precisely
such hatred. For the rest, just those passions of humanity
which, under certain conditions, appear as the grossest, the
fiercest, the basest, are notoriously the passions upon whose
organized cultivation, and upon whose subtle influence,
when once they are cultivated, the whole social structure
and its most sacred relations depend.
It would be the saddest of cant, then, to say that a good
man, as such, can have no experiences of the truly " ele-
mentary passions " even the most elementary and vigor-
ous. The fact that many moralists are and have been
bloodless creatures, who have written about life without
themselves possessing any temperament to speak of, is a
lamentable historical accident, due in no wise to the nature
of philosophy, but rather to those economic conditions of
the thinker's profession, which have driven many persons to
turn would-be philosophers, because they have failed in
other walks of life to prove themselves capable men. With
the author who has inspired this paper I regret this acci-
dental ill-fortune of philosophy. The philosophical thinker,
the moralist above all, should first be a man of experience
in a wide range of elementary human life. And the great
heroes of ethical speculation (yes, even a man of the gentle-
ness of a Kant) are never without indications in their works
that they have really and deeply experienced at least some
part of our human nature. But now this does not mean that
the thinker needs to be a sinner above other men in order
to be wise. Elements are one thing. The organization of
life is another. It is not necessary to experience many
forms of chaos in order to understand good order.
But is not sin, too, an experience ? And can the good
man possess that experience ? We have said, in our dis-
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL.
cussion of principles, that temptation to evil is an essential
element in every exercise of active virtue. But a con-
quered temptation, although an evil, which is conquered by
the good man just because it is an evil, is still no sin. Sin
proper, however, is, in us mortals, another experience, and is
ipso facto no part of the experience of the good man as such,
just as an active disease is no part of the life of a healthy
organism. Here indeed is the body of death from which the
good man, as such, longs to be delivered altogether. His
resisted temptation is part of his life the death in life of
which before we spoke. But his sin is no element of his
good life.
And yet, since sin forms so large a part of human life,
and is, for us men, vastly more than temptation, and since
the endless consequences of sin remorse, all the arts of con-
cealment, all the ingenuity of effort to repair the rejoicing,
too, of the froward in their frowardness the fierce sense of
freedom of which our own Hawthorne tells in the Marble
Faun as an experience that follows upon a crime the long
and perplexingly fascinating agony of the consciousness of
a life of sin the revelry and the fruitless later repentance of
the Faust of the original story the contrition of David
the conversion of the dying thief on the cross the raptures
of a saved Mary Magdalene : since all these, and countless
other human experiences flow not from resisted temptation,
but from actual sin, were we then not one-sided in our dis-
cussion of principles, where we limited ourselves to the
study of temptation, and said that the sinner knows no
more of the motives of sin (which are the temptations) than
does the good man, equally tempted, who resists and con-
quers the temptation ? Tliat, as an one-sided view of life,
may be true. But temptation is but a small part of the sin-
ner's experience. It is consequence that he knows, and
herein consists his intellectual opportunity. Here, indeed,
is a "moral deficiency" very positively conditioning an
118 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
" intellectual function." In hell and in purgatory they do
thus know what must needs be wholly unknown to the an-
gels, and but ill-conceived by the saints, excepting as the
saints remember the long life in sin from which some of
them escaped. This being true, can one (to use still the
convenient allegorical fictions) can one, as a moralist,
comprehend the world of human life, unless he has lived
in hell and in purgatory, as well as among the good ? What
sort of a moralist is, then, one who has had little or no ex-
perience of sin ?
The first answer is so obvious that I wonder that any one
should miss it Such moral deficiencies do indeed determine
certain intellectual functions, but precisely as they also de-
termine certain moral functions. And the way in which
they determine the latter is very enlightening as to the sig-
nificance of the whole controversy.
Sins, I say, are possible conditions, not only of a deep
intellectual knowledge of certain very common and mo-
mentous human experiences, but also of certain extraordi-
narily heroic moral deeds. Nobody has harder moral work
to do than many a sinner who has repented. Nobody,
therefore, can show us, on occasion, a more brilliant ex-
ample of active virtue than he may learn to do. The out-
cast on account of a crime sometimes has a peculiarly good
opportunity to become at one great stroke a saint. The
thing has occasionally taken place; for the shock of the
consequences of crime has sometimes been enough to shatter
the habits of a sinful career in one moment of conversion.
Apart from sudden conversion, which is rare, the most seri-
ous moral tasks of many men are furnished to them by the
office of building up through their newly-acquired virtues
what theii former waywardness has destroyed.* And in
* A brilliant literary example of moral recovery and of the heroic re-
building of a shattered life one finds depicted in Sienkiwicz's remarkable
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. H9
this way, indeed, the wrath of man is sometimes taught to
praise the good.
But surely the fact that certain peculiarly great oppor-
tunities for virtue in the way of reform and of making
atonement are furnished to the sinner by his own past
crimes opportunities which those of the virtuous who
should never have swerved from the right could not get
this fact, I say, does not at all tend to confuse us as to the
nature of sin and of virtue. Sin, when past, furnishes
especial opportunities for future virtue. But one who de-
sires virtue will not think that he shows thus his desire for
virtue by first sinning that grace may abound. When we
once have sinned, our exceptional opportunities to atone
may encourage us to begin afresh with zest the moral task.
But whoever sins under pretense of seeking hereby for this
exceptional opportunity to get a new and higher virtue by
means of his intended repentance, such a man does not de-
ceive us by his pretenses. He is a liar and the truth is not
in him. He sins because he wants to sin, not because he
wants any new moral function to be determined by his pre-
vious moral deficiency, and until he learns not to lie he
will remain deficient and without further function.
I say that this very familiar determination of future
moral opportunities and excellencies by past misdeeds
shows, first of all, that here, as earlier in our discussion, the
dependence of function upon deficiency holds within -the
moral sphere itself precisely as much as in the comparison
of moral with intellectual function and deficiency, so that
the case is one of an universal problem of life, and not
merely one of certain specific oppositions between moral
and intellectual interests. I say, also, that the reason for
this dependence of the opportunity for new goodness upon
e, The Deluge, recently translated from the Polish by Mr. Curtin.
Kmita, the hero of this romance, is a magnificent instance for the moralist.
120 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
past sin is obvious enough, and the outcome in so far not at
all misleading.
But now, further, just as the moral function depends on
the previous moral deficiency, precisely, and only, in so far
as one does not remain in the deficiency, but transcends it,
so (as I think that experience will show) it is not our mere
dwelling in sin that ever enlarges our deeper insight into
life so much as it is our looking back upon our sin, and
representing it in precisely the light which makes it appear
as sin, and so as rationally condemned, that enables us to
read the intellectual lesson of the sinful experience itself.
Regarding the matter, then, for the moment, solely as an
" intellectual function," it is Macbeth after the murder, or in
his latest monologues, who sees the truth of his case as it is.
It is Dostoievsky's hero in Crime and Punishment, just
before he gives himself up to the police, whose eyes are
truly open. This is the lesson of countless works of art in
which the moral tragedy is portrayed. However coolly
planned beforehand, the crime is still relatively blind. The
still cooler and far deeper intellectual insight of later mo-
ments lifts the ransomed criminal above himself. He reads
now the lesson of his case ; but he reads only to condemn.
His intellectual function is itself, if his eyes get opened, the
beginning of a moral function.
Moreover, this not only often is, but always must needs
be the case. If the right is, as it is, not the object of super-
stitious dogma, but of science and of reason, and is known
to be the right as soon as one clearly sees the situation, then
a true intellectual insight into sin means a condemnation of
it, and one has not the true " intellectual function " until
one has really begun to transcend the " moral deficiency."
After all, the freest act of sinful choice doubtless involves a
certain deliberate ignorance of the reasons in favor of the
good, which itself involves intellectual defect. If so, how-
ever, the relation of the " moral deficiency " to the " intel-
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 121
lectual function" is precisely like the just noticed relation
of any moral deficiency to the often very noble moral func-
tions that may be founded upon it. The latter relation is
inspiring when we have sinned, because it shows us the
way out. But the expectation of getting this " far off inter-
est " of crime, of plucking this flower that blooms in hell,
attracts of itself nobody into crime ; and whoever says that
he commits crime with any such noble purpose in view is,
I repeat, a liar. But just so, whoever pretended to choose
sin for the sake of that possible sin-transcending insight,
would be but pretending.
For the reasons now explained, it is also clear that wilful
sinners, who have not learned to repent, are on the whole,
as respects the cultivation of intellectual functions, far less
instructive to themselves than they are to the intellect of
any observant student of human nature who, not being
slave to their sin, has leisure to study their varied expe-
rience, and temperament enough to interpret life with re-
spectable skill when he sees it The sinners whose eyes are
finally opened have transcended their "deficiency." The
relatively blind, who are still slaves to their sin, are in many
ways an open book to the wiser among their fellows. And
it is indeed true that it is the right and the duty of every
moralist to learn, with due prudence, but without foolish
timidity, whatever he really needs to know of the disorders
of the moral world, from an observation not cynical but
humane of the records of sinful experience in his fellows.
Thus indeed their deficiency may very directly and usefully
condition his function. And he will learn of life while learn-
ing also how to help the sinners themselves towards virtue.
But now shall we descend from these matters to mere
trivialities? Shall we illustrate the relations of function
and deficiency elsewhere ? Shall we seriously inquire
whether a successful liar is not naturally a more skilful
person than a mere blunt speaker of the truth ? Shall we
122 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
reason that a liar, like the skilful hero in the fairy tale, or
like Odysseus with the Cyclops, must hold at least two ideas
at once in his head, while his giant or other dupe thinks of
but one at a time ? Well, if these things must be argued, it
is indeed an old notion, precisely as old as those fairy tales
whose heroes are liars, that lying is a peculiarly clever busi-
ness, and is so precisely for the reason that obviously guided
the authors of the fairy tales namely, because it is so
much more skilful to think two ideas at a time than one
idea. But surely the civilized man, for whom truth, whether
legal, commercial, political, or moral, has now grown to be
so complex an affair, has transcended such trivialities. In
all the more serious practical affairs of our modern lives, we
wholly exhaust our stock of ingenuity in trying even to
think the truth as it is, and fail at that. We may lie all we
choose, and may even succeed as liars, but we shall get no
more cleverness thereby than would be at all events needed
to think or to say even the blunt truth in its nakedest sim-
plicity. We no longer live in a world where there is ques-
tion of stupid giants with one idea, and clever heroes with
two at a time. The honest man's wits are all needed in
order to meet even the demands of honesty. For the rest,
if a liar needs cleverness to think his supposed two ideas, as
in the fairy tale, what would an honest man need who must
learn to defeat the liar ? Surely he would have to think of
the truth, and also of the liar's false idea, and finally of the
proper plan for meeting the liar's falsehood and for bring-
ing it to naught without lying himself : in sum, then, at
least three ideas to the liar's two. But herewith such trifling
computations may as well cease. Not thus are moral de-
ficiencies, as such, at all peculiar in being sources of some
sorts of intellectual ability. There is no possible degree of
cleverness or of ingenuity that is not sadly needed in our
complex world for every good cause whose undertakings
are serious.
THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOOD AXD EVIL. 123
But surely there still remain do there not ? vast re-
gions of knowledge which it is unholy for any given indi-
vidual to tread upon. And to enter these fields would
therefore involve " intellectual function," and still also true
14 moral deficiency " ; or would it not ? Yes, indeed, it is as
easy as you please, and as trivial, to mention, in case of any
of us, any number of such forbidden regions. My neighbor
has left his house unguarded, his desk unlocked. It would
greatly amuse my curiosity to read his diary, his love-letters,
his other confidential documents. And yet I may not do so.
Why ? Because the intellect is somehow mysteriously op-
posed in its interests to the conscience ? No : but for the
simple reason that this would be theft. This knowledge is
not mine. These secrets are his property, like his purse,
save in being more sacred. Here the mystery of the rela-
tion between ignorance and virtue is merely that of the
existence of any private rights whatever. As his money is
good for what it can buy, but is not mine to spend, so his
knowledge is here a good tiling to have, but it is not for me
to purloin. But now, under the category thus illustrated,
countless types of actually forbidden knowledge fall, of
knowledge, however, that is forbidden not because the in-
tellect ought as such to be limited in its scope, but because
a man must keep to his own, and in a world where men live
together possession has to be private, and therefore exclu-
sive. My neighbor's house, his land, his affairs anything
that is his I must not steal or covet. If this limitation
involves not only respect for material property, but for
countless, and often nameless privacies of his inner and
outer life, then it is not the rights of the intellect that are
at stake, but the rights of the person.
On the other hand, as to the rights of the intellect itself,
knowledge, as such, we must maintain, is always an inno-
cent, and frequently a holy possession. Its moral limita-
tions, its perils, its implied sinfulness, these always belong
124 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
to it per accidens, and with respect to specific conditions
and individuals. There is no knowledge whatever to which
somebody may not conceivably have a right. That not
everybody may, without sin, possess a given sort, or degree,
or fact of knowledge, depends always upon specific and per-
fectly comprehensible conditions relating to this sort, or de-
gree, or fact. I may not seek to know another's secret by
stealth ; I may not seek to know the results of a sin by my-
self deliberately sinning ; I may not seek to add to my pres-
ent burdens a temptation that I have not now, and that,
when I get it, may prove corrupting to me. But, on the
other hand, the man whose secret this is may be blessed in
knowing it. The man who has sinned may gain inspiration
for reform from coolly considering the very heart and the
essence of his sin, that he may find in its fruits the seeds of
coming virtue. The man who has the temptation, by facing
it, and so by knowing its secret, may win control over it,
and may thereby use his opportunity for holiness. When
in progress I abandon one knowledge for another, I do so
because the other is more of a knowledge. And thus it is
never my business as a moral being to shun knowledge as
knowledge, but always it is my task to get wisdom as wis-
dom, and then to use it in the cause of the right
V.
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION*
THE discussion seems to me to have reached a stage
where it is just as well to supplement controversies over the
precise meaning or the bearings of Professor Huxley's ad-
dress, by a few independent efforts, however imperfect these
may be, to deal with the questions. (1) Whether the " ethi-
cal process " is a " part of the cosmical process " ; and (2)
whether it stands in a relation of opposition or of harmony
to the tendencies of this cosmical process ; and (3) finally, in
case the relation of the " ethical process " to the " cosmical
process " is one of opposition, what the source of this opposi-
tion is. The following paper is a sketch of such an effort
The student of nature is trying to reduce observed facts
to universal laws. In so far as he can do this, he succeeds
in what certain recent students of the Logic of Science (e. g.,
Mach) have called the description of the facts. The funda-
mental principle of empirical science is, that you can only
tell what a given fact is, in so far as you can describe its
nature in universal terms i. e., in terms which identify
this nature with the nature of other facts. Were all the
facts of our experience single, discontinuous, unrepeated
even in memory, and as different from one another as tones
* An eaaay contributed to a seriefl of papers upon the well-known ad-
draw of Professor Huxley. The discussion, in which several other writers
took part, was published in the International Journal of Ethics, The pres-
ent contribution appeared in July, 1895.
m
126 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
are now different from odors, or as brightness is different
from swiftness, then we might all of us experience the
world ; but we could none of us describe in the least what
it contained. This world might even be allowed to have one
sort of uniformity in it viz., it might be as richly delight-
ful a world as you please, from moment to moment ; but it
would be not only an uncomprehended, but an unreported
world a world of whose facts no record could be made. On
the other hand, a world where experience can be recorded,
reported, described, has two characters : First, there are in
it facts whose similarities can be noted i. e., there are
" wholes " or " groups " of phenomenal elements, which are
alike in some respects ; and, secondly, the noted similarities
are such as permit you, in terms of these similarities them-
selves, to define certain complex groups of phenomena, as
" having the same structure," or as '' being built up accord-
ing to the same rule," or as " exemplifying the same law,"
so that at least some of the details of each fact noted are
" explained " by this law. To " explain " a given phenome-
nal detail, noted in your experience, say d, by the " natural
law " which is said to " require " its presence, or to " make it
necessary," is simply to point out that the phenomenon d is
part of a larger whole, a " fact " in the substantive sense
viz., abed, and that this " whole fact," abed, has a structure,
or "make-up," a describable "build," a "typical constitu-
tion," which other whole facts of experience, viz., ABCD, or
pqrs, also exemplify, while this constitution is such as to in-
volve the presence of d in case a, b, and c are present, and in
case the whole is to preserve the aforesaid typical structure.
You then say that, since the whole fact abed resembles
ABCD, or pqrs, not in its details as such (i. e., in its con-
tents), but in their structural relations i. e., in the general
type or build of each of these whole facts therefore the
same rule or law which defines D by its relations to the
other phenomena, A, B, C, of its own group, and which
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 127
defines 8 by its relations to the other phenomena, p, q, and r,
of the group pqrs, can be realized or exemplified when you
pass to an abc group, only if there is present a fourth phe-
nomenon, d, which is such as to have the same structural
relation to abc in the whole fact whereof abc and d are
parts, as was present in case of the facts ABCD and pqrs.
My statement is abstract. But the principle is simple.
It means that you cannot describe whole facts i.e., that
you cannot report, record, verify, or comprehend their
structures, without conceiving the phenomenal details of
these facts as subject to laws i.e., to rules of structure,
which are exemplified by other whole facts of experience as
well as by the fact that may be, at any time, under discussion.
The " uniformity of nature " is thus the conditio sine qua
non of the describability of her facts. And on the other hand,
to report whole facts is, to some extent, to explain their details.
It is, therefore, not one thing to describe facts, and another
thing to explain the elements that enter into their consti-
tution. But, in so far as you describe the wholes, you
explain the parts of these wholes. There is, indeed, no a
priori principle that every experience which may occur to
anybody is describable at all. Anybody's experience might
be, to any extent, apparently or really unique. In so far as it
was unique, science could only ignore it, as being a " private "
or " personal " experience. But if an experienced fact is to
be described, it must be, in some respect, capable of indenti-
fication with other facts. And different facts can be describ-
ably identical only as regards their structure. But if two
facts have the same structure, then their details, the ele-
ments of which they are made up, stand in relations to one
another which exemplify this structure. Any one element,
tln-ii. will appear in each fact, as explained by and conform-
able to the law which links it to the other elements of the
whole fact of which it is a part The presence in the world
of various whole facts that exemplify the same structure, is
10
128 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
then a condition of the describability of each of these whole
facts. But the describability of any whole fact involves
what appears as the explanation of the parts or elements of
this fact by the law or structure of the whole to which they
belong. In brief, the structure actually common to many
facts also appears as the law which explains or necessitates
the constituent elements of each fact.
Nature then, in order to be describable, has to be viewed
or conceived as such that the details of every natural phe-
nomenon shall be " subject to," " determined by," or " neces-
sitated by," the laws which describe the structure of the phe-
nomenal wholes of which each detail is a part. If any
given natural phenomenon, itself a mere fragment (e. g., the
petal of a particular flower, the tooth of a carnivorous ani-
mal, the total phase of an individual lunar eclipse), is to be
conceived as a part of a certain whole, then this part must
be conceived as if " explained," or " necessitated," by the
law which describes, in universal terms, the whole " thing "
or " process " of which the fragment is a part. And this is
what is meant by the " necessity " of natural events. Natu-
ral necessity is an incident of the conceived describability
of natural phenomena when grouped in whole facts.
That natural phenomena shall be conceived as necessary,
or as subject to rigid law, and that the " cosmic process "
shall be viewed as one where " mere necessity reigns," is
therefore not a belief capable of any but a relatively subjec-
tive and human interpretation. Experience comes and goes
in its own way. No mortal lias ever "experienced " the ab-
solute necessity of any cosmic process whatever. Chance, as
Mr. Charles S. Peirce has well observed, streams in through
every channel of our senses. Trust then to mere experience,
as it comes to any one of us, and such experience can never
prove that there are " cosmic laws."
But natural science depends not upon merely accepting,
but also upon reporting, and upon recording, the phenom-
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 129
ena, upon comparing notes, upon trusting nobody's private
experience as such, upon a process, then, of publicly verifi-
able description of facts. This process not now the cosmic
process, but the process of description involves noting uni-
formities, and depends for its success upon our ability to note
the latter. The describable uniformities are structural uni-
formities i. e., those expressible in terms of universal "rules
of structure "or "laws." The law of structure of a given whole,
be this whole a " thing " or a " process," a coexistent whole, or a
whole of successive elements, appears, in our slowly formed,
socially communicated, and gradually verified scientific
conceptions, as determining the necessity of every element
of any fact by virtue of the whole to which the element be-
longs. The only further assumption upon which the doc-
trine of the objective universality of rigid cosmic laws, as
distinct from the foregoing subjective and human need for
such laws, depends, is the assumption which I have else-
where examined at some length * viz., the assumption that,
in our human experience, only the relatively describable
data stand for the external or physical world as such the
endless indescribabilities of our experience, the " chance " of
Mr. Peirce's account, being viewed, by scientific thinking, as
standing for the merely " individual "or " internal " element
of our experience, or for the limitations of the individual
point of view. For science, as I have just pointed out, is an
essentially social affair. The described "cosmical" fact is
a fact which others are conceived to be capable of verifying
besides the observer who now describes. And as only the
describable aspect of our experience is communicable to
others for them to verify, and as only the verifiable is, scien-
tifically speaking, to be viewed as "cosmical " at all, it fol-
lows that, while private experience is full of what seems to
* Cf. the Philosophical Review for September, 1894, and The Spirit of
Modem Philosophy, lecture xii, on The World of Description.
130 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
be chance, we all have come to regard the cosmical process
as one subject to the most rigid law. But one must carefully
bear in mind this genesis and meaning of the whole con-
cept, both of necessary natural law and of the cosmical pro-
cesses themselves, in any comparison of the " cosmical pro-
cess " with the " ethical process." Hence our present need
for this rather technical summary.
On the other hand, the conception of moral laws, by
which given acts are to be judged, and of "ethical pro-
cesses," such as what is called " Progress" processes which
involve a gradual approach towards a conformity of given
facts to given ethical ideals this whole conception of the
moral world as such, involves an entirely different point of
view in presence of human experience. To conceive the
" cosmical process " as such, you have to conceive it as in
every detail subject to laws viz., to precisely the cosmical
laws. But you can well view the facts in the light of a
moral ideal, while believing that the now existent physical
facts run in some ways directly counter to the ideal. Yes, so
to view the facts is inevitable whenever you have ideals.
For you derive your ideals, ultimately, from an aspect of
your experience which has not to do with describing experi-
enced facts, but with desiring ideal objects that are absent
when you desire them. It is true that what you rationally
desire, you can, in general, both describe, and hope, with the
aid of a possible good fortune, some time either to verify
yourself, or to view as verifiable by somebody else, in whose
interest you desire this object. But you do not desire the
object in so far as it is describable. And furthermore, just
in so far as you desire any object, its presence is not yet
verifiable. One desires the absent. The cosmical fact i. e.,
the physical fact, viewed as subject to natural law, is, then,
an object in so far as it is both describable and verifiable.
The object of our ideal is desirable not in so far as it is
describable, and, again, precisely in so far as it is not yet
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 131
verifiable. Herein, then, lies a double contrast between the
natural fact as such, and the object of desire, as such. The
contrast comes out well in case of future facts. The future
eclipse, as natural phenomenon, is but an incident in the
vast describable whole fact called the process of the solar
system. As such, the eclipse can be predicted as something
necessary, because this process, as a whole, is conceived as
one describable in terms of known and universal law. The
eclipse is also verifiable, at the time of its occurrence, by all
rightly situated observers. But so far the eclipse is no ob-
ject of desire. Desire is as vain as would be prayer. The
eclipse is to be verified only at the computed time, but then
it must be verifiable. Science does not aim at the eclipse,
nor does she pray for the eclipse. She predicts, verifies, re-
ports, records all in due season. But the eclipse is not
only natural fact, but interesting experience in the lives of
the men who come to see it. In so far, one can desire to
live to see the eclipse, can made an ideal of being present
when it occurs, etc. But in desiring the experience, one
does not compute the eclipse, nor does one verify the com-
putation. One desires the eclipse in so far as one still ex-
pects but cannot yet verify its coming. And to desire to see
the eclipse is simply not to compute its coming, but just to
make this sight as such an ideal, and not to view the eclipse
itself as a cosmical fact
In consequence, our present contrast might be stated
thus: Phenomena are desired (or dreaded) precisely in so
far as they appear to be interestingly novel. Novelty, then,
is a conditio sine qua non of all ideal value when regarded
from a temporal point of view. But phenomena are expli-
cable precisely in so far as they are conceived as not novel,
but as mere cases under law. And again : The desired, or
the dreaded, must be, as such, now un verifiable. But the
explained is known to be such precisely in so far as univer-
sal explanations are actually verified. When I recognize
132 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
something as a case of a " cosmical process," my recognition,
as such, involves therefore no desire. One may say, indeed,
that the actual can be approved, as conforming to an ideal
standard. But, for us mortals, this approval, whenever
desires are concerned (and a purely contemplative, aesthetic
approval concerns us not here), is the approval of the fact
in so far as it has been desired. In brief, then, the ex-
plained or necessary phenomenon of the " cosmical process "
is such in so far as it embodies the universal law in a specif-
ic case. But the object of desire is such in so far as the law
or rule which this desire involves has not yet been embodied
in the precise sense in which it here needs to be embodied.
Here is the root of the endless conflict between the eth-
ical view of the world and the explanatory or " scientific "
view. For a rational ethical doctrine is simply some uni-
versalized system of desires. What the right system may
be concerns us not here. Enough, if one has an ideal, he
bases it on some type of desire. If nothing were desirable,
there would be no ideals. A man with an ethical doctrine
has simply taught himself what he now thinks to be wisely
desirable. But he still desires. Thus desiring, he looks out
upon experience. There occur phenomena. These his sci-
ence " apperceives," recognizes, describes as cases of law,
explains, calls necessary. But the very nature of this ex-
planatory or descriptive sort of consciousness is that it says,
"these phenomena are not novel." The consciousness of
the possessor of ideals, however, essentially asserts, at every
breath one draws, " Yet the novel, in so far as it justly ap-
pears novel, is precisely what I want" The explaining
consciousness insists : " The law is eternally realized. What
has been will be. There seems to be alteration. There is
none." The ethical consciousness retorts : " The law is not
yet realized. In this ' not yet ' is my life. I have no abid-
ing city. I seek one out of sight." Meanwhile, of course, it
is perfectly possible to point out common territory, where
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 133
these two views seem to meet without direct conflict.
" You must use my insight," says the explaining conscious-
ness, " if you want to realize your ideals. In vain do you
desire as ideal what my laws forbid as forever un verifi-
able." The ethical consciousness must accept this inevit-
able comment But it still responds : " Whatever laws of
yours I recognize, they become to me not my ideals, but
the mere material for realizing my ideals. If I could not
interfere with the phenomenal expression that your laws
are to get, my work would be utterly vain. You point me
the means. But I set the goal. I do not quarrel with your
laws. But I use them."
Hereupon, of course, the explaining consciousness makes
one retort which does, indeed, appear to be crushing. " Re-
alize your ideals if you will and can," it says ; " yet what is
your realization but a mere incident of my cosmical pro-
cess ? Your realization, when it comes, will be a natural
phenomenon, a part of a whole fact, like the rest. I shall
explain this phenomenon, and show, whenever it happens,
that it is nothing new." To this, of course, the ethical con-
sciousness may make either one of two responses. It may
say : " Granted. As a fact, I admit that you are right My
realization of my ideals will itself be only a nature-process,
involving no true novelty. I admit that my view is, in the
last analysis, illusory. 'Nature is made better by no mean,
but nature makes that mean, 1 just as Mr. Herbert Spencer
quotes. Nothing really new ever happens. Hence no
ideals, viewed as ideals, ever do realize themselves, any
more than eclipses come because we hope for them. But
still our human experience has its limitations. Some events
seem novel. Some desires seem, as such, productive of
what nature did not before contain. As a fact, the ' star-
mist' contained everything good, evil, possible, necessary.
But, ' Der Mensch, der beti'eglicli I''iihlende, der leichte
Raiib dea mdchtigen AugenblicksS feels the thing other
134 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
wise. I view the world as it seems to active beings ; and so
I must view the world. Hence you have the truth ; but I,
as practical common sense, must live in my necessary
illusions ; and it is in this sense that I remain forever in
opposition to you viz., just as an inevitable, if illusory,
point of view."
This is what the ethical consciousness may say ; and it is
saying this which, to follow out to their just consequences
the views of many writers, ought to constitute what such
writers should consistently regard as the true " philosophy
of evolution." The real world, thus viewed, is one of rigid
cosmical law. In such a world, nothing essentially new
ever happens. If we, as scientific observers, could come to
comprehend this truth, we should no more talk of a genuine
realization of ideals before unrealized in the universe, than
we should regard the swing of a pendulum as a dramatic
action. The pendulum bob, in its regular vibration, rises
and falls, moves right and moves left, moves swiftly and
moves slowly ; yet all the time engages in but one de-
scribable cosmical process, which involves nothing novel at
any point. So with the cosmical process, in its wholeness.
New passions and desires, as well as their significant potency
in transforming the world, are and must be illusions, if de-
scribable natural law, as such, is universal. From this con-
clusion there can be, upon this hypothesis, no possible es-
cape. For to explain is to see the apparently novel, in all its
essential details, as an instance of the old, whose former type
is, down to the least genuinely true element, merely exem-
plified once more in this seemingly novel situation. Either,
then, desires, passions, ideals, are not subject to the laws of
the describable and necessary cosmical processes, or else they,
if mere incidents of a describable process, are nothing new,
and bring to pass nothing new, in all the universe. What
has been will be. There is, then, nothing truly ethical.
There is only the cosmical. This, I say, is the only possible
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 135
" philosophy of evolution," if natural law is an account of
the absolutely real world. Evolution, as a process, is in that
case the mere appearance of novelties to unwary or to
necessarily ignorant observers. It does not and cannot
involve anything truly historical. But meanwhile, of
course, the philosophical evolutionist of this type could
make practical concessions, to his public, to himself, and
to the ethical consciousness, so long as he did not forget
that these concessions were such mere accommodations to
human ignorance and to the practical point of view. He
could say, u A portion of the cosmical process namely, our
own voluntary activity, appears as if it were ethical i. e.,
as if true novelty, genuine progress, effective ideals, historic-
ally significant passage to something never before realized,
were there present. This illusion is human, inevitbale,
and even useful. When we write on ethics we have to
treat this illusion as if it were true ; and to do so is as harm-
less as to speak of the sunrise, remembering all the while
the cosmical truth."
Such ethically disposed, but consistent, partisans of
natural necessity ought, however, still to admit that the
ethical process, when thus abstractly sundered from the
cosmical process, of which it is all the while held to be a
part, does indeed appear in very sharp contrast to the rest
of the cosmical process. In the ethical world, illusory as it
is here said to be, it still seems true that the pendulums do
not merely swing, that the old does not merely recur, that
the creation moves towards some far-off event, divine or
diabolical. One now has to talk (although such speech is,
by hypothesis, but illusory) of progress, which means novel
good entering a world that has thus far lacked its presence.
One has to treat nature as if she could be made better. One
looks to the future with hopes which, for many evolutionists,
become rather sentimental. And to do this is to abstract
from the supposed fact that the " star-mist" contained it all,
136 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
and that nothing essentially novel occurs, or will ever oc-
cur. But the abstraction is in sharp contrast to the assumed
truth. The ethical world is, when conceived, in vehement,
even if in illusory, opposition to the natural process ; and
Professor Huxley's discussion will have done great good,
in so far as it leads to the recognition of this inevitable
fact. How one states the details of the opposition is of
small consequence. The opposition itself is deep and uni-
versal.
But the ethical consciousness, instead of thus surrender-
ing, might decline thus to abandon its assertions. It might
say, " But, after all, my view is right. I not merely, in the
seeming of my ideals, contrast my illusions with a supposed
truth, but I rightly, and in the name of truth, oppose my
view of the real world to any physical view. After all, docs
experience prove the real universality of the ' cosmical pro-
cess ' ? Certainly, experience, as such, does not. That noth-
ing new occurs is a proposition directly opposed to the seem-
ing of every individual experience. Why may not this
seeming be well founded ? Why may there not be true
novelties, effective ideals, genuine progress, transformations,
evolution which is not a mere seeming of growth, spiritual
processes which were not present in the star-mist in any
form?"
To these queries would, of course, come the reply : " Su-
pernaturalism, this base supernaturalism." " But, no," one
might retort ; " not what that word usually suggests to some
people, but merely what Kantian idealism long ago made
familiar, and distinguished from all Schwdrmerei this
alone is what we mean."
As a fact, the assertion of the universality of rigid cos-
mical process, and of what I have elsewhere called the
reality of the " World of Description," is unquestionably a
human, and, as I myself should affirm, a distinctly social
theory for the interpretation of one aspect of our experi-
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 137
ence. Take human experience from that special point of
view, and t hen, indeed, you have to conceive the world of
experience as if it were known to be one of cosmical pro-
cesses, which are the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
In that world, the only philosophy of evolution is that all
evolution is to be called appearance. The only ethical pro-
cess observable is one which, upon this hypothesis, is to be
conceived as unreal. There is no question of warring against
the cosmical process. But there is question of an undying
opposition between the inevitable ethical consciousness and
the hypothetically true cosmical consciousness ; for the one
forever looks to the future for the novel, the coming, das
Werdende, conceived as the possibly progressive ; the other
asserts that all Werden only manifests the changeless truth
of the cosmical process itself.
But now, the other view of human experience, the one
which regards the universe as what I have elsewhere called
" The World of Appreciation," is, as a fact, equally true to
experience, and equally inevitable. For nature we know, as a
fact, only through our social consciousness,* and the social
consciousness is ethical before it te physical, appreciates
more deeply than it describes, recognizes nature for reasons
which are, in the last analysis, themselves ideal, and is con-
scious of novelty, of progress, of significance, in general of
the human, in ways which, in the last analysis, make the
whole cosmical process a mere appearance of one aspect of
the moral world. Yet this doctrine is not " supernatural-
ism," because the true opponent of the natural is not the
" supernatural," but the human. The " cosmos," in the sense
of empirical science, is a conceptual product of the human
mind. Man is indeed but a fragment of the absolutely real
* I may bo allowed to refer again to the before-mentioned paper in the
Philosophical Review, and to the later ensaya in thin volume upon Sclf-
consciouancM, Social Conscioiuncas, and Nature.
138 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
universe. But that genuine universe of which he is a frag-
ment is not the world of Description, but the world of Ap-
preciation a world at which the phenomena of nature in-
deed richly hint, but which they do not reveal.
It is true that, when viewed in the light of such a doc-
trine, the facts of evolution get an interpretation, not here
to be expounded, which does away with much of the oppo-
sition between the ethical and what had seemed the cosmi-
cal, in the sense in which we have so far used that word in
this paper. Meanwhile, I should still hold that, as points
of view, the view for which the ethical process exists at all
is very sharply opposed to the view which, in the sense of
physical science, deals with cosmical processes as such.
Call the whole matter one of phenomena and of human
opinion, and then indeed this opposition need lead to no
misunderstandings. It will then be merely one of points of
view, no assertions of ultimate truth being made on either
side. But if it be a question of a philosophy of reality, then
one must choose between the two points of view, or else
reject both. There is no chance of reconciling the meta-
physically real and ultimate universality of the so-called
cosmical, i. e., physical process, or processes according to de-
scribably rigid laws, with any even remotely ethical inter-
pretation of the same reality.
The questions asked at the outset are then to be decided
thus: (1) Conceive the "cosmical process" as one of de-
scribably rigid law, as all explanation in natural science
does, must do, and ought to do, and then the " ethical pro-
cess " can form no part of the " cosmical process." (2) In
essence the " ethical process," in so far as you conceive its
presence at all, is utterly opposed to all "cosmical pro-
cesses " when they are thus physically conceived. (3) The
nature of the opposition lies not in any world of " things in
themselves" at all, but in the peculiarity of the ethical
point of view which, in dealing, as both this view and its
NATURAL LAW, ETHICS, AND EVOLUTION. 139
rival concretely do, with mere human appearances, esti-
mates ideally, and desires essential novelty, progress, and
the thus far unattained as such ; while the descriptive or
explanatory point of view conceives its purely phenomenal
world as if it were known to contain no novelties what-
ever, and nothing ideal.
VI.
THE
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
THE present paper is an effort to set forth in brief some
of the evidence for an idealistic interpretation of the nature
of reality. My argument is in its essential features identi-
cal with the one presented in a chapter on The Possibility
of Error in my book called The Religious Aspect of Philos-
ophy, published in 1885. Another statement of the same
considerations is to be found, in a summary form, on pages
368-380 of my study entitled The Spirit of Modern Philoso-
phy. In the latter book I have also given an extended
account of the historical relations of this line of argument
especially of its relations to Kant's Deduction of the
Categories, and to the philosophical development from
Kant to Hegel. That these relations are intimate, needs
here no further express declaration. The discussion in my
chapter on The Possibility of Error was criticised in some
detail by two French writers by M. Paulhan. in the Revue
Philosophique for September, 1885 ; and by M. Renouvier,
in La Critique Philosophique, for 1888, pp. 85-120. To both
these critics I owe a hearty acknowledgment, and I have
tried to profit by their objections, though I cannot here
consider them. In a later and extended form my view
of the doctrine here in question has so been expounded
in a work entitled The Conception of God, published in
1897.
140
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
What is it to be conscious ? What does self-conscious-
ness imply ? Such are the questions with which philosoph-
ical idealism begins. It is by examining these questions
that a philosophical idealist hopes to get a clearer notion of
the world in which he finds himself, and of his relation to this
world. A successful estimate of such a doctrine can never
be made unless one comprehends how it has been reached.
It is the road that here determines the result. In vain does
one, as philosopher, try to pass the gates of this heaven of
theory, and to get the beatific insight for which the idealist
hopes, unless one has first followed the straight and narrow
path of thorough -going self-critical reflection. Whoever
has approached his idealism by this road will no longer
imagine, like a good many of the superficial critics of ideal-
ism, that the God of idealism "may be safely treated as
' une quantite negligeable ' " (to quote the words of one such
critic). The careful student of the path will have learned,
as he went, the worth of the goal. His own insight may be
still very incomplete, but he will know that the truth with
which he deals is not " negligeable " merely because, like
the earth in Browning's poem, it "keeps up its terrible
composure," and declines to have a market value, or
to show itself in the precise guises which tradition had
led us to expect it to wear. For the idealist whose mind
is as I think it ought to be, the Infinite is unquestion-
ably a Person, and this Person is as unquestionably the
world-possessor. The finite does not vanish in him ; but
he appears to us, although very imperfectly, through and
by means of the finite. Yet what it is and means
to be a Person, and to be also infinite, and to be the world-
possessor, only a successful philosophical analysis can
hope to make, in general terms, clear. It is useless to
approach such problems with only our accidental and
1 (_> STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
traditional prejudices, concerning what personality may
mean.
It sometimes seems to me that to many minds the word
" person " has come primarily to mean one who can and
perhaps will on occasion strike back at you if you first hit
him ; and doubtless the notion in question does in fact re-
veal a certain aspect of the ultimate truth. The world is
indeed a moral order, and the moral law is a hard master,
and hard masters do strike down rebels ; and to many, who
would reject very scornfully the crude language that I
have just used, the idea of God and of his personality is, in
fact, based upon an unconscious elaboration of just such
simple categories as these. I do not question the relative
value of such categories. We have in childhood to get our
theology in these terms, and we never ought altogether to
forget our childhood, or to ignore the sinewy and healthy
truths then impressed upon us by tradition. Only such
truths should not pretend to be ultimate. Imagery of this
kind does not reveal the inmost meaning of the word
"personality." Ideas of this sort ought not to be treated
as final tests of all philosophical definitions of God. It is
perfectly true that in our immediate inner experience, in
our uncriticised finite self -consciousness, fragmentary as it
is, we mortals learn at the outset, in a first rude example,
what personality means, and it is by reflection upon this
rude example that we have to proceed. But we need not
wonder to find that the deeper meaning of the word " per-
sonality " is only to be got at by a long study of the signifi-
cance of the rude facts themselves. For, as a very little
analysis shows, we are none of us at the outset able to
answer sharp questions concerning the true extent, or the
nature, or the limitations, or the significance, of this familiar
reality which we call our self-consciousness. In other
words, we are self-conscious, but very imperfectly so. The
question, " Who am I ? " is not easily answerable, yet no
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-COXSCIOUSNESS. 143
question is more obviously a fair one. The problem, " What
is a person '{ " is, then, not to be solved by a mere glance
within.
In seeking after God, there are many who do indeed be-
gin by asking the question, " Who am I ? " but who thence
proceed by offering some facile answer, such as the well-
known one, " I am a thinking substance," or the still more
familiar one, " I am a being possessed of free choice and
volition," and on such a basis a theology is quickly built up.
This theology will therefore, indeed, take a comparatively
naive shape. I am a person. God, of course, is another.
For I have free volition. That constitutes the essence of
me, and so of any person you please ; and this fact is ob-
vious, and for reflection nearly if not quite ultimate. Now,
in the exercise of my free volition, I meet resistance from
without This resistance indicates a world of outer objects.
But obviously only a will can resist a will. Hence there is
will, and so personality, outside of me. The unity of law in
the world of my objects, the cleverness of the manifold con-
trivances of nature, or, better still, the extent and the wis-
dom of plan which I see exemplified in the facts of organic
life and of evolution all these things assure me that, in
knowing the physical world, I am dealing with the doings
of one great Person, whose creation is this natural order.
He is free, and so am I. He limits me ; and, so far as I am
free, I limit him. We are two ; and hence the world is a
moral order. Any more monistic interpretation would be
immoral, for I should not fear God unless he were another
person ; nor regard him as my Father unless I felt his resist-
ance whenever, in the exercise of my free volition, I push
against his reality, After all, it is the muscular sense that,
from such a point of view, becomes the chief revealer of the
divine personality to us finite beings; and hence those who
insist upon these categories love to exalt their " dynamic "
character.
11
1-14 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
All such brief sketches of the views of opponents have of
course to be inadequate, and therefore in a measure unjust.
It is only to show in what direction I myself should look
for more light that I make this brief hint of the unreflective
nature of all these notions of a good deal of current the-
ology. They are derived from a very simple inspection, so
I must insist, of the world of the inner life. They have
their relative truth, but they need deeper criticism. " Con-
scious of free choice," " conscious of outer objects resisting
my free choice," " conscious of dynamic principles beneath
all reality " how profoundly problematic are the categories
contained in each one of these phrases ! What is it to have
free choice ? What is it not only to have, but also to know
one's own free choice ? What is it to know outer objects ?
What is it to know one's Self ? Yes, what is it to be con-
scious at all ? What is a Self ? All these are just the ques-
tions of philosophy. Whoever says, " But I do know all
these things, and there is the end of it no matter about the
how " such a person is perfectly welcome to his assurance,
but he is not philosophizing. It is precisely the how that
concerns one in philosophy.
So much, then, for an indication of the reason why the
idealist, knowing at the outset something of his own bit of
finite self -consciousness, but longing to know more, declines
to state d priori his notion either of Personality, or of the
world, or of free will, or of the nature of knowledge, but
aims to get at the true ideas of these things by means of a
better analysis of the implications of self-consciousness
themselves.
II.
Our questions, then, are no doubt fundamental, and
worthy of scrutiny. They promise rich fruit. Yet, in ap-
proaching them, we must, in the present paper, limit our
undertaking pretty carefully. Amidst the wealth of these
problems we must choose what most directly concerns us in
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 145
getting a general notion of the nature of the idealistic doc-
trine. Let our choice be as follows.
Idealism of the post-Kantian type is distinguished by two
especially noteworthy features. It first involves a criticism
of the inner nature of finite self-consciousness. I, the finite
thinker, it says, must be in far more organic and deep
and wide relations to my own true selfhood than my ordi-
nary consciousness easily makes clear to me. In essence,
then, I am much more of a self than my immediate con-
sciousness, as it exists under human limitations, ever lets me
directly know. The true Self is at all events far more than
the "empirical" self of ordinary consciousness. This is
sure because, upon examination, one finds that the flicker-
ing and limited self -consciousness of any moment of my
life logically implies far more than it directly contains. I
am never fully aware of the content, or of the meaning, of
my present self. Unless, then, I am in deeper truth far more
of a self than I now know myself to be, I am not even as
much of a self as I now suppose myself to be. In other
words, it is of the essence of finite consciousness to be, in its
logical implications, transcendent of the limited character of
its momentary inner contents. This is the first assertion of
idealism. Put negatively it runs: Finite self-consciousness
never directly shows me how much of a self I am. There-
fore finite self-consciousness never directly reveals to me
the true nature, or extent, or limitations, or relations of my
own personality.
The second feature of our idealistic doctrine appears in
its theory of the relation of any finite self to what we call
the " external world." The idealistic view here is, that if on
the one hand the self of finite consciousness is in any case,
by implication, far more than it can directly know itself to
be, on the other hand this self, in order to be in true relation
to the outer objects which it actually thinks about, must be,
by implication, so related to these outer objects that they are
146 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
in reality, although external to this finite self, still not ex-
ternal to the true and complete Self of which this finite self
is an organic part. If the analysis of consciousness has first
shown me that my true Self is and must be far more in its
essential nature than I can now directly know it to be, the
analysis of the definition of " my world of objects " shows
that, in order to be my objects, in order to be external, as
they are, to my finite thoughts about them, " my objects "
must be such as my true Self already possesses objects
which it is aware of because they are its immediate objects,
and which it knows to be mine because it includes both
my meaning and their inner essence.
Uniting these two features we have, as our idealistic
metaphysic, this result : The self of finite consciousness is
not yet the whole true Self. And the true Self is inclusive
of the whole world of objects. Or, in other words, the result
is, that there is and can be but one complete Self, and that
all finite selves, and their objects, are organically related to
this Self, are moments of its completeness, thoughts in its
thought, and, as I should add, Wills in its Will, Individual
elements in the life of the Absolute Individual.
I begin here at once with the first of these two considera-
tions. It is a familiar assertion ever since Descartes, yes, in
fact, ever since St. Augustine, that, whatever else I am doubt-
ful of, I am at least directly sure of my own existence. I am I.
What truth, so people say, could be clearer ? I exist, and I
exist for my own thought ; for I doubt, I wonder, I inquire
in short, I think. And in my thinking I find myself, not
as a possible dream of somebody else, or as a fiction, or as
an hypothesis, or as a matter of doubt, but I find myself ex-
istent for myself. Such is one familiar way of stating the
initial assurance of human thought.
A popular misunderstanding of the nature of idealism
in philosophy supposes that, beginning thus with his own
individual existence as somehow a thing very much clearer
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
in nature and in definition than the existence of anything
besides himself, every idealist as such must proceed, in a
solipsistic sort of way, first to reduce all objective reality
to his own ideas, and then to find, among these ideas of
his, certain ones which dispose him, on purely subjective
grounds, to assume the existence of outer objects. It is his-
torically true, of course, that such methods have been fol-
lowed by certain students of philosophy. It is also a fact
tliat such methods have a value as means of philosophical
analysis, and as preparations for deeper insight. As such I
myself have made use of them more than once for purposes
of preliminary instruction : not that they constitute the es-
sential portion of the teachings of a metaphysical idealism,
of the sort which the post-Kantian thought in Germany de-
veloped (for they do not), but merely because they are peda-
gogically useful devices for introducing us to the true issues
of metaphysics.
As a fact, however, before one could undertake, in a se-
rious fashion, to be even provisionally and hypothetically a
" solipsist " in his metaphysical teaching, it would be need-
ful to define the Self, the Ipse, whose solitude in the world
of knowledge the " solipsistic " doctrine is supposed to main-
tain. The reason why in the end our post-Kantian idealism
is not in the least identical with " solipsism," either in spirit
or in content or in outcome, is that the definition of the Self,
the answer to the question, " Who am I ? " is logically
prior to the metaphysical assertion that a being called " I "
is better known than is any being called " Not-I." This as-
sertion itself may be true. But in vain does a doctrine de-
clare that a being called by any name, x or y, mind or mat-
ter, not-self, or Self, obviously and with absolute assurance
is known to exist, and is more immediately known to exist
than is any other being, unless the doctrine first defines
what being is meant under this name. Self-consciousness
can only reveal my own substantial existence with absolute,
STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
or even with merely exceptional clearness, in case self-con-
sciousness first reveals to me what I mean by myself who
am said thus so certainly to exist.
Idealism, then, has no more right than has any other
doctrine to fire its absolute assurances "out of a pistol."
That I exist is at the outset only known to me in the sense
that this thinking, this consciousness, of mine, is no un-
reality. What reality it is, I shall not know until I shall
have reflected long and with success. First, then, to say,
"I clearly know myself, but I know not certainly anything
beyond myself," and then by analysis to reduce the outer
world to " my Idea," and then to say, " Beyond my ideas
I can never certainly go " all this method of provisional
and halting reflection, which assumes " the Ego " as some-
thing perfectly transparent, may be useful enough as a
propaedeutic to philosophy. It is not yet thoroughgoing
self-criticism. Nor is it upon such imperfect reflection that
the idealistic doctrines of modern philosophy have been built
up. Fichte, who is popularly supposed to have done his
work in just this way, actually made the Self the central
assurance of philosophy only in so far as he also made it
the central problem of philosophy. Its very existence is,
for him, of the most problematic kind, so that, in the first
form of the Wissenschaftslehre, the true Self is never real-
ized at all, and exists only as the goal of an unendliches
Streben, an endless travail for self -consciousness. No sooner
has Fichte declared at the outset that it exists this Self
than he finds the very assertion essentially paradoxical, in
such wise that, unrevised, it would become absurd. More-
over, as Fichte insists, the natural consciousness is far from
a real self -awareness. " Most men," declares Fichte (Werke,
vol. i, p. 175, note) ," could be more easily brought to believe
themselves a piece of lava in the moon than to regard them-
selves as a Self." In such a philosophy the cogito ergo sum
no longer means that I, the thinker, as res cogitans, am
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 149
from the very beginning an obviously definite entity, while
all else is doubtful. The first word of such a doctrine is
rather the inquiry, TFfeo, then, am J? It is the Self which
needs winning, and which requires definition, and which is
so far unknown, just because it is the object of our reflection.
Beginning thus our consideration asking. What is the
Self whose existence is to appear to a wise reflection as the
fact surely involved in our consciousness ? we find of
course at once that the larger empirical Ego of the world of
common sense is by no means this Self whose truth is to be
thus directly certified by the thinking and doubting with
which philosophy is to be initiated. / exist cannot mean,
at the beginning of our reflection, "I Cains or Titus I,
this person of the world of common sense, calling myself
by this name, living this life, possessed of these years of ex-
perience / think, and so I am immediately known to ex-
ist." For the Self of the world of common sense is inex-
tricably linked with numberless so-called non-Egos. He
exists as neighbor amongst neighbors, as owner of these
books or of this house, as father of these children, as re-
lated in countless ways to other finite beings. As such a
creature, self-consciousness does not at first immediately re-
veal him. As such a being amongst other beings, reflective
philosophy, at the outset, must ignore him. His existence
is no more immediately obvious at any one moment, at the
outset of our philosophical reflection, than is the "lava in
the moon." When Fichte's opponents accused him of teach-
ing that Professor Johann Gottlieb Fichte was the only per-
son or reality in existence, and that his students, and even
the Frau Professorin, were only ideas that Johann Gottlieb
was pleased to create such critics forgot that das Ich at
the outset of the Wissenschaftslehre is not named Johann
Gottlieb, and at this point of the system could not be, and
that the beginning of Fichte's philosophy ignores the Ger-
man professor named Johann Gottlieb as absolutely and
150 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
mercilessly as it does the castles on the Rhine, or the natives
of Patagonia, and knows as yet of nothing but the necessity
that a certain pressing and inexorable problem of conscious-
ness, called das Ich, must be fathomed, since every possible
assertion is found to involve the position of this as yet un-
fathomed Self.
The Self which constitutes our present problem is, there-
fore, like Fichte's Ich at the beginning of the Wissen-
schaftslehre, a still unknown quantity. Its existence we
know only in the sense that, in dealing with it, we are deal-
ing with no unreality, but with a central problem and prin-
ciple of knowledge.
How much of a Self, then, is clearly to be known to our
most direct reflection ? If we look a little closer, we next
feel disposed to answer that if the Ego, as directly known
in consciousness, is not as yet the whole empirical Ego of
common sense called in case of any one of us by his proper
name, and involved in these external social and personal
relationships, then the best account one can give of the
immediate subject of the cogito ergo sum is, that it is the
knowing Self of this moment. Here, in fact, is a definition
that has become comparatively frequent in philosophy. I
myself cannot accept this definition without modification.
But it is necessary for us to examine it ere we proceed fur-
ther. I know directly, so it has often been said, nothing
but what is now in my consciousness. And now in my
consciousness are these current ideas, feelings, thoughts,
judgments, and, in so far as I choose to reflect, here am I
myself, the subject in whom and for whom are these mo-
mentary thoughts. This is what I can directly know. To
all else I conclude with greater or less probability ; or, again,
the rest of reality is an object of my faith, or of my practi-
cal postulates. As for myself, I know myself just as the
knower of these current thoughts of this moment. Thus,
then, is our question to be answered.
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 151
Yet once more, is this new answer quite clear ? For
how much does the present Self, the self of this moment,
immediately know ? And does that which the self of this
moment knows belong wholly to this moment ? As soon as
we try to answer these questions, we enter upon a labyrinth
of theoretical problems as familiar, in some sense, as it is
intricate. I should not venture to weary the reader with
even a passing mention of these subtleties were not the
outcome of the necessarily tedious investigation of such
importance.
I am to know, then, " this moment," and I am to exist
for myself here as " the knower of this moment." Very
well, then, shall I, taking this point of view, say that I
know immediately the past in time ? No, apparently not.
I have a present idea of what I now call past time. That
must be all that I " immediately know " of that so-called
past. Do I immediately know the future ? No, again ; I
have a present idea of what I now call future time. I am
limited, then, in " immediate knowledge," to the present in
time. This moment is of course, as the present moment, to
be cut off from past and future. Very well, then, how
large a moment is it, and how long ? Is it quite instantane-
ous, wholly without duration ? No, for I must surely be
supposed immediately to know, in this moment, a passing
of time. My psychological present is a " specious present"
It looks backward and forward. It lasts a little, and then
insensibly glides over into the next moment Such at
least seems to be the definition that this doctrine of the
" present moment " must accept as a good account of what
the " present " is.
But, alas ! the present, as thus denned, is only the more
left undefined. This gliding "specious present," when
does it cease to be present ? When does it become past ?
Where are the boundaries ? How much is there of it ? For,
remember, I am looking for the immediately certain truth.
152 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
I wanted to know who I am, as an immediately sure reflec-
tion shall find or define me. The answer to my inquiry
was, " I am the knower of this moment." So much I am
to be quite surely aware of about myself. Well, I have
tried to define this assurance, and of course, if it is imme-
diate assurance, I must be able to give at once its content,
i. e., to define just what is contained in this moment. But
unfortunately I at once find myself baffled. And as an
actual fact, if I look a little closer, I shall always find that,
despite the assumption that I do know only the " present
moment," I cannot tell reflectively the precise content of my
present moment, but can only answer certain reflective
questions about the consciousness which is no longer quite
my own, because, before I can reflect upon it, it has already
become a past moment. As a fact, then, the assumption
just made about my knowing fully the content of the
" immediately present moment " turns out to be an error.
For I know not now in full what it is that is present to me,
nor who I myself am to whom this is present. And I find
out that I do not thus fully know myself at any present
moment, just because, when I try to tell what I know, what
I tell about is no longer my present, but is already my past
knowledge.
This problem about the definition of the " present mo-
ment " is one of the most characteristic of the problems of
self -consciousness. Let us give some examples of its curious
complications. Let the present moment, for instance, be a
moment of a judgment. I judge that the paper before
me appears extended. This, as it would seem, I just now
know immediately, since I chance to notice it. But ex-
tension even now already involves, for my consciousness,
all sorts of consequences, which will begin to appear upon
reflection. If extended, the paper is divisible. In so far as it
appears to me as what I call paper, I already begin to think
of it as something that I could fold or tear. Yes, upon re-
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 153
flection, I perceive that, even while I saw and felt it as ex-
tended, I all the while " sub-consciously " perceived it to be
smooth to my hand as I wrote, and also saw it to be white,
and knew it to be partially covered by my handwriting, and
knew to some extent what letters I was writing, and had
furthermore in my mind the train of my more abstract
thoughts. All this mass of " mind-stuff " was in me in a
more or less latent form. What portion of it was immedi-
ately present to me at any moment during the writing of
the foregoing half-dozen sentences ? Yes, how much of it
all is even now immediately present to my consciousness ?
I cannot tell. I know not. " This moment " has ceased to
be "this'' before I have observed its content, or written
down its name. I know all the while that there just now
was a present moment; and all the while also I am just
coming to know this now flying moment That is the
actual situation. My " immediate knowing " ceases to be
immediate in becoming knowledge, and the knowledge that
I now have crumbles forever as it passes over into my
immediately present state of feeling. I judge what just was
my feeling, and feel what may straightway become an ob-
ject for my judgment.
Enough ; I shall never thus define in any precise way
who I am. It is here I who ceaselessly fly from myself.
My moments as such have no power to define in any sharp
fashion their own content. I can therefore only say they
must actually have such fleeting content as a perfectly clear
and just Reflection would judge them to have. That alone
is what I seem to be sure of. For they have some content
What it is, however, I can endlessly inquire; but I can
never fully and at the same time immediately know. Un-
less I am an organic part of a Self that can reflect with jus-
tice and clearness upon the contents of my moments, these
moments contain a great deal that exists in me, but for
nobody. So much, then, for the first result of our inquiry.
154 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
So much for the effort to define the " Ego " apart from the
" external world."
Have I learned anything about myself by this weary
and baffling process of reflection ? Yes, one thing I have
learned. It is the thing that I just stated. It is a difference
which I inevitably find myself making between myself as I
really am, and myself as I haltingly take myself to be from
moment to moment. I am twofold. I have a true Self
which endlessly escapes my observation, and a seeking self
which as endlessly pursues its fellow. What I really am,
even in any given moment, I never find out in that moment
itself. I can, therefore, only define my true Self in terms
of an ideally just reflection upon the contents of my mo-
ment; a reflection of an exhaustive character, such as in
fact I in my momentary capacity never succeed in making.
I must exist, to be sure, for myself ; and as I really am I
must exist for myself only. With that consideration one
begins in our present inquiry. It is reflection that is to find
me. It is my consciousness that is to discover me, if I am
ever to be discovered. But the Self for whom I am what I
am is not the self of this moment, but is thus far an ideal
Self, never present in any one moment. To repeat, then, by
way of summary : The Self is never merely the self of this
moment, since the self of this moment never fully knows
who he even now is. It is of his very essence to appeal be-
yond the moment to a justly reflective Self who shall dis-
cover and so reflectively determine who he is, and so who I
am. For I am he.
in.
Another way of stating the foregoing result would, there-
fore, be to say that, unless I am more than the knowing
and the immediately known self of this moment, I am not
even as much as the self of this moment. For this moment
implies more consciousness than I am now fully aware of.
That which is just now in me to be known is far more than
IMPLICATIONS OP SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 155
I just now know. That is the paradox, but it is also the in-
evitable fact, of my inner life ; and thus I already begin to
see how large may be the implications of self -consciousness.
But herewith our task is by no means done. We have
studied the problem of the Ego viewed apart from a world
of " external objects." What we have learned is, that the
subject of the cogito ergo sum is in the beginning, strange
to say, at once the best and the least known of the posses-
sions of our knowledge. I cannot doubt its existence. But
I am not yet aware how much of a self it is, nor how much
it truly knows, nor whether it is or is not limited to a single
series of moments of consciousness and reflection, nor how
it stands related to any sort of inner or outer truth. Those
who have begun philosophy by saying, " The self at least is
known," have usually forgotten that the self as known is at
the outset neither the empirical Ego of the world of com-
mon sense, nor yet merely the so-called "self of the one
present moment" It is not the first, because philosophy
has not yet at the outset come to comprehend the world of
common sense. It is not the second, for the consciousness
of the " present moment " can only be defined in relation to
a reflection that transcends the present moment ; whilst, on
the other hand, no human reflection has ever yet fathomed
perfectly the consciousness of even a single one of our mo-
ments. The self, then, is not yet known to us except as the
problematic truth exemplified by the still so mysterious fact
of the cogito itself. Much less then is the relation of the
Ego to outer objects as yet clear.
To this latter relation we must, however, next turn. Per-
haps there we shall get a light which is refused to us so
long as we confine ourselves to a merely subjective analysis
of the inner life of this baffling Ego. The self undertakes
to be not merely conscious of its own states, but of outer
truth. Is its power in this respect indubitable ? And if it
is, upon what is founded our assurance that we do know a
156 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
world of real objects outside the Ego ? Possibly in getting
a solution of this problem we shall come nearer to a true
definition of the Ego itself.
The only way of answering the question about the exter-
nal world lies in first asking, in a thoroughly reflective way,
what is meant by a world of objects beyond the Ego. It is
useless to try to find the philosophical evidence for the ex-
istence of a world of outer objects, unless you first define
what an object beyond your consciousness is to mean for
you. Amongst the numerous definitions of the meaning of
the words external object, I may therefore choose three,
which seem to me of most importance for our present pur-
pose, and may consider each in its turn. The third will be
my own.
1. " The term outer object means for me the known or
unknown cause of my experiences, in so far as I do not refer
these experiences to my own will " such is a very common
account of the nature of the external truth for the Ego. I
need not expound this view at great length, since it is so
familiar a notion. According to those who hold to this defi-
nition, it is somehow perfectly evident to me that my expe-
riences need a cause, and that I myself am not the cause of
all or of most of them. The Ego itself is thus definable as
that which is conscious of more experiences than it causes,
and which therefore looks beyond itself for the causes of
most of these experiences. An "external object" means
just such a cause, known or unknown.
It is strange that this, the most familiar definition of the
nature and meaning of the word "object," should be the
most obviously inadequate. In case of my perception of a
house, or of a hot iron when I touch it, or of a wind in my
face, I do indeed conceive myself as in relation to an object
which is causing experiences in me. But most of the exter-
nal truth that I usually think about and believe in is not
truth now perceived by my senses, nor, as I think it, is it
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 157
now in any causal relations to me at all. I at present be-
lieve in it because I " trust the validity of memory," or
"have confidence in the testimony of mankind," or follow
some other such well-known criterion of common-sense
opinion. When I read my daily newspaper, light-waves
are causing retinal disturbances in my eye ; but as for me, I
am thinking, not about these causes of my experience, but
about the news from Europe, about the Russian famine,
about the next Presidential canvass, and about other such
" external objects," all of which objects I believe in, not be-
cause I reflect that my present experiences need causes, but
because I trust tradition, or "current opinion," or the "con-
sensus of mankind," or my own memory, or whatever else I
am accustomed to trust. Only in the case where I attend to
immediate perception, is the object of my belief at the same
time the cause of my belief. Our " belief in the reality of
an external world " is concretely definable, then, much more
frequently as our belief in the validity of our memories and
social traditions, than as our belief that our experiences
have present causes. We all of us believe in the future of
this external world of ours. There will come the time
called ten years hence, or a million years hence. Something
will be happening then among the things of the physical
universe. That future event is an "external reality"; we
all accept it as real, however little we know of it. But is it
for us a " cause " of our present experiences ? We are sure
that such an event will come. Does that future event now
" cause impressions " in us ?
Yet more, were "my object" once defined as that x
which causes my inner experience, my feeling, /, then one
would still have to ask. What do I mean by causation ?
Causation is a relation between facts. I must myself have
some inner idea of such a relation before I can attribute to
the outer object the character of being a cause. By hy-
pothesis, ar, the object, is outside me. Its causal relation to
158 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
my feeling is therefore also, in part at least, external to me.
To believe in my object, x, as the cause of my feeling, /, I
must therefore first believe that my notion of causation, de-
rived from some inner experience of mine (e. g., from my
own consciousness of my " will " or from my exercise of
" power "), does itself correspond to an objective truth be-
yond me, namely, the outer causation of x, as bringing to
pass /. In other words, I make x my object, if all this ac-
count is true, only through first holding that the inner
experience of a relation, called " causation " in me, corre-
sponds to an outer truth, namely, the external causation,
whose validity is needed to give me an idea of the very ex-
istence of x.
But this means that there is here at least one external
truth, and so one " object " (viz. : the external fact of the
causation itself), which I believe in, not because it is itself
the cause of my idea of the causation, but because I trust
that my idea of causation is valid, and corresponds to the
truth. And it is only by first believing in this objective
truth, viz., the causation, that I come to believe in x the
cause.
Hence it follows that even in case of immediate sense-
perception, my belief in the external object is always pri-
marily not so much a belief that my experiences need causes,
as an assurance that certain inner beliefs of mine are as
such, valid, i. e., that they correspond with that which is be-
yond them.
2. " By object, then, I mean that which, beyond me, re-
duplicates, repeats, corresponds to, certain elements or re>
lations of my own ideas." To this definition the foregoing
one, as we have now seen, must lead us, when once properly
understood, and when freed from the inadequacies thus far
noted.
Here is a definition of what I mean by " outer object "
a definition which is far more true to the facts of conscious-
IMPLICATIONS OP SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 159
ness than was the foregoing. My belief in such external
objects as the space beyond Sirius, or the time before the
solar system was formed out of the primitive nebula, or in
the existence of Caesar, or in the presence of monasteries in
Thibet, or even in the things that I read about in the news-
papers, or learn of daily in conversation my belief too in
your existence, kind reader all such beliefs are assurances
that subjective combinations of ideas have their correspond-
ents beyond my private consciousness. So far then this
definition appears adequate. And yet it is really not enough.
For this is not all that I mean by an outer object of my
thought. It is not enough that beyond my thoughts there
should be truths whose inner constitution and relationships
resemble those of my thought For the world of my own
external objects is not merely a world which my thought
does resemble, but a world which my thought, even as it is
in me, intends to resemble. Here I cannot do better for my
present purpose than to repeat language that I have used
in the Spirit of Modern Philosophy, p. 370. " My object,"
so I had just been saying, " is surely always the thing that
lam thinking about. And," as I continued, " this thinking
about things is, after all, a very curious relation in which to
stand to things. In order to think about a thing, it is not
enough that I should have an idea in me that merely re-
sembles that thing. This last is a very important observa-
tion. I repeat it is not enough that I should merely have an
idea in me that resembles the thing whereof I think. I have,
for instance, in me the idea of a pain. Another man has
a pain just like mine. Say we both have toothache, or
have both burned our finger-tips in the same way. Now
in y idea of pain is just like the pain in him, but I am not
mi that account necessarily thinking about his pain, merely
because what I am thinking about, namely my own pain,
resembles his pain. No, to think about an object you must
not merely have an idea that resembles the object, but you
12
160 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
must mean to have your idea resemble that object. Stated
in other form, to think of an object you must consciously
aim at that object, you must pick out that object, you
must already in some measure possess that object enough,
namely, to identify it as what you mean."
If this be what is meant by the relation of a self to an
outer object, then the relation surely becomes, once more,
highly problematic. Unless, namely, the self in question
has already its own conscious idea of its object, it cannot
formulate its belief in this object. But just in so far as it
has its own conscious ideas of the object, the Ego under con-
sideration would seem to possess only inner knowledge. It
defines for itself the object of its belief. The definition is
internal. The self appears as if cut off from the object. Its
ideas shall be " its own." The object, as it seems, is beyond
them. The only relation that can exist is so far correspond-
ence. But, alas ! this relation is not enough. Another rela-
tion is needed. If the self in question is actually thinking
of the object, it is already meaning to transcend its own ideas
even while it is apparently confined to its ideas. And it is
actually meaning, not self-transcendence in general, but just
such self -transcendence as does actually bring it into a genu-
ine and objective relation to the particular object with
which it means to have its ideas agree. Am I really think-
ing of the moon ? then I not only have ideas that resem-
ble the objective constitution of the moon, but I am actually
trying to get my ideas into such correspondence with an ex-
ternal truth called the moon. In other words, whether I
succeed or not in thinking rightly of the moon, still, if I am
thinking of the moon at all, my thought does transcend my
private experience in a fashion which no mere similarity or
correspondence between my ideas and other realities can ex-
press. The true relation of thought and object needs an-
other formulation.
Shall we attempt such a formulation ? In so far as I am
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSXESS. Id
fully conscious of my meaning, in any thinking of mine, I
am confined to my private ideas. But in so far as I am to
be in any relation to an object, I must really be meaning
that object without being, in my private capacity, fully con-
scious that I am thus really meaning just this object. At
the moment of my thought of the object, I am conscious only
that I am meaning my ideas to be not merely mine, but
actually related to some object beyond. Am I, however,
actually thus related to a particular outer object, then my
present consciousness of my meaning is so related to that
which is truly, although at present unconsciously, my mean-
ing, that, were I to become fully conscious of my meaning,
the object would no longer be external to my thought, but
would be at once recognized as the object that I all along
had meant, and would be included in my now more com-
pletely conscious thought. Complex as is this formula, it is
needed for the sake of expressing the facts.
In other words, the only way in which I can really
mean an object that is now beyond me is by actually stand-
ing to that object in the relation in which I often stand to
a forgotten or half-forgotten name when I seek it, or to
the implied meaning of a simple and at first sight obvious-
ly comprehensible statement, when, as in studying formal
logic, I have to reflect carefully before I discover this
meaning. And thus we are led to the following formu-
lation of our own definition of the phrase " my object."
3. " My object is that which I even now mean by my
thoughts, although, in so far as the object is beyond my
private conscious thought, I cannot at present be fully
<< >nsrious of this my relation to it Yet the relation, al-
though just now to me unconscious, must in such wise ex-
ist, that a true reflection upon my own meaning would even
now recognize the object as actually meant by me. Such a
reflection would, however, be an enlargement of my own
present thought, a discovery of my own truer self, a con-
1C2 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
sciousness of what is now latent in my consciousness. On
the other hand, as a consciousness of my meaning, if com-
plete, could still contain only thoughts, my object, as my
object, must even now be a thought of mine, only a thought
of which I am not now, in my private capacity, fully aware.
In other words, my world of objects, if it exists, is that
which my complete self would recognize as the totality of
my thoughts brought to a full consciousness of their own
meaning."
To sum up both aspects of the foregoing argument,
whether you consider your inner life or your supposed re-
lation to a world of objects external to yourself, you find
that, in order to be either the self of " this moment," or the
being who thinks about " this world of objects," you must
be organically related to a true and complete reflective
Person whom your finite consciousness logically implies,
fragmentary and ignorant though this consciousness of
yours is.
Thus, then, the essential nature of our idealistic view of
reality begins to come into sight. I know not directly
through my finite experience who I am, or how much of a
personality I truly possess. If, however, I am really a self
at all, as even my fragmentary finite self-consciousness im-
plies, then my true Self is aware of its own content and of
its own meaning. If directly I cannot through finite ex-
perience exhaustively know my own nature, I can examine
the logical implications of my imperfect selfhood. And
this content and this meaning, which, as I find, are logically
implied by even my finite selfhood, must include my whole
" world of objects," as well as the whole truth of my inner
life. If, then, this analysis of the concept of Personality be
sound, there is logically possible but one existent Person,
namely, the one complete Self.
Yet perchance to the foregoing argument an answer may
be suggested that will seem to some readers, at first sight.
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 163
conclusive. This idealism, it will be said, is, after all, un-
able to give any notion of the extent, or of the content, or
of the magnitude, of this world of the complete Self. What
is proved is at best this, that if my thought is truly re-
lated to objects outside of my finite consciousness, then in
so far as this relation exists, that is, in so far as I truly
think of these objects, they are in themselves objects pos-
sessed by my true or complete Self, whereof this finite con-
sciousness is only an aspect or organic element. But per-
haps the assumption that I ever think of objects beyond
my finite self is itself an error. How, at all events, can I
ever do more than postulate, or hope, or believe, that it is no
error ? How can the way to an objective knowledge of the
objective relations of my finite thought ever be opened to
me ? How can I ever transcend my finitude, to know that I
am really thinking of objects beyond, or that I am im-
plicitly meaning them ?
It is at this point that the argument concerning the
" Possibility of Error," as I developed it in my chapter so
entitled, in the Religious Aspect of Philosophy, becomes
immediately important to the present discussion. If, name-
ly, in my finitude, I am actually never meaning any object-
ive truth beyond my finite selfhood, even when I most sup-
pose myself to be meaning such truth, then one must accept
the only alternative. I must, then, be really in error when
I suppose myself to be referring, in my thoughts, to outer
objects. The objective truth about my finite consciousness
must then be, that I never really refer to any objective
truth at all, but am confined, in a sort of Protagorean
fashion, to the world of the subjective inner life as such.
I think, let us say, of the universe, of infinite space and
time, of God, of an opposing philosophical doctrine con-
cerning these things, of absolute truth, of the complete
S-lf as he is in himself, or of what you will. Well, these
are all, it may be supposed, subjective ideas of my finite
164 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
self. It may be an error to regard them as more. No ob-
jects outside my finitude correspond to them. I do not
really mean any outer truth by them. I only fancy that I
mean outer truth by them. Could I clearly reflect on what
I mean by these objects, I should see this illusion, this error,
of supposing that I really have in mind outer objects. So
our sceptical objector may respond to all the foregoing
considerations.
But, once more, if this be true of any of my ideas, if my
intent to mean outer truth by them is itself an illusion,
then under what conditions, and under what only, is such
an error, such an illusion, possible ? I err about any specific
object only if, meaning to tell the truth about that object,
I am now in such a relation to it that my thought fails to
conform to the object meant. I cannot be in error about
any object, unless I am meaning that object. If, then, when
I think of infinite time, or of infinite space, or of the uni-
verse in general, or of the absolute truth, I err in supposing
that there is beyond my finite self an object corresponding
to any of these notions of mine, then my error can only lie
in this : that whereas my finite self means to mean outer
objects, my true Self, possessing a clear insight into what
truth really exists beyond my finite self, completing the
imperfect insight of my finitude, discovers that what I take
to be an outer object is only an idea of mine, and that in
the world of the complete insight there exists nothing cor-
responding to my intended meaning. But thus, after all,
we surely change not the essential situation which my finite
self must really occupy. For still, whatever its errors, my
finite self is an organic element in the correcting insight
of the true Self. My notions of time and of space, of truth
and of the universe, may be as imperfect, in all specific re-
spects, as you please. Only, in so far as they are erroneous,
the complete Self, having possession of the complete truth,
corrects them. And even if I do not mean to mean an
IMPLICATIONS OP SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 165
outer truth at any one moment when I imagine myself to
be in relation to such truth, even then, this paradoxical
situation can only be the objective, the genuine situation,
in which my finite consciousness stands, in case my truly
reflective Self detects the meaninglessness of my finite point
of view in just this case. For, in the case as thus supposed,
I am still defined as objectively in error, just in so far as
what I mean to mean, namely, some particular kind of outer
truth, is, from the point of view of the Self that knows my
objectively true relations, not in correspondence with what
I really mean.
Or, again, to put the case once more in concrete form : I
am trying to think of an outer object. I conceive of that
object as existent. But I am supposed to be in error. I
care not what the supposed outer object shall be infinite
time or infinite space, or any other form of being. If I
am in error, then, even now, unknown to my finite self, the
objective situation is this, namely, that the world of truth
as I should know it if I came to complete self-conscious-
ness, that is, to complete awareness of what I have a right
to mean, would not contain this my finite object, but would
contain truth such as obviously excluded that object. In any
case, then, we cannot escape from one assertion, namely,
the assertion upon which the very " possibility of error "
itself is based. This is the assertion that there is, even now,
the existent truth, and that this exists as the object of my
completely reflective Self.
But, finally, does one still object that the completely
reflective Self, the possessor of my complete meaning, and
of its genuine objects, the Self aware of the world of
truth in its entirety, is still, after all, definable only as a
possible, not as an actual, Self, namely, as the possible pos-
sessor of what I should know if I came to complete self-
consciousness, and not as the present actual possessor of a
concrete fullness of conscious insight ? Then we must re-
166 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
ply that the whole foregoing argument involves at every
step the obvious reflection that, if at present a certain situ-
ation exists, which logically implies, even as it now stands,
a possible experience, which would become mine if ever I
came to complete self-consciousness, then the possibility
thus involved is ipso facto no bare or empty possibility,
but is a present and concrete truth, not, indeed, for me in
my finite capacity, but for one who knows the truth as it is.
Idealism is everywhere based upon the assertion that bare
possibilities are as good as unrealities, and that genuine pos-
sibilities imply genuine realities at the basis of them. A
merely possible pain, which nobody actually either feels or
knows, is nothing. Yet more, then, is a merely possible
reflection, which nobody makes, an unreality. But the
foregoing argument has been throughout devoted to prov-
ing that the finite consciousness implies the present truth of
an exhaustively complete and reflective self-consciousness
which I, indeed, so far as I am merely finite, never attain,
but which must be attained, just in so far as the truth is
even now true.
IV.
Mere outlines are always unsatisfactory. The foregoing
argument has been merely a suggestion. There has been
no space to answer numerous other objections which I have
all the while borne in mind, or to carry out numerous analy-
ses which the argument has brought more or less clearly
into sight. My effort has been to make a beginning, and to
lead this or that metaphysically disposed fellow-student to
look further, if he finds himself attracted by a train of
thought to which the whole of modern philosophy seems to
me to lead.
Such, at all events, is the path of philosophical idealism.
What, now, is the goal ? What definition of the complete
Self does one thus, in the end, get ? I have elsewhere used
the tentative definition : " The Self who knows in unity all
IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 167
truth." I have accordingly laid stress upon this character
of the divine World-Self as a Thinker, and have labored to
distinguish between this his fullness of Being, as idealism is
obliged to define it, and those customary notions which de-
fine God first of all in "dynamic," rather than in explicitly
rational terms, and which, to preserve his almighty power
as the director of Nature, and his exalted separateness from
our weakness in so far as He is to be our moral Judge, find
it necessary, first of all, to make Him other than his world
of truth, and only in the second place to endow Him with a
wisdom adequate to the magnitude of his " dynamic " busi-
ness. All such opposed definitions I find, indeed, hopelessly
defective. But in insisting upon thought as the first cate-
gory of the divine Person, I myself am not at all minded
to lose sight of the permanent, although, in the order of
logical dependence, secondary, significance of the moral
categories, or of their eternal place in the world of the
completed Self. That they are thus logically secondary
does not prevent them from being, in the order of spiritual
worth and dignity, supreme. That evil is a real thing, that
free-will has a genuine existence in this world of the Self,
that we beings who live in time have ourselves a very
" dynamic " business to do, that the perfection of the Self
does not exclude, but rather demands, the genuineness and
the utter baseness of deliberate evil-doing in our finite
moral order, and that Idealism not only must face the prob-
lems of evil and of moral choice, but as a fact, is in posses-
sion of the only possible rational solution for these problems
all these things I have tried elsewhere to show in a fash-
ion which, as I hope, if not satisfactory, is at least sufficient-
ly explicit to make clear to a careful reader that the God of
the Idealist is at any rate no merely indifferent onlooker
upon this our temporal world of warfare and dust and blood
and sin and glory. To my mind, one of the most significant
facts in the world is furnished by the thought that all this
168 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
is, indeed, his fully comprehended world, and that if these
dark and solemn things which cloud our finite lives with
problems are in and of the universe of the crystal-clear Self,
then, whatever the tragedy of our finitude, our problems
are in themselves solved ; while, as for our own personal
destinies, they are, after all, and at the worst, part of his
self-chosen destiny. For, as I have elsewhere explained, an
absolute Reason does not exclude, but rather implies, an ab-
solute choice ; while such a choice does not exclude, but of
necessity implies, as it includes, a finite and personal free-
dom in us. That this our moral and individual freedom be-
longs, after the fashion first indicated by Kant, not to the
temporal order of our daily phenomenal world, in so far as
it is merely temporal and phenomenal, but to a higher
order, whereof we are a part, and not unconsciously a part
all this does not militate either against the true unity of
the Self, or against the genuineness of the moral order.
Every being who is rationally conscious of time, is, by that
very fact, living in part out of the world of time. For what
we know we transcend. To live in time by virtue of one's
physical nature, but out of time by virtue of one's very con-
sciousness of time itself, is to share in the eternal freedom,
and to be a moral agent.
VII.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANOMALIES
OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS*
IN the present paper I shall venture to lay some stress
upon certain familiar factors whose psychological influence
upon the growth and the anomalies of self-consciousness,
both in normal and in abnormal human beings, seems to
me to have been, from the purely theoretical point of view,
rather unduly neglected. In particular, I shall try to indi-
cate how these theoretically neglected factors may help to
explain certain well known types of variation, and of abnor-
mality, to which the functions of self -consciousness, as they
empirically appear, are subject. Meanwhile I shall of
course avoid, in this paper, any positive reference to the
distinctively metaphysical problems which the word self-
consciousness easily suggests. The philosophical aspects of
the problem of self-consciousness belong altogether else-
where. Starting this evening with the mere empirical fact
that any normal man has, as part of his mental equipment,
conscious states and functions that involve, in one way or
another, his experience, his knowledge, his estimate, or, in
general terms, his view, of himself, and remembering that,
in many defective and disordered people, these, the func-
tions of individual self-consciousness, undergo changes of a
manifold and interesting sort, I shall try to illustrate
* A paper read before the Metlico- Psychological Association of Boston,
March 21, 189$.
189
170 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
aspects of the purely psychological theory of our topic. I
speak to practical men, who are also men of science. I need
make then no apology for introducing here a problem,
which, whatever its difficulty, is full both of scientifically
attractive, and of practically important elements. For
surely the alterations and defects of the functions of self-
consciousness are among the most frequent phenomena in
the region of mental pathology.
In its inner aspects and relations, what we mean by self-
consciousness, in any one man, is an enormously complex
function or rather a little world of functions. But this
world of functions is centred about certain well known
habits and experiences which at once serve, not to explain
it, but in a measure to begin for us the definition of our
problem. There are, namely, in any mature person, certain
established motor habits, which, according as they appear
to be intact or not, enable us at once to test, from without,
the relative normality of whatever belongs to that which
one may call the mere routine of an individual's self-con-
sciousness. There are also certain inner experiences, in
terms of which the normal individual himself, from mo-
ment to moment, can feel assured of the apparent natural-
ness of his own notion or estimate of himself. A mature
man whose self-consciousness is normal, if his means of ex-
pressing himself are intact, must be able to explain " who
he is," i. e., he must be able to tell his name, his business,
his general relations in life, and whatever else would be
essential to the practical purpose of identifying him. Fur-
thermore, his account of himself must be able to show an
estimate by no means adequate or infallible, but at least not
too widely absurd, of his actual degree of social dignity, of
his personal importance and of his physical capacity. He
will, to be sure, quite normally estimate his value, his
ANOMALIES OP SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 171
prowess, or even his social rank, not, in general, precisely
as his fellows do. But this sort of estimate has its normal,
if rather wide, limits of error. If these limits are passed,
the man's account of himself proves the presence of a de-
rangement of self -consciousness. Finally, as to this account
which the normal man can give of himself, he must show a
certain degree of correctness as to what he can tell us of his
body and of its present state. Here, of course, the limits of
error are very wide, but are still pretty definite. A man is
normally a very poor judge of his internal bodily states.
But if he says he is made of glass, or that he is aware that
lie is a mile high, or that he is conscious of having no body
at all, we recognize a disorder involving alterations of self-
consciousness.
Within his own mind, meanwhile, and from his own
point of view, a man normally self-conscious is more or less
aware of a great deal about himself of which, it is notorious-
ly hard for him to give any exact account whatever. Yet this
internally normal self-consciousness has, at any time, a defin-
itive, if not easily definable content, which, in its relative-
ly inexpressible complexity of constitution, far transcends
what one expresses when he tells you his name, his place in
life, his status, or his notion of his bodily condition. This
normal inner self -consciousness involves, in the first place,
what we are now accustomed to call, from a psychological
point of view, masses of somewhat vaguely localized bodily
sensations, which, just in so far as they affect our general
consciousness, are not sharply differentiated from one
another. The origin of these sensations lies in the skin,
in the muscles, and, in part, in the viscera. Moreover, the
visual perception of the body, the auditory experiences of
the sound of one's own voice, and yet other sensory con-
tnits. including the more general sensations of bodily
movement, obviously determine, now more, and now less,
the content or the coloring of normal self-consciousness. If
172 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
any of these masses of sensory contents are suddenly altered,
our immediate self-consciousness may be much changed
thereby. Dizziness, sensations of oppression in the head, a
general sense of bodily ill-being, a flushed face, a ringing in
the ears any of these may involve what we primarily take
to be a general alteration of our feeling of self, and only
secondarily distinguish from the self as a separate and local-
ized group of experiences. In general, the more sharply
we localize our sensations, and the more we refer them to
external objects, the less do these sensory experiences blend
into our total immediate feeling of ourselves. The localized
or objectified sensory state appears as something foreign, as
coming to us, as besetting us, or as otherwise affecting us,
but not as being a part of the self ; and only a relatively
philosophical reflection regards even our perceptions as part
of ourselves. Our more naive self-consciousness tends to
regard the sensory or immediate self as a vague whole,
from which one separates one's definite experiences of this
place on the skin, of this color or tone, or of this outer
object.
Yet our inner notion of the self of self-consciousness
is by no means confined to this cruder appreciation of mas-
sive sensory contents. In addition, our normal mature
awareness of who and what we are means what one may
call a collection of feelings of inner control, of self-posses-
sion, or, as many would say, of spontaneity. If such feelings
begin to be altered or lost, one complains of confusion, of a
sense of self-estrangement, of helplessness, of deadness, of
mental automatism, or of a divided personality. As a fact,
since the associative processes always depend upon condi-
tions of which we are not conscious, our sense that we can
and do rule our whole current train of conscious states is, as
it is ordinarily felt, a fallacious sense. But if we cannot
really predetermine, in consciousness, what idea shall next
come to consciousness, but are dependent, even in the clear-
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 173
est thinking, upon the happy support of our associative
mechanism, it is still normal to feel as if, on the whole, our
inner process were, in certain respects, relatively spontane-
ous, i. e., as if it were controlled by our ruling interests and
by our volition. This sense of inner self-possession is, to be
sure, an extremely delicate and unstable affair, and is con-
stantly interfered with, in the most normal life, not only by
a series of uncontrollable sensory novelties, due to the ex-
ternal world, but by baffling variations, either in the play of
our impulses and ideal associations, or in the tone of our
emotions, or in both. Yet, when we are alert, these little
interferences continually arise only to be subordinated. We
have perhaps momentary difficulties in recalling names or
other needed ideas, of an imperfectly learned group, or we
feel equally momentary indecisions as to what it is just now
best to do, or we find our attention wandering, or our emo-
tional tone disagreeably insistent, or our impulses numerous
and wayward. But in all such cases we can still, in the
normal case, " keep hold of ourselves," so that we accept as
our own whatever content triumphs in the play of associative
processes, and find our essential expectations met, from mo-
ment to moment, by the inner experiences which form the
centre of the mental field of vision. If this rule no longer
holds of our inner life, then our self -consciousness begins
to vary, and we suffer from confusion or from other forms
of the sense of lost inner control.
Thus the self of ordinary self-consciousness appears at
once as a relatively stable group of unlocalized sensory con-
tents or contents of feeling, and as the apparent controller
of the train of associated ideas, impulses, and acts of atten-
tion or of choice. Of course these two aspects of the self
are closely related. It is the associative potency of the
ruling feelings and interests that most secures the fact and
the sense of inner self-control. But meanwhile the self also
jeenis, or may seem, to its possessor, much larger than any
174: STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
group of facts or of functions now present One notoriously
regards the present self as only the representative of a self
which has been present, in the remembered past of our lives,
and which will be present in the expected future to which
we look forward. Nor does self-consciousness usually cease
with this view. The characters, attributes, functions, or
other organic constituents of the self commonly extend, from
our own point of view, decidedly beyond anything that can
be directly presented in any series of our isolated inner ex-
periences, however extended. When one is vain, one's self-
consciousness involves the notion that one's self really ex-
ists, in some way or other, for the thoughts and estimates of
others, and is at least worthy, if not the possessor, of their
praise or of their envy. When one feels guilty, one does
not and cannot abstract from the conceived presence of one's
self in and for the experience of a real or ideal judge of
one's guilt. In all such cases the self of self -consciousness
thus appears as something that it would not and could not
be were there not others in the world to behold, or to esti-
mate it, to be led or otherwise influenced by it, or to appeal
to it. It is now from such points of view that the self of
self-consciousness comes, in the end, to get form as a being
who takes himself to have a social position, an office, a pro-
fession in brief, a vast group of functions without which
the self would appear itself to be, relatively speaking, a mere
cipher, while these functions are at once regarded as organ-
ically joined to the self, and centered in it, and, neverthe-
less, are unintelligible unless one goes beyond one's private
consciousness, and takes account of the ideas and estimates
of other people.
Every normal man thus knows what it means to be a
person with a social position, or a dignity, or a place in the
world, or a character, a person vain of himself, or ashamed
of himself, or socially confident or timid about himself, or
otherwise disposed to view himself either as others setem to
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 175
view him, or as he fancies that they ought to view him, or
as he has faith that God views him. And such a view of
one's self cannot be satisfied with any group of inner facts,
however extensive, as containing within it the whole of
one's ego. This view conceives the office, calling, dignity,
worth, position, as at once a possession, or a real aspect, of
the self, and as a possession or an aspect that would vanish
from the world were not the self conceived as existing for
others besides itself, in other words, were not the self con-
ceived as having an exterior as well as interior form of ex-
istence.
The self of normal self-consciousness, then, is felt at any
moment as this relatively stable group of inner states ; it is
also felt or conceived as the supposed spontaneous controller
of the general or of the principal current of successive con-
scious states ; it is remembered or expected as the past or
future self, which is taken to be somehow more or less pre-
cisely the same as the present self ; and finally, it is viewed
as having a curious collection of exterior functions that in-
volve its actual value, potency, prowess, reputation, or office,
in its external social relations to other actual or ideal selves,
e. g., to its neighbors, to humanity at large, or, in case one's
faith extends so far, to God.
And, now, just as the immediate self of the mass of inner
sensations and feelings can vary, or just as the self of the
sense of self-control can be more or less pathologically
altered; so too the identical or persistent self of memory
can be confused, divided, or lost, in morbid conditions ; and
so too finally, the self of the social type of self -consciousness
is subject to very familiar forms of diseased variation. The
social self above all can come to be the object of a morbidly
depressed or exalted inner estimate. One's social prowess,
position, office and other relations, both to God and to man,
can be conceived in the most extravagantly false fashions.
And furthermore, as I wish at once to point out, the most
13
176 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
noteworthy alterations of self -consciousness, in insanities in-
volving delusions of suspicion, of persecution and of grand-
eur, appear upon their very surface as pathological variations
of the social aspect of self -consciousness. Note at once the
possible significance of this fact. However you explain de-
lusions of guilt, of suspicion, of persecution and of grandeur,
however much you refer their source to altered sensory or
emotional states, they stand before you, when once they are
well developed, as variations of the patient's habits of esti-
mating his relations to other selves. They involve, then,
maladies of the social consciousness. The theoretical sig-
nificance of this fact surely seems worthy of a closer con-
sideration than it customarily receives.
Since the psychologist, as such, can afford to be quite in-
different to the question whether any real being, to be called
an Ego, exists, or not, and since he is therefore still less in-
terested in the philosophical problem as to the forms of being
which a real Ego can possess, in case it exists I am here
very little concerned to answer one question which these
latest considerations may have already suggested to some of
you. I mean the question whether an Ego really can possess
that equivocal sort of exterior existence, outside of its own
train of conscious experience, which, as we have seen, the
social sort of self-consciousness seems to attribute to the self.
When I feel humble or exalted, abased or proud, guilty or
just, or when I say, " I am in this social office or position,"
I seem to myself as one whose actual nature and functions
include more facts than can ever be crowded into my own
consciousness. For unless I believe in my real relations to
my neighbors or to God, and conceive those relations as
somehow a part of myself, I should have no material out of
which to weave my notion of my rank, or my duties, and
of my external importance. But whether this idea of my-
self is defensible or not, from a philosophical point of view,
is far from us here. It is enough for us that a man common-
ANOMALIES OP SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 177
ly has just such a view as to his own nature, and that patho-
logical variations of such a view are familiar and important
phenomena.
. II.
In the foregoing sketch, I have been simply reporting
familiar psychological phenomena. That our human self-
consciousness involves all these various elements, is, one
may say, agreed. The problem is, how have all these ele-
ments come thus to hang together ? And so we next have
to attack the central problem just mentioned, i. e., we have
to ask, in a purely psychological sense : How does this elab-
orate mental product called self-consciousness get formed
out of these numerous elements and why, when once formed,
is it so variable, and, finally, why, when it varies, does it
vary in the directions so frequently reported ?
It is here that our theoretical knowledge is at present
so poor. The collection of observed facts is, to be sure, at
present, considerable. Readers of Ribot's book on the Dis-
eases of Personality know of the general types of varying
self-consciousness to which attention has been most at-
tracted. Loss of the sense of personality ; or again, the
delusion that one is dead, or is lost, or is an automaton ; or
the feeling or idea that there is a foreign or other self
within one; or the attribution of one's own thoughts, or
acts, to another and wholly external person or persons ; or
the alternation or the apparently actual multiplication of
one's own personality ; or the refusal to regard one's present
self as identical with one's past self : such are some of the
variations to which self-consciousness is subject, in addition
to the before-mentioned alterations of the obviously social
type of self-consciousness. But when we ask why any of
these alterations takes place, we have so far only one un-
questionable, but theoretically inadequate answer, viz. : In
all such cases there are alterations of the common sensibility,
or of the memory, or of both. Now one sees, without doubt,
178 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
that self-consciousness involves the common sensibility, in
the sense before indicated. One sees then that if this core
of normally stable, vaguely localized sensory conditions
and feelings gets altered, one's notion of one's self may also
naturally change. And, not to leave the limits of ordinary
experience, one knows and understands what it means to
say, when these central masses of feeling do more or less
change : " I feel queer ; I feel altered ; I am no longer quite
myself ; I am not my old self." By a little stretch of imag-
ination one can also understand such a delusion as " I am
made of glass," quite as well as one can understand any
other delusion. For here our dreams help us to see our way,
and we have only to suppose that a certain association of
ideas, whereby a partial anaesthesia gets interpreted, becomes
fixed, and exclusive, in order to see how the delusions as to
bodily condition or constitution, present in a measure in
all hypochondriacs, can assume such extreme forms. Just
so too the mere assertion " I am lost," or " I am dead," is, on
the face of it, just an insistent verbal statement, or at best
an inner judgment whose exclusive presence in conscious-
ness is due merely to morbid habit, and whose meaning or
logical consequences we often need not suppose the patient
to develop in any delusionally definite form at all. These
phenomena involve, where they are alone, or are segregated
from the rest of the patient's life, rather pathological sim-
plifications of the contents of consciousness, morbid associa-
tions of sensations with simple groups of words or of ideas,
than any other processes. So far, then, we see some light.
But now the case is otherwise when one says " There
are two of me," and proceeds actively to develop the conse-
quences of this inner variety of self. Here, to be sure, the
phenomena of dreams, and of the commoner forms of tran-
sient delirium, as in fevers, bring this sort of doubleness
within the remembered experience of very many persons ;
and familiar moral and poetical statements about the two
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 179
selves or more that dwell in one's breast, assimilate such
experiences to those of normal people. But one's conscious-
ness, in such cases, throws little direct light upon how the
phenomena arise. Sometimes, to be sure, in delirium their
basis is plainly hallucinatory, as when a fever patient sees
himself, in bodily presence, standing at a distance, or lying
in the bed. But even then one wishes for more light as to
the question whether and how such a tendency to patholog-
ical duplication has any natural foundation in the under-
stood habits of normal life. This problem seems even the
more insistent when one observes that the sense of the in-
wardly doubled personality often arises without any obvious
basis in hallucinations of the special senses. But in such
cases, our present theories often fall back again upon the
variations of the common sensibility. Yet here one fails to
see how any easily conceivable alteration in the contents of
the central core of the sensory self is by itself sufficient to
explain a tendency to apperceive that self as double. One
does not doubt the existence, in such cases, of an altered
common sensibility ; what one fails to follow is the link be-
tween such alteration, and the new habits, of judgment,
or of apperception, which tend to get formed upon this
basis.
But I do not wish to burden you with a mere enumera-
tion of problems, and I will not here further dwell upon the
inadequacies of the current theories of the factors of self-
consciousness, whether these theories lay stress upon the
common sensibility, or upon the memory, as the principal
factor in their explanations of the variations of the ego. It
is only necessary to show that, while both the common sen-
sibility and the memory are certainly largely concerned in
the constitution of the self, the problem of self-consciousness
is not thus to be fully solved. One must look to other fac-
tors as well. One has in fact only to remember that some
large alterations of the common sensibility seem to involve
180 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
very little change of self-consciousness at all, in order to see
how complex the problem is.
And now, as to the real problem itself, it is surely one
relating to the origin, to the nature and to the variations, of
a certain important collection of mental habits. What are
these habits ? How do they arise ? I insist, a mere catalogue
of the contents of self -consciousness helps us little, unless we
can interpret the facts in terms of the known laws of habit.
For a man is self-conscious in so far as he has formed habits
of regarding, remembering, estimating, and guiding himself.
And now whenever these habits are in play, they all of them,
as I must next insist, have a common and noteworthy char-
acter. If a man regards himself, as this individual Ego, he
always sets over against his Ego something else, viz. : some
particular object represented by a portion of his conscious
states, and known to him as his then present and interesting
non-Ego. This psychological non-Ego, represented in one's
conscious states, is of course very seldom the universe, or
anything in the least abstract. And, for the rest, it is a very
varying non-Ego. And now, it is very significant that our
mental habits are such that the Ego of which one is conscious
varies with the particular non-Ego that one then and there
consciously seems to encounter. If I am in a fight, my con-
sciously presented non-Ego is my idea of my opponent. Con-
sequently, I am then conscious of myself as of somebody
fighting him. If I am in love, my non-Ego is thought of as
my beloved, and my Self, however much the chord of it pre-
tends, trembling, to pass in music out of sight, is the Self of
my passion. If I strut about in fancied dignity, my non-Ego
is the world of people who, as I fondly hope, are admiring
me. Accordingly, I then exist, for myself, as the beheld of
all beholders, the model. If I sink in despair and self-abase-
ment, my non-Ego is the world of the conceived real or ideal
people whose imagined contempt interests, but overwhelms
me, and I exist for myself as the despised Ego, worthy of
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 181
their ill will. When I speak, my non-Ego is the person or
persons addressed, and my Ego is the speaker. If I sud-
denly note that, though I talk, nobody marks me, both the
non-Ego and my Ego dramatically change together in my
consciousness. These two contents of consciousness, then,
are psychologically linked. Alone, I am so far not myself.
My consciousness of my Ego is a consciousness colored by
my conceived relations to my endlessly changing conscious-
ness of a non-Ego. And notice, I speak here as little of any
metaphysically real non-Ego as I speak of any metaphysic-
ally real Ego. The whole question is here one of mental
states and of the actual habits of their grouping, not of rela-
tive, nor yet of real existences outside of consciousness. I
point out merely the fact that, according as one chances to
conceive thus or thus the non-Ego of his strongest current
interest, even so, on the other hand, he conceives his Ego
thus or thus, viz., as something related to this non-Ego, op-
posed to it, concerned in it, possessor of it, crushed by it,
desirous of winning it, or however the play of habit and of
interest makes the thing seem. Here, I think, lies the real
key to all the variations of Self-consciousness, whether their
conditions involve the common sensibility or not.
The psychological problem of self -consciousness reduces
itself, then, to the following form. One must ask : How has
one come to form all these habits of drawing a boundary, in
one's consciousness, between mental states that represent a
non-Ego, and mental states that clump themselves together
into the central object called the Ego ? One must also ask :
Whence comes all this material for variation, whereby the
content called the Ego shifts endlessly as the content called
the non-Ego alters ? And one must further inquire : How
do the constitution and the variations of the Ego get that
intimate relation to the sensations of the common sensibility
upon which we have laid stress from the start ?
Now to all these questions, as I hold, the recent study of
182 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
childhood has tended to suggest at least a plausible answer.
The substantial basis for the answer that I shall suggest has
been reached, pretty independently, by my friend Professor
Baldwin, of Princeton, and by myself. Professor Baldwin
has given to some aspects of the matter, so far as concerns
child life, a much fuller working out than I have done,
both in his earlier papers and in his recently published
book called Mental Development in the Child and the
Race. But the application of these theoretical considera-
tions to the study of the pathological variations of self -con-
sciousness in the present paper is, I think, new.
The early intellectual life of the child is lost to us in ob-
scurity, despite numerous recent observations. But we are
clear that the infant, in the first months of life, has nothing
that we should call self -consciousness. The first clear evi-
dence that we get of the presence of a form of self-conscious-
ness intelligible to us comes when the infant begins to be ob-
servantly imitative of the acts, and later of the words, of the
people about it. In other words, the first Ego of the child's
intelligible consciousness appears to be, in its own mind,
set over against a non-Ego that, to the child, is made up
of the perceived fascinating, and, to its feeling, more or less
significant, deeds of the persons in its environment. From
this time on, up to seven or eight years of age, any normal
child remains persistently, although perhaps very selective-
ly, imitative, of deeds, of habits, of games, of customs, and
often of highly ideal and perhaps quite imaginary models,
such as are suggested to it by fairy-stories and other such
material. As one follows the growth of these imitative tend-
encies, from their initial and quite literal stages, through
those stages of elaborate impersonation and of playful,
originally colored, often enormously insistent games, in
which the child follows all sorts of real and fantastic models,
one is struck by the fact that any normal child leads, rela-
tively speaking, two lives, one naive, intensely egoistic from
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 183
our point of view, but relatively free from any marked self-
consciousness in the child's own mind, while his other life is
the life in which he develops his conscious ideas and views
of himself as a person. The relatively naive life is the life
of his childish appetites and passions; the relatively self-
conscious life is the life of his imitations and dramatic im-
personations, of his poses and devices, of his games, and of
his proudly fantastic skill, and of the countless social habits
and attitudes that spring up from this source. The two lives
mingle and cross in all sorts of ways. But the child who
merely eats, cries, and enjoys his physical well-being, is not
just then self-conscious as is the child who plays horse, or
hero, or doctor, or who carefully tries to follow a model as he
draws, or to invent a trick as good as one that he has seen.
The latter child, however, is essentially imitative, first of
persons, then of ideas, then of the facts of the physical world
as such. But the former child is simply the creature of
natural impulses and passions, and would never come to
self-consciousness, in our sense, if his life were not gradu-
ally moulded by the elaborate habits which the imitative
child constantly introduces.
Now the psychological importance of imitation lies large-
ly in the fact, that in so far as a child imitates, he gets ideas
about the inner meaning or intent of the deeds that he imi-
tates, and so gets acquainted with what he early finds to be
the minds of other people. The child that repeats your
words, slowly learns what they mean. The child that uses
scissors, pencil, or other tools after you, learns, as he imi-
tates, what cutting means, and what drawing, or other such
doings. And as he thus learns, he gets presented to his own
consciousness contents, which he regards as standing for
those of your mind. The experienced interesting outcome
of an imitated deed, is for the child the obvious meaning of
that deed, for you, as you did it. But he does not get these
contents these glimpses of your meaning he does not get
184 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
them, at first, very easily. He gets them by persistently
watching you, listening to you, playing with you, trying to
be like you all activities that for him involve muscular sen-
sations, emotional concerns, and still other variations of his
common sensibility. These efforts of his to grasp your mean-
ing are marked and often delightful incidents of his con-
sciousness. He returns over and over to his favorite games
with you. He encounters every time your meaning, and
he sets over against it those experiences of his own doings,
whereby he comes to participate in your meaning. Here
now the child always has present to him two sets of contents,
both fascinating, each setting the other off sharply by con-
trast, while the contrast itself establishes the boundary be-
tween them. The first set of contents are his perceptions of
your deeds, and his representation of your discovered mean-
ing in these deeds. The second set of contents are his own
imitative acts themselves, as perceived by himself, these acts,
and his delights in them. The first set of contents depend
upon you. The child feels them to be uncontrollable. As
perceptions, and as representations, these contents do not
get closely linked to the child's common sensibility. They
stand off as external although welcome intruders. On the
other hand, the other set of contents, the child's own newly
discovered powers, due to his imitation, are closely centred
about his common sensibility, are accompanied with all the
feelings which make up the sense of control, and get remem-
bered, thenceforth, accordingly. The first set of contents
form the psychological non-Ego of this particular phase of
consciousness. The second set of contents form the psycho-
logical Ego corresponding thereto. One sees why the Ego-
part of this sort of consciousness includes the common
sensibility, and the sense of voluntary control, and why the
non-Ego here involves contents that are set off by the con-
trast as uncontrollable, and as not closely linked to the com-
mon sensibility. And it is in this contrast that the source
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 185
of true self-consciousness lies. We do not observe a given
group of mental contents as such, unless they are marked
off by contrast from other contents. One could have all the
common sensibility you please, and all the feelings of volun-
tary control, without ever coming to take note of this totality
of united or centralized mental contents as such, and as
clearly different from the rest of one's field of consciousness.
Even now we all of us tend to lose clear self-consciousness
so soon as we get absorbed in any activity, such as rowing,
hill-climbing, singing, whistling, looking about us at natural
scenery any activity I say, whose object does not, by the
sharp contrast between its own external meaning and our
efforts, call our attention to our specific relation to some non-
Ego. Yet in lonely rowing and hill-climbing the common
sensibility is as richly present as it is in many of our most
watchfully self-conscious states. On the other hand, when
I work hard to make my meaning clear to another man, or
to make out what he means, I am self-conscious, just in so far
as I contrast my idea of his ways and thoughts, with my own
effort to conform to his ways and thoughts. And just such
an effort, just such a contrast, seems to mediate the earliest
self-consciousness of the imitative child, and to secure the
tendency of the self to be built up about the common sen-
sibility, while the not self gets sundered therefrom. So then
one sees the rule : If one is keenly self-conscious, the com-
mon sensibility must be central. But, on the other hand,
one may have a rich common sensibility without any keen
self-consciousness. It is the contrast of Ego and non-Ego
that is essential to self -consciousness.
But of course the child's relations to the varying non-Ego
of consciousness do not remain merely imitative. When
once he has other minds in his world, the function whose
essence is the contrast between his conceptions of these
minds and his view of his own response to them, can take
as many forms as his natural instincts determine. His
186 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
naive life of appetites gets gradually infected by his con-
scious relations to other people. He wants good things,
and perhaps must feign affection or show politeness, or
invent some other social device, to get what he wants.
Here again is an activity depending upon and bringing to
light, the contrast between his own intention, and the con-
ceived or perceived personal traits and whims to which he
conforms his little skill. He learns to converse, and gets
a new form of the contrast between the sayings of others
(which he interprets by listening), and his own ideas and
meanings. He reaches the questioning age, and now he
systematically peers into the minds of others as into an
endlessly wealthy non Ego, in whose presence he is by
contrast self-conscious as an inquirer. Here, every time
one has the essential element of contrast upon which all
self-consciousness depends. Argument and quarreling later
involve similar contrasts. As to the external physical
world what the child shall most care for in that, is largely
determined for him by his social relations. Whatever habit
he has acquired by social imitation, he can, therefore, in the
end, apply to things as well as to persons. As a fact he is
notoriously often animistic, directly transferring social hab-
its to physical relations, and regarding things as alive. And
here again he becomes self-conscious, by contrasting his own
activities with the conceived natures and meanings of exter-
nal things. I do not at all suppose that the child regards
all natural things in an animistic way ; but I am of opinion,
for reasons which I have set forth elsewhere, that our whole
tendency to distinguish as sharply, as we all now do, be-
tween the self and the external physical world, is a second-
ary tendency, due in the child's case, to social influences.
It is language, it is the accounts that people give to us of
things, it is the socially acquired questioning habit it is such
things that extend the contrast between Ego and non-Ego,
at first mainly a social contrast, to the relations between
ANOMALIES OP SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 187
one's own mind and one's physical environment. Even
now, as I just pointed out, if we forget that nature is full
of thinkable mysteries, of meanings, of laws, of other ideal
contents whose significance we do not comprehend if we
forget this, and lapse into mere busy and absorbing physi-
cal experience, as when climbing hills alone, or rowing, or
cheerily whistling as we walk, we forget to be self-con-
scious, just because we lose sight of the sharper contrasts
of Ego and non-Ego.
ill.
But, to return to the explicitly social relations, there is
still another factor to note in our early relations to our con-
ceived social non-Ego. And this is the fact that, by our
instinctive mental constitution as moulded by our social
habits, we are early subject to a vast number of more or less
secondary emotions, each one of which involves large alter-
ations of the common sensibility, while all of these partic-
ular emotions arise under circumstances which make ex-
plicit the contrast between one's self, and one's idea of one's
fellow's mind. Such emotions we get as children when
people praise us, blame us, caress us, call us pet names, stare
at us, call us by name, ask us questions, and otherwise ap-
peal to us in noteworthy ways. Such emotions too we get
again, in novel forms, in youth, when the subtle coloring of
the emotions of sex begins to pervade our whole social life.
Such emotions are shame, love, anger, pride, delight in our
own bodily seeming as displayed before others, thrills of
social expectation, fears of appearing ill in the eyes of others.
Such emotions involve blushing, weeping, laughter, inner
glow, visceral sensations of the most various kinds, and
feelings of the instinctive muscular tensions related to our
countless expressive social deeds. These experiences are,
however, aroused by situations all of which essentially in-
volve the aforesaid contrast between our own ideas, wishes,
or meanings, and the conceived states of other minds.
188 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
Hence these emotional states associate themselves, as varia-
tions of the common sensibility, first, with social situations,
i. e., with cases where Ego and non-Ego are sharply con-
trasted ; and then especially with the Ego-member of the
relation of contrast. And so, altogether by the force of
habit, these emotions, which if primarily aroused would be
mere content, belonging neither to Ego nor to non-Ego,
come to be the specific emotions of self -consciousness, so
that now whenever we have just these emotions, from any
cause whatever, we are at once keenly self-conscious and
that merely because the emotions in question faintly or
keenly suggest particular social situations. Emotions that
have had no such constant relation to social situations, in-
volve no such marked states of self-consciousness. Fear of
physical dangers tends to diminish our self-consciousness ;
shame intensifies it. Yet keen physical fear, as the more
primitive emotion, involves vaster commotions of the com-
mon sensibility than does shame. Were then the marked
presence or variation of the common sensibility in conscious-
ness the sole and sufficient cause of the presence or of the
variation of one's immediate or sensory Ego, physical terror
would make one more self-conscious than does shame. But
panic fear, in its intensest conscious forms, involves rather
a destruction than a positive alteration of self -consciousness ;
while the most abject shame grows the more intensely self-
conscious as it gets the more marked. Why ? Because
shame, habitually associated only with social situations,
suggests them even where it is pathological and is not due
to them ; and so it brings to consciousness the contrast of
Ego and non-Ego.
Thus, then, it is that I propose to explain what the cur-
rent theories of self-consciousness usually seem unable to
deal with, viz., the before-mentioned fact that certain path-
ological variations of the common sensibility profoundly
alter the tone or constitution of a patient's self-conscious-
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. ISO
ness, while others, equally intimate and vast, either leave
self -consciousness relatively intact, or simply put it wholly
out of sight without first tampering with its integrity.
When a man has the colic he does not say, " My Ego is de-
ranged." His account of the case is far less metaphysical.
But when, as in the depression after the grippe, he has cer-
tain very much dimmer and more subtle alterations of the
common sensibility, he may complain of precisely such a
sense of alienation from himself. Why ? Well, as I should
say, the colic suggests no social situation ; the vague depres-
sion after the grippe may dimly suggest, by habit, situations
of social failure, or confusion, or powerlessness, such as,
from sensitive childhood until now, have played their part
in one's life. The suggestion may be very faint, and utterly
abstract. No particular failure, no special case of social
helplessness, comes to mind. But our nascent associations
can be present in all degrees of faintness ; and here I main-
tain are associations dimly involving social contrasts be-
tween Ego and non-Ego. Here, then, are conditions for the
function of self-consciousness.
Since the emotional alteration of the common sensibility
has thus the most various habitual relations, now with our
unsocial physical states as such, now with social activities,
one sees how it is possible for a nervous sufferer to say, on
one day, that he personally feels his very being wrecked,
and his self-hood lost or degraded, while on another day he
may simply declare that he suffers keenly, but regards the
affair as a mere physical infliction, external to his central
st'lf-hood. In the physical sufferings of sensitive women
this shifting of the enemy's ground from the region of the
physical or psychical pain felt as a mere brute fact, hateful
but still bearable, to the region where the sufferer complains
of an intolerable loss of self-possession, is notoriously a com-
mon and, to the sufferer herself, a puzzling incident. Both
times the common sensibility is deeply affected, often in
190 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
ways not subjectively localizable ; the difference, I think,
must be due to the nascent associations of the common sen-
sibility now with ideas of social situations, now with ideas of
unsocial bodily events. There are some chronic neurasthe-
nic sufferers who, despite headaches, spinal pains, and other
distorted sensations innumerable, preserve for years a mar-
vellous self-possession in face of their disorder ; very many
other such nervous sufferers, of the same general type, are
throughout self-consciously cowardly and abject. One can-
not assert that the latter class are more deranged in common
sensibility than are the former. But many a neurasthenic
man has really little to complain of, except the unspeakable
wretchedness of his deranged self-consciousness. How can
one explain such phenomena without resorting to the princi-
ples of habit and association ? The social habits, however,
of the type now defined, at once furnish a vera causa for the
interpretation of some sensory disturbances as alterations of
self-consciousness, while other disturbances, equally great
and vague, get interpreted by the sufferer as merely external
events. To be sure we cannot yet give an exhaustive classi-
fication of the variations of the common sensibility into
those closely associated with social situations, and those not
associated, or but slightly associated, yet the contrast of
physical fear and of shame has already shown us that such
a classification might, with care, be more or less worked out.
We know, for instance, that the sexually tinged emotions
normally have very complex social associations. Conse-
quently, we may expect to find self -consciousness especially
deranged in disorders involving the sexual functions. This
expectation seems to be abundantly verified, even in ordinary
cases of disorder, such as the teacher of youth may some-
times see as well as the doctor ; and if one wants more veri-
fication, one may get it at will from the monumental records
that fill Krafft-Ebing's too well-known and ghastly book.
On the other hand, a sufferer from the emotional states
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 191
accompanying ordinary physical exhaustion, or from some
forms even of grief, or from a severe cold that does not give
the form of depression now associated with the grip, or from
some forms of even violent headache, often wonders how
much pain and emotional alteration he can endure without
any proportionate alteration of self-consciousness. And
these states are precisely such forms of consciousness as
are not so closely associated with social situations. Finally,
the emotions connected with laughter furnish an almost per-
fect natural experiment for our purpose. There are three
principal sorts of laughter : the laughter of mere physical
gleefulness, such as appears much in children, less in adults ;
the laughter of scorn, and the laughter of the sense of hu-
mor. The first is not an especially self-conscious affair ; but
the laughter of scorn and of a sense of humor are both of
them always keenly self-conscious, involving what Hobbes
called "sudden glory in him that laugheth." The emo-
tions of the two latter types involve social situations, pres-
ent or suggested. I shall find no time to point out at any
length the application of the foregoing analysis to the study
of the associative alterations of the socially tinged self-con-
sciousness in true melancholia, in mania, or in the exalta-
tion of general paralysis. But the mention of such altera-
tion of the self brings us at once to the next and final stage
of our inquiry.
IV.
I have so far spoken of self-consciousness as it appears
in more or less explicitly social relations. But, one may
reply, " Are we not, at pleasure, self-conscious when we are
quite alone ? Does not one reflect, does not one judge one's
self ? Is lonely meditation free from self-consciousness ?
Is not conscience a self-conscious affair ? And yet in such
cases does one contrast an Ego with any literal non-Ego ?
In such processes is not the Ego explicitly related to just
the Ego, alone by itself ? And are there not, in the phe-
14
192 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
nomena of insanity, many alterations of this sort of purely
internal self -consciousness ? " I reply at once that my the-
ory is precisely that habits once acquired in social inter-
course can and do hold over when we are alone, and can
then apply within the content of one's own mind. The
transition is simple. First, I can dramatically remember
my actually past imitative deeds, my quarrels, my success-
ful social feats, my chagrins, my questionings, my criti-
cisms of others, and the bearings of others towards me. In
all such cases I am self-conscious over again in memory, by
virtue of our now familiar contrast-effect. Further, as just
seen, my emotions can vaguely suggest social situations
indefinite in character to any degree. By coalescence, a
vast group of social habits of judging others, and of feeling
myself judged by them, can get woven into a complex prod-
uct such as is now my conscience. Conscience is a well-
knit system of socially acquired habits of estimating acts a
system so constituted as to be easily aroused into conscious
presence by the coming of the idea of any hesitantly con-
ceived act. If conscience is aroused in the presence of such
a hesitant desire to act, one has, purely as a matter of social
habit, a disposition to have present both the tendency to the
action, and the disposition to judge it, standing to one an-
other in the now familiar relation of Ego and non-Ego.
"Which one of them appears as the Ego, which the non-Ego,
depends upon which most gets possession, in the field of
consciousness, of the common sensibility. If the tendency
to the estimated act is a passionate tendency, a vigorous
temptation, and if the conscientious judgment is a coldly
intellectual affair, then the situation dimly reminds me of
cases where other people, authoritative and dignified rather
than pleasing, have reproved my wishes. Conscience is then
the colder non-Ego, the voice of humanity, or of God. My
common sensibility merges with my passion. The reproof
perhaps shames me ; yet I want to have my way ; only that
ANOMALIES OF SELF-COXSCIOUSNESS. 193
other, that authoritative inner non-Ego, my conscience, will
not let me go free. But if, on the other hand, the conceived
act is less keenly desired, and if my conscientious plans are
just now either fervently enthusiastic or sternly resolute in
my mind, then it is my conscience which merges with my
common sensibility, and I myself am now, in presence of
the conceived act, as if judging another. I feel then secure
in my righteousness, and I look with disdain upon that
which would tempt me if I were weaker, but which now is
a mere non-Ego. It is in a similar fashion, by a dramatic
imitation not of actual, but of abstractly possible social rela-
tions, that I can question myself, and wait for an answer,
can reflect upon my own meaning, can admire myself, love
myself, hate myself, laugh at myself, in short do or suffer in
presence of my own states and processes whatever social life
has taught me to do or to suffer in presence of the states and
processes of others. In every such case the central Ego is so
much of my conscious process as tends more to merge with
the common sensibility. My inner, but more peripheral,
relative non-Ego is so much of my conscious process as
tends more to resemble, in interest, in general tone, or in
uncontrollable unexpectedness, the experiences which, in
ordinary social life, are due to other people. Yet since all
these inner contrasts are constantly corrected by my habits
of external perception and of memory, which remind me all
the while of a literal non-Ego outside of all these processes,
this inner sundering normally remains only, as Professor
L: idd has called it, dramatic a sort of metaphor, which I
can correct at pleasure, saying at any moment, "but all this
is merely Ego, after all. The real non-Ego is the world of
live other people yonder."
Thus the normal inner life of reflection, of conscience, of
meditation, and of the so-called "spiritual Ego" in general,
is simply, in us human beings, an imitation, a brief abstract
and epitome, of our literal social life. We have no habits of
STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
self -consciousness which are not derived from social habits,
counterparts thereof. Where the analogy of our relations
to our fellows ceases, reflection ceases also. And this is
precisely what constitutes the limitation of our reflective
processes in philosophy and in psychology.
But surely, if this summarizes the conditions of our nor-
mal self-consciousness, when we are thinking alone, it also
gives room for indefinitely numerous abnormal variations.
Suppose that there appear in the conscious field hallucina-
tions of the muscular sense, of the sort so well described
in Cramer's noted monograph. Let these be motor speech
hallucinations. Then the patient may observe the puzzling
phenomenon that, whenever he thinks, there is some myste-
rious tendency present that aims to objectify his thoughts,
in spoken words. Somebody or something either takes his
own thoughts away from him and speaks them, or forces
him, willy-nilly, to speak them himself. The thoughts are
his own. The sounding of them forth, in this way, is not
his. His thoughts run off his tongue, get spoken in his
stomach, creak out in his shoes as he walks, are mockingly
echoed or in the end commented upon by another power.
This other power, this stealing of his thoughts, involves of
course a deep disturbance of his self-consciousness, which
tends gradually to pass over into a regular system of delu-
sions. Yet what does the process mean ? It means, at first,
merely the appearance of uncontrollable elements of con-
sciousness, which by virtue of the habits connected with the
uncontrollable in general cannot get merged in the common
sensibility, and which are yet in a problematic and painfully
intimate relation to what he does recognize as his own. This
foreign power need not for a good while behave enough like
the true voice of another to become a genuine hallucinatory
comrade or enemy, as it would do and does if the patient
hears his voices without of himself recognizing their close
relation to his stream of thought. But in this uncontrolla-
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 195
ble hallucinatory thinking aloud there is enough suggestion
of the foreign to make the patient feel that his own thoughts
are getting somehow estranged from him. That these are
his own thoughts he at first knows, by virtue of the general
contrasts between real Ego and real non-Ego still present to
him. That they are getting estranged he knows, for that is
to any one a relative non-Ego which behaves more or less
as one's original social non-Ego, one's fellow in society,
behaves. His behaviour is relatively uncontrollable; and
so is here that of the patient's thoughts.
Or again, suppose that one's depressed emotional condi-
tion, as in melancholia, or at the outset of a delirium of sus-
picion or of persecution, contains emotions resembling the
normal emotions of conscientious guilt, or the feeling of
social dread. Then these feelings tend to assimilate in one's
actual surroundings, or in one's memories, data which sug-
gest, to one patient an actually believed social condemna-
tion of his deeds, or an actual judgment of his inner con-
science passed upon his sin fulness, while to another patient
his own sorts of emotion suggest an especially hostile scru-
tiny of his appearance by the passers-by, or an inner sense
that he must hide from possible scrutiny. On the other
hand, feelings quite the reverse of these suggest to the ex-
alted general paralytic whatever remembered or fancied
social relations, expressing his vast powers, the fragments
of left-over social habits which still survive in his chaos
permit him, in passing, to express.
Or, once more, another patient has present to con-
sciousness two or more streams of feelings, impulses,
thoughts, which are sharply contrasted with one another,
while the portions of each stream more or less hang to-
gether, by virtue of common contents or tone. All of these
streams belong to his general Ego this he recognizes by
the normal contrast witli the actual rxti-nial world. But
meanwhile they have their inner contrast, which is no
196 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
longer, like the just mentioned contrasts in normal con-
sciousness, a source of merely dramatic metaphor. This
abnormal contrast is intense, uncontrollable, continuous.
Now let the reflections, or the context of these streams be
such as in any fashion to remind the patient of any social
relation, contest, rivalry, quarrel, criticism, pity, question-
ing, discussion ; and then the patient can only say : " There
are in me two or more selves, I am divided." If one of
the streams involves more of the common sensibility than
does the others, or more of the sense of control, the patient
may speak of the less favored streams as other selves, or
as the "Other Fellow" without having any full-fledged
delusion of a real outside oppressor. And in all this
there will be mere associations of ideas, mere socially
acquired habits no new mysteries of self-hood what-
ever.
I conclude with a summary of the main theses of the
foregoing paper.
1. Self-conscious functions are all of them, in their finite,
human, and primary aspect, social functions, due to the
habits of human intercourse. They involve the presenta-
tion of some contrast between Ego and non-Ego. This
psychological contrast is primarily that between the sub-
ject's own conscious act, idea, intent, or other experience,
and an expereince which is regarded by him as represent-
ing the state of another's mind. By means of habits gradu-
ally acquired, this contrast early comes to be extended to
include that between one's inner states and the represented
realities which make up the physical world.
2. In the primary cases of contrast between Ego and
non-Ego, the former the Ego always includes (for rea-
sons which have been explained in the foregoing) the
present modifications of the common sensibility, and the
feelings of the sense of control, where these are present
tit all. The latter, the psychological non-Ego, is a colder,
ANOMALIES OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 197
a more localized, and less controllable mass of mental
contents.
3. Emotional states, and in general all those modifica-
tions of the common sensibility which uniformly accompa-
ny any of our social reflexes, become, by association, linked
with our memories and ideas of social situations, and can-
not be repeated without more or less clearly or vaguely re-
minding us of our social situations in an individual or in a
summary form.
4. When social situations involving particular contrasts
of Ego and non-Ego are remembered or imagined, we be-
come self-conscious in memory, or in idea. When emotions,
associated by old habit with social situations, dimly or sum-
marily suggest such situations, with their accompanying
contrast of Ego and non-Ego, our self-consciousness gets
colored accordingly. Finally, when the varied contents of
our isolated consciousness involve in any way, as they pass,
contrasts which either remind us of the social contrast be-
tween Ego and non-Ego, or excite us to acts involving social
habit, such as questioning, or internal speech, we become
reflectively self-conscious, even when quite alone with our
own states.
5. The anomalies of self-consciouness are (1) primary
alterations of the common sensibility, or of the other con-
tents of passing consciousness, such as dimly or clearly
suggest anomalous social situations, contrasts and func-
tions ; or else they are (2) primary anomalies in one's social
habits themselves. The two forms can be of course to any
degree combined.
VIII.
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, SOCIAL CONSCIOUS-
NESS AND NATURE*
THE ultimate purpose of the present paper is to reach,
and, in closing, to sketch some views as to the relation of
Man to Nature. By way of introduction, I must first define
the place of my inquiry in the general catalogue of philo-
sophical questions, and must then state the theses that I
mean to defend.
There are two great divisions of philosophy theoretical
and practical. The present paper concerns itself with a
matter belonging to theoretical philosophy. Within the
range of theoretical philosophy, however, one may distin-
guish between the discussion of the ultimate problems of
knowledge and of truth, and the treatment of the more
special theoretical problems suggested by our human expe-
rience. General Epistemology and general Metaphysics
have to do with what can be made out about the deepest
nature of our knowledge and the final constitution of the
universe. But there are, within the scope of theoretical
philosophy, other problems relating to the constitution of
our finite world problems which are often grouped together
as the questions of special metaphysics, or of the Philosophy
of Nature a doctrine to which has also sometimes been
given the name Cosmology. The problems of Cosmology
*A paper read before the Philosophical Club of Brown University,
May 23, 1895, and later considerably enlarged and supplemented.
198
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 199
are such as the questions : What is the truth behind what
we mortals call Nature, or the physical world ? What are
finite minds, and how are they related to physical reality ?
What, if any, is the philosophical interpretation to be given
to the doctrine of Evolution ?
Now the present paper, as I just said, is an inquiry within
the region of theoretical philosophy. Within that region
my investigation, however, here concerns itself only second-
arily with the ultimate problems of general metaphysics.
I shall chiefly aim to reach, before I close, light as to a cer-
tain problem of philosophical cosmology. Here about us, as
we all admit, whatever our ultimate metaphysical views, is
the natural world, the world that appears to our senses a
world manifesting some sort of finite, and obviously, as we
mortals see it, some sort of highly fragmentary truth. Now
man, as we phenomenally know him, appears as a part of
nature, a product of nature, a being whose destinies seem to
be the sport of purely physical laws. The problem that this
paper aims in the end to approach is : What is the meaning
of this phenomenal relation of man to nature ?
Now, as I need not say, a real answer to this question
must lead us past, if not through, the realms of the most
ultimate and general sort of metaphysical inquiry. Nor
will this paper wholly escape the responsibility of consider-
ing to some extent, as we proceed, such ultimate matters.
But on the other hand, all philosophical students are used
to the fragmentary, and I shall not here attempt complete-
ness. Such general metaphysical views as come in sight in
this paper will remain, after all, of rather secondary impor-
tance. I shall attempt only to clear some of the way that
leads from the study of man as we ordinarily know him
towards the regions where general philosophy attempts to
grapple with the ultimate issues of life, and with the rational
constitution of the universe.
The relation of man to nature this, then, is our immo-
200 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
diate topic. But why, you may ask, if such is the purpose
of this paper, have I chosen my actual title ? Why does a
study of the relations of Self -consciousness and Social Con-
sciousness seem adapted to throw light on the cosmological
problem of the relation of human beings to natural pro-
cesses ? To this preliminary question let us at once address
ourselves.
I.
The philosophical examination of man's social conscious-
ness has been left, rather too exclusively, in the hands of
the students of ethics. Even the psychologists, until very
recently, have paid a very inadequate attention to the dis-
tinctively social aspects of their science. It is far too cus-
tomary, in consequence, for the ethical philosophers them-
selves to begin their study of the duties of man with a very
abstract view of the nature of the social consciousness, and
of its original relations to our self-consciousness. We hear
nowadays, for instance, in popular philosophy, a greal deal
about the supposed primal and natural conflict between
Egoism and Altruism. Egoism, so we are told, is the
original human tendency the natural and innate bias of
any one of us mortals. And it is so because, as soon as
one becomes self-conscious, i. e., aware of one's Ego, one
finds one's self, as an animal, instinctively selfish. The
practical tendency of the self -preserving animal organism,
translated into the terms of self-consciousness, becomes
deliberate Egoism. Hence the moral problem is to make a
man altruistic. The philosophical problem of ethics, on the
other hand, is to show a man why he ought to be altruis-
tic, i. e., why Egoism, which is naturally prior and appar-
ently self-evident, ought rationally to be subordinated, upon
reflection, to its derived and slowly acquired natural oppo-
nent, Altruism.
But now, I insist that, as a fact, this far too customary
notion of a natural and fatal opposition between self-con-
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 201
sciousness, Egoism, and our socially determined and derived
Altruism, is also far too falsely abstract a notion. There are
evil tendencies in plenty in human nature, and common
sense has a very wholesome meaning in mind when it con-
demns our natural selfishness. But when one defines in
philosophical terms our evil tendencies, or undertakes to
analyse in an ultimate sense what common sense knows as
our selfishness, one does ill if one merely substitutes ab-
stract distinctions for our concrete and passionate life-con-
flicts. As a fact, the abstract opposition, Ego and Alter, or
Egoism and Altruism, ill suggests the meaning of the op-
posed ethical aims that struggle in us. This whole cus-
tomary popular and philosophical opposition between a
man's self -consciousness, as if it were something primitive
and lonely, and his social consciousness, as if that were
something acquired, apart from his self -consciousness,
through intercourse with his fellows, is false to human
nature. As a fact, a man becomes self-conscious only in
the most intimate connection with the growth of his social
consciousness. These two forms of consciousness are not
separable and opposed regions of a man's life ; they are thor-
oughly interdependent. I am dependent on my fellows,
not only physically, but to the very core of my conscious
self-hood, not only for what, physically speaking, I am, but
for what I take myself to be. Take away the Alter from
consciousness, and the conscious Ego, so far as in this
world we know it, languishes, and languishing dies, what-
ever may become of the organism in whose fortunes this
Ego, while it is known to persist, seems to be involved.
Hence, I am not first self-conscious, and then secondarily
conscious of my fellow. On the contrary, I am conscious
of myself, on the whole, as in relation to some real or ideal
fellow, and apart from my consciousness of my fellows I
have only secondary and derived states and habits of self-
consciousness. I cannot really will to preserve the Ego,
202 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
then this derived conscious creature of the habits of my
social consciousness ; I cannot really will to preserve the
Ego, without also willing to preserve and to defend some
sort of Alter, and some sort of relation to my fellow who is
this Alter, and upon whom my conscious Ego depends for
its very life. It is only in abstraction that I can be merely
egoistic. In the concrete case I can only be egoistic by
being also voluntarily altruistic, however base may be the
sort of Altruism that I chance to prefer. I can aim, for
instance, to be a political " boss.'' That appears to be a very
egoistic aim. But the political " boss " exists by the suf-
frages of interested people, and must aim at their conscious,
even if illusory, sense of advantage in so far as he wills them
to be sincerely interested. I can will to be a flattering dema-
gogue, admired for vain show by a crowd of fools. The end
is selfish ; but it also involves wishing to be agreeable in the
eyes of many people ; and even a saint might on occasion
wisely include so much of the demagogue's aim in his own
vastly different context of voluntary life. The tyrant wills
the lives and even the limited good fortune of his subjects,
for without powerful and numerous and even devoted sub-
jects he would be no tyrant. The master wills his slave's
preservation, even in willing to preserve his own mastery.
Even the thief or the defaulter wills that the hoarding of
valuable property should be on the average sufficiently ad-
vantageous to others to make them willing and careful to
provide him with the wherewithal to win his thief's liveli-
hood. Even the murderer, although he directly aims to
destroy his fellow, does so, in general, and whenever the
act is deliberate and intelligent, for a social end honor,
property, power all of them ends which involve willing
the preservation, and even the prosperity, of many social
relations involving others than the murderer himself.
There is, then, much bad Altruism in the world, much base,
wishing of social relations which do involve the preserva-
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 203
tion, and even the relative private advantage of others
besides the evil-doer. But bad Altruism is not mere Ego-
ism, nor is it identical with a lower animal's unconsciously
naive selfishness. The mere instincts of the self-preserva-
tion of this organism have to be far transcended before one
can become consciously egoistic. Vanity, pride, love of
social power, the greed of mastery, covetousness, oppression
all these are tendencies that, just in so far as they are
conscious and deliberate, involve not only Egoism, i. e., the
love of the advantage of this individual, but also some more
or less evil form of Altruism the love of the preservation,
and often of a certain limited advantage, of those of one's
fellows who form the necessary other term of the social
relation which satisfies one's vanity, one's greed, or one's
love of power. In brief, speaking ethically, you cannot
consciously be merely egoistic. For you, as a man, exist
only in human relations. Your aims have to be more
or less social, just so far as you clearly define them. The
ethical problem is not: Shall I aim to preserve social
relations ? but : What social relations shall I aim to pre-
serve ?
But to return from these illustrations to the general topic :
my first point on this occasion is that, just as there is no con-
scious Egoism without some distinctly social reference, so
there is, on the whole, in us men, no self-consciousness apart
from some more or less derived form of the social conscious-
ness. I am I in relation to some sort of a non-Ego. And, as
a fact, the non-Ego that I am accustomed to deal with when
I think and act, is primarily some real or ideal finite fellow-
being, in actual or possible social relations with me, and this
social non-Ego, real or ideal, is only secondarily to be turned
into anything else, as, for example, into a natural object
tli.it I regard as a mere dead thing. And I have dwelt upon
these facts here for the sake of first introducing a matter to-
wards whose final definition the whole of the following argu-
204: STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
raent is to tend, viz., the assertion that what you and I mean
by Nature is, as a finite reality, something whose very con-
ception we have actually derived from our social relations
with one another ; so that, as we shall see, to believe that
there really exists a finite reality called Nature, is of neces-
sity, when you rightly analyze the facts, to believe that
there is, in the real universe, an extra-human, but finite
conscious life, manifesting its presence to us by means sub-
stantially similar to those whereby we have become assured
of the presence of the inner life of our human fellows. As
it is not true that we are primarily and in unsocial abstrac-
tion merely egoistic, just so it is not true that we primarily
know merely our own inner life as individuals, apart from
an essentially social contrast with other minds. While it
is true, as all idealistic analysis has affirmed, that the object
of knowledge is precisely what it is known as being, it is not
true that you and I ever know our own individual inner
world of objects, without contrasting these objects with
others that we regard as present to some sort of conscious
life beyond our own. But primarily we learn to contrast
our own inner life with what we regard as the inner life
of our fellows in human society. It is by virtue of this
very contrast of our own inner life with a finite conscious
life beyond our own, viz., that of our human fellows, that
we become self-conscious. When later, for reasons that I
shall soon define, we learn to oppose to ourselves as finite
knowers, a world of relatively independent natural objects,
which we conceive as existent apart from any human in-
sight, all the categories in terms of which we can learn to
think of these nature-objects are categories derived from
our social experience, and modified, but not really trans-
formed, to suit the peculiar behavior of the relatively un-
social beings whose existence our experience seems to indi-
cate to us in nature. Our relations with nature are thus
such as involve a more or less social contrast between our
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 205
life and the life of nature. And upon this principle every
philosophy of nature must rest
ii.
I have begun our research, as you see, by some decidedly
ganeral and positive assertions. I must next try to show
you more precisely and more in detail what these assertions
mean, and why I find myself obliged to hold them.
The theses of the present paper, set forth in particular,
run as follows :
1. A man is conscious of himself, as this finite being,
only in so far as he contrasts himself, in a more or less defi-
nitely social way, with what he takes to be the life, and, in
fact, the conscious life, of some other finite being unless,
indeed, he modifies his natural self-consciousness by con-
trasting his own life with the conceived fullness of the life
of God. But except by virtue of some such contrast one
cannot become self-conscious, and the result is that, as a
matter of simple and necessary meaning, if any metaphys-
ical argument is to prove than I am I, viz., this finite being,
then at the same time this argument will prove that there is
other conscious life besides mine. For otherwise my own
finite life as this Ego cannot be defined or conceived.
2. The other conscious life that I must contrast with
mine, in order to become self-conscious, is primarily, in our
human relations, the life of my fellow in the social order.
The original, as Hume would say, of the conception of a
non-Ego is given to me in my social experiences. The real
other being that I, as this finite Ego, can know is, at first,
the human being. A man who had no social relations
could form no clear conception of the reality of any finite
non-Ego, and so could get no clear notion of the reality of
the non-Ego now called Nature. Our conception of phys-
ical reality as such is secondary to our conception of our
social fellow-beings, and is actually derived therefrom.
206 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
3. In consequence, any metaphysical proof that what we
human beings mean by physical nature exists at all, must
also be a proof that behind the phenomena of nature, just
in so far as nature has finite reality, there is other conscious
life, finite like our own, but unlike human life in so far as
it, the nature-life, does not enter into closer social relations
with us human beings. Yet all that manifests to us the ex-
ternal existence of nature, does so by virtue of a more or less
definite appeal to the categories of our social consciousness.
4. But, as a fact, a probable proof, not amounting to
philosophical demonstration, but capable of an indefinite
degree of extension and illustration, does exist for the ex-
istence of a real finite world called the Realm of Nature.
Hence, this very proof indicates that there is behind the
phenomena of nature a world of finite life in more or less
remote, but socially disposed relations to us human beings.
5. This proof of the finite reality of a conscious life be-
hind the phenomena of nature is furnished by the whole
mass of facts that in modern times have come to be con-
ceived together as the basis of the doctrine of Evolution.
And the doctrine of Evolution must in the end be inter-
preted in terms of this notion. In other words, the doc-
trine of Evolution seems to me the beginning of what
promises to become a sort of universal Sociology, tending
towards a definition of the social relations of the finite
beings that together must make up the whole natural
world, both human and extra-human.
6. Yet, on the other hand, the view of nature thus indi-
cated ought to be very sharply distinguished, both from
most traditional forms of Animism and of Hylozoism, and
from the modern doctrine of Mind-Stuff. The view that I
have in mind is not Schopenhauer's doctrine of the Will in
Nature, nor Schell ing's Naturphilosophie, nor von Hart-
mann's theory of the Unconscious as manifested in physical
phenomena. From such theories mine is to be distinguished
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 207
by its genesis. It tries to avoid all premature dogmatism as
to the inner aspect of the life of nature. But it conceives
the possibility of a gradual and, as one may hope, a very
significant enlargement, through the slow growth of human
experience, of our insight into the inner meaning of na-
ture's life, and into the essentially social constitution of
the finite world. Meanwhile this conception of the natural
order as a vast social organism, of which human society is
only a part, is founded upon no merely animistic analogies
between the physical phenomena and the phenomena of our
organisms, but upon a decidedly deeper analysis of the very
nature of our conception of other finite beings besides our-
selves. And further, if my conception is true, it quite trans-
forms certain important aspects of our whole notion of the
meaning of Evolution. For the process of Evolution, as I
now view it, becomes, not the history of the growth of life
from the lifeless, but the history of the differentiation of
one colony, as it were, of the universal society from the
parent social order of the finite world in its wholeness.
Such, in some detail, are my theses. They need, of
course, both analysis and defense. I will take them up in
their order, dwelling perhaps too long upon the first thesis,
upon which all the rest depends.
III.
First, then, as to the thesis that one is conscious of one's
Ego only by virtue of the contrast between this Ego and
some consciousness which one regards as external to one's
finite self.
Speaking in psychological terms, one can say that our
finite self -consciousness is no primitive possession at all,
but is the hard-earned outcome of the contact between the
being capable of becoming rational and the rationally-dis-
posed world in which he slowly learns to move. A child
becomes self-conscious only by degrees. When, as infant,
l.-,
208 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
he cries for his food, or even, when more intelligent, shows
lively disappointment if his expectations are not met, he is
not yet self-conscious. When later, as older child, he struts
about, playing soldier, or shyly hides from strangers, or
asks endless questions merely to see what you will say, or
quarrels with his fellows at play, or shrinks from reproof,
or uses his little arts to win praise and caresses, he is self-
conscious. These latter conditions are all of them such as
involve a contrast between his own deeds and meanings and
the deeds and meanings that he takes to be those of other
conscious beings, whom, just as his conscious fellows, he
loves or hates, fears or imitates, regards with social curi-
osity, or influences by devices adapted to what he thinks to
be their states of mind. In brief, then, I should assert here,
as a matter of psychology, what I have elsewhere worked
out more at length, that a child is taught to be self-conscious
just as he is taught everything else, by the social order that
brings him up. Could he grow up alone with lifeless na-
ture, there is nothing to indicate that he would become as
self-conscious as is now a fairly educated cat.
But in the present paper I am dealing, not with psychol-
ogy, but with certain aspects of the constitution of our
knowledge. Let us consider briefly our self-consciousness,
now that it has developed. It is a familiar paradox of ideal-
istic analysis that we can have true knowledge of ideas or
other objects of consciousness only in so far as they have
first been presented to ourselves in our own inner life.
Whatever I know must be really known to me, one says,
only in so far as it is in me. I know, or can conceivably
come to know, my own states, my own presentations, my
own thoughts, my own experiences. Things external to me
can be known only in so far as they first appear inside my
conscious world. When I pretend to know something
about a far-off star, that something which I know proves,
upon analysis, to be my own state, my experience, or my
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 209
thought nothing else. I cannot transcend consciousness.
And consciousness is for me my consciousness, or, at least,
can always come to be regarded as mine. "Das 'Ich
denke,'" says Kant, "muss alle meine Vorstellungen be-
gleiten konnen."
Now all this is, in one sense, quite true. There is an as-
pect of knowledge which is always dependent upon my
presentations, my direct acquaintance with mental contents.
Without such direct acquaintance, I have no knowledge.
But, on the other hand, if one asks a little more closely
about the implications of our inner consciousness, one
comes upon another, a strongly contrasted, and a highly
momentous aspect of our human knowledge. And this as-
pect is indicated by the well-known fact that if I can only
really know my own inner states in so far as they are inner,
still, on the other hand, I can never really define to myself
just how much is actually presented at any one moment to
my inner life. One can know the far-off star only by virtue
of ideas and experiences that get presented in the inner life ;
but, on the other hand, this presentation, merely as such, is
not enough. For if anything present in the inner life were,
as such, at once and altogether known to me, I should al-
ways be able to know just what it is, just how much it is,
that now constitutes the whole filling and meaning of my
inner life. But alas, I never can find out in all my life,
precisely the whole of what it is that gets presented to me in
any one moment. Are you now conscious of all that is in
your field of vision, e. g., of the head of every person who sits
in this audience within this instant's range of your vision ?
Obviously you are not, or at least are not equally conscious of
all the possible objects of your momentary visual attention.
You are now clearly aware only of what you are now at-
tending to, and not of all the contents that are present but
that you merely might attend to if you chose. But once
more, what is precisely the whole of what you are now at
210 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
tending to words, thoughts, sights, faces ? It is impossible
just now exhaustively to tell yourself, unless unless you
first attend to your own process of attention, capriciously
fixate its normal fluctuating attitudes, and so give an arti-
ficially prepared account of a deliberately falsified situation.
The inner life, as we get it, is conscious, but normally very
unequally self-conscious possesses contents, but cannot
precisely define to itself what they are ; seeks not to hold
the present, but to fly to the next ; scorns the immediate, the
presented, and looks endlessly for the oncoming, the sought,
the wished-for, the absent, so that the inner eye gazes on
a flowing stream of events, but beholds rather what they
hint at than what they present.
Now it is this other, this curiously contrasted aspect, of
our finite knowledge, that constitutes one of the deepest
problems of the life of human reason. I can know only
what can get presented to me. But, on the other hand,
most of what gets presented to me always escapes my
knowledge. I know not the merely presented, as such, but
only that which in the presented facts I can hold, apper-
ceive, contrast with other contents, and define as to the real
meaning of this object which I am to know. But alas, the
moment flits. What I now know turns into what I just
now knew, even while I reflect upon it. The direct gets lost
in the indirect, the instant in the imperfectly known series
of states ; and my best approach to finite knowledge appears
as only a sort of substituting of expectations and of mem-
ories for the desired presentations. If, then, on the one
hand, I can know only my own ideas, states, thoughts, pres-
entations, our present unhappy result seems to be that, as a
fact, owing to the ceaseless flux of consciousness, I cannot
fully know even these. For, once more, I can know only
what I can examine with steadily fixated attention ; but
while I fixate my attention upon the inner object, it changes
even while I observe it. Only the presented can be known :
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 211
this idealistic proposition seems to be mockingly answered
by the fairly tragic counter-assertion : Not even the pre-
sented is, as such, known.
In view of these paradoxes of our fmitude, in view of the
fact that only the presented can, as such, be known, while
the presented never stays long enough in one moment of
consciousness to allow us fully to know what it is, the ac-
tual situation of our human knowledge is simply this : What
is always most clearly present to our consciously inquiring
intelligence is the conceived relation between some content
now immediately apprehended but very imperfectly compre-
hended, and that which, as we hope, believe, or expect, will
be or would be apprehended, when we come more fully to
know, or if we now more fully knew the meaning of this
immediate datum. What I now experience leads me to ex-
pect another experience. My conscious knowledge is, then,
mainly of this relation of transition from the immediate
fact to the expected outcome. Or again, what I now experi-
ence leads me to believe that, were I otherwise situated, I
should apprehend such and such other facts. My knowledge
is here again consciously concerned with the relation be-
tween my actual and my conceived possible experience.
Or, once more, I now have passing through my mind an
assertion, a belief, an opinion. And I am thinking just
what it is that I mean by this opinion. In this case, my
meaning is partly presented to me, partly conceived as a
more fully developed meaning, which I should get presented,
or shall find presented, upon a further consideration of what
I am aiming to do.
Thus, you see, the original paradox of our idealistic an-
alysis gets corrected by this other paradox. To the unknow-
ableneas of whatever cannot get presented is now opposed
the equal unknowableness of whatever merely gets immedi-
ately presented, without being held through a constant inner
appeal from what is presented to what in future will be
212 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
presented, or to what conceivably would be presented, were
consciousness otherwise determined. I know only my own
states and ideas ; but those I know only by virtue of their
conceived relation to states and ideas that will be, or that
would be, under other conditions, or in other moments, the
contents of my experience.
But, from this point of view, the nature of the world of
our knowledge gets transformed. Our only approach to
that ideal of knowledge which complete and fixated presen-
tation would involve if we had it, is afforded us by the im-
perfectly presented relation between fleeting actual presen-
tations and conceived possible presentations. And therefore
you will observe at once that my notion of my own Ego and
of its contents depends upon a certain contrast between
these contents and a conceived world of actual or possible
experience beyond this Ego. For what I come nearest to
knowing at any moment is the relation between imperfectly
grasped immediate contents and the conceived experience
beyond the moment. It is indeed true, as idealism is accus-
tomed to say, that of a Ding-an-sich, out of relation to pos-
sible knowledge, I have and can have no sort of knowledge
or conception. For, as soon as I try to tell what such a
Ding-an-sich is, I turn it into actual or conceived possible
experience, and conceive it only as in such experience.
But, on the other hand, my whole knowledge of my inner
finite Self and of its meaning is dependent upon the contrast
between the immediate experiences of this self and a world
of abstractly possible or of genuine experiences not pre-
sented to any moment of my inner self as such. Thus, all
my finite knowledge involves as much mediation as it con-
tains immediacy assures me of fact only by sending me
elsewhere for truth ; lets me know something, never the
whole, of my actual experience, but through its contrast with
possible experience ; verifies merely by presupposing experi-
ences now unverified ; instructs me by suggesting further
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 213
problems ; tells me who I am by indicating whither I am to
go to look for my true self; suggests fulfillment of insight,
yet all the while sending me out to wander for more insight ;
arouses the question, What do I mean ? at the very mo-
ment when I am attempting to answer the question, What
is the experienced datum ?
Now this realm of contrasts, of the light of present ex-
perience and of the shadow of possible or of distant other
experience, of presentation and of thought ; this dwelling in
hope rather than in fulfillment, in search for a lost self
rather than in enjoyment of a present self ; this realm, I
say, and this dwelling constitute the inner finite life of
every one of us, in so far as he lives rationally at all. My
actual inner life is, then, always contrasted with experience
other than is now mine ; and the problem of my intellectual
life, whatever my worldly calling, is this : Where is the
rest of my experience ? or, What is the content of the other
experience with which mine is even now contrasted ?
But it is, of course, vain to regard my inner view of my-
self as constituted solely by the contrast between my indi-
vidual presentation and a possible inner experience that I
view as merely my own private, but still individually possi-
ble experience. My possible experience and the world of
other experience than is now mine these terms, in a wide
but an essentially human sense, constantly include not
merely the conceived experiences that I alone in my indi-
vidual capacity am likely ever to have, or to find individu-
ally accessible, but also the whole world of experiences that
other human beings either have had, or will have, or may
have. The upper Nile valley is, in the general and abstract
sense, a possible experience of mine; but I individually
shall doubtless never come to get that experience. Yet the
upper Nile valley is, and has been, a system of actual and
of accessibly possible experiences for very many of my fel-
low-men. When I conceive the upper Nile valley, there are
214 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
presented to my inner life words, images, map-experiences,
and the like ; and these I know as meaning something to
me, in so far as I contrast these relatively immediate data
with the conceived contents of the experience of other men
who more directly verify what I only conceive as to that
region. And, in fact, the whole contents of my individual
experience get regarded as one conscious system of remem-
bered and expected contents, in so far as, in conception, I
contrast my own private inner life with the experiences
which I attribute to my actual or conceived fellows. I
often say that my own inner life, as a whole, past and fu-
ture, actual and accessibly possible, is better known to me,
is more immediate, is more accessible to me, than is your
inner life. But what do I mean by saying this ? Surely
both my past and my future are now as truly and literally
unpresentable to me as are your inner states. I have now
only my memories of my past, as I have only my beliefs as
to your inner states. Directly I can now verify neither set
of ideas. What I mean by the relative intimacy and acces-
sibility of my own individual past is, then, only the fact
that my notion of my past has a " warmth," a definiteness,
a sort of inner assurance, which contracts with the notion
that I form of the past of any other man.
You see, whatever way I turn, I am definable to myself
only in terms of a contrast with other experience which
might, abstractly speaking, be conceived as mine, but
which, as a fact, is viewed either as now inaccessible in
comparison with my present experience, or else as the actual
or possible experience of my fellow, and so as now more re-
mote than even my own relatively warm and quasi-accessi-
ble, although actually unpresentable past experience appears
to me to be. But to define any sphere whatever as the
sphere of my own finite life, i. e., to define my life either as
the sphere of my momentary finite life, or as the sphere of
my whole human individuality, involves in each case a con-
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 215
trast between what is within my denned Ego, in the way of
relatively realized, or warm, or accessible contents of expe-
rience, and what is beyond my denned Ego, as a sphere of
experiences that, abstractly speaking, I regard as possibly
mine, while, as a fact, I contrast them with mine, as being
really somehow beyond me, and relatively inaccessible to
me. These other experiences, which are not mine in pre-
cisely the degree in which what I call mine is viewed as
belonging to me these other experiences are, primarily, the
actual experiences of other men. My opinion means, in
general, my opinion as contrasted with opinions which I
attribute to other men. My private experience means, pri-
marily, whatever nobody else but myself has experienced,
and is therefore defined by contrast with the conception of
what everybody else has experienced. In brief, take away
the concept of that world of abstractly possible other expe-
rience, which might be mine, or which would be mine, if I
were you, or Caesar, or any one else, or which would now
be mine if I were once more my past self take all this
other experience out of my conception, and forthwith
I lose all means of becoming conscious of my experience
as mine, or of knowing what I mean either by my whole
individuality, or by my present Ego.
IV.
So far, then, for our first thesis. To myself, I am I, not
merely in so far as my inner contents get presented to me,
but in so far as I contrast my experience present, or the
sum total of my conceived individual experience, with an
experience which is, in some sense, not mine, but which is
conceived as other than mine.
But now what warrant have I, philosophically speaking,
for assuming that there is any other experience than mine
at all any experience past or future, remote or warm, like
my present experience, or unlike it ? Is this merely a prac-
216 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
tically warranted assertion of common-sense, or has it a
deeper philosophical basis ?
The general answer to this question is simply that I know
the presented experience as such, and in so far as, in passing
it is imperfectly grasped at all, only by virtue of its contrast
to the conceived other experience. Without knowledge that
the other experience is, there can be then no meaning in say-
iiig that the presented experience itself exists. That the
present is, he alone can say who regards the past and future
as real. That I as this individual am, I can say only if I
contrast myself with some conceived other experience. The
judgment : " There is experience," can have meaning only
if one defines some experience that is to be thus real. But
the only way to define any finite experience is by its con-
trast with other experience. The total object of true knowl-
edge is therefore never the immediate experience of my own
state as such and alone, although there never is any knowl-
edge without some immediate experience as one of its ele-
ments. The judgment : " There is experience " means, then,
for any finite being, " There is my finite experience, known
as somehow contrasted with other experience than what is
here presented as mine." Thus, then, the conviction that
there is other experience than what is presented to me here,
has not only a common-sense value but a philosophical
warrant. But if one says: "No, but the contrast is itself
something given, and so is not the contrast between my ex-
perience and any experience that is really known to be other
than mine, but is only a contrast between my presented
experience and one that is not presented as other than mine,
but that is merely conceived as other than mine " then to
this objection, once more, the answer is, that the very concep-
tion of other experience than what is now presented as mine
either actually relates to such other experience, or else is a
meaningless conception. But if it is to be meaningless, even
while it takes itself, as it does, to have a meaning, then this
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 217
conception that always shadows my presentations, this con-
ception of other experience than mine, is itself an experi-
ence that is in fact other than it takes itself to be. For it
always takes itself to mean something ; although, unless it
actually does refer to other experience than mine, it is mean-
ingless. But to say that a conception, or any other presented
content of consciousness, is other than it seems, and is, for
example, really meaningless when it seems to mean some-
thing, this is already to distinguish between my erroneous
experience of its nature, and another, a fuller experience of
its nature which, if I knew it better, I should have. But thus
to distinguish between what my experience really is and
what it seems to be, is simply to distinguish between a pre-
sented and a not presented aspect of the very experience
in question. For what can one say of an experience which
is not what it seems to be, and which is yet only a presenta-
tion after all a mere matter of the instant in which it
happens to live ? If an experience, viz., here the conception
of other experience than mine, presents itself as meaning
something beyond the moment when it really means noth-
ing beyond the moment, then this very experience itself is
really other than the experience as it is presented, and once
more one gets a real contrast between my experience as
presented, and related experience which is not presented.
The conception of other experience than mine must, there-
fore, in any case, have relation to a real experience which
is other than my presentation.
Thus, then, that there is some experience not individu-
ally mine, is an assertion precisely as sure as the assertion
that my own experience is. For neither assertion has mean-
ing apart from the other. On the other hand, it is impos-
sible to contrast my experience with any Ding-an-aich,
existent apart from all experience, because the instant that
I tell what I mean by a Ding-fin -///, 1 have converted it
into an experience, actual or possible, and other than mine.
218 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
But finally, in this connection, one must still further
insist that our now frequently illustrated contrast cannot
ultimately be one between my presented experience and an
experience other than mine which is barely a possible ex-
perience, and not an actual experience at all. A possible
experience, not now mine, is a notion that has a very sound
meaning in case it has some direct or indirect relation to
a real experience not now mine. But bare possibilities, to
which no actualities correspond, are indeed meaningless.
Are there real facts or aspects of experience not now pre-
sented to me, then I can easily define these in terms of
logical possibilities. But possibilities need realities to give
them meaning. There must then be other experience than
mine, not merely as possible experience, but as actual ex-
perience. Given such actual experience, there is not only
convenience, but rational necessity in the attempt to define
its nature in terms of all sorts of conceived possibilities ;
but unless you have some actual experience upon which to
base your possibilities, then the, possibilities themselves be-
come mere contradictions. A barely possible experience is,
as Mr. Bradley has well said, the same as an impossible ex-
perience.
v.
There is, then, an universe of other actual experience
than my own finite experience, presented or remembered.
Were this central truth not known to me, I should have no
means of being conscious of myself as this finite Ego. The
general constitution of this world of other experience, in its
wholeness, I must here leave to metaphysics. We are now
concerned with the finite aspects of the complex of experi-
ences with which, as human beings, we have to do.
Concretely, we get information about the contents of
experience not our own, when we communicate socially
with our fellows. And the essence of social communication
is this : My fellow does something in a certain situation^
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 219
deals with his environment so or so. He uses tools, utters
words, makes gestures. If these deeds of his are new to nie,
they do not convey to me his inner experience. These deeds
are so far, for me, phenomena in my own experience. I
cannot directly view my fellow's experience at all. How.
then, is a word, or gesture, or other deed, which as yet con-
veys no meaning to me, to acquire a meaning, or to become
expressive to me of my fellow's inner life as such ? The
answer is, that, from infancy on, my fellow's expressive acts
get a meaning to me as the suggestion of his concrete inner
life, just in so far as I am able to imitate these deeds of his
by bodily acts of my own, brought to pass under conditions
like those in which he, my fellow, acts. For when I defi-
nitely repeat a bodily act that expresses any human mean-
ing, the act, as I repeat it, under definite conditions, gets for
me an inner meaning which I could never grasp so long as
I merely observed such an act from without, as an event in
my perceived phenomenal world. But this inner meaning
which the act gets when I repeat it, becomes for me the
objective meaning of the act as my fellow performs it ; and
thus the meaning of the imitated act, interpreted for me at
the moment of my imitation, gets conceived as the real
meaning, the inner experience of my fellow, at the moment
when he performs the act which is my model. If you laugh,
I know what you mean just in so far as, under similar con-
ditions, I can join with you and laugh heartily also, and
can thus, by fully imitating your deed, get a sense of your
meaning. But if I see you laughing under circumstances
that absolutely forbid me even to conceive myself as imitat-
ing your expression of mirth, then I have frankly to say
that I do not in the least know what you mean by laughing
at just this situation, and so cannot conceive in so far what
your inner experience is. If I see you playing cards, or
chess, I can only make out what your inner experience is in
case I learn the cards, the pieces, the rules, or the moves of
220 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
the game, and proceed to play it myself. If I want to know
what the poets mean when they sing of love, I must myself
become a lover. When I have imitated, in my measure,
the lover's situation, and the lover's sincerely expressed
devotion, then I know something of what love meant for
the poet. In general, I believe in other human experience
than mine in so far as I notice other people's expressive
acts, and then gradually interpret them through social con-
formity. What I cannot interpret by imitation, I cannot
definitely realize as another man's experience. Yet as my
imitations always remain incomplete, and my interpreta-
tions correspondingly indefinite, I have constantly to con-
trast my fellow's experience, so far as I can realize it, with
my fellow's experience so far as it attracts my efforts to
interpret it, but also sets a limit to the success of these efforts.
And thus I get a notion of a boundless world of human
meanings which I can partially, but not wholly, grasp. In
the effort, by social conformity, i. e., by imitation of expres-
sive actions, to interpret such inadequately grasped human
meanings, a great part of my social life consists. This effort
is constantly supplemented by my efforts to convey my
own meanings to others ; and thus my self -consciousness
and my social consciousness, each helped and each limited
by the other, since each exists only in contrast with the
other, get organized and developed in the endless giving
and taking of social communications.
Thus far, then, we have been illustrating our first and
second theses. Their application to our notion of Na-
ture remains to be developed.
VI.
So far, then, a reality, external to my finite Ego, means
a world of other experience with which my experience is
contrasted. This world is concretely defined, in the first
place, as the world of other human experiences than my
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 221
own. What these experiences actually are, I learn only by
myself repeating the expressive deeds of my fellows, and
by attributing to these deeds, when performed by my
fellows, an inner meaning similar to the one which I
more directly observe in the deeds when I myself repeat
them under conditions similar to those in which my fel-
lows have already performed them. Of course, no such
interpretation of any human meaning is infallible ; but I
am verifiably right in saying that, at every step, this social
process does really bring me into relation with experience
which, until I performed the deeds of social imitativeness,
was not mine. This concrete new experience, which was
not mine until I imitated, was then before my imitation,
at the very least, a possible experience other than mine.
The whole social world is full of suggestions of such actu-
ally possible experiences. If every real possibility must,
logically speaking, have a basis in actuality, I am philo-
sophically warranted in saying that all these suggestions of
other human experience which social imitation interprets,
and which common-sense trusts, do as a fact stand not only
for a barely possible enlargement of my inner Ego, but for
real experience which, however fallible my private inter-
pretations of it may be, has an actuality contrasted with,
and existent apart from, my finite individuality. The world
of my fellows' experiences may not be real just as I, in my
narrowness, interpret it. But this world is still, from the
philosophical as from the common-sense point of view, a
real world, a complex of experiences other than mine, and
more or less imperfectly communicated to me. And thus
it is that one in general defines the metaphysics of the
social consciousness. You observe once more the essential
relativity of the individual Ego and the social Alter.
Neither conception has any clearness apart from the other.
But now, in our human world of experience, there are,
yonder, the phenomena of physical nature. Our next
222 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
question is, in what sense are we to attribute reality to
them?
J. S. Mill's answer to this question is well known, and
is, in one aspect, closely and instructively similar to Kant's
answer, despite all the differences between the two philoso-
phers as to other matters. The phenomena of nature, e. g.,
the upper Nile valley, the other side of yonder wall, or of
the moon these one conceives as systems of possible ex-
periences, experiences which, in general, I now have not,
but could have under definable conditions. Nature, as
such, contains, apart from the bodies of my fellows and of
the higher animals, no objects that I conceive as communi-
cating to me any now intelligible inner intents, meanings,
plans, or other socially interesting contents. Nature con-
sists of masses of " possibilities of sensation." The problem
is, in what sense have these possibilities of experience any
inner or self existent sort of reality ? Is nature a Ding-an-
sich, whose reality is absolutely inscrutable, but self-pos-
sessed ? The answer to this last and special question is
that such a notion is simply meaningless. I can contrast
my experience with other experience, and can regard my-
self as limited by facts of experience not now presented to
me. And such a way of regarding myself is, as we have
seen, absolutely essential to even my self-consciousness.
But I cannot contrast experience with what is no experi-
ence at at all. Even to say that there now exist certain
possibilities of experience which I do not realize, is to raise
the issue already several times touched upon in the fore-
going. A bare possibility is a mere fiction. It cannot be
real. To my true definition of a given experience as merely
possible for me, there may correspond an experience which,
as it is in itself, is very unlike my private definition of the
real possibility. But if I am right in saying, " There is a
possibility of experience not now mine," then to such a real
possibility some sort of real experience, other than mine,
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 2?3
must correspond. The question arises : Is there any such
real experience behind those nature-facts which we conceive
is our own possible experiences 1
But there is another aspect of natural phenomena which
perhaps brings us nearer to our goal. The reality of the facts
of nature, when we actually confirm their presence, is
always viewed as capable of being submitted to social
tests. The real nature-phenomenon is not merely con-
ceived as the object of my possible experience, but in gener-
al as the object of my fellows' actual or possible experience
as well. If the star that I see is a real star, then you, if
you are a normal observer can see that star as well as I.
This is th common-sense presupposition as to nature.
Natural objects are viewed as phenomena that are, in some
sense, public property, in so far as many different human
observers could make them objects of possible inspection.
The presupposition of common-sense is, that many observers
could, on occasion, verify the same natural fact ; so that
the physical world will consist, for common-sense, not
merely of possibilities of my individual experience, but of
possibilities of common experience on the part of many
observers.
Here surely is a well-known, but a paradoxical aspect of
our nature-experience. I cannot observe your mind, but, as
common-sense supposes, I can observe the same external
natural fact that you observe. This presupposition is. in
effect, a basis in terms of which we often define the facts of
nature. What I alone experience, belongs to my inner life.
What you can experience as well as I, is as such a physical
fact, and, mind you, this means that, when we deal with
nature-phenomena, common-sense supposes us, not merely to
have similar inner states, but to refer to actually the same
fact If you as finite being count ten, and I as finite being
count ten, we perform similar inner acts, but our objects
are so far not the same ; for the ten that you count is not
1C
STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
the ten that I count. We can in this case be referring to
the same truth only if there is, as a fact, some sort of extra-
human reality possessed by the truths of arithmetic, and
actually referred to by both of us. But just such extra-
human reality common-sense actually attributes to the facts
of nature. If ten stones lie on the highway, and you and
I count them, common-sense supposes that though your
counting of ten is not my counting of ten, though your
perception of the stones is not mine, though your inner
life is in no fashion, here noteworthy, identical with mine,
still the real stones that I count are identically the same
as the real stones that you count. Now any natural fact,
as common -sense conceives it, could, without losing its
identity, be made the common object of as many observers
as could come to get the right hints of its nature through
their inner experience. All these possible observers, so
common-sense holds, would really refer to the same natural
fact.
The nature-things, then, are not merely possible experi-
ences for me ; they pretend to be possible objects of common
experience for many observers.
Now when the nature-facts make such puzzling demands
upon us as this, there are only two ways of viewing the
situation thus created. One way is to say that in truth, all
this common-sense notion of nature is illusory. As a fact,
one might insist, it is impossible for two finite observers of
nature to have the same external fact actually referred to by
both of them at once. What one means is, that, as our social
consciousness indicates, human beings have many similar
experiences, and can socially convey to one another this
similarity of their inner lives. When I rejoice, you may
rejoice too ; yet our rejoicings are not the same, but only
similar. Just so, one might insist, when I point at my star,
you may point at your star also. But what happens is that
your experience then resembles mine ; but has not the
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 225
same outer object at all. Nature is the sum-total of those
facts of our various experiences, concerning which our
perceptual experience seems most easily to agree. But
this agreement means merely a certain social communi-
cable similarity of our experiences not unity or sameness
of natural object
This, I say, is one possible hypothesis as to nature. But
observe at once : There is one class of nature-objects in case
of which just this negative and sceptical hypothesis simply
cannot be carried out without destroying the very basis of
our social consciousness itself. And this class of seeming
outer objects is made up of the very bodies of our human
fellows whom we observe, and with whom we socially com-
municate. The social consciousness, upon which, as we have
seen, our very self-consciousness itself depends for its defini-
tion in finite terms, involves, as an integral part of its unity,
the observation of certain natural phenomena definable as
the expressive movements, the gestures, words, deeds, of our
fellows. Now these phenomena are not merely to be viewed
as reducible to the possible similar experiences of the various
people who may observe their fellows from without. For
these phenomena, on the contrary, have, whoever observes
them, their identical and inner aspect ; for they indicate the
inner life of the social fellow-being who thus expresses him-
self. Many of you are now observing me. Are all of your
various inner experiences of me now actually referring to
the same fact, external to you but having for me its pre-
sented internal aspect, identically the same whoever it is
that regards himself as observing my movements ? The
answer is here, at once : Yes. If I am I, and am communicat-
ing to you through deeds which are represented in you by
systems of similar experiences, then, when you experience,
in your inner lives, the observable phenomenal aspects of
these my deeds, you are all at once meaning, referring to,
listening to, the same genuinely real object
226 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
Paradox though it be, the social consciousness insists
that the same fellow-man can phenomenally manifest his
presence to as many observers as can get some experience of
his expressive deeds. All these observers can agree, with
due care, as to their accounts of his deeds. These deeds,
then, are so far nature-phenomena, like any others. My
movements appear to any one of you in space, even as does
this desk. So far, one could say, the fact is that the observ-
ers have experiences that are similar in one man's case to
the experiences of his observing fellow. The observed
deeds are merely such similar perceptions in the various ob-
servers. The various observers do not see the same real
deeds ; but they do possess similar perceptions, which they
call perceptions of expressive deeds.
But no, this conclusion the social consciousness declines
to accept. All your various but similar individual percep-
tions of my deeds really refer to the same genuine object,
precisely in so far as I am I, and in so far as it is my inner
experience that is manifested in these deeds. Thus, then,
you could say that, if this desk were alone here, you could
indeed so far talk sceptically of phenomenal experiences, in
various observers, which only seemed to be experiences re-
lating to the same object, but which as a fact do not demand
the real sameness of their object. But it is no longer so if,
in terms of the social consciousness, you consider not the
desk, but me as your nature-object. For I am to you not
only nature-phenomenon, represented in you by comparable
and merely similar perceptual experiences of your various
private worlds; but I am, as communicating fellow-man,
the same outer object for all of you.
Now a similar proposition holds true of any fellow-man.
Any man you please has for you his phenomenal aspect.
In this aspect he is viewed as object of possible experiences,
and the real facts corresponding to this view are, so far, ex-
pressible by saying that all of his observant fellows have
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 227
similar experiences whenever they come into certain de-
finable groups of relations to their own inner worlds. But
this man has another existence than the existence of certain
images that his fellows form. All of these images refer to
him, to the same man, to his manifested inner experience,
and so to one reality. And this is what the social conscious-
ness insists. Give up that insistence, in any general form,
and you have no social consciousness, no fellow-men with
similar experiences, no definable self-consciousness yes,
nothing but an inexpressible immediacy of inner presenta-
tions. But hold by that insistence, and what can you say ?
I answer : You can and must say that to one portion of phe-
nomenal nature, viz., to the observed bodily movements of
your fellows, there corresponds an inner life which is the
same in essence, however many may be the phenomenal
images that observers form of it when they refer to it as
a reality.
The first view of nature, viz., that nature consists of a
total of possible experiences, similar in various observers,
thus fails as to all those nature-objects that present them-
selves as our expressively moving fellows. Our fellows are
real beings, phenomenally observable from without by as
many observers as you please, but self-existent as masses of
inner experience, contrasted with one another, and with our
own experience*.
But now how can you separate the phenomenal fellow,
the originally real finite being, the original of your notion
of your non-Ego, from the phenomenal nature of which he
appears as a part, and with whose existence he appears to be,
in all his life, absolutely continuous ? For at this point
there returns to help us our whole knowledge of human
nature as such. A man's phenomenal expressive move-
ments, objects of possible experience for all observers, stand
for, and phenomenally accompany, his inner life. They
then are real manifestations of a real interior finite life.
228 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
But his movements cannot be thus regarded as real unless
his limbs, his muscles, his nerves, his brain, his circulatory
and nutritive processes, the food that he eats, the desk from
which he speaks, the air that he breathes, the room where
he speaks, the ancestors from whom he descended yes, in
the end, the whole phenomenal nature-order with which he
is phenomenally continuous, unless all these things be also
regarded as real in the same general sense, viz., as inner
finite experience. In short, you cannot separate your phe-
nomenal fellows from the order of phenomenal nature.
The continuity between man and nature, known to us first
as the absolute inseparability of the expressive movements
of our fellows from the nature-processes in which these
movements appear to be imbedded, and of which they are
phenomenally a part, has now become, in the light of our
whole experience of natural phenomena, an all-embracing
continuity, extending to cerebral and to general physiolog-
ical processes, and to the ancestry and evolution of the
human race, so that the highest in expressive human nature
is now phenomenally linked by the most intimate ties to
the simplest of physical processes. If, then, one's fellow is
real, the whole of the phenomenal nature from which his
phenomenal presence is continuous must be real in the
same general fashion.
But observe, this deduction of the reality of the natural
objects implies something very significant as to what nature
is. The only possible way to get at the existence of a finite
non-Ego is through some form of the social consciousness.
What a finite non-Ego is, your fellow teaches you when he
communicates to you the fact that he has inner experience,
and is the same object, however many observers view him.
Now if his continuity with the phenomenal nature of whose
processes his observed expressive movements are an insepa-
rable and continuous part, impels you to say that if he is
real his whole body, and so, in the end, the whole nature of
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 229
which that body is an inseparable part and an evolutionary
product, is also real, in an inner and finite sense, then the
only possible way to interpret this relation is to say : " Na-
ture, by itself, is a system of finite experience which, on
occasion, and by means of perfectly continuous evolution-
ary processes, passes over into, or differentiates from its own
organization, the communicative form of socially intelli-
gible experience that you and I call human."
VII.
The force of this proof is limited, of course, by the fact
that it is precisely an argument from continuity. It is ca-
pable of endless development and illustration ; and I take it
to be the only possible proof that nature exists in any way
beyond the actual range of our more or less similar human
experiences of nature's observable facts. Yet no argument
from any continuity of apparent processes has absolute
force. It does not follow that every hypothetical conception
which you and I now form of this or that natural process,
e. g., of the atoms, or of gravitation, corresponds to any dis-
tinct form of the inner nature-experience. As a fact, I take
it that our scientifically conceived laws of nature are largely
phenomenal generalizations from very superficial aspects of
the inner life of nature, and that very much indeed of what
we now call nature has existence only for human percep-
tion and thought, as a matter of the similarities of the ex-
periences of various human observers. But my point is
here not a detailed theory, but a general conception of na-
ture. And my general conception is this : There is a vast
system of finite experience, real as our socially communica-
tive fellows are real, and manifesting its existence to us just
as they do, viz., through the phenomena which appear to
our senses as material movements in space and time.
What this inner experience is we know, in case of our
human fellows, by social communication. What the rest
230 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
of the nature-experience is, we can only make out very in-
directly. But the continuity proves that the nature-experi-
ence passes over, on occasion, by unbroken although vastly
complex processes, into the form of human experience. All
the facts grouped together as the doctrine of Evolution,
make this continuity seem the more elaborate, minute, and
significant, the better we know it. In consequence we have
no sort of right to speak in any way as if the inner experi-
ence behind any fact of nature were of a grade lower than
ours, or less conscious, or less rational, or more atomic.
Least of all have we a right, as the Mind Stuff theories do,
to accept our hypothetical atoms as corresponding to real
nature-entities, and then to say that inorganic nature consists
of a mass of scattered sensations. Of the reality of organ-
ized experience we all know ; but scattered sensory states
are mere abstractions, just as the atoms of physics are.
There is no evidence for the reality of nature-facts which is
not defined for us by the very categories of the social con-
sciousness. No evidence, then, can indicate nature's inner
reality without also indicating that this reality is, like that
of our own experience, conscious, organic, full of clear
contrasts, rational, definite. We ought not to speak of dead
nature. We have only a right to speak of uncommunica-
tive nature. Natural objects, if they are real at all, are
prima facie simply other finite beings, who are, so to speak,
not in our own social set, and who communicate to us, not
their minds, but their presence. For, I repeat, a real being
can only mean to me other experience than mine ; and
other experience does not mean deadness, unconsciousness,
disorganization, but presence, life, inner light.
But it is customary to say, by way of getting rid of any
sort of animism, that we have no right to reason by mere
analogy from our inner experience to anything resembling
life in inorganic nature. To this I answer that, were the
foregoing argument one from analogy, it would be open to
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 31
the same objections as could be urged against any form of
animism. But the whole point of the foregoing analysis
has been that you do not first find nature as something real,
and occult, and then proceed to argue from analogy that
this occult reality is alive. On the contrary, I have first in-
sisted that occult realities, things in themselves, in the ab-
stract sense, are absurd ; that the social consciousness gives
us the only notion of finite reality that we can have ; and
that the social consciousness recognizes, as real, beings hav-
ing conscious experience. After this point was reached, and
only then, could we turn, in our argument, to the phenomena
of nature to ask if they must be regarded as conforming to
just such a concept of finite reality, since, as a fact, this is
our only possible concept of what a real being is. Now a
phenomenon of nature, on the face of it, is solely something
suggested to us by the agreement between the series of ex-
periences present in various men. And no purely physical
experience can possibly prove that nature has other reality
than this, viz., reality as a series of parallel trains of ex-
perience in various people. So far we had not to interpret
nature, but only to wonder why nature gets taken to be
real at all, apart from these parallel series of experiences.
Then it was that there came to our aid the argument from
continuity. Certain of the phenomena of nature do stand
for real inner experience, viz., the expressive movements of
men. It is impossible to separate these latter phenomena,
however, from the rest of the natural world, whose phe-
nomenal unity the doctrine of Evolution is now daily mak-
ing more manifest. Hence so we reasoned the rest of
phenomena] nature must be regarded as standing for systems
of finite experience, whose inner unity has to be defined in
the way tliat human experience illustrates. And it is thus,
not by analogy, but by the very process whereby nature
comes to be defined as real at all, that natural facts get
conceived as like other finite experience. Of the relation
232 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
of this " other experience than ours " in the cosmos, to our
human type of experience we can then at once say, that, in
the process of evolution, our human experience has become
differentiated, by long and continuous processes, from the
whole, so that relatively continuous intermediate stages now
probably link us to the rest of the cosmical inner life. Of
"unconscious" experience in nature we have no right to
speak, precisely because consciousness means the very form
and fashion of the being of experience itself, as we know it.
Of transformations of conscious experience, with a preserva-
tion of continuity through the whole process, our own
inner life gives us numerous examples.
Meanwhile, let us lay aside, once for all, the petty human
Philistinism that talks of the evolution of humanity out of
so-called "dead nature," as if it were necessarily a vast
progress from " lower " to " higher," or from the meaning-
less to the world full of meaning. What value human
life may get we in a measure know. But we certainly
do not know that the nature-experience whose inner sense
is not now communicated to us is in the least lower or less
full of meaning. Our human evolution is, as it were,
simply the differentiation of one nature-dialect, whereby
a group of finite beings now communicate together. We
have no right to call the other tongues with which nature
speaks, barbarous, because, in our evolutionary isolation
from the rest of nature, we have forgotten what they mean.
VIII.
A few concluding considerations seem to be still in place
in view of the most cogent positive objection that is likely
to be urged against the foregoing interpretation of nature.
The hypothesis advanced in the foregoing transcends our
direct as well as our scientifically mediated experience of
nature, just in so far as our view supposes that the nature-
phenomena are hints of the existence of a finite experience
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 233
continuous with ours, but such that its extra-human contents
are not communicated to us. And this transcendence of
our human experience is indeed a perfectly obvious objec-
tion to my notion. Yet the objection is so far only negative.
In admitting, as I do, all that such an objection can urge
so far as regards the fact that our hypothesis transcends
the limits of present human verification, I still answer that
this objection is precisely as cogent against every theory
which attributes any sort of genuine inner reality to nature,
as it is against our own theory. The objection, in fact,
contends only against the attribution of relatively inde-
pendent reality to nature, just as such attribution, and not
against our special view as such. No human verification,
made as it is under social conditions, can of itself do more
than prove (in the social sense of the word " proof ") that
various human experiences, existent in different men, have
certain actual agreements. To believe that nature has any
reality apart from these, our intercommunicable parallel
series of human experiences of what we call the nature-phe-
nomena, is, therefore, to transcend the actual data of the
social consciousness, so far as they are presented to us mor-
tals. The present objection, then, is equally valid against
all cosmological doctrines. The only question really at
issue, however, is : What reason forces us to transcend the
data of our literal social consciousness at all ? Why are we
led to assume a nature outside of the various reports that
men give of their parallel trains of describable physical ex-
perience ? To this question, as I conceive, the only fair
answer is the argument from continuity, as it has now been
stated. But the argument from continuity is an argument
for the existence of finite realities whose ultimate type the
social consciousness in general predetermines for our con-
ception, wliilr the nature of their sprrilic relations to our
experience is such as to preclude our filling out this gem-mi
conception of " other experiences than ours" with any par-
234 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
ticular contents such as we attribute to the communicative
minds of our fellows. My argument, then, is not for one
concept of the reality of the facts of nature as against con-
trasting, and equally possible, concepts of the reality of
beings other than ourselves. My argument is, that, from
the nature of our human consciousness, with its primal con-
trast of inner Ego and social non-Ego, we can have just one
general concept of a finite non-Ego, viz., the concept of
" other experience than our own." The only real question,
then, is : Shall we attribute this concept, in its most gener-
alized form, to nature, or shall we not ? There is no answer
to this question except the one derived from our foregoing
argument from continuity. That to attribute any reality
whatever to nature is to " transcend our own experience," in
the human and socially concrete sense of the word " experi-
ence," ought to be especially remembered by those who,
while glibly attributing to nature a reality which they pro-
fess to regard as utterly inscrutable, are still accustomed to
insist that one must never venture to transcend human ex-
perience in any fashion.
But it is not this negative argument that I myself re-
gard as the most cogent. I am, as I have just said, more
interested in a positive objection which will occur to many
of you.
The nature-experience, so our hypothesis supposes, is, in
at least a considerable degree, relatively continuous with
ours. That is, there is experience in nature which closely
resembles human experience ; there is other experience
which less resembles ours, but which need not be lower ;
there is conscious experience still more remote from ours ;
and so on. All this experience hints to us its presence, but
only in case of our human fellows communicates its inner
meaning to us. But one may now answer : " It is true that
the phenomena of our bodies are, physically speaking, con-
tinuous with the phenomena of physical nature in general.
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 235
It is not true, so soon as we leave man, that we get any
direct signs of the existence of an inner life, or nature-ex-
perience, at all corresponding, in its inner resemblance to,
our own, to the physical continuity of its phenomenal pro-
cesses with our own expressive physical life. The higher
animals manifest their inner experience, apparently similar
to ours, by expressive activities which resemble ours, but
which certainly do not stand in any close physical conti-
nuity with ours. Our own organic processes, on the other
hand, stand in very close relations of physical continuity
with our most intelligent conscious and voluntary deeds.
Yet if there is any inner experience connected with those
of our organic activities which have no conscious equiva-
lents in our own inner life, it is hard to show any sufficient
body of evidence to bring this ' subliminal ' experience into
any relatively continuous inner relations with our own,
despite the numerous, and decidedly interesting, recent
efforts which have been made to connect our individual
consciousness, by empirical links, with some such 'sub-
liminal ' processes." What my theory seems to lack, then,
is a definition of any way in which our human conscious-
ness can be in relations of inner continuity with a world of
experience which, although thus actually in close continuity
with ours, gives signs of its presence only through physical
phenomena whose inner meaning, even in case of our own
organic processes, quickly escapes any interpretation in
terms now intelligible to our socially limited minds. An
objector may well urge that this is a positive fault of the
theory. Our theory, he may say, need not undertake to
tell precisely what the supposed nature-experience con-
tains. But it ought to show how physical processes con-
tinuous with those of whose inner meaning we are conscious,
may involve, as their own inner aspect, types of experience
more or less continuously related to our own, and yet now
quite inaccessible to us.
236 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
As a fact, there is a very obvious way of hypothetically
accounting for this presence and inaccessibility of types of
experience closely related to ours, whose presence is hinted
to us by physical processes such that we now wholly fail to
interpret their inner meaning. This supplementary hy-
pothesis is suggested by one of the most interesting and
best known principles governing the correlation of mental
processes and their phenomenal accompaniments.
Mental processes, in human beings, are correlated to
physical processes whose phenomenal or externally observ-
able basis is known to be the functions of nervous systems.
Now the best known principle governing the physical for-
tune.s of any nervous system is the principle of Habit. This
is the rule that a nervous system tends to repeat its former
functions, when once these have become set through series
of repeated stimulations. Whatever function has frequent-
ly been accomplished under the direction of nervous cen-
ters, tends to be the more readily accomplished again. This
principle tends, of course, to the production of stability and
uniformity of conduct in us all. And the analogy between
the results of this special tendency to the formation of nerv-
ous Habits, on the one hand, and the existence of the ob-
servable processes of Natural Law in general, on the other
hand, has often been noted. The phenomenally observable
conduct of a being with a nervous system is always, as a
fact, and in proportion to the elevation of this being in the
scale of life, a very irregular sort of conduct. Yet it tends
towards regularity, because of the principle of Habit. Now,
however, the regularity of outwardly observable conduct
towards which, as towards an asymptote, the conduct of a
being with a nervous system tends, is a sort of regularity
which physical nature, especially in the inorganic world,
continually shows us, only in a highly perfected form, in
those extremely regular processes which we define, not, to
be sure, as the ideally ultimate laws of the universe, but as
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 237
the observable routine of phenomenal nature (such routine
as is exemplified by the tides, the seasons, etc.). That na-
ture's observable Laws might even be interpreted, from an
evolutionary point of view, as nature's gradually acquired
Habits, originating in a primal condition of a relatively
capricious irregularity, is a conception to which several re-
cent writers, notably Mr. Cope, and, with great philosophical
ingenuity, Mr. Charles Peirce, have given considerable
elaboration. I do not myself accept this notion that the
laws of phenomenal nature, where they are genuinely ob-
jective laws, and not relatively superficial human generali-
zations, are the evolutionary product of any such cosmical
process of acquiring habits, as Mr. Peirce has so ingeniously
supposed in his hypothesis of "Tychism." But I mention
the analogy between these regularities of physical phenome-
na which are called the observable laws of nature, and the
gradually acquired regularities of conduct which slowly ap-
pear in the lives of beings with nervous systems, in order to
introduce another consideration, of equal importance for
the definition of the place of conscious experience in the
cosmical order.
If it is the rule that our nervous systems tend to form
habits, and that habits mean uniformities of phenomenal
behavior, it is equally true that our human consciousness
tends to grow faint just in proportion as our habits become
relatively invariable. Our human and conscious experience
is the inner accompaniment of what appears, when viewed
from without, as an irregularity of phenomenally observ-
able conduct Or, in other words, our conscious life is the
inner aspect of a physical process of what is called our ad-
justment to our environment This adjustment tends to be-
come, in proportion to the perfection of our habits, a matter
of predictable routine. But whenever this routine becomes
relatively perfect, our consciousness grows fainter, and in
the extreme case of an almost entirely invariable physical
238 STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.
routine, our consciousness ceases, while the perfected nerv-
ous habit remains, for human experience, only as an exter-
nally observable phenomenal process of a physical nature.
A young man consciously and proudly twirls his mous-
tache. The acquisition of this new mode of conduct con-
stitutes a novel adjustment, and so involves change of
routine behavior. This change is accompanied, at first, by
a decided sense of personal importance. In time the habit
may become set, so that it gets an entirely reflex perfection,
and then, as in a well-known reported case, a man struck
senseless by a street-accident, and suffering from severe
cerebral injury, is seen, as he is carried to the hospital, auto-
matically twirling his moustache, from time to time, in
what, from our human point of view, appears as absolute
unconsciousness, since we are unable, either then or later, to
get into any sort of communication with the conscious
experience, if such there be, that forms an inner aspect of
this nervous habit. Just so, if one's nervous habits were so
well formed, and if one's environment were so changeless,
that one's whole physical life were a settled series of rhyth-
mically performed activities, recurring with the regularity
of breathing, or of the tides, the empirical evidence is that
one would have no conscious life of the sort now communi-
cated to us by our social fellows. Consciousness, as we
know it in man, and interpret its presence in animals, is an
incident of an interrupted adjustment to our environment
an interrupted adjustment which, seen from without, ex-
presses itself in conduct that involves alteration of old
habits to meet new conditions. As Romanes well asserted,
the signs of mind, in any animal, are best to be defined as
just such relative novelties of conduct in the presence of
new situations. Not routine, then, as such, but irregu-
larity, gives the physically interpretable sign of mind.
Habit is always present, in the actions of the obviously
conscious being; but, whenever he shows interpretable
CONSCIOUSNESS AXD NATURE. 239
signs of consciousness, habit is always undergoing alter-
ation.
If one considers these various groups of facts together,
one gets, at first, an impression of the place of conscious-
ness in nature which seems quite unfavorable to our hypoth-
esis. Inorganic nature seems to be, as we view it, a realm
where physical routine is, at present, obviously much more
nearly verifiable, in an exact degree, than is the case with
organic nature. In the inorganic world, then, what might
be called, by analogy, the habitual process of the cosmos,
the observable routine of physical phenomena, seems to be
especially fixed, and open in its fixity to our human obser-
vation. In the organic world, whether or no the same ulti-
mate natural laws would, if we knew the whole truth,
ideally explain the facts, it is obvious that, at present, we
see less regularity less perfected observable habits, so far as
our present imperfect experience goes. But, just where we
now see least regularity, there we get the only signs of
finite minds that we can at present definitely interpret.
The ordinary generalization from this whole situation is,
that, phenomenal irregularity being characteristic of the
physical processes which indicate mind, phenomenal regu-
larity must, by contrast, indicate the presence of the Uncon-
scious whatever that may mean.
But now this generalization is open to many objections.
The unconscious, as such, is, as a fact, a mere Ding-an-aich,
a meaningless abstraction. And, on the other hand, if one
leaves out the ultimate presupposition that all of nature's
processes, organic and inorganic, are, in some fashion still
unknown to us, absolutely and equally uniform if one, I
say, leaves out this ultimate metaphysical presupposition,
which I intend to examine in another place, and which
does not here concern us and if one confines one's self
simply to the phenomenal, and the to empirical differences
between organic and inorganic nature, then one must say
17
240 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
that the observable or the scientifically computable and
verifiable routine of rhythmic repetition in inorganic na-
ture is nowhere concretely known to us as phenomenally
invariable. The rhythm of the tides, at any given point, or
over the surface of the globe at large, is invariable only if
you do not take account of long periods of time. The same
holds true of the regularity of the earth's revolution on its
axis, and of the change of the seasons. The planetary orbits
undergo secular variations, which are, within certain long
periods, relatively rhythmic ; but if you take a period
sufficiently long, these variations are doubtless no longer
rhythmic.
As a fact, then, the permanence of the phenomenally
obvious " habits " of inorganic nature is only relative. It
is true that, if you pass from such observably regular
rhythms, whose actual degree of regularity is itself only a
varying function of the time taken into account, and if you
consider the ultimate and ideal "laws of nature," upon
which all such approximate regularities are conceived to be
founded, you do, indeed, reach systems of " force functions "
conceived as absolutely independent of time. But thus to
pass to the ultimate is to substitute a metaphysical concep-
tion of rigid causation for the empirically observed uni-
formities. And this conception which we here omit from
consideration, must apply, if true at all, to organic nature
quite as much as to inorganic nature. If, however, you
cling to the observable " habits " of nature, then the differ-
ence between the organic and the inorganic is one only of
the length of time required to make a given alteration of
habitual sequence in the phenomena manifest. Our solar
system is " adapting " itself to an environment of seemingly
limitless extent by the well-known dissipation of its ener-
gies. This adaptation involves, in varied ways, slow pro-
cesses of phenomenal change which must, in the end, alter
every known phenomenal rhythm of regularly repeated na-
CONSCIOUSNESS AND NATURE. 241
ture-habits. When read backwards, the same tendencies
indicate that the present phenomenal order must have been
reached by processes whose phenomenal manifestations
would have been, in past times, enormously different in
their routine from any process now manifest. Even if ulti-
mate laws exist, then, and involve absolutely ideal regu-
larities, which hold for all phenomena, organic and inor-
ganic, it still follows that the observable and relatively
rhythmic regularities of inorganic nature must be as truly
cases of constantly altered " habits," continually adjusted
to numerous conditions in the environment, as are the
seemingly so irregular expressive acts of our socially ex-
pressive fellows. The difference lies in the enormously
different times required to make manifest the alterations of
phenomenal conduct in question. A business man in a
great commercial crisis, or a great general, directing his army
during a battle, adjusts his regular routine to the new condi-
tions by changes of conduct that occur within very brief
periods. A planet or a solar system alters the routine of its
rhythmic processes in ways that it may take millions of
years to make manifest. But in both cases the essentials of
adjustment are present, viz., variations in the rhythm of
characteristic movements occurring in correspondence to
changing situations.
If, thus viewed, the difference between the larger phenom-
enal alterations of inorganic and of organic nature appears
mainly as a matter of the time-span involved in each alter-
ation, it remains to consider a little more carefully the re-
lation which we all experience between the inner processes
of our conscious experience and those expressive alterations
of habit to suit environment which accompany our con-
scious life.
What appears to our fellows from without as habit
altered to meet circumstance, appears from within, in tin-
experience of each of us, as the apperception of relatively
242 STUDIES OP GOOD AND EVIL.
new elements of experience by virtue of their relations of
similarity and contrast to relatively old or familiar or estab-
lished masses of inner states. The old, the familiar, the
established in consciousness we have always with us when-
ever we experience. It is the element of our consciousness
which corresponds, at any moment, to the established
nervous habits just then aroused to the routine of our
lives so far as it is just then repeated. The novel, the puz-
zling, the intruding element in our consciousness corre-
sponds to the alteration which the environment is at the
moment producing in our established physical routine as at
that moment represented. We breathe regularly, and are
not conscious of the fact. But an alteration in breathing,
produced by a novel physical situation, gets represented in
consciousness as a shock of surprise. Thus the alteration
of our physical routine, at any moment, correspo 
