^jms^ 1 '--■ -^ OM^ 3»^ft^ *'^* ^(^li'iotz. Walsh Philosophy Collection PRESENTED /«,/** LIBRARIES of the UNIVERSITY o/^TORONTO W # ^ »— »**^- ♦ >AAA j/V- -V^^' ^»^^ I' RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX |. Bhxti^ in llje pj^tlosoplja rif ^bolutiou BY A TROGLODYTE *eal TOP €7n)(€ipovvTa Xveip re Kai avdyctv, el ttms iv rais ;\epo-t bvvaiVTO Xa^elp, koi dnoKTfiueiav av. Plato, Reptiblic^ 517 a SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & PATERNOSTER SQUARE i8qi CO Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. F. S. N., HIS FELLOW - PRISONER IN THE CAVE, THE AUTHOR INSCRIBES THIS BOOK, IN THE HOPE THAT FROM HIS MIND ALSO IT MAY EXPEL SOME OF THE SHADOWS AND PHANTOMS THAT BESET THE LIFE OF ONE NOT YET PERMITTED TO BEHOLD THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. ERRATUM. Page 52, note. For ''Mahaffy's trans, p. 47," read "§ 46, p. 124." PREFACE. It is the privilege of a preface that it enables the author to deprecate some misconception of the scope and tendencies of his work by a preliminary explanation. And this privilege is doubly valu- able when the author has to excuse himself for writing a book upon subjects of the highest human interest. For he feels that it is no adequate excuse to plead that the condition of philosophy is such that his efforts cannot make it w^orse, and still less that the conclusions to which he has been led by many years of reflection may present some degree of novelty. He knows that real or apparent novelty is the greatest obstacle to success, even in this most progressive century, and that the mental attitude which was ever eager '* to hear some new thing " is as extinct as the *' Attic salt " which seasoned the disputations of the ancient philosophers. And the more fundamental the ideas are, upon which change is alleged to be necessary, the more violent is the resistance with which novel doctrines are resented. There is no subject, therefore, on which mankind is more conservative, and more unintelligently con- servative, than metaphysics, and a novelty in meta- physics is met as coldly as a novelty in fashions is welcomed warmly. So far, then, from priding him- self upon his novelty, the author would rather hope VI PREFACE. that he has not carried Innovation to a pitch too audacious, and has made it sufficiently clear that his principles are either ancient principles which he has revived, or commonly current principles which he has worked out to their logical conclusions, and cleared of the inconsistencies which ordinarily deface them. It is not upon the ground of novelty that the author would base his appeal for indulgence, but rather upon two wholly different facts. To the more or less technical public of those who love philosophy for its own sake and study it irrespective of its results, as one of the finest and most salutary disciplines of the mind, he would appeal because he believes that the experience of the last sixty years must have generated in their minds an unavowed but deep-seated and wide- spread distrust of and disgust with the methods which have starved philosophy in the midst of plenty, and condemned it to sterility and decay in the very midst of the unparalleled progress of all the other branches of knowledge. Can they really believe that a science is on the right path, which in the opinion of its most authoritative exponents ** has made no substantial advance since Hegel," and which meets the advances of the other sciences by an attitude of querulous negation ? Our philo- sophers have given more or less intelligible reasons, mostly in the form of voluminous commentaries on their predecessors, for their inability to accept a scientific interpretation of things which was so un- duly neglectful of this or that technical distinction, laid down by Hegel, or Kant, or Thomas Aquinas, or Aristotle. But though they have abounded in endless criticisms of one another and of the scien- PREFACE. VU tists, they have not found it possible to inform us what interpretation they themselves would put upon the world in the light of modern discoveries. Where is the cultivated reader to go for a positive statement of the philosophic view of the world, for an exposition of 7nodern metaphysics, and for an explanation of their bearing on the problem of life in its modern shape ? It was the sense of this want, of the absence of any interpretation of modern results in the light of ancient principles, which prompted the author to give what is substantially 2. philosophy of Evolutioii,^ the first perhaps which accepts without reserve the data of modern science, and derives from them a philosophical cosmology, which can emulate the completeness of our scientific cosmogonies. He believes that quite apart from professed philoso- phers, there exists a large and growing body of men, who are interested to know " what it all comes to," who are impressed by the mystery of the claim made on behalf of philosophy, and yet re- pelled by the fragmentariness, the unattractive form and the inconclusiveness of modern philosophy. Thus there exists a great deal of philosophic inter- est which is baffled by the difficulties of the subject, a great deal of philosophic reflection which comes to nothing, or still worse, leads only to confusion, 1 Of course, in speaking of the attitude of the philosophers proper towards scientific data, writers like Mr. Herbert Spencer are excluded. For he is just a typical representative of modern ideas which have failed to obtain due notice at the hands of the metaphysicians. In von Hartmann's case there is indeed no disputing the reality of the old metaphysics, but their juncture with the new ideas of Evolution is too superficial, and the latter have not been able substantially to affect the character of the former {cp. ch. x. § 11, note). Vlll PREFACE. for lack of the most ordinary facilities for studying the subject. It is with a view to affording these, and in the hope that his book may be found not only a contribution to modern philosophy, but use- ful also as an introduction to its study, that the author has avoided needless technicalities, and as far as possible explained their use on their first appearance. And to some extent the same motive has led him to treat his subject in the order which It assumes to the individual mind as it sets out on its explorations. By setting out from the anti-meta- physical agnosticism of ordinary men, it starts with a stock of ideas which are more familiar to men than the fundamental conceptions of metaphysics, which come last in the order of discovery. And at the same time this arrangement brings out more clearly the natural dialectic of the soul, and the necessity of the process which impels it, step by step, from the coarsest prejudice and crassest " fact," towards the loftiest ideals of metaphysics. But an adequate defence of the plan of the book may be made also on its intrinsic merits. It is written not only in the order which is likely to be most palat- able to the ordinary reader, but also in the order which is natural both to human thought and to the course of the world, which is required by its induc- tive method of philosophizing (ch. vi. § 2), the order in which it took shape in the author's brain, and the order which is most worthy of the dignity of the subject. For by representing the course of the argument as a sort of philosophical Pilgrim's Pro- gress, it most emphatically asserts the vital import- ance of the points at issue. And yet, of course, the author is well aware that his order is not devoid of countervailing disadvan- PREFACE. IX tages. It makes him liable, e.g., to verbal contradic- tions between the earlier and more imperfect adum- brations of a conception, and the clearer and more perfect grasp which is possible only later on, i.e., it renders it necessary to read the earlier to some extent in the light of the later assertions. This danger it has been attempted to minimize by a frequent use of cross-references. And, secondly, it was unfortunately impossible to avoid a good deal of technical discussion in chapters ii. and iii., in the refutation of Aornosticism and the establishment of Scepticism : all that could be done was to warn the non-technical reader of what to omit by means of the analysis of the argument. As to the remaining points which might seem to require explanation, the author must refuse to apologize for what may seem the romantic character of some of his conclusions. For romance is a rela- tive term, and for his part he would often be inclined to agree with the uninitiated public in looking upon some of the most ordinary assertions of the dullest every-day philosophy as the wildest and most per- nicious romance. And in any case, no apology should be needed for the romance of philosophy in an age which has rightly learned to appreciate " the fairy tales of science." If truth seems stranger than fiction, it is because we have previously abased our minds to the level of superstitions none the less fictitious for being unpoetical. The attitude of '' Riddles of the Sphinx" to the established religion is a subject more important and more difficult, and it would be presumptuous to attempt any forecast of its reception. But its author may sincerely claim that its relation to Christianity is one of complete independence, and even that it was X PREFACE. intended rather for the deniers and doubters of religious truth. And this was all the more possible that on the whole the discussion dealt with subjects upon which religious tradition was silent, or dis- cussed them on planes so different that their re- spective assertions could hardly come into contact. Nevertheless, whenever the conclusions arrived at coincided with those of religion, this has been frankly admitted. But in no case has this coinci- dence been quoted as an authority, or taken the place of independent argument. Neither, on the other hand, has the author concealed his disagree- ment with certain widely prevalent religious views, such as, e,g., that as to the infinity of the Deity. But he has been at pains to point out that the views he combats have not been unambiguously asserted by the Christian Church, and that they are incompat- ible with the spirit of all religion. He trusts, there- fore, that rather than impugn the orthodoxy of a philosophy which contains no doctrine inconsistent with the principles of religion, theologians will find it possible to put such an interpretation upon the dogmas in question as will at length reconcile faith with reason. Instead of hastily condemning verbal divergencies from the wording of the Athanasian Creed, let them reflect rather whether it is not wiser to meet in .a conciliatory spirit the well-meant efforts of a philo- sophical theory which may sincerely claim that its metaphysics enable it to grant to religion the substance, though not the shadow of its demands, and which challenges careful consideration of the question whether all the alternative systems do not do just the reverse, and sacrifice the substance to the shadow. Certainly religion can still less afford PREFACE. XI to quarrel needlessly with philosophy than science ; but even the votaries of the physical sciences may find it growing more and more impossible to dis- avow their metaphysical basis, and more and more needful to recognize that the problems of philosophy concern the first principles of all knowing and all living. Hence it was with the idea of diminishing this estrangement between philosophy and ''science," that the author has attempted to bring out the metaphysical conclusions implied in the frank and full acceptance of the methods of modern science, and in the hope that both parties might discover in them some possibility of composing their differ- ences in a manner equally advantageous and honour- able to both. But though the shock of diametrically opposed views is generating in many thoughtful minds, the conviction that their common ground and reconcili- ation must be sought deeper down than has been the fashion, the anti-metaphysical surface current is still sufficiently violent, both in religion and in science, to render discretion the duty of all who do not covet the barren honours of a useless martyrdom. Hence it would be needless to assign any further reason for the last point it is necessary to allude to, viz., the anonymity of the Riddles of the Sphinx, even if the professional position of its author were such that he could afford to disregard men's intolerance of real or seeming innovation. For the splendid satire of Plato is unfortunately still too true to the spirit of men's treatment of those whose souls have risen by rough paths of speculation to the supernal spheres of metaphysics, and who return to tell them that the shadows on the walls of their Cave are not the whole truth, nor precisely what their nurses have Xll PREFACE. taught them, and such as they have learnt from their grandmothers. In their wrath ''they would, if perchance they could lay their hands upon them, verily put them to death ; " for their first impulse is still to stone the prophets, whose spirit their boot- less reverence will afterwards oppress beneath the burden of memorial sepulchres. Who then will take it upon him to blame a philosopher if he wraps his mantle closely around his face ? ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. BOOK J. PAGE 3 Chapter I. Introductory § r. The prevalent despair of solving the highest problems of knowledge not justified in an age of pro- gress. § 2. Causes of this despair in the faulty attitude of religion, philosophy, and science. § 3. Its results — a posiiivist temper — " we can do without philosophy. ^^ § 4. But we can not. Philosophy as the theory of Life, and so practical. §§ 5-8. Tlie problem of philosophy really that of all knowledge ; shown both in the common origin of religion (§ 6), philosophy (§ 7), and science (§ 8), viz., Animism, and in their common end, viz., practice. § 9. Hence Positivism must admit that philosophy is desirable and important. It can only assert that it is impossible, and § 10 tliereby become Agnosticism. Chapter II. Agnosticism 16 § I. Its two varieties, scientific and epistemological, Spencer and Kant. §§ 2-6. Objections to both. % 2. Suspense of judg- ment on the problems of life impossible in practice. § 3. The argument from the known to the unknowable always involves a contradiction. § 4. The impossibility of a transition from the known to the unknowable. § 5. No infinity in things to suggest an unknowable. § 6. Agnosticism must be rendered consistent by a denial of the causality of the Unknowable, which is thereby re- duced to nought. §§ 7-10. Spencer ian Agnosticism. % 7. ia) Direct arguments to show the existence of the Unknowable r. of s. ^'" b XIV ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. refuted : (i) growth of knowledge is not a growth of ignorance ; (2) explanations are not required ad infini- turn ; (3) a limit does not imply something beyond it ; this is true of (conceptual) space, but not of know- ledge. §§ 8-10. Spencer's indirect arguments from the difficulties of metaphysics should not daunt an evolu- tionist. § 9. The self-existence of God, how tenable. § 10. The infinite regress of causation and the question' as to the cause of the first cause. But this difficulty is one of all causation, extending also to science, and therefore sceptical. Insuperable, if an absolute first cause is meant, but not if only a cause of our world. §§ 11-21. Kantian Agnosticism. The defects of our minds preclude us from the knowledge of things as they really are. §§ 12-17. His positive a^'guments examined, § 12. Kant's refutation of his own distinction of things in themselves and appearances. § 13. His claim to have made an exhaustive analysis of the mind. § 14. His distinction of Form and Matter in knowledge. But we cannot know until we try. § 15. The epistemologi- cal standpoint incompatible with the evolution of the mind and the development of its categories. § 16, Epistemology is futile as well as false, (§ 17) if the '^ immane7it criticism of experience'' does not transcend its limits. The ambiguity of " a priori " .• it should be taken logically only, and not of priority in time. §§ 18-21. Indirect ar-gnments from the metapJiysical difficulties of (§ 19) theology, of (§ 20) the antinomies, of (§ 21) psychology. § 19. Kant's claim that of three possible proofs of the existence of God, two are false and the third is inadequate. But if the third can prove a limited God, is not this all that is needed ? § 20. The antinomies, the infinity of Space and Time. The thesis inadequately stated, being supported by science as well as by metaphysics ; the proof of the antithesis holds good only of our ideas of Space and Time, and identifies Space with what fills it. A third alternative in the case of Time, ignored by Kant. § 21. Kant's attack on the reality of the soul ; its assumptions and contradictions. § 22. The origin of agnosticism, a phenomenon of the growth of knowledge. § 23. The transition into Scepticism owing (i) to the impossibility of refuting metaphysics without upsetting science, and § 24 (2) to the self-criticism of Agnosticism. ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. XV PAGE Chapter III. Scepticism 57 § I. The meaning of Scepticism, and § 2 its invalid forms. §3. It must be hnmaneiit and 'base itself on the irreconcilable conflict of the data of consciousness, e.g.^ between thought and reality. §§ 4-14. The origin and Jlatvs of the conceptions form- ing the fii'st principles of science. § 4. They are mutilated anthropomorphisms, and (§ 5) cannot grasp the Becoming of things. § 6. This shown in the case of Time. The fiction of its discreteness. Time measured by motions and motions by Time, a vicious circle. Its infinity and self-contradiction. § 7. Space. Its infinity. Atomism v. its infinite divisibility. Matter and Space and the Void. Real and conceptual Space and the truth of geometry. § 8. Motion measured by Rest, but Rest illusory. If all motive is relative, what of the conservation of energy ? How can there be potential energy or position in in- finite Space? § 9. Matter^ an abstraction. The solidity of atoms does not account for the hardness of bodies. The wonders of the Ether. Action at a distance and inertia. Matter a hypothesis which is not even self- consistent. § 10. Force ^ only depersonalized will. The interaction of bodies a theory. § 11. Causation., its animistic origin. It will not work unless arbitrary isola- tions and connections are made in the complex of phe- nomena. Even so it involves the difficulties of an infinite regress or of a First Cause, and finally, it con- flicts with free will. § 12. Substance, the permanent in change; no proof of this. § 13. Becoming not a cate- gory, but a contradiction to thought, which science can deal with only as Being and Not Being. But Being a fiction, for all things become. So (§ 14) none of our principles can deal with Becoming, because of the radi- cal difference of thought and feeling (reality). The meaning of the a priority of thought. § 15. The characteristics of the Real; individual, substantival, presented, becomes in Time and Space, has infinite content. And of Thought, does not beco7ne in Time or Space, but is valid eternally ; abstract, univer- sal, discursive, discrete, adjectival, necessary. Hence, § 16, a harmony of truth and fact, viz., knowledge, is impossible. §§17-18. This conclusion is confirmed by logic, both as to judgment, which states ideas as facts, and (§ 18) as to inference, which does not even pretend xvi ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. to correspond with facts. The course of explanation leads away from reality. § 19. Hence the case for knowledge is hopeless. .^ 20. But yet our assumptions work. This plea only shifts the ground of the argu- ment, and by denying (§21) that knowledge ultimately works in practice, Scepticism passes into Pessimism. CiiAriER IV. Pessimism 95 ,§§ 1-2. Pessimism essentially the theory of the inherent perversity of things, rendering all the aims of life illusory. 1^ 3. Not based on hedonism ; the belief that life is misery the consequence, not the cause of Pessimism. i^ 4-19. The Ideal of Happiness. § 4. As happiness is complete adaptation to environment, it is impossible in a world of change. § 5. So there is no adaptation to the physical environment — all must die. Nor (§ 6) to the social— births, marriages and deaths. Nor (§ 7) is harmony attainable in the soul — inherited discords and incompatible claims. Life for the individual a fruitless struggle, with a certain prospect of defeat. §§ 8-10. The prospects of the race no better, either physically, § 8 ; socially, § 9 ; or psychologically, § 10. Owing to the rapidity of the changes in the conditions of life, our feelings are survivals from obsolete modes of life, and conflict with our reason. Our bodies still less har- monized with our duties. i;§ 11-17. The evidence for Pejorism, the growth of misery. § 12. Evidence that the physical organism does not adapt itself quickly enough to changed conditions. Increased sensitiveness to pain, and diminished power of recuperation. Death itself evolved. ^13. Material progress renders spiritual misery possible, and (§ 14) provokes social discontent. i^ 15. 'I'he social environment has grown too fast, and so (§ 16) has the discord in the soul, most obviously (§ 17) in the case of the sexual feelings, which have re- tained an excessive strength from animal times, although the smaller waste of life renders it needless. They are fostered by society, but their wholesome gratification ])ecomes more and more difficult. Consequent growth of immorality and misery, i:^ 18. The evolutionist argu- ment for Meliorism : adaptation must prevail, for the unadapted die, — § 19, unless the nature of things is ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. XVU PAGE SO perverse that the environment changes more rapidly than adaptation takes place. § 20. The Ideal of Goodness. The moral vaUie of life would only aggravate its misery. But goodness is as impossible "as happiness : depends on the proportion between the moral ideal and actual conduct. If then the moral ideal is capable of infinite growth, it is un- attainable, and we fall farther and further short of it. § 21. The Ideal of Beauty. The sense of beauty tlie least developed ; its conflict with the other ideals ; makes us sensitive to the ugliness of ordinary life. § 22. The Ideal of lOiowledge. It, like the rest, re- quires a fixed environment, and so baffled by the Be- coming of the world. § 23. But the success of Pessimism may be due to the rejection of metaphysics. BOOR IL Chapter V. Reconstruction .... . 133 § I. Result so far to prove that metaphysics alone can answer Pessimism, though, § 2, even that will only be an alternative. No direct answer to Scepticism or Pessimism possible. But if philosophy can solve all the problems of life, it may be esteemed successful. The three great characteristics of life to be accounted for. § 3. The one indisputable fact and basis of philosophy, viz., the reality of the Self. Attacked in vain by Hume, and by Kant (§ 4). § 5. The Self as the concrete union of thought and feeling rises superior to the sceptical attack on knowledge, and suggests that the ideals of thought are nearer to truth than sensible reality, and that the change of the real may be due to its striving after the ideal. § 6. The necessary anthropomorphism of all thought ; choice only between good and bad. § 7. The bad either false or confused. § 8. The confused anthropomorphism of science, and, § 9, the ideal of true anthropomorphism : to show how all things are of like nature with the mind. Chapter VI. The Method of Philosophy . . . 14S § I. Epistemological and psychological methods must be rejected, as they do not take the mind in its historical context. Hence, § 2, the method must be either meta- XVlll ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. I'AGE physical or pseudo-metaphysical. § 3. The latter mis- applies the methods of science to ultimate questions. But (i) the principles of the sciences involve contradic- tions which philosophy has to solve. And (2) this method explains the higher by the lower, which is im- possible, and then denies the higher. (3) Its strength lies in its appreciation of the continuity of things and its accumulation of data. § 4. The metaphysical method rightly protests against the explanation of the higher by the lower, but merely asserts their difference, while their connection is wanted. § 5. By denying the con- tinuity of higher and lower it either regards them as antagonistic, and ends in dualism and pessimism, e.g., Platonism, or, § 6, it ignores the lower altogether, like the Eleatics and Hegel. § 7. The fact is that the method is abstract, and that first principles which are abstractions are all false, all the more (§ 8) when they are picked up at random. § 9. The true method is metaphysical, but concrete. It explains the lower by the higher, but admits their connection. Metaphysics to be derived from the sciences. § 10. Its difficulties; (i) scarcity of precedents, § 11 (2) Our imperfect know- ledge of the lower, and § 12 (3) Our imperfect attain- ment of the higher, which remains unimaginable to the lower. § 13. These defects limit its achievements, yet, ,^ 14, much light may be derived from the new data of science. Chapter VII. The Metaphysics of Evolution . .170 § I. The theory of evolution, like all others, must be based on ultimate principles, i.e., metaphysics. § 2. It is a special case of the historical method, which assumes the reality of history, and so of time. Also (§ 3) that the past has caused the present, and that things have had an origin. But how if causal connexion is an illu- sion, and the infinity of time renders a beginning incredible ? Hence the historical method assumes a real beginning of things, or at least of their history. § 4. Evolutionism shares these assumptions, and adds the assertion that history proceeds from the simple to the complex. § 5. By erecting this fact into a universal principle evolutionism becomes metaphysical and philoso- phic, as in Spencer. § 6. Evolution as a history of all ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. XIX PAGE tilings, and so involving a sort of teleology. § 7. But in what sense is a history an explanation ? The three results of historical explanations, an inexplicable datum, a passing into something else, or an origination out of nothing, and, § 8, ultimately they all resolve into the last. ,^ 9. The logical necessity of this process illus- trated by evolutionist theories, and §§ 10-12 most com- pletely by Mr. Cr jokes' theory of protJiyle^ and of the genesis of the elements. § 13. Does it refer to a historical event or assert an eternal process? If the latter, the mechanical cosmogony of evolutionism would be complete. ^14. But prothyle is indistinguishable from nothing. The genesis and dissolution of atoms a couple of miracles. §15. Hence historical evolutionism must be supplemented by metaphysics, and it must be admitted, ^16, that it is really successful only when it derives the actual from its germ or potentiality, as explained by Aristotle. § 17. Though in Time the potential comes first, metaphysically the actual is prior. ^18. So prothyle, as the pure potentiality of the whole phenomenal world, implies a prior actuality, i.e.^ a 7ion- phenomenal cause of its evolution, and so a transcendent Deity becomes necessary, of whose purpose the world- process is the working out. And as its earlier stages are more remote from that purpose, the true significance of things lies in their end, and all explanation is ultimately teleological. § 19. The necessity of teleology is also derivable from the analysis of the conception of a pro- cess, for, § 20, a process is necessarily7^;«V5 3, the proper, and § 4, the mathematical sense ; but infinity is inapplicable to quantity. § 5. There is no need to regard the infinity of Time and Space as anything but ideal ; and § 6, it is impossible to infer from this ideal infinity that of the real world, which would render knowledge impossible. § 7. The metaphysical difficulties of infinity. Space and Time abstractions. § 8. Infinite Time self-contradictory. An infinite whole, an infinite process, and an infinite regress of causes impossible. § 9. These difficulties reappear in science. The dissipation of energy in infinite Space. The atom and infinite divisibility. The equilibration of energy. If the world is infinite. Evolution is a mis- take. § 10. In favour of infinity there is only a disa- bility of our thought. In the case of Space this may prove purely subjective and temporary. § 11. But in the case of Time the reality of the world-process is bound up with it. But the consciousness of Time de- pends on that of change. If, then, change can be tran- scended, so can Time. Time, Becoming and Evil, as corruptions of Eternity, Being, and Perfection, and so Time passes into Eternity at the completion of the world-process. §§ 12-15. Idealis7n and Science. % 12. The denial of an " external world," a corollary from the primary fact of idealism, which idealists are anxious to avoid. § 13.' That fact being inconclusive in itself must be interpreted either by a universal mind (in which case the world remains an illusion) or, § 14, by transcendent realities, existing in consciousness, but not only in con- sciousness, i.e., the Self and the world are correlative facts, and if ultimate existence is ascribed to the one, it must be also to the other. But they need not turn out to be such as they appear. § 15. Thus idealism refutes materialism, and brings out the distinction be- tween phenomenal and ultimate existence; § 16, but this must be shown in detail. XXU ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. §§ 17-25. The explanation of Matter. §17. Matter an abstraction. The unknowable substratum of Force. All its effects due to forces. But the substratum of the forces need not be material. § j8. Intelligence as the substratum of Force. Monads as the metaphysical account of the material. ^ 19. These result also from the analysis of "Force." § 20. Reconciliation of ideal- ism and science, matter not being an ultimate fact. ,^ 21. It is the result in consciousness of an interaction between the Deity and ultimate spirits, or Egos. § 22. The relation of these Egos to the Deity and to our phenomenal " selves." J^ 23. This account borne out by scientific evidence. Hypnotism and the conception of an objective hallucination. Secondary selves. § 24. Thus the progressive phases of the interaction of the Egos with the Deity, form the history of the world. ,^ 25. Flow the world's existence in consciousness is compatible with its reality and with the plurality of spirits. Parallels in dreams and the collective halluci- nations of hypnotism. ^§ 26-28. The significance of Matter. § 26. The fallacy of separating body and soul as aspects of the same interaction. § 27. This rejection of dualism does not lead to materiali.sm if the relation of body and soul be inverted, and the body regarded not as what causes but as what represses consciousness. The growth of organization a growth of labour-saving mechanism which liberates consciousness. § 28. Hence matter is a divine mechanism for controlling resisting spirits, an explan- ation which fits the facts as well or better than material- ism. §§ 29-31. The spiritual evolution of Matter. % 29. The properties of matter are seen to be less opposed to tliose of spirit. ^Modern materialism less uncompromis- ing than ancient. ^ 30. Matter less of an obstacle to spiritual evolution. Material and spiritual progress interdependent in society, and also in the individual. True development is liarmonious, and does not involve antagonism with lower phases of life. §31. Yet there is truth also in the ascetic view of matter, as it char- acterizes an essentially imperfect world. § 32. How the existence of the world, before that of conscious beings, may be reconciled with the idealist assertion that matter exists only in consciousness. ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. XXlll PAGE Chapter X. Man and God 309 § I. Man and his cause — God. His nature as implied in the earlier results, (a) As the first cause,, but only of the phenomenal world, (b) As a factor in the interaction which produces the world, {c) As personal, {d) as finite, because only a finite God can be inferred, and all force impHes resistance. So God is in all, but not all. § 2. The finiteness of God conflicts with reli- gious and philosophic tradition, but may be proved. §§ 3-23. The doctrine of the Infinite. §§ 3-7. The religious conception of God — a mass of contradictions. His infinity incompatible with all His other attributes, e.g.^ (i) personality, (2) consciousness, (3) power, (4) wisdom, § 4. (5) Goodness ; either God is evil or everything is good. The failure of the attempts at re- conciliation. § 5. For the Infinite there can be no reality in good and evil, nor meaning in the phenomenal world and its process. § 6. Nor does it admit of Revelation. § 7. The origin and history of the attribute of infinity. Monotheism a compromise between poly- theism and pantheism. But it may be purged of its contradiction by omitting the infinity. §§ ^-2 2,. Tlie Infinite in philosophy- — Pantheism. ^8. In pantheism "God" = the universe as a whole. ^ 9. The exceptions to this view, e.g.^ J. S. Mill. § 10. Pantheism a mistake (i) emotionally, because it renders good and evil illusory. i$§ 11, 12. (2) Scientifically, be- cause it destroys the reality of the world-process and the meaning of the world, and ultimately (§ 12) must declare all change illusory. Hence, either we and our world, or the Absolute, an illusion, g 13. The objec- tion that finite minds cannot grasp the Infinite, un- tenable, for if true, they would never have formed the conception of an Infinite. § 14. The attempt to make the Infinite a postulate of feeling. But how can feeling decide delicate questions of metaphysics ? i^§ 15-20. (3) The logical basis of Pantheism. §15. The main basis of Pantheism logical— but fallacious. ,§ 16. The words "all" and "whole" ambiguous. A finite totality v. an infinite maximum. §17. The " In- finite " a misnomer because a real whole must be finite. § 18. But anyhow the world is not a real whole. The two ways of conceiving the relation of a whole to its XXIV ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. PAGK. parts, of which the one would not apply to the absolute "All," and the other would make it an ideal whole. § 19. A third way conceivable, if the reality of the whole could be directly inferred from the reality of the parts. But it is not yet realized, and (§ 20) if it were, it would make the parts as necessary to the existence of the whole, as the whole to the parts. Though the ideal of social harmony, this does not justify Pantheism. §§ 21-23. (4) ^^^ vietaphysical basis of Paiitheisin. § 21. The ultimate question of ontology. Is existence one, dual, or many ? Monism, Dualism, Pluralism. Why Dualism must be rejected. The difficulties of Monism — it cannot explain phenomenal plurality. § 22. Pluralism does not need to do so. The relation of the Many to the One. The One as the possibility of the interaction of the Many. § 23. Pluralism can also regard the One as the ideal of a real union. Perfection. v^ 24-30. The nature of God. § 24. The finiteness of God follows from the adoption of Pluralism in meta- physics. God not = " Nature," and hence "Nature" can contain an element which resists God, i.e.^ Evil, due to the imperfect harmony of ultimate spirits. The world-process designed to harmonize them. § 25. This view verified in the actual character of evil. Evil that which obstructs the course of Evolution. § 26. Change and death as consequences of inharmonious interaction. § 27. God immanent as well as transcendent. Can be in all because not = all. § 28. Our conception of the Divine Power really heightened by this view : its practi- cal value. § 29. Why pluralism must be theistic — a Deity required to guide the world-process. § 30. Pluralism not Polytheism. Chapter XI. Immortality 375 § I. The unreasonable attitude of men towards the subject. Do they really desire to believe in a future life? 5^ 2. Is such belief really desirable? Its dangers and advantages. 5^ 3. Can the question be settled by an appeal to facts in the shape of ghost stories, etc. ? Facts which are not reasonable carry no conviction. 5^ 4-13. But the reasons on both sides are inadequate, (a) In favour of immortality. §4. (i) The*religious argument. § 5. (2) The argument from moral necessity ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. ' XXV fAGE and the postulates of feeling. § 6. (3) From dualism and the different natures of body and soul. This ends in materialism, or in the immortality of a universal Soul, which is not personal. §§ 7-13- (^) "^^^^ arguments against immortality. % 7. (i) Materialism. § 8. (2) The self-evidence of death. But we know what death is only from the point of view of the survivors, and, taking an idealist view of the material world, this is insufficient. § 9. (3) The gradual evolution of consciousness : either all beings are immortal or none. § 10. This objection to be answered only by a doctrine of gradations in immortality, corre- sponding to those of consciousness. §11. Practically a future life dependent on self-identity and memory. § 12. But memory is a matter of degree. Immortality proportioned to spiritual development. § 13. Objec- tions. §§ 14-16. The metaphysical basis for the belief in immortality. § 14. Its only secure basis in the plurality of ultimate existences, whose spiritual evolution inspires the material evolution. § 15. Their relation to our phenomenal selves. The latter phases in the develop- ment of the former, which persist as factors in that development. The immortality of the good and transi- toriness of evil. ^16. This theory meets the chief difficulties. §§ 17-25. Elucidation of difficulties. § 17. Pre- existence, confirmed b)'' Darwinist account of the "descent of man." §§ 18-22. Pre-existence and Here- dity. § 18. Not incompatible, owing (§ 19) to the possibility of double causation. § 20. Examples of this. §21. Hence the scientific and the metaphysical views both true. § 22. The significance of heredity. § 23. Do several phenomenal beings correspond to a single ultimate spirit ? Evidence in favour of this view. § 24. Especially in the existence of Sex. A metaphysic of Love. § 25. Yet this does not affect the ultimate ideal. Chapter XII. Conclusion 431 § I. The relation of the world's evolution to ultimate reality. § 2. The ultimate aim of the process — the perfectioning of a society of harmonious individuals. XXVI ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. ^ 3. If SO, its starting-point must have been a minimum of harmony. This implies a precosmic state, when no interaction, and hence no world, existed. It preceded Time and Change, and does not admit of further in- quiries. ^ 4. The end of the world-process — in the attainment of perfect harmony or adaptation — the per- fection and aim of all the activities of life. Distin- guished by its metaphysical character from the Becoming of the time-process, a changeless and eternal state of perfect Being. This includes a solution of all difficul- ties, evil, Time, divergence of thought and feeling, etc. §^ 5-1 1. The nature of Pej'fection. § 5. It is con- scious, but not self-conscious. § 6. It is perfect Activity rather than Rest, Being rather than Not-Being, Heaven rather than Nirvana. The conception of the Ideal as the perfection of activity, held by Aristotle. § 7. The analogy of perfect motion. § 8. The content of the perfect activity of Being cannot be imagined, but only conceived, as it is an ideal of thought which lacks all analogy in sensuous experience. But if reality realizes the ideals of thought, i.e., if the world is rational and knowledge possible, the ideal of Being must be realized. For it is implied in the assumption of all thought that what becomes is. But it must be experienced and can- not be anticipated. § 9. Hence it can be described only as the perfection of the activities of life, and yet transcends them. It is perfect goodness, knowledge, beauty, and happiness, and yet something more. § 10. It is all-embracing, else its harmony might be destroyed. Hence the existing imperfection of the world reflected in the divine consciousness. The expression of this principle in philosophy and religion — the sympathetic suffering of Christ. The world-process a redemption of all beings. ;^ 11. It is attainable, as a real process does not admit of infinite approximations. ^12. The ultimate answer to the problem — the world- process leads from timeless Not-Being through temporal Becoming to eternal Being. § 13. Yet this answer is hypothetical, and only gives an alternative to Pessimism, for the final rejection of which (^ 14) Faith in the ration- ality of things is required ; demonstration must issue in belief. ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. XXVII PAGE Appendix. Freedom and Necessity . . . . 459 § I. The difficulty as usually stated insoluble, as (§ 2) both terms have several senses. § 3. The difficulty really one about the nature, not of the will, but of caus- ation. § 4. This shown by fact tliat both determinists and libertarians ultimately arrive at indeterminism. § 5. But the question has been wrongly put, for to explain the will by causation is to explain the prototype by the derivative. The assumptions made. § 6. Causation and necessity strictly applicable only to the will. Neces- sity should mean the feeling of compulsion, § 7, when, like Freedom, it would be a psychological fact. Free- dom and Necessity as correlative, and both abnormal. § 8. For the maximum consciousness of either involves an unhealthy mental condition, while thorough degrad- ation is unconscious of either necessity or freedom. § 9. This is the condition of inanimate nature, the Be- coming of which is neither necessary nor free. But we read causal necessity into what simply happens. § 10. But as there is a state beneath morality and freedom, so there is one which transcends the consciousness of a freedom and necessity, viz., perfect wisdom and perfect virtue. So both necessity and freedom are defects of a nature only partly rational, and would vanish together in perfection, i.e.^ at the end of the world-process. BOOK I. R.ofS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. § I. The attempt nowadays to solve afresh the world-old problems of philosophy will doubtless be thought to require some apology : for though there has never been an age in which the desire for such solution has been more ardent, or the need greater, there is none also in which the faith in its possibility has been fainter. It is an age which professes to have despaired of the ultimate problems of life with its lips, whatever the secret hopes it may cherish in its heart ; it is an age in which a theory of what we can not know has usurped the name of philosophy, in which science is defined as the knowledge of the manifestations of the Unknowable, in which, even in religion, God has become an unknowable Infinite, and Faith has been degraded into an unthinking assent to unmeaning verbiage about confessedly insoluble difficulties, instead of being the prescience that forecasts the future beyond what is rigorously justified by the data as yet given, the pillar of flame that points out the path of the soul beyond the limits of unaided sight. And so we are brought face to face with the curious and unnatural phen- omenon that an age which has witnessed greater triumphs of the human mind than any that preceded it, should have despaired more completely of an answer to its highest questions. INTRODUCTORY. In view of this anarchy of the intellectual com- monwealth, the aim of this essay will be threefold. Its first design will be to record a protest against the current despair of a theoretic understanding of the meaning of life, a protest for which it should, even if unsuccessful, deserve at least the thanks which the unyielding constancy of the Roman Senate bestowed upon the general who had brought about the catastrophe of Cannae, for not having despaired of the republic. Secondly, it aims at tracing the far-reaching consequences of this super- ficial and apparently unimportant despair of philo- sophy, and tracking it to its ultimate foundation in utter pessimism and complete negation. Thirdly, its main object will be to put forward a sketch of a possible solution of the great problems of philo- sophy, which may, it is hoped, claim to proceed from a new combination of the old materials, to reconcile the present antagonism of several import- ant ways of thinking, and to afford to its conclusions a more or less considerable degree of probability. And this probability will assuredly be materially enhanced if it can be shown that these conclusions, possible in themselves, are consistent with one another, and capable of combining in a systematic and organic view of the whole world, of giving a complete answer to the problems of life, an answer which, it is hoped, may be found to satisfy not only the desiderata of knowledge, but also, substantially, the aspirations of the human soul. To absolute certainty its conclusions do not pretend ; for cer- tainty does not exist outside of the abstractions of mathematics and of the barren sphere of formal logic. In science and in practical life probability is all-important, and hence any answer to the ques J :SPAIR OF PHILOSOPHY. tlon of life cannot be more than probable. And in action especially we are often forced to act upon slight possibilities. Hence, if it can be shown that our solution is a possible answer, and the only pos- sible alternative to pessimism, to a complete despair of life, it would deserve acceptance, even though it were but a bare possibility. But, though human minds vary greatly in their estimates of indefinite probabilities, it may perhaps appear to some to be far more than a possibility, and to be based on prin- ciples which will be confirmed by subsequent ac- cumulations of material, even when, as must be expected, its minor details are proved erroneous by the growth of knowledge. The contention, then, of this essay is, that the prevalent despair of philosophy can not be justified. But though it cannot be justified, it may be ex- plained, and its explanation is the first step towards its refutation. § 2. Religion, philosophy, and science have all contributed to discredit the possibility of a theory of life. With regard to the first, it must be admitted that its present position is a not undeserved Nemesis on its past policy. The alienation from religion of so much of the best thought of our times, and the consequent discord in the ranks of the all too scanty army of the fighters for righteousness, is deplorable but not astonishing ; for the short-sighted leaders of the religious masses have too often abused their position in favour of obscurantism, have too often burked inconvenient questions by sophistical evas- ions. Professing themselves the depositaries of divine knowledge, they have too often cast a doubt upon its value by confessing to ignorance concern- ing the vital issues of human life. They have 6 INTRODUCTORY. seemed to possess too little real faith in the eternal truth of the principles of religion, to admit that their creeds were but human formularies, which, just because they contained divine truth, could only be transitory and impermanent receptacles of the changeless, i.e., could be true only in idea and not in formula. And so, instead of perceiving that in- spiration is as necessary to the successive interpre- tations of divine truth as to its original statement, and that hence it required to be constantly re- modelled and re-stated, in order to take in the new aspects of truth which the progress of the world re- vealed, they have clung to the lifeless letter of their worn-out creeds, until they have driven to despair all who believed that truth was one and indivisible, and that if there was, as alleged, an irreconcilable conflict between faith and. reason, this must be due to the errors of a reason which so unreasonably in- terpreted the demands of faith. Philosophers, again, have been too prone to de- clare insoluble problems which they had not yet the data to solve, too much enslaved to a false method to utilize the fresh data offered them by the dis- coveries of science, too ready to profess that they possessed answers where they had none, and could only conceal an arid vacuity of hopeless negation in endless swathings of ambitious and ambiguous phrases. The disgust at such deceptions could not but generate estrangement from philosophy in men's minds, and deliver them over to unauthorized guides, who boldly proclaimed that physical science alone could answer the questions philosophy had aban- doned. But if philosophy was futile, reflection too soon showed that science was helpless and hopeless It depended too obviously upon unproved assumpt J POSITIVISM. 7 ions, which ought to have been established by philosophy, but which were left at the mercy of every chance objection. Hence science, starting without criticism from the metaphysical assumptions of ordinary life, has never been able to give an answer to ultimate questions that could appear ad- equate to those that had the least perception of the real point of the difficulty; and many of the scientists themselves have been wise enough to admit this limitation of their subject. And so, being conscious of their limits, they deprecated any inquiry which transcended them. § 3. As the net result of these influences, there has arisen a " positive " frame of mind, which con- fines itself within the limited horizon and grey tones of the known, and renounces all ulterior and ultimate inquiries. And so long as this positivism aims at nothing beyond the production of a state of feeling, we cannot but applaud its tendency to a wise limitat- ion of our aims, and admire the enviable happiness of lives that present no problems which the known data cannot solve, no desires which the known facts cannot satisfy, no restlessness of discontent which drives them beyond the phenomenal. But when it attempts to raise a most serviceable but rare temper of mind into a dogmatic injunction, and to assert as a universal fact that philosophy is irrelevant to practice, that things as they are can and ought to content us all, that the practical life can be lived without reference to ulterior theories, it is necessary to join issue. § 4. Can the practical life really be lived without answering the theoretical questions of philosophy ? Are the riddles of the Sphinx the idle pastime of deluded fancy ? Does the wise man turn his back 8 INTRODUCTORY. upon them and go his way, his ears sealed against them as against the allurements of the Siren ? This is, alas, impossible. The Sphinx is seated in the soul of each man, and though we endeavour to be deaf, their penetrating sounds, more subtle than the Siren's song, will search us out and ask — What then art thou ? And to her riddles we may not gainsay an answer : it was no false myth that symbolized the mystery of life in the figure of the " Strangler," whose cold embrace constricts the warm glow of life, and stifles by degrees the voice of hope. Thus life depends upon the answer, and death, spiritual and physical, is the penalty for him that answers wrongly. We are the subjects of the Sphinx, and often too her victims ; and it is neither right nor possible for us to evade her questions. For it may boldly be affirmed that the speculative impulse, both in its origin and in its inmost essence, is practical. It sprang from practical necessities, and it is still concerned with them. The ultimate questions of philosophy are what we come to when we follow out their conclusions, the practical problems of life : they concern the theory upon which all practice is based. And the neglect of the theoretic foundation of life ultimately ruins its whole fabric, and leads from agnosticism to the despair of scepticism and pessimism. The question — What is life .^ — is not propounded by the idleness of a leisure hour, but by the most pressing realities of life, and must be de- cided in one way or another in every action. And in order to know what life is, we must inquire into its whence and whither ; we are exercised about the past and the future, in order to know what use to make of the present. And the threefold riddle of the Sphinx is merely the articulation of the question, THE TROBLEM OF LIFE. What Is man or what is Hfe ? — and concerned merely with the relation of man to his Cause, to his Environ- ment, and to his Future. The questions of man's relation to God, to the w^orld, and to immortality, are the three great problems of philosophy, to which all other speculative inquiries are subsidiary ; and in a sense the three are one. § 5. And this ultimate unity of life, which it is the business of philosophy consciously to restore, was unconsciously foreshadowed by the origin of its problems. The material Sphinx is the oldest of the extant monuments of human labour, and was a mystery even to the old-time builders of the pyra- mids. But the spiritual Sphinx, its archetype, is older still ; it is as old as reflection, as old as know- ledge, and, we may be assured, will last as long. And knowledge is one and indivisible, and an inte- gral portion of life. For in order to live we must know, and knowledge sets us the problems of which philosophy essays the solution. Our solutions, it is true, must be imperfect until the end is reached ; but is it not sufficient that our errors should progress- ively approximate to truth ? If we can bring our- selves to believe that an impulse so deeply rooted in our nature, so intimately bound up with all our knowledge, as that of speculation, can be an illusion, intended to misguide us, and destined never to be satisfied, what must we think of a world so ordered to delude us ? What but that it may contain such ineradicable illusions elsewhere also ? For philo- sophy does not arise self- sought from idle wonder and vain speculation. The wonder, to which Greek thinkers were fond of attributing the origin of philo- sophy, is an essential characteristic of the mind, or rather, it Is the inevitable reflexion of the action of lO INTRODUCTORY. external nature. And if, in an age in which science loves to pry into the origins of all things, it were once to turn its attention to its own origin, it would quickly appear that the origin of science, philosophy and rehVion was to be found in one and the same fact, the fact that the world is so constituted that we can not in thoughtless content acquiesce in what is given. The perplexity, with which thought starts on its road to knowledge, is forced upon it from without. So far from its being true, as Aristotle said, that man naturally desires knowledge, it is rather the case that man is originally as lazy and uninquiring as the beasts, and that the necessity of knowledge is hardly borne in upon him by the stern struggle for existence. Primitive man could not acquiesce in the chaos of phenomena, because its improvident and thoughtless acceptance meant death. Then, as always, knowledge was power, and to survive, man had to understand the world he lived in. And so the first steps in knowledge were directly necessitated by external pressure, and the primitive theory of life was the first reaction of thought upon its environment. And as such it contained, in an undifferentiated whole, the germs of activities that have since drifted far apart. AnimisJ7t is the first theory of the world, and out of it have differentiated science, philosophy, and reli- gion. The single basis of all three was the *' anthro- pomorphic " assumption that all things were to be interpreted on the analogy of what man conceived to be his own nature, and hence supposed that volit- ion was the cause of motion, and that all events were to be ascribed to the action of personal spirits, with wills as capricious as man's own. § 6. This theory was the basis of religion, in PRIMITIVE ANIMISM. that men feared and attempted to propitiate the spirits that conducted the operations of nature, al- though Animism can hardly yet be called a religion. It is not until some subordination is introduced into the spiritual chaos, which corresponded to the mater- ial chaos in the thought of early man, that real religion is evolved. But as the underlying simil- arity in the operations of nature came to be per- ceived, the numberless spirits aggregated into gods, and a god of fire presiding over the whole depart- ment, took the place of individual fire-spirits acting every time a fire burned. Thus Animism passes into Polytheism, and, as the consciousness of the uniformity of nature grows, into Monotheism, unless the derivative law of causation so obscures the personal volition from which it sprang as to make personal agency seem impossible, when there takes place a direct transition into Pantheism. § 7. Animism is also the origin of philosophy, for the volitional theory of causation is also a theory of the ultimate truth about the world. § 8. It is also the origin of science, for the spirits are also the efficient causes of phenomena, and the physical changes of the world are explained by their volitions. Thus while religion was rapidly differ- entiated from philosophy and science by the growth of an emotional factor, passing through fear and propitiation into worship, philosophy and science remained united much longer. The theories of the physical and of the metaphysical, the working theories of the actual appearances of the environ- ment, and of its ultimate nature, remained identical or closely connected. It is only in comparatively recent times that the independent growth of the physical sciences, the accumulation of facts, the 1 2 INTRODUCTORY. validity of which could not be affected by any meta- physical interpretation that might be apphed to them, together with the mutual contradictions of philosophic theories, has produced the semblance of their complete separation, and suggested the idea that science and metaphysics are two inde- pendent and mutually irrelevant branches of know- ledge. But should we not rather cherish the hope of a final reconciliation of these three speculative activities, of such a harmony of all the elements of thought as is worthy of their common parentage, and as will enable all in the end to subserve in unison to the attainment of the perfect life ? May not the appearances of the world be connected with its ultimate nature, i.e., science with meta- physics, and may not the true religion be but the emotional aspect of the true philosophy '^. To such a consummation these discussions may perhaps in some measure pave the way ; they may contribute some material to bridge the Sea of Doubt, to mark a track across the Slough of De- spond, and thus to smooth the rough paths of virtue ; nor need we be dissatisfied if our successors trample under foot the stepping-stones we have collected, and thus at length attain the promised goal. § 9. We have seen hitherto that no serious de- fence of the positivist attitude could be made on the ground of its desirability. It could not seriously be maintained that it was better in itself for us not to know anything beyond our present environment. It turns out to be impossible to separate the ''posit- ive knowledge" of science from its metaphysical presuppositions ; it was an undertaking justified neither by their common origin nor by the essential I POSITIVISM IMPRACTICABLE. 1 3 solidarity of knowledge. For in the subsequent course of its development knowledge did not belie its origin. There has been no age when the Sphinx could be evaded, when the answers to her riddles were not of transcendent importance to life. To escape these questions proves neither possible, nor perhaps, right. For if there is any meaning at all in life, the philosophic impulse also cannot be devoid of its significance, nay, of a significance proportionate to its antiquity, its persistence, and its vital import- ance. To the question, therefore, of Positivism — Why should you seek to know ? — we may give the answer — Because we must and ought. It Is futile to bid us confine ourselves to this present world of phen- omena, and to assure us that the question as to the nature of God and of our future need not be raised. The world of phenomena, the sphere of positive science, is not self-supporting, self-sufficing, and self- explaining, it points beyond itself to a reality which underlies it, back to a past from which It is de- scended, and forward to a future It foreshadows. Man can not understand his own nature and that of his existing environment, the twofold aspect of a single fact, except by a reference to their previous and prospective conditions. Life cannot be lived now except in connexion with its past and future. And this, we shall see, is literally true, since the consistent attempt to take the world as it Is, to con- fine ourselves to the given, to exclude all ulterior inquiries, inevitably leads to pessimism, i,e., to the utter neoration of life. Positivism, therefore, i.e., the assertion that philo- sophy Is unnecessary and useless, cannot maintain Its position : It must either vanish or transform Itself. 1 4 INTRODUCTORY. It is merely the first stage In negation, and negation finds no rest until it has sunk to the lowest depth. And Positivism, especially, finds it very easy to pass into Agnosticism, with which it Is indeed frequently combined. § ID. Granted, It may be said, that a knowledge of God and of a future life would be of all things the most desirable, of all knowledge the most pre- cious, and that the search for it is irresistibly sug- gested by the constitution of things. It does not follow that it is also possible. It was, perhaps, a well-meant deception to maintain that philosophy was not needed, intended to console men for the fact that it is impossible. The rejection of meta- physics was put on the wrong ground : the assertion that they did not exist should have been supple- mented by the proof that they could not exist. The consoling sophism that philosophy is a matter of indifference having been falsified by the concern men display about it, and the simple assertion that we do not know having proved insufficient to repress the pertinacious questionings of the philosopher, it is now time to assert that we can not know% and to exhibit the Illusoriness of metaphysics and the im- possibility of answering the ultimate questions of philosophy. This is the task which Agnosticism sets itself to prove, and we shall consider its achieve- ments in the next chapter. It will then appear that it succeeds only by suggesting a doubt of the com- petence of human knowledge, which cannot be con- fined to the sphere in which it started. It calls up Scepticism from the abyss of negation, and is ab- sorbed by a greater and more powerful spirit of evil. Scepticism, in its turn, can establish its case only by allying itself with Pessimism, and in Pessimism the POSITIVISM PASSES INTO AGNOSTICISM. 1 5 last disguise is thrown off, and Chaos once more swallows up the Cosmos. The second Book will be concerned with the rebirth and regeneration of the world by means of metaphysics, and the elaboration of the method of philosophy ; the third will apply the principles laid down to the solution of the problems of philosophy. CHAPTER II. AGNOSTICISM. § I . Under the head of Agnosticism may be included all doctrines concerning the Inherent Insolubleness of certain questions, or Inherent limitations or de- fects of the human mind, which, precluding from the knowledge of certain departments of existence, leave something unknowable beyond the barriers of possible knowledge. And where agnostic assertions are not made In the light-hearted contempt of ignorance, where an ignorarnus is not the real basis of the cry of ignor- abimus, we may distinguish two species of rational Agnosticism. And looking at the character of the philosophies which have upheld them, we may call these two forms of Agnosticism the scientific and the epistemological. For though their general tend- ency Is the same, there is a slight difference In the method of their argumentation. Scientific Agnost- icism infers a region of the unknowable from the indefinite and seemingly infinite expansion of know- ledge : epistemological Agnosticism is based rather on a consideration of the relativity of knowledge to the knowing faculty, and suggests that the limits of objects do not correspond to the limits of our knowledge of them. As types of these two agnost- icisms we may take Mr. Herbert Spencer and Kant; Mr. Spencer as the representative of scient- i6 ITS TWO KINDS. I 7 ific and Kant of epistemological Agnosticism. And since somewhat different objections apply to each, it will be well to consider first the arguments against Agnosticism generally, before dealing with the special pleas of its chief exponents. And thus the exposure of the flaws involved in all forms of Agnosticism will finally drive it to seek refuge with Scepticism. § 2. The first objection which may be made to every form of Agnosticism is, that it is impossible on practical grounds. It supposes that we can take up a position of suspense of judgment, based on a theoretical recognition of their unknowableness, with regard to the great principles which underlie the practical life, and need neither affirm nor deny them in action. This is really a re-assertion of the positivist plea that they were immaterial to practice, without the excuse positivism had in its ignorance of their importance. But such suspense of judg- ment is quite impossible. If we were purely think- ing beings, it would obviously be the right attitude towards matters not known. But as we have also to act, and as action requires practical certainty, we must make up our minds in one way or the other, and our acts must belie the professions of our theory. No agnostic can live for ^\^ minutes without indulging in acts involving a belief or dis- [belief in some of the unknowables he had solemnly forsworn. Questions such as the existence of God .nd the future of the soul cannot be treated as [practically indifferent ; and the life, if not the theory, of the agnostic must practically answer them in some way or other. Just as men arrange their [lives differently according as they believe them- selves to have one year more to live or fifty, ac- R ofS. (2: 1 8 AGNOSTICISM. cording as they possess a powerful patron or are thrown on their own resources, so life must be ordered either on the assumption or on the neglect of its indefinite prolongation and divine care. And the agnostic writers themselves afford this practical contradiction to their theories, though their idiosyncrasies lead them to adopt different sides of the alternative. Thus Mr. Spencer's Agnosticism practically denies the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. In spite of all his theoretical protests that he has merely referred them to the Unknowable. Kant, on the other hand, in a manner which would be comical, if it were not concerned with such serious issues, and which has brought upon him much ridicule, deliberately refutes his theor- etical agnosticism. He avowedly rehabilitates, by means of the Practical Reason, the dogmas he had invalidated by the Theoretic Reason. Hence he avows his personal belief in a God whose existence he had shown to be indemonstrable, in a future life for which he had asserted there could be no evidence, and in a freedom which he had admitted to contradict all causation in Time. The one thought which seems never to have suggested itself to him is, that the Power which was capable of playing such pranks upon its creatures, capable of devising a Theoretic Reason, destined by the es- sential constitution of its nature to irreconcilable conflict with the practical necessities of life, was hardly a fit object of our reverence or trust. The fact is, that this demand for an impossible suspense of judgment is based upon a confusion of scientific and philosophic certainty. In science, certainty = great probability, and impossibility = an off chance ; and hence in pure (as opposed to ab- I CERTAINTY REQUIRED FOR ACTION. 19- stract^ or applied) science certainty is neither fre- quent nor necessary. But in philosophy, which is the science of life, we require from our theory practical certainty in addition to its theoretic probab- ility, and as we must act, we must act often on very slight probabilities. While science, therefore, must remain conscious of all sorts of improbable and barely possible theories, seeing that they may suggest fruitful experiments and so enlarge the bounds of knowledge, philosophy, when it has once decided on the right solution, must sternly and rigorously put aside all its rivals, even though its choice was originally arrived at by a very slender preponderance. It must act and act without waver- ing and without hesitation, as soon as its initial inquiry has been concluded, nor allow itself to be easily dismayed by difficulties or deterred from following Its principles to their consistent conclus- ions. Philosophy, at all events, cannot serve both God and Mammon. Any inconsistency and any hesitation is bound to be false, whatever theory of life is true. Such a thing, therefore, as a provisional theory of life would be absurd. How different Is the course of merely theoretic science : upon all disputable points, it may, nay must, keep any number of provisional hypotheses before Its eyes, and must be slow to decide in favour of one or the other ; it must be for ever doubting and testing, and, if con- venient, may even adopt conflicting explanations In different branches of Its Inquiries, and trust to fresh ^ Such as e.g. geometry. As its subject-matter is ideal Space and not the Real at all, all its assertions must be certain and necessary. But the necessity of mathematics is simply an ex- ample of the necessity possessed by all thought as thought [cf. ch. iii. § 15]. 20 AGNOSTICISM. discovery to resolve the contradictions of its work- ing hypotheses. The patient temper which does not reject the remotest possibihty that may throw light upon a subject, which, as in Darwin's case, is not ashamed to try absurd experiments which it is ashamed to record, is that which has led to great discovery. The mental attitude in short required in scientific research, is the very opposite to that required in a theory of life ; and in philosophy there is no room for the scientific suspense of judgment. From this point of view, then, Agnosticism is simply a misconception of the limits of science and philosophy, and its practical impossibility is fatal to its claims to be a theory of Life. \ 3. But it is also open to grave theoretic ob- jection. It involves in every case an argument from the known to the unknowable. For unless the assumption of the unknowable is purely gratuitous, and so refutes itself, there must be something in the constitution of the known to lead us to infer an unknowable. But such an inference from the known to the unknowable is a contradict- ion. For that very inference creates a bond be- tween the known and the unknowable, and to this extent renders the unknowable knowable. If we can know nothing else about the unknowable, we can at least know that it Is the caztse of the known. At the very least, the known Is its manifestation, the ** phenomenon " is the appearance of the *' Noumenon." Thus the connection between the known and the unknowable is in the same breath both asserted and denied. The primary statement of Agnosticism explicitly asserts, but implicitly denies, the imposs- ITS SELF-CONTRADICTION. 21 ibility of a transition from the known to the unknow--* able. It Is the vagary of an insane logic which from its very nature refutes itself. It Is as Imposs- ible to credit Its Initial assertion as it was to believe the Hibernian who asserted that he was dead. If, therefore, the assertion alone of the unknowable implies that It Is not wholly unknowable, what busi- ness haye we to call it the unknowable ? But this Is not all. All reasoning that does not confine Itself to an analysis of the' logical necessities of our thought, must be based upon some real evid- ence, must have some ground from which it draws its conclusions. But if so; that evidence must have a determinate character, which must affect its con- clusions, and which may. If we choose, appear in them. The Inference as to the existence of a thincr may often be so much the most Important as to be the only one we care to derive from our evidence, but In Itself it sa3/'s least. An existential judgment cannot be made unless we have grounds for assert- ing very much more than bare existence. Either we have no grounds for asserting the existence of a thing at all, or we have grounds for asserting a certain kind of existence, an existence of a deter- minate character. It follows from these creneral o principles of reasoning, that, in this case also, the evidence on the strength of which we inferred the ^^existence of an unknowable beyond the known, can ^Hhever justify an inference mei^ely to the bare exist- ^fcnce of the unknowable. That inference must to ^Kome extent reveal the nature of the unknowable ; ^Ht must present us with some hints of its attributes ^H)r qualities ; the character of the unknowable must ^Ro some extent appear In Its action. And so the 2 2 AGNOSTICISM. selves in possession of a good deal of knowledge about the unknowable. Indeed it has been plaus- ibly remarked, that, in the course of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, we are afforded far more information about the Unknowable than the combined efforts of revelation and theology have yet given us concern- ing God.* § 4. And there is no way by which Agnosticism can escape its fundamental contradiction. Either the nature of the known does not justify the infer- ence to an unknowable beyond, or, if it does, the unknowable ipso facto becomes knowable. All that any reasoning can ever prove is the unknown ; but no valid process of thought will carry us from the unknown to the unknowable. Agnosticism has here mistaken the unknown for the unknowable, and imagined that because the known could suo^g-est the unknown, it could also suggest an unknowable beyond itself But this is a paralogism. The known can sug- gest the unknown, and there is nothing extraord- inary in the existence of the latter, because know- ledge is fragmentary, and reality points to realities beyond it : we have problems that are not solved, and facts that are not independent. But unsolved problems are not on that account insoluble, nor are unknown facts unknowable. Science may become conscious of something beyond the knowm, because 1 The Unknowable has a high character in Mr. Spencer's philosophy. It is orderly and considerate in its habits, and •always " conserves " the same amount of its various " manifesta- tions" in the world. This is all the more estimable, as if it did not do this, if e.g. it suddenly took to manifesting itself as mind, instead of as matter, or vice versa, it might very easily make knowledge impossible. NO EVIDENCE FOR THE UNKNOWABLE. 2 7, the facts suggest it, but they can never suggest that it should be unknowable. For the fact that the unknown persists in spite of the advance of knowledge is insufficient to prove it unknowable ; it is a phenomenon which must persist until knowledge is completed and the un- known is exhausted. Nor can we lay serious stress upon Mr. Spencers argument that the circle of " surrounding nescience " grows with every advance of science. Not only is the truth of this statement doubtful, but its importance is slight. For a finite unknown can never grow into an infinite unknow- able, and even its growth is due only to the mis- taken practice of explaining the more known by means of the less known. If we work down the pyramid of knowledge, and regard the lower know- ledge as the deeper, we shall necessarily find that the lower layers are more extensive. § 5. But there is no real warrant for the assert- ion that either our thought or its objects display an inherent necessity to plunge into an infinite process, the only plea which could to some extent excuse Agnosticism. There is no infinite process implied in the exist- ence of things, for existence is the highest category of the Real, and a thing cannot be more than a fact. Prima facie, therefore, there is no need to go beyond the fact ; a harmonious fact is as final to knowledge as it is to action. Its existence needs no explanation. If, therefore, a fact is asserted to be inharmonious or incongruous, the burden of proof lies with those who are not satisfied with things as they find them, and the unknown and un- satisfactory element has to be demonstrated in each case. And in an imperfectly-evolved world such 24 AGNOSTICISM. thought-provoking- facts must be common, but they will not justify the assumption of an essentially un- knowable element — not unless the Ideal of complete adaptation, of a completely congruous system of facts be renounced as an illusion. Neither Is an unknowable Infinity latent In thought. Our search for explanation does not go on to Infinity — on the contrary, an Infinite regress of reasons Is no reason at all — but only until we reach some really or apparently self-evident principle. If therefore our principles were always self-evident, and our facts always harmonious, there would be nothing to suggest a mystery beyond the actual, either of knowledge or of life, no hint of an un- known, and still less of an unknowable, working behind the veil. If a self-evident certainty of knowledge and a self-sufficing harmony of life be the Ideal of our theoretic and practical activities, it is clear that they have no sympathy with a restless and endless striving after the Infinite. The infinite region of the unknowable, which is supposed to border knowledge, is nothing, and can gain no support from the fact that our knowledge Is, like all things, limited. For as we shall see [§ 7], a limit does not imply anything beyond It, and the infinite is only a negation, the ideal limit of the finite [cf. ch. Ix. § 3]. Hence we may console our- selves with the reflection that even if a real limit to knowledge existed, our thought could never dis- cover its reality. It would always regard It as an ideal limit, not as something beyond the known, but as the illusion of the self-transcendence of knowledge. § 6. It has been shown then that the assertion of any unknowable is self-contradictory, and that COLLAPSE OF THE UNKNOWABLE. 25 knowledge, no matter what Its difficulties may be, can never afford any positive ground for the as- sumption of an unknowable. But if agnostics per- sist in their assertions as a matter of faith, without having any positive basis of evidence, we may request them at least to make their theory consist- ent. If they gratuitously assume an unknowable, they must at least purify their assumption from an illusory reference to reality. If any connection with the known degrades the unknowable into the known, that link must be broken. The agnostics must pass over for good into the region of the unknowable and unthinkable, and burn their boats. They must make the separation between the unknowable and our real world complete, and carry it out consist- ently. They must no longer be allowed to base anything upon the unknowable, to make it the ground of anything actual, the cause of anything real, the reason of anything rational. They must no longer be allowed to decorate their first principle with an initial capital, for to spell it with U, is to liken It to reality in the known world, to attribute existence to it, to make an adjectival negation of knowledge into a substantive fact ; in a word, to hypostasize It. They must be prevented from say- ing even that the unknowable exists, for existence also is a predicate of the known world. Rigorously, the only statement they can be permitted to make Is, that it is unknowable, and has no connection with the known. But this proposition would suggest nothing to our minds, just as nothing can validly suggest It to them ; if we could hold the self-contradictory hypothesis that the unknowable existed, we should yet have to admit that Its existence could never be discovered. 26 AGNOSTICISM. And if such consequences of his doctrine do not convince the agnostic that an unknowable, which Is truly unknowable, truly out of relation to the known, is nothing, nothing ever will. § 7. The Inherent contradictions of the agnostic position generally having been exposed. It becomes necessary to point out the flaws In the special argu- ments of Mr. Spencer and of Kant, and to detect the weak points In the " antinomies " in which they have sought to enmesh the human reason. Spencer's positive arguments in favour of the assumption of an unknowable, if indeed they should be called arguments rather than metaphors drawn from a mistaken comparison of knowledge and Space, have been already, to a considerable extent, dealt with. It is not true that science Is " a gradually increasing sphere in which every addition to its surface brings us into wider contact with surround- ing nescience." Neither Is it true that '' at the uttermost reach of discovery there arises, and must continue to arise, the question — What lies beyond ? " or that* 'we cannot conceive any explanation pro- found enough to exclude the question — What Is the explanation of that explanation ? " It is indeed true that *' positive knowledge does not, and cannot, fill the whole region of possible knov/ledge," if under ''possible knowledge" we In- clude, as Mr. Spencer apparently wishes us to include, every casual question of fools and madmen. But no sane thought will argue on possibilities that everything might have been different from what It Is, or trouble itself to consider the consequences of such absurd assumptions, nor will it seek an explan- ation of the self-evident, nor, when It has reached THE FINITUDE OF KNOWLEDGE. 27 the ultimate fact, will It stray beyond it into the shadowy region of fiction. But if the argument concerning the infinite pro- cess of thoucrht cannot be reo^arded as more than a mistaken metaphor from Space, the argument which follows rises to a positive fallacy from the same source. Mr. Spencer says : ^ *' To think of the First Cause as yf/2z/^ ( = limited in power) is to think of it as limited. To think of it as limited, necessarily implies a conception of something beyond its limits ; it is absolutely impossible to conceive a thing as bounded ( = limited in space), without conceiving a region surrounding its boundaries." We have ventured to emphasize by the use of italics the curious transition from finite to bou7ided by means of the ambiguous middle term, limited, for it is on this that the argument depends. Boundaries are, of course, frankly spatial, and Space is, of course, in some sense infinite (ch. ix., § 2 ff.). But the limited is used not merely In a spatial sense, but also, more widely, in a sense to which spatial analogies no longer apply. Every boundary is a limit, but not every limit Is a boundary. Limits exist In thoughts and feelings as well as in Space, When the stupidity of a sensational novel reaches the limits of his endurance, Mr. Spencer does not perceive a black line on the paper. Or again, a process of Inference Is limited by Its premisses and its conclusion, but these are neither straight lines nor crooked. Again, it Is not one of the difficulties of a limited liability company that it Is necessarily sur- rounded by an infinite ocean of liabilities. It Is not true, then, that in thouorht a limit, necessarllv and 1 "First Principles," p. 37. 28 AGNOSTICISM. as such, Implies anything beyond It : the not-known remains a merely logical possibility, an empty figure of speech, devoid of real content : It can lend no help to Infer the real contrary of knowledge, the 2tnknown, and still less does It Involve the un- knowable. ^ § 8. But Mr. Spencer, after the fashion of agnost- ics, lays far more stress on the Indirect than on the 1 Mr. Spencer, when hard pressed for reasons in favour of a positive unknowable, does indeed make use of another argument (" First Princ," p. 88), which respect for his other achievements must make his critics reluctant to dwell on. He suggests that " besides the definite consciousness of which logic formulates the laws, there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated . . . and which is yet real as being a normal affection of the intellect." Is not this a clear confession of the extra-logical character of the agnostic's faith in the Unknowable ? And there has been nothing like this "indefinite consciousness," invented to know the Unknowable, since the days when Plato declared that Not-Being was vo^o) Xoyto-/xa) airrov^ to be grasped only by spurious reasoning! And the spuriousness of its nature seems to affect also the arguments in its favour, for a little further down we find Mr. Spencer contending that "an argument . . . which assigns to a term a certain meaning, but ends in showing that this term has no such meaning, is simply elaborate suicide. Clearly then the very demonstration that a definite consciousness of the Absolute is impossible unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it." Has Mr. Spencer never heard of the method of reductio ad absurdum^ and does he regard the fourth propos- ition of the first book of Euclid as a suicidal argument ? And does he seriously think -that " the very proof that a definite consciousness of Unicorns or Chimeras, is impossible, must necessarily involve an indefinite consciousness of them " ? And would the proof of the fictitious character of unicorns really destroy in his mind the reality of their " correlative," all two- horned animals ? It would have been better if in matters of logic, one of the few subjects to which he could not claim to have made any important addition, he had followed, as in the rest of his arguments for Agnosticism, the guidance of Mansel and of Hamilton. IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH EVOLUTION. 29 direct argument for the unknowable. And it is, of course, always possible to produce considerable effect by parading the real difficulties of metaphysics. But here again there are plenty of unknowns but no unknowable, plenty of unsolved problems and some which are doubtless insoluble if perversely stated, but none which can be declared insoluble in themselves. And least of all can Mr. Spencer assert that these problems are insoluble without being false to his own principles. An evolutionist must surely be the last to believe that any problems need remain insoluble because they have not hitherto been solved, the last to restrict by a dogmatic prohibition, even in thought, the boundless possibilities of future development. Indeed the raison d'etre of this essay is to show how evolution may lead to the solution of many of these apparently insoluble questions. A great part of Mr. Spencer's content- ion may indeed be accepted without qualification. The contradictions in the conceptions of Matter, Motion, Rest, and Force are insoluble, and fraught with dire consequences to all knowledge when manipulated by the sceptic (ch. iii. § 5-8). They can be justified only as relative conceptions which must be transcended by metaphysical inquiry in the search for ultimate truth. Space and Time, again, present real difficulties and will cause us much trouble. The impossibility, on the other hand, of treating the Self as an object of knowledge and of finding the ends of the thread of consciousness^ will turn out a fortunate and serviceable fact. § 9. Mr. Spencer's account of the problems of ^ " First Principles," p. ()(). 30 AGNOSTICISM. self-existence and causation, on the other hand, deserves closer attention. He rightly says that we mz^s^ 2issume self-existence somewhere, and infers that we may as well assume it of the world as of a transcendent deity and cause of the world. Nothing is gained by accounting for the world by a self-existing God ; we have merely needlessly multiplied entities. And either theory is equally unable to satisfy our demand for a zaAy : we can as little tell wky God should exist as why the world should : we must seek a cause of the existence of God just as of the world. It will be seen from this that Mr. Spencer admits that we are prima facie entitled to ask the why of the world and the cause of its existence, but considers our demand futile, because the same de- mand may be renewed upon any answer we may get. It will be necessary, therefore, for any one asserting the self-existence of God, while denying that of the world, to make a distinction between their cases, which will justify their different treat- ment. And it is not perhaps so difficult to make such a distinction as it might at first appear. It was shown above (§5) that our thought does not possess a futile craving after infinite explanations, but that its inquiries must in every case be suggested and provoked by something outside it. The impetus to thought is given by the discordant aspects of facts. We do not ask the why of a fact, unless the fact is so constituted as to provoke us to this question. If, therefore, we raise the question of the why of the world, this is not due to some gratuitous vagary of our thought, but to the fact that the world is so constituted as irresistibly to raise this question. THE PROBLEM OF SELF-EXISTENCE. 3 1 Hence It does so, not in virtue of being a world as such, but in consequence of being a world of a certain kind, with a certain character which prompts us to ask certain questions. It is because the world does not appear to be self-caused, that we ask for its cause. And conceivably the answer we gave to this question might be the vision of a fact that would not, when reached, arouse in us the same desire to ask the reason why. If, therefore, our conception of the Deity as the cause of the world, substituted a harmonious fact for a discordant one, a truly concordant cosmos for the conflict of unin- telligible chaos, we should have succeeded, not merely in postponing, but in actually solving the problem. But is the theory of the causation ot our world by a self-existent Deity such a solution ? This is at least possible ; for while the self-existence of the world is inferred from its character to be im- possible, and its existence is felt to require an explanation, that of God may eventually be seen not to require explanation. At all events the ex- planation is not an immediate necessity, and in the course of evolution many things no less wonderful may happen. Thus the question of self-existence and the conception of causation may be relative to an imperfect world still in the process of its develop- ment ; and together with the imperfection which drove us to seek a cause of the existent, the category by which we sought to explain it may itself disappear. The conception of causation may become simply inapplicable and unmeaning in a state of perfect adaptation (ch. xii.). For it is bound up with physical Becoming or change ; and as in the case of perfect adaptation, the organism and the environment would be in such complete correspond- 32 AGNOSTICISM. ence that each would instantaneously respond to every change in either ; and as there would hence be no interval of imperfect adaptation, no change could be perceived and no consciousness of change could arise. And without consciousness of change there would be no occasion for the use of the conception of causation. It is impossible, therefore, for an evolutionist, consistently with his principles, to maintain that any conception must remain what it now ; is and Mr. Spencer, while half admitting this, is really trying to combine two irreconcilable views when he says : ^ " The ideas of cause and origin, which have been slowly changing, will change still further. But no changes in them, even when pushed to the extreme, will expel them from consciousness. . . . No more in this than in other things will Evolution alter its general direction." But how, we may reasonably ask, can Mr. Spencer tell from the general direction of evolution in the past, that the relation of our conception of causation to self-existence will not undergo important and radical changes ? And may not a continuous change in degree finally amount to a change in kind ? Not only will these conceptions change, but they may be wholly trans- formed or become wholly otiose, because nothing would any longer correspond to them. Thus, in a state of complete adaptation or " Being," there would be no Becoming, i.e., no change for which it was needful to discover a caiise. (Ch. iv. § 4, xil. § 4.) And this is the real reason why our present changing world is felt to be explained, when it is referred to a self-existent Deity as its cause. For 1 In the volume on Sociology in the International Scientific Series, p. 309. IS A FIRST CAUSE CONCEIVABLE ? 33 God Is conceived as in a state of '' Being," and even when not regarded as perfectly unchanging, He has attributed to Him at least that amount of permanence or Being which is implied in self-identity. We find, therefore, that when we inquire, not into existence in general, but only into that special portion of it which constitutes our world, a self-existent God may explain it in a way in which it could never explain itself. § 10. And a similar solution may be given to the parallel difficulty concerning the cause of the First Cause. Mr. Spencer urges that the assumpt- ion of a first cause is futile, because we must con- tinue to ask for further causes of the first cause ad infinitum, and somewhat unjustly regards -the diffic- ulty as one in the * metaphysical ' conception of a first cause instead of In the * scientific ' conception of causation generally. And yet the conception of a first cause represents only an attempt to escape from the difficulty of the infinite regress which Is Inherent in every form of causation. Whatever, therefore, it proves, is proved against the use of the conception of causation generally, i.e., the drift of the argument is sceptical and not agnostic. And, as a matter of fact, a First Cause, if the meaning of the term Is properly limited, is open to rather less objection than an ordinary cause. If it is taken as an absolute First Cause of all things, it Is indeed unthinkable, whereas a relative first cause of our phenomenal world may turn out a conception both valid and useful. An absolute First Cause of the universe as such (aTrXw?), Is absurd, because it is a supposition which would explain nothing, and would only contradict itself. It could not explain the Becoming or cause R. ofS. D 34 AGNOSTICISM. of the changes In our world. For there could be nothinof either within or without it to cause it to be the cause of the world at one time rather than at another. For if there were anything that could thus compel it to become a catise, that something would itself be the first cause. Whatever, there- fore, the condition of the First Cause happened to be, it would remain for ever, without change, alike whether no world existed at all or whether myriad worlds were mirrored in its dream. Since, then, the world exists, it must always have existed. But if it has always existed, it has not come into being, and hence it has had no cause. And not only does this result contradict our premiss, that a first cause of the world existed, but it does not even appear how an absolute first cause could be a cause at all. For, as the cause of the All would be all, the sum of its existence could neither be increased nor diminished : it would be equally all- embracing, whether the world existed or not. It could gain nothing then by the creation, and lose nothing by the destruction of the world : it would contain nothing that could determine it at one time to create, at another to remain in motionless absorpt- ion in itself The changes, therefore, of our world are not in the least explained by such a cause. {Cf. ch. X, § II.) If, therefore, we put the First Cause of our world = a First Cause of all things, the result is confusion, and the collapse of our conception. But no such consequence need follow if we regard the First Cause as the cause merely of our universe, not of the totality of existence. The question as to the cause of the First Cause may then be met by the suggestion that to a non-phenomenal First Cause KANTS THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 35 the category of causation, to which the difficulty is due, is not appHcable in the same way as to the phenomenal causes of physical science. § II. The Kantian Agnosticism, to which we must next direct our attention, has proved as stimul- ating to philosophers as the Spencerian has been comforting to scientists, when afflicted with doubts as to whether a rational interpretation of their first principles was possible. And just as the discovery of the Unknowable appeared to the one the crown- ing achievement of human knowledge, so it has seemed to the others a discovery most important to knowledge that we could not know certain subjects. Indeed, the whole of post- Kantian philosophy seems to be occupied in persistent but futile attempts to wriggle out of Kant's conclusions while accepting their basis, or in expounding the meaning of an argument so subtle that only a born metaphys- ician could make his way unaided through its ob- scurities. And as complete success, either in establishing the Kantian case, or in making it wholly intelligible to the world, would destroy the whole occupation of philosophers, it Is perhaps fortunate that they have not committed the happy despatch by doing the only thing they supposed themselves entitled to attempt. The difference between Spencerian and Kantian Agnosticism may be roughly formulated as being, that while the former declares knowledge impossible because of its knowledge of the Unknowable, the latter does so because of its knowledge of the im- potencies of our knowledge. By Kant, the possib- ility of metaphysics is denied, not because of the infinite complexity of things, begetting an infinite process of knowledge, but because of the faulty 36 AGNOSTICISM. constitution of our minds, and the limitations of our faculties. It is not that things actively < elude our minds, but that our knowledge cannot reach them. Its activity cannot penetrate to the real nature of things, or disturb the serene calm of their essences, the "otium cum dignitate.of the thing-in-itself." We can know only appearances, not the ultimate (which is also the real) nature of things. In Kantian language, our knowledge is only of pheno- mena not of Noumena. § 12. Now, as we have already pointed out (§ 3~^)» the absurdity of making unknowable realities^' the causes of phenomena, it is here merely necess- ary to point out how this assumption, in Kant's special form, is refuted by hhnself, and contradicts his own clearly enunciated principles. Kant himself lays great stress on the fact that all the categories or fundamental conceptions of our knowledge have a value and a meaning only relat- ively to the world of our experience, in his ow^n phrase, are ''of immanent application." Now chief among these categories are the conceptions of Sub- stance and Cause. Hence, on Kant's own showing, the unknowable Noumena can be neither substances nor causes. And yet, unless they are both, we can neither say that they are, nor that they are the causes of phenomena. They are not substances, i.e., they do not exist, they are not causes, i.e., if they did, they would explain nothing. It remains that they are nothing, and that Kant's doctrine of the unknowable Noumena is a mistake. That this is so, has been generally admitted by all competent critics of Kant ; but it is astonishing that this result should have led so few of them to question the soundness of the basis from which Kant was able to reach such absurd conclusions. FORM AND MATTER. 37 § 13. Kant's great-discovery, in his owo^estimat- ion was, that the inquiry into the nature of our knowing faculty must precede actual investigation. We must discover how we can know, before we examine what we do know. This is the gist of the famous Criticism, and the basis of a theory of know- ledge which substituted " epistemology " for meta^ physics. But though this undertaking is apparently simple, it involves several assumptions which are no longer admissible in the present state of our know- ledge. § 14. It involves, in the first place, the assumpt- ion that- the Form and Matter of knowledge can be separated :. that the growth of the Matter does not affect its Form, and that hence it is possible to examine the knowing faculty independently, and that any conclusion arrived at concerning it will hold good of all our knowledge for all time. For, unless all possibilities of valid inference can be determined with, absolute certainty, in consequence of an exhaustive analysis of their forms, it is evident that the future course of knowledge cannot be pre- dicted. And yet, even as a matter of pure logic, it seems that no such separation of Form and Matter is possible. The *' pure forms " collapse as empty abstractions when, it is attempted to treat them as independent realities. The 'Maws of thought" by themselves do not work nor lead to real knowledge. Even in logic, thought turns out to be an organism in which form and matter imply each other, so that each grows with the growth of the other. And when we go on to the principles of actual investigation, it appears still more clearly that we can never know until we try. The process, which is fruitful of results, cannot be predicted beforehand, but only analysed after the event. And every such o 8 • AGNOSTICISM. result in some way modifies the principles from which we started, and the method by which we reached it. Thus, the application of the Historical Method to biological science has not only been most fruitful of results, but it has reacted profoundly upon the method itself, and changed the whole course of sociological inquiry. We cannot know, then, hoiv we know, except In dependence upon what we know. The theory of knowledge appears only from its practice, and it is a prejudice to think that it can be prejudged. § 15. And the Kantian separation of the form and matter of knowledge is not only vicious on general grounds, but the whole epistemological standpoint is utterly irreconcilable with the modern conception of the world as an evolution. The Kantian theory of knowledge is able to assert that the mind can never do certain things, because It claims to have given an exhaustive account and a complete classification of the powers and impot- encies of the human mind. But how if the mind which it analyses have not the dead fixity of an artificial machine, but be a living organism with boundless capacities for de- velopment ? How then, can any classification of its faculties be complete or conclusive ? How can one analyse the latent germs which have not yet reached the surface .^ how foretell the future o^rowth, * even,' of what yet lacks its full development ? Why, even the impotencles of our minds may be potentialities prescient of future powers ! And these suggestions are so far from being unverified analogies from other spheres of knowledge, that we can already actually trace some startling changes in the development of our categories. (Ch. ill, § 10.) EVOLUTION V. EPISTEMOLOGY. 39 It would be more to the purpose if, Instead of attacking others, epistemology looked to Itself, — if, instead of Interfering with metaphysics and psy- chology, It raised its own stock question about it- self and considered ' how,' if at all, ' epistemology was possible.' § 16. The epistemological standpoint, then, is false, because it makes no allowance for the growth of the faculties of the mind which It attempts to analyse, and so It can not establish unknowable limits to thought, or prove anything against the possibility of metaphysics. But it is also so Im- potent in itself, and so Inherently futile that it can- not, legitimately and m accordance with Its own principles, even attempt any attack upon meta- physics. It is not only false, but barren. To establish a proposition which may appear somewhat startling, let us recollect why the Kantian doctrine of Noiimena broke down. It broke down In attempting to pass from phenomena to things-In- themselves. And It broke down becatcse it attempted to transcend itself and to ignore the limits of Its method. It may be asserted further that epistem- ology must break down whenever it tries to trans- cend its limits, and that It Is yet under constant temptation to attempt this, because if it does not and keeps within its proper limits^ it is utterly useless. § 17. For It professes to be nothing but an "" immanent criticism of experience," an account of what Is " implied in knowledge." What is Implied In this attitude, however. Is, that It can neither generate nor criticize actual knowledge. Given actual knowledge, " Criticism " can analyse it, can tell us what is Implied in it. It can show us what categories we have used, and how the ''forms of 40 AGNOSTICISM. thought " are combined with the matter. It can re- arrange the factors in knowledge and show us the logical connexions of its elements. But it can do no more. It can bring to the surface what is concealed in the depth, it can render explicit what was implicit, but it can create nothing new. It can neither account for the origin nor judge of the ultimate validity of any actual bit of knowledge. For to do so, it would have to cease to be *' im- manent," to cease to deal with the logical elements "implied in knowledge," and to- reach real facts. But if it dealt with real facts,, actual instances of knowledge, it would become a science like all others, psychology or something of the sort, and would cease to be the theory and criticism of all knowledge. If, on the other hand, our theory of knowledge claimed to deal with ultimate existences, it would, like the Platonic theory of Ideas, become a meta- physic.^ But of course it would be absurd to assert that the series of logical elements, the ''a priori forms of intuition and thought," such as Space and Time, Cause, Substance, Interaction, etc., were actual existences, and not abstractions '' implied in reality." 1 T. H.Green in his-'< Prolegomena to Ethics " makes what looks like an attempt to. do this, and comes very near asserting it. He talks about a " metaphysic of knowledge," but does not venture, like Hegel, to put it forward definitely as absolute metaphysic. His ** spiritual principle implied in nature" is rather our means for inferring the Absolute than the Absolute itself ; it does not attain to the dignity of a hypostasized abstraction, although it strongly suggests one, and remains an epistemological ambiguity. Still it is often difficult to remember that all Green's statements must be taken in an epistemological sense, especially when he " theologizes," and declares that individuals are only parts of the " eternal self-consciousness," a statement that ought not to mean anything more than that they exemplify the use of the category of self-consciousness. THE AMBIGUITY OF A PRIORI. 4 1 And SO" epistemology remains in the air, a great mist, as it were, suspended between science and metaphysics, and makes ineffectual attempts to come into contact with both. But this is intrinsically impossible, and all it does is to obscure the issues between science and metaphysics, and by the fog it raises, to prevent the combatants from meeting, and either fighting out, or, as is more probable, com- posing their differences. Its contributions to the question of the relation^ of science and metaphysics are always irrelevant and often misleading. For whether it be its misfortune or its fault, epistemology is in the habit of using terms in a peculiar sense of its own. When we are toldj e.g., that '* the conception ot cause is a priori and cannot be derived from ex- perience, because it is the presupposition of all experience," or informed that *' an eternal self is the presupposition of all knowledge," we are, accord- ing to the bent of our sympathies^ either consoled or confounded. But the exultation of the one party and the depression of the other is alike premature. Upon further inquiry it appears, that the priority of the epistemologists is not in time at all and does not refer to historical events. They are not making statements about the actual origin or ultimate nature of knowledge, but only about the relation of certain factors in existing knowledge. They do not mean that the conception of cause is a priori in the sense that many ages ago it existed without experience, and that, when experience came, it was subsumed under this pre-existing category, nor are they speak- ing of any experience any one ever had. Cause is a priori, because, if we eliminate this factor out of actual experience, we are left with a fictitious 42 AGNOSTICISM. abstraction of " mere experience " and the whole conception collapses. But It would be equally erroneous to suppose that the a priori forms of thought could exist without the matter given by experience. Perception without conception, as Kant himself says, Is blind; conception without perception Is empty : the reality lies In their combination alone. Similarly the assertion that the eternal self Is pre- supposed In all knowledge, conceals merely the commonplace fact that all knowledge must be some- body s knowledge, must be referred to some '' I." The self Is eternal or timeless, because It Is a loo^ical abstraction (cf p. 8i) and because abstractions do not exist either In Space or In Time. It Is eternal In precisely the same way and for precisely the same reasons as the Isosceles triangle. There Is In fact no reason why epistemology should designate one of the mutually-Implied elements In knowledge as a priori, and the other as a posteriori rather than vice versa, and the use of such a word as "■ prior " merely has the misleading effect of producing an irresistible reference to Time. It would be a orreat o boon If epistemologlsts gave up the use of both words, even though their whole science would prob- ably disappear with It. Nor would this be a result one could affect to deplore ; a science which is so sterile of truth in itself, and yet so fruitful in engendering error in others, had better be destroyed. It can utter only trivial truisms within the limits of its *' immanent criticism " ; beyond them It gets ultra vires, and can only suggest dangerous con- fusions. It can prove nothing, still less prove fatal to metaphysics. It Is a Criticism which can validly criticize nothing but itself, and to itself its criticism is deadly. KANT V. METAPHYSICS. 43 § 1 8. It remains, as before, not only to exhibit the unsoundness of the basis of epistemological Agnosticism, but also to point out the flaws in Kant's redtcctio ad absurditm of metaphysics. For it is in the negative polemic against meta- physic that the chief strength of Agnosticism lies, and it is by the skilfulness of its attack that it can most easily cover the weakness of its own positive position. Kant's description of the antinomies ot metaphysics, of the contradictory necessities and perplexing inadequacies which distract the human mind in dealing with certain ultimate questions, is deservedly famous. Their fame must be our apology for stating them so briefly and for merely indicatinor here the side in the conflict which w^e intend subsequently to espouse. The difficulties of metaphysics, according to Kant, fall under the three pseudo-sciences of Ontology, Cosmology, and Rational Psychology, and are concerned with the conceptions or " Ideas of the Pure Reason,*' i,e., of God, the world, and the Self. § 19. With respect to the first, Kant asserts that no theoretical proof of the existence of God can be given, though three may be attempted. These he calls the ontoloo^ical, the cosmolo^fcal and the o ' o physico- theological. The ontological proof infers the existence of God from the necessity of the conception of a being possessing all reality. We have this conception ; and since real existence is included in the conception of "all reality," the being we conceive must be con- ceived also to have real existence. The cosmological proof is a form of the argument from causation, and runs as follows : If anything 44 AGNOSTICISM. exists, an absolutely necessary being exists. Now I exist : therefore an absolutely necessary (uncon- ditioned) being {i.e.y God as the First Cause) exists. The physico-theological proof Is the argument from design, and argues from the wisdom and in- telligence in the creation to the existence of a wise and intelligent Creator. Now, says Kant, both the cosmologlcal and the physico-theological proofs depend ultimately on the ontological, and the ontological simply begs the question. It professes to establish the existence of God, i.e., toshow that a reality corresponds to our conception. But in order to do so, it assumes the conception of a totality of all reality, in which it has covertly included actual existence. Mere thought, therefore, cannot prove that a reality corresponds to its ideas.; it would be as reasonable to suppose that we might increase our property by thinking of vast sums. Reality can be derived only from experience of reality, not from any manipulation of abstract ideas. To this argument,, which has never been met, nothing need be added ; it is a conclusive refuta- tion of a conception of God which has almost monopolized the attention of philosophers. With regard to the cosmologlcal, it. must be pointed out that, until it has been connected with the ontological proof, it does not specify what the "absolutely necessary being" is, or exclude the possibility of its being the. world as a whole, or a Spencerian *' Unknowable" instead of a God. So it is connected with the ontological proof, on the ground that the conception of a being possessing all reality is the only one which can completely determine that THE PROOFS OF GOD S EXISTENCE. 45 of a necessary belng.^ Thus the cosmological proof stands and falls with the ontological. The physlco-theologlcal proof in its turn depends on the cosmological, and must argue from the con- tingent existence of the world to an absolute First Cause, if it is to be adequate. For in itself it is concerned wholly with the finite and cannot properly infer anything but an adequate yf;^?V^ cause of pheno- mena. The argument from design cannot validly pass from the conception of a great Architect of the world, designing and disposing his materials like a human craftsman, to an absolute and infinite Creator. Thus the onlyargument in favour of the existence of God which has any cogency, the only one which could give us any insight 'into His nature, is in- adequate. It cannot prove an infinite God. This admission of Kant's we shall do well to store up for subsequent use, when it will be necess- ary to inquire whether infinity is a possible or desirable attribute of the Deity. For should it appear (v. ch. x.) that an infinite God would be an embarrassment rather than an advantage, the inability of the argument from design to justify a false conception of the Deity will have been a fortunate deficiency. § 20. The four antinomies involved in thje at- tempt to think the ultimate nature of the world are concerned with its infinity, the infinite divisibility of substances, the conflict of causation and freewill, and ^ All other conceptions would be inadequate predicates, which could not determine their subject singly, and hence could not establish its existence. For all real existences are subjects con- taining an infinity of predicates, and the only predicate which contains an infinity of attributes and can thus put its subject on a par with a real existence and thereby confer reality upon it, is the conception of an ens realissimum. 46 AGNOSTICISM. its first cause. On each of these subjects contra- dictory propositions may be maintained, either that the world is infinite in Space and Time, or that it is not, etc. The last of these antinomies has been already discussed in connection with Mr. Spencer's views (§ lo), and it is here only necessary to remark, in completion of what was previously asserted, that Kant proves conclusively that the First Cause cannot be 07ie in the series of cattsed phenomena. Hence, if in seeking a cause of our world, we are inquiring into the cause of existence in general, we are doomed to disappointment. If all things are caused, then a First Cause is impossible. If God, therefore is the cause of all things, the All is God, and God (in the traditional sense) is nothing. The antinomy of causation and freedom can be profitably discussed only when we have realized the origin and nature of our conception of causation (v. ch. iii, § II, and App. I.). The second antinomy is concerned with the relat- ions of part to whole : the thesis maintains that unless absolutely simple substances exist, composite substances are impossible, and hence nothing exists; the antithesis infers the infinite divisibility of sub- stances from the infinite divisibility of the Space in which they exist, and asserts that simple substances could never be objects of perception or of any ex- perience. Kant's proof in the antithesis is based on several assumptions. In the first place he assumes that the infinite divisibility of our conception of Space must be applied to the spatially-extended objects, that the ideal Space which we conceive, and the real Space which we perceive, are one and the THE INFINITY OF THE WORLD. 47 same ; in short, that our conception of Space is not an abstraction from an attribute of the Real, a uni- versal mode of the interaction of the Existent, but simply an ideal a priori form of intuition, under which things must appear to us. Even though, therefore, metaphysically speaking, ultimate entities may be " monads," yet, phenomenally, their appear- ances must be subject to the laws of spatial intuition and composite. Secondly, Kant argues that the Self or Soul is not an instance of a simple sub- stance, because its apparent simplicity is merely due to the fact that in declaring its own substant- iality, it is contemplating itself; that if it could be externally perceived, it would probably display its compositeness. Now every one of these assertions may be tra- versed. We need not suppose, and indeed scientific atomism has always refused to suppose, that the mathematical infinite divisibility of Space holds good of real objects ; nor that ideal Space, which is con- ceived, but never seen, is like real Space ; nor again that Space is an a priori form which exists independ- ently of the interactions of the bodies that occupy it. Further, it may be remarked that Kant here illustrates both of the two great fallacies of his doctrine : (i) he forgets the impotence of epistemo- logy and allows himself to treat his a priori Space as a condition and not as a mode of existence, and so regards it as something which can prescribe to reality its mode of behaviour. (2) He makes the impossible distinction between phenomena and noumena. Lastly, we may point out that Kant's argument against the existence of absolute sub- stances is bound up with his doctrine of the Self, presendy to be considered, and need only wonder 48 AGNOSTICISM. in passing how Kant could arrive at his extra- ordinary confidence that if he could only get outside himself and see his Self, it would appear to be a composite patchwork of various substances ! Does he imagine that if he could see his soul it would be his soul ? And even if he could see it, and see that it was composite, it would yet, on his own principles, be a fallacy to infer the multiplicity of the (noumenal) subject from that of its (pheno- menal) appearance. It may be that our idea of the unity of the soul requires modification ult- imately, but it can hardly be denied that our con- sciousness of the oneness of our Self is xh^ prima facie basis of our assertion of the unity of substance. Lastly, his first antinomy deals with the limits of the world an Space and Time. The thesis main- tains that the world must have limits in Space and in Time; it must have had a beginning in Time and must come to an end in Space, because of the conflict between the conceptions of infinity and of a whole. An infinite whole is an impossibility, because its infinity consists just in the fact that it cannot be completed. Time, therefore, without beginning, is a contradiction in terms, for past Time is infinite, and yet limited by the present. An infinite world in Space, on the other hand, is no world at all, i.e., it can never be completed and treated as a whole. The antithesis argues that limits to the world in Space and Time are unthinkable. For did they exist, they would imply in the world a relation to empty Space and empty Time, i.e., relations to nonentities, and hence contradictions. We can never conceive limits to Space, but our thought must ever stray beyond any imagined limit, and THE INFINITY OF TIME. 49 inquire into its beyond. So with Time ; even if we imagined an absolute beginning of the world, the empty Time which preceded the existence of the world, could neither itself have caused the world nor have contained anything that could cause it. Now, as we intend to return to the subject of the infinity of Space and Time (ch. vi. § 2 ff.), it will here suffice to remark that Kant understates the force of the argument in favour of the limitation of the world in Space and Time, by stating it in metaphysical terms merely. The infinity of the world is indeed in metaphysical conflict with our conception of a whole, and, we may add, of a process and of causation, but it is also incompatible with all scientific doctrines which involve these conceptions. And, as we shall see, these form no Inconsiderable portion of all the sciences, but one so great that their abandonment would ruin many important sciences like physics, mechanics, chemistry, and biology, and bring universal scepticism In its train. The difficulties of the thesis, therefore, are not merely difficulties of metaphysics, as the agnostic would make out, but also real difficulties of all science. Those of the antithesis, on the other hand, 2iVQ purely metaphysical. They do not conflict with the facts, but with our ideas. The infinity of Space and Time is not, and never can be, a fact. An infinite reality can never be perceived, infinity must always be merely a matter of idea, merely a necess- ity of thought. It is not the actual perception of Space and Time that leads us to the conviction that they are infinite, but the conceptions we form about them. If therefore the identity and parallel- ism of our ideal conceptions of Space and Time which involve infinity, and our real perceptions of R. of S. E 50 AGNOSTICISM. objects in Space and Time, which cannot involve infinity, be denied, the whole antithesis vanishes. For infinity in thought is quite compatible with actual finitude. With regard to the origin of the world in Time, Kant's difficulty, like Spencer's about the First Cause (§ lo), applies only to an absolute beginning of all things. If nothing originally existed, nothing can have come into' being. But if something existed eternally, that something may at some point have caused the existence of our world. There is in fact a third alternative to the infinite existence of the world and its beginning in empty Time. For though the world cannot have come into existence in Time, it may perfectly well have done so with Time. Time and our phenomenal world may be correlated conditions of our present dispensation. This is a possibility which Kant should have noticed and considered, all the more that it is as old as Plato, who in the Timseus (38 B) calls Time the moving image of Eternity, and that it has been adopted by the majority of thinkers who have con- sidered the question of creation seriously, e.g., by St. Augustine, who says, Non est factus mundus in tempore, sed cum tempore} § 21. Lastly, we must consider Kant's attack upon the old rational psychology, which professed to derive from the substantiality of the Self or Soul its immateriality, incorruptibility, personality, im- mortality, etc. And with regard to the a priori proofs of rational psychology, Kant may be admitted to have made out his case.^ The simplicity of the 1 "The world was not made in Time, but together with Time." 2 Jhus he shows that the immortality cannot be inferred from the simplicity of the soul : for though the simple cannot be dis- solved into its component parts, it may yet be annihilated by evanescence. THE REALITY OF THE SELF. 5-I soul cannot be made a proof of its immortality ; such juggling with ideas cannot afford any real certainty of a future life. But Kant's own doctrine is of a^ more dubious character. The question is, whether our conscious- ness of our own existence cans be made the basis of theoretical inferences.-^ Kant puts it as the Cogito ergo sum of Descartes, and denies that it is the basis of any knowledge. For^ he says, self- consciousness is a mere form, indifferent to its matter, the actual contents which fill it (cf. § 14), and utterly empty in itself. The Self is a mere "synthetic unity of apperception," which. unites and binds together " the manifold of perception " into a whole, and thus makes experience and knowledge possible. But it does no more ; it is a paralogism to regard our own existence as the one certain fact and the basis of all knowledge. This argument depends on the substitution of the Cogito ergo sum, i.e. the explicit assertion of exist- ence, for the implicit conviction which we feel. It assumes that thought can be put = consciousness, and that that which cannot be stated in terms of thought, e.g. feeling, is nothing. But as a matter of fact, the Cogito ergo sum can- not be regarded as the ratio essendi, but only as the ratio cognoscendi of our existence. It is not that we are because we think, but we are able to think because we are. And we not only think, but will ^ On theoretical grounds his verdict about the existence of the soul is non liquet. But this, of course, does not hinder him, here as elsewhere, from reversing the agnosticism of the Theoretic Reason by means of the Practical Reason. So he asserts that the moral consciousness does establish the reality of the Self. " I am, because I ought," as it were. Only, he says, this does not suffice for any theoretic inference. 5^ AGNOSTiaSM. and Fe^I. And Will and Feeling are other than Thought, and Thought does not fully represent them. It is true that if we desire to assert our existence, we must assert it in terms of thought, i.e., as Cogito ergo simi, but then we assert it only against a doubt, and a doubt so futile does not require to be refuted. As long, ^therefore, as we content ourselves with our inner consciousness, i.e., the feeling of our existence, we have committed nothing which thought can lay hold of. And when it does lay hold of our expressed conviction of our existence, and attempts to show It is invalid, it only does so to cover itself with confusion. Kant's attack on the reality of the Self may be refuted out of his own mouth. He admits^ (i) that our thought can think the Self only in the position of a subject, i.e., that the ** I " can never be the predicate of any statement ; (2) that our thought Is discursive, i.e., all Its state- ments are predicates. Hence (3) the Self, cannot be a (mere) conception. Thereupon he argues, that because the conception of the Self is empty, the Self Is no reality. This argument not merely Involves the direct contradiction of denying and asserting, almost in the same breath, that the Self was a con- ception, but actually argues from the defect of a defective conception to a defect In Its subject. First he shows conclusively that If the Self is real, our thought can never do justice to It, then he argues, that because our thought cannot do justice to It, the Self Is not real. If It could be validly asserted that the Self was a conception at all. It must surely be admitted that, so far from being empty, It is the fullest of all conceptions, with a ^ Prolegomena, p. 116 (Reclam), Mahaffy's trans, p. 47. THE ORIiGIK OF AGNOSTICISM;. 53;^, content co-extensive with the whole world. For' every thought that was ever thought, every feeling that was- ever felt, every act that was ever willed,, was^ contained in the consciousness of some self, was- thought, felt, or willed within the: soul of somebody.- The proper inference then surely was,, that the emptiness of our conception^ of our thought-symbol of the Self, proved; nothing against its- reality,, but much against thought, the abstractions of which here prove utterly inadequate to grasp the reality. Thus the breakdown of Kant's argument leads us ore to the important distinction of Thought and Reality, which in the next chapter will be emphas- ized by scepticism to the utmost; it illustrates unexpectedly our contention that Agnosticism paves the way for Scepticism.. § 2 2. Our elaborate examination of Agnosticism has been rendered necessary, not only by the repute of the authors criticized, but still more by the fact that the agnostic attitude towards ultimate philo- sophic problems is the most prevalent one among philosophers and cultivated men generally. But the length of the argument will have been more than justified,, if it can induce us to realize the arrogance of the pretensions to omniscience lurking beneath the mock modesty of the agnostic's assert- ion of the unknowable, and if it enables us to see how inconclusive are the attacks on metaphysics by which he seeks to veil the weakness of his own position. And yet the doubt may recur — How can we know things as they really are ? and will not be set at rest until we have exposed its origin as well as its futility. We might indeed answer it by shifting the onus probandi, and asking, Why should not 54 AGNOSTICISM. things appear as they are ? Why should not appearances be true, or a sure basis whence to infer the truth? Why should not *' things as they are" be either nothing at all, or at least irrelevant machinery intended to produce in us the spectacle of the world ? The suggestion that appearances are divided by an impassable gulf from the reality of things is a mere prejudice, which may be left to flounder in its own impotence. But, It is urged, Is it not a fact that appearances are deceptive ? It is this that makes Agnosticism plausible. But for this, but for the fact that appearances are but the raw material of knowledge, there would be nothing to suggest anything beyond what is given. Only the fact will not bear the inference the agnostic seeks to put upon it. It does not justify the assumption of a world of things '*as they really are," opposed to a world of appearances. All it in- volves is that the real and ultimate nature of things must be inferred, that things do not yet appear as they are. The known suggests an unknown, but not an unknowable. And what is this but the phenomenon of the growth of knowledge, what but the fact that in a world not yet fully known, the imperfection of our knowledge must suggest its own defect, and cause things to appear at first other than what they subsequently turn out to be ? The feeling, therefore, from .which Agnosticism draws its force. Is an illusion incident to the growth of knowledge. In a perfectly known world things would appear as they were, and would be what they appeared ; there would be no occasion to correct the judgments of sense or to go beyond the given. Thus the same growth of knowledge which made TRANSITION TO SCEPTICISM. 55 it impossible to admit that agnosticism could be true, explains also how it comes to seem true. § 23. The course of the argument has so far been directed to establish that Agnosticism is an illusion and cannot be true. It must now establish that if it is true, it must cease to be itself, and pass into something profounder and more consistent Its only hope lies in its turning into Scepticism, and internal and external necessities combine to turn it into this. Scepticism is the only refuge for Agnosticism from the external pressure of reason : it alone can suspend and reverse the condemnation pronounced on its absurdities. The sceptic may admit that Agnosticism has failed, that its arguments are fall- acious and absurd. But, he asks, what does this prove } What but the absurdity of all arguments } Arguments may be made to prove anything, but in the end they prove nothing. Not only is there an Unknowable beyond knowledge, but all around it and before its eyes. The mistake of Agnosticism was not in thinking that some things were unknow- able, but in implying that there is anything not unknowable, not in clinging to demonstrable ab- surdities, bat in supposing that anything but absurdities were demonstrable. Agnosticism erred in attempting to draw a distinction between meta- physics and the rest of knowledge, and so was sur- prised by their solidarity and overwhelmed by their union. This was a mistake in principle ; for meta- physic is not only every whit as good as any other knowledge, but indeed superior. For metaphysic is the science of the ultimate chaos in which all knowledge ends ; so far from being false, it is pre- eminently true, for it alone of all the sciences is 50 AGNOSTICISM. aware of Its condition. All knowledofe terminates in nonsense, but metaphysic alone confesses this fact. § 24. Thus Scepticism rises superior to the question In dispute, not only by rescuing Agnostic- ism from metaphysical objections, but also by its kindly rehabilitation of metaphysics. But It is not merely the outcome of the dispute between Agnostic- ism and metaphysics, but also of the logical self- development of Agnosticism. Agnosticism had asserted that there exists in the world something unknowable and that certain questions cannot be solved. But admitting this, how can we limit the havoc this admission works in the whole structure of knowledge ? If any one thing is unknowable, may there; not be many others like it ? If some questions are Insoluble, how do we know that insoluble questions are confined to a single department of thought ? Nay, if the Unknowable is at the basis of all knowledge, if all things are "manifestations of the Unknowable," how can It manifest anything but its unknowableness ? If all our explanations, terminate in the Inconceiv- able, are they not all illusions? If an unknowable force underlies all things, if the ultimate constitution of things cannot be grasped by our minds, what can our knowledge do but laboriously lead us to the conclusion that all our science is, a fraud, hopelessly vitiated by the unknowable character of Its . basis ? Does not this fundamental flaw falsify all the futile efforts of beings constitutionally Incapable of under- standing the real nature of things ? Agnosticism, at all events, has no^ strength to resist such suggestions, and falls into the deeper but seemingly securer abyss of Scepticism. CHAPTER nil. SCEPTICISM. \ I. Scepticism is, as was shown in the last chapter, the development of Agnosticism, which passes into it as necessarily as Positivism passed into Agnosticism. It is^related^ to Agnosticism as the whole to the part ; it both refutes and completes it ; for it is Agnosticism perfected and purified from prejudice. By Scepticism we mean the denial of the possibility of knowledge, based on rational grounds. For the psychological scepticism, so frequent now- a-days, which is distracted by doubt, not because nothing is worthy of belief, but because the mind has lost the faculty of belief,, is indeed one of the most serious and distressing symptoms of our times,, but belongs rather to the pathology of the human mind. True Scepticism, does not arise from a morbid flabbinesssof the intellectual fibre, but is vigorously aggressive and dogmatic. For though it sometimes affects to doubt rather than to. deny the possibility of knowledge, the real intention of the doubt is yet to deny and to destroy the practical certainty of knowledge.. If Scepticism did not succeed in producing any practical effect, if its doubt of the possibility of knowledge were theoretically ad- mitted but practically ignored, it would feel that it had failed.. § 2. In pursuance of its object of proving the 58 SCEPTICISM. impossibility of knowledge, Scepticism may adopt several modes of procedure, of which only those can be at once disposed of which involve a denial of the laws of thought. The most common form, perhaps, is the ancient scepticism based on the " relativity of knowledge," i.e., on the distinction of phenomena and the real nature of things, which denies that we can know aught, because we cannot know things "as they really are." This scepticism is merely a re- appearance of Agnosticism, extended and enlarged, if not improved, and directed not merely against metaphysics, but against the whole of knowledge. And as such it has been .already refuted in the last chapter (§ 22). Here it need merely be character- ized as a gratuitous prejudice, since it has no positive ground for assuming these unknowable things-in- themselves. If no argument can directly refute it, neither can any argument establish it. But the onus probandi surely lies on those who attack, and not on those who assert the existence of knowledge. And, as has been shown, if such a world of things- in- themselves existed, we could never know of its existence (chap. ii. \ 6). It is a gross abuse, there- fore, to invent a transcendent world of unknowable things-in-themselves, merely in order to cast a slur on knowledge, to convict it of incapacity, merely because it cannot transcend itself. § 3. Scepticism is on firmer ground when it becomes immanent instead of transcendent, and asserts not that there may be something behind appearances, but that appearances are inherently conflicting, and that knowledge is impossible, be- cause this conflict within constiousness and between its data can never be resolved. If the constituent elements of consciousness are essentially disparate THE CONFLICT OF THE FACTORS OF KNOWLEDGE. 59 and incongruous, Scepticism has merely to compare the characteristics of the given factors, and to pro- nounce their disagreement to be irreconcilable, in order to prove that knowledge, i.e., systematic harmony of the given, is impossible, and need not perform the impossible feat of getting help from the unknowable outside .consciousness. Its aim must therefore be throughout to elicit the conflict and incompatibility of the constituents of knowledge. It will begin by showing that appearances are deceptive, and in so doing it will be proving a truism. For the whole of science is concerned with enabling us to see through the deceptive appearances of things, and to perceive their real nature. But Scepticism will contend that science fails ; that this deceptiveness is ultimate and never can be seen through ; that in fancying that our science can correct it, we are once more deceived. For all science is an interpretation of phenomena by means of thought, in which we substitute thought-symbols for the real things of which we are treating, and suppose -that the manipulations of our symbols will hold good of ±he realities we perceived, and will thus enable us to manage and calculate their course. But it turns out (i) that not one of the categories of our knowledge, not one of the fundamental conceptions which underlie all science, is adequate to describe the nature of the Real, and that science is everywhere based upon fictitious assumptions known to be false : (2) the reason of this is dis- covered .to lie in the radically different natures of thought and feeling, which give us two utterly discordant aspects of existence, and render it im- possible that the real thing .perceived by feeling should ever be symbolized by thought^ and (3), as 60' SCEPTICISM.. it appears that every utterance Involves a. reference to reality, It is both false and Impossible, false, because the thought-symbols expressed by speech cannot be true of reality,, and because the course of Inference does not correspond to the course of nature, and Impossible because we cannot see how the transition from fact to symbol should ever have been. made.. Thus Scepticism succeeds not only In exhibiting the justice of Its. denial of knowledge, but literally reduces Its opponents to silence. It is the course of this. process which we must now follow. § 4. Lt has been said with some point, that the best cure for the admiration of old institutions lies in the study of their history; and certainly our traditional faith- in reason must be very strong or very blind, If It can resist the doubts of the com- petency of our categories suggested by the least study of their origin and history.. We are all, thanks to the perhaps^ not wholly disinterested efforts of modern science, familiar with the discredit which, their anthropomorphic character has brought on the central conceptions of religion, and have seen thergrossness of savage superstitions traced throughout their survivals in modern theo- logy. But though the- Sceptic will be at one with the scientist In> reprobating the anthropomorphism of the savage,, he will hardly have the politeness to- confine the Inferences from his. historical, studies to the single sphere of religion, or to show any greater respect for the sacro-sanctityy of science.. For he fmds that all our knowledge Is vitiated by this fundamental flaw of its anthropomorphic origin^ that the conceptions^ of our science are alLdlrectdescendt- FIRST PRINCIPLES ALL ANTHROPOMORPHIC. 6i ants of the grossest anthropomorphisms of primi- tive savages, who naively and uncritically ascribed whatsoever they felt, and whatsoever seemed natural to them to the woi^ld outside them. And grotesque as was the savage's method of explanation, grossly erroneous as was the ascription to nature of these primitive fancies, it was at all events better than their subsequent treatment at the hands of science. They were not rejected outright, but reduced Into unmeaning skeletons of explanations by the cutting away of such portions as seemed too obviously false to be any longer retained ; they were not burled In merciful oblivion, but permitted to linger on in a maimed and impotent condition, starved, and stripped of the sensuous analogies that suggested their self-evidence. And by this brutal process of mutilation, all the advantages of the primitive view have been lost, without countervailing gain, and without extirpating the original taint of our know- ledge : It is as though we should attempt to change an Ethiopian's skin by flaying him, and then dis- cover that even his bones were not as the bones of a white man. Our categories have too often be- come mere symbols, words to which no definite fact can be found to correspond. Thus the animistic conception of a cause as a personal will (chap. i. § 5, 6), was Intelligible though false ; but what possible meaning can be attached to the conception of Cause as Identity ? So long, again, as a frankly material view was taken of Substance, and nothing was accounted substance that could not be touched, seen, tasted, and smelt, we were at least secured against the hypostaslzing of ** second substances," safe from the confusions of Ideas with real existences with which 62 SCEPTICISM. the history of philosophy teems, exempt from the metaphysical fictions of modern science, from intan- gible solids like the ether, from * vortex rings ' in • frictionless fluids.' So too the geometrical ignor- ance of the savage left him blissfully untroubled by the possibilities of pseudo-spherical, or four-dimens- ional Space ; his simple theory of causation had not yet evolved an insoluble contradiction between free will and necessity. Happy too were the ages of scientific faith in anthropomorphic metaphor, when a mystic marriage of male and female elements could be witnessed in every chemical combination, and when terms like arsenic ^ and chemical affinity,^ as yet conveyed a meaning that explained their nature. But we are burdened by the heritage of ancient thought and ancient fancy, while we have to our loss exchanged their vividness for modern excre- scences, quite as false and far more obscure. And our categories are not able to fit the facts, even when they have been whittled away into nonsense ; not even then do they succeed in being true. § 5. For not one of the principal conceptions of our science is true, not one is able to grasp the " Becoming " of things as it really is. All are what we call "approximations," which leave an unex- plained surd in everything they are supposed to explain ; and not only are they false, but we know that they are false, however we may choose to ignore it. We believe in our first principles, though we know that they involve fictions ; we believe in them because these fictions are so transparent as no longer to excite surprise. Is it then too much to say that the Credo quia absurdum is the basis of 1 Arsenic = the male element. 2 Affinity = relationship by marriage. CONTRADICTIONS OF TIME. 63 science as well as of theology, and that knowledge as well as faith is reared upon the milk of mythology ? § 6. If ^.^. we consider the conception of Time, we find that Time is for scientific purposes taken as discrete, and divided* into years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds ; and indeed its accuracy in measuring Time is one of the chief boasts of modern science. And yet is not this very measurement of Time based on all sorts of fictitious assumptions ? When we ask how Time is measured, we perceive that our measurements in the last resort are all based on the supposed regularity of certain motions. And the measurement of these motions again depends on the supposed accuracy of our time-pieces. And further, as far as our observation can check their vagaries, we have every reason to believe that not one of these motions is really regular. And so our measurements of time move in a vicious circle : Time depends on motion and motion on Time. Some interesting corollaries would follow from this, such as that if the motions on which our measure- ment of Time depends were uniformly accelerated, the flow of Time also would be accelerated in like proportion, and the events of a lifetime might be crowded into what would previously have been re- garded as a few minutes. And if this acceleration were conceived to go on indefinitely, any finite series of events could be compressed into an in- finitely short time. Or conversely, supposing that the flow of Time could somehow be indefinitely accelerated without corresponding acceleration in the flow of events, a finite series of events would last for an infinite Time. In either case the infinite divisibility of Time would be equivalent to infinite duration, and the essential subjectivity of Time 64 SCEPTICISM. would peep through our apparently objective measurements. And is not a further fiction involved in the measurement of Time at all ? For our measure- ment is, and must be, in terms of the discrete, whereas that which we attempt to measure is continuous, one, and indivisible by our arbitrary partitions. Again, Time is infinite, and yet science treats it as though it were finite : we fancy that the past explains the present ; Time has no beginning, and yet we search the past for the origins of things : the world of which science is the knowledge cannot 'have existed from all time, and yet a beginning of the world in Time is impossible. Our real consciousness of Time conflicts at every point with the treatment of Time required in science, and this conflict culminates as a contradiction in terms in the insoluble antinomy of the completed infinity of past Time. For the original and only valid meaning of infinity is that which can never be completed by the addition of units, and yet we undoubtedly regard the past infinity as completed by the present. § 7. Nor do we fare any better when we com- pare our conception of Space with the reality : its infinite extent and divisibility cannot be forced into the scheme of science. An infinite and infinitely divisible world Is not an object of knowledge ; so science postulates the atom at the one, and the "confines of the universe" at the other extreme, as the limits of Space, in order to obtain definite quantities which can be calculated. And yet we can conceive neither how the atom should be in- capable of further division, nor how the extent of OF SPACE. 65 the world can be limited. For it is equally difficult to treat of '' Space " apart from that which fills it, i.e. Matter, and to neglect this distinction. If Space = the spatially-extended, then the infinite extent and divisibility of Space must apply to Matter, i.e. atoms and limits of the material universe are Impossible. If, on the other hand, Space is distinguished from that which fills it, we not only seem to be making a false abstraction, inasmuch as Space is never pre- sented to us except as filled by Matter, but to com- mit ourselves to the existence of the Void or empty space, existing certainly between the interstices of the atoms, and probably beyond the limits of the universe. But empty Space, possessing no qualities by which it could possibly be cognizable, is a thing in no way distinguishable from nothing, i.e. a non- entity. And further, if Space be not identified with the spatially extended, how do we know that the properties of Space hold good of the spatially- extended, i.e. that bodies obey the laws prescribed for them by mathematics } And even when Space has been distinguished from that which fills it, it seems necessary to dis- tinguish afresh between real Space which we per- ceive and ideal or conceptual Space, about which we reason in mathematics. For they differ on the important point of infinity : real Space is not in- finite, for nothing infinite can be perceived. In- finity, on the other hand, is the most prominent attribute of Ideal Space. And so their other pro- perties also might be different, e.g. all the lines drawn in real Space might really be closed curves, owing to an inherent curvature of Space, etc. If, then, ideal Space and real Space are different, a serious difficulty arises for mathematics, for they deal with R. ofS. 66 SCEPTICISM. ideally straight lines, perfect circles, etc., such as do not exist in real Space, and which, for all we know, may be incapable of so existing, because real Space is " pseudo - spherical " or "four-dimensional." If, therefore, mathematical demonstrations are supposed to apply to figures in real Space, they are not true, and if not, to what do they apply ? It seems easy to reply, to the ideal space in our minds ; but what if there be no relation between real and ideal Space ? And if mathematical truths exist only in our heads, what and where are they before they are discovered ? Surely the truth that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles did not come into being when it was first discovered ? Such considerations may justify the Sceptic in his doubt whether the ideal certainty of mathematics is after all relevant to reality, and in his denial of the self-evidence of the assumptions which underlie the scientific treatment of Space. § 8. Motion also is feigned for scientific purposes to be something different from what it is : it can be calculated only on the assumption that it is discrete and proceeds from point to point, and yet the ancient Zeno's famous fallacy of the Arrow warns us that the Real moves continuously} Our conception, too, of Rest is illusory ; for all things seem to be in more or less rapid motion. And yet motion is calculated only by the assumption of fixed points, i.e, of Rest. But these fixed points 1 If the arrow really moved from point to point, it would be at rest at each point, i.e, would never move at all. But of course it never is at the points at all, but moves through them. Only unfortunately our thought and our speech refuses to express a fact which our eyes behold, and we must continue to say one thing, while meaning another. OF MOTION AND REST.. S'J' are fictitious, and so our calculations are wholly arbitrary, for in limitless Space all motion must be relative : the bodies which from, certain points of view seem to be at rest, from others seem to be in motion, and so on alternately at rest and In motion ad infinitum. Nor is there any theoretic reason to be assigned for giving one point of view the pre- ference over another.. If, then,. Motion is relative to any and every point. It is relatiive to nothing, and! does not admit of being objectively determined.. And even If we were content that motion should be, relative, yet energy must be real, and Indeed iits- conservation Is one of the chief doctrines of modern physics. But energy is ever generated out of and passing into motion, and the amount of actual and potential energy possessed by any system of bodies would be relative to the points which for the purpose of our calculations were feigned to be at rest. Thus from one point of view a system might possess three times the motive energy it has from another, and the question arises which of these seeming energies is the subject of the doctrine of the conservation of energy. And in whatever way we answer, that doctrine is false. For the points relatively to which energy is conserved do not preserve their relative positions for two moments together, and hence the case to which the doctrine refers never arises. The doctrine of the conservation of energy Is a purely metaphysical assertion concerning a state of things that cannot possibly arise in our experience. And the same conviction of the entirely metempirlcal and hypothetical character of the doctrine of the con- servation of energy is forced upon us when we ex- amine the statements which our physicists make concerning it. For they admit that It does not (j58 scepticism. %old good-of any actual system; iln any system of bodies we. may choose to take, the sum of energy does not remain the same from moment to moment. What else is it then but to trifle with the .ignorance of their hearers .to talk about demonstrating the doctrine by actual experiment? They might as well prove that two , parallel straight lines never met by an assiduous use of the measuring tape. And the case is no better, but rather worse, when it is explained that strictly speaking the conservation of energy holds only of an infinite system. For an infinite system Is in the very nature of things im- possible. It would be a whole which was not a whole, a system which was not a system (Cf. ch. 9 § 8 and ch. 2 § 20). However it is put, the doctrine can be asserted only of a fictitious case, well known to be Impossible. And of the assumptions subsidiary to that of the conservation of energy, the conception of potential energy deserves special .criticism. For it illustrates the haphazard way in which our science accepts incompatible first principles. Potential energy Is defined as energy of position. But how can there be position in infinite Space? Position is deter- mined with reference to at least three points, and each of these with reference to three others, and so on until we either get to fixed points with an ab- solute position, or go on to infinity and are never able to determine position at all. Thus the reality of Motion, Rest, Energy, and Position In every case Involves metaphysical postul- ates which experience does not satisfy, and we have] agreed that for the present a reduction to meta- physics shall be esteemed a reduction to absurdity. § 9. The conception of Matter, which may next! OF MATTER. 69^ b^ considered, though' it at present seems Indis- pensable to science, is really a fruitful source of perplexities. For it appears that all we know of Matter is the forces it exercises. Matter, therefore, is said to be unknowable in' itself, and this unknow- ableness of matter-in-itself is quoted in support of the belief in the unknowable generally. And yet it is perhaps hardly astonishing that a baseless^ abstraction should be unknowable in itself And Matter certainly is such an abstraction. For all; that appears to us is bodies, which we call material: They possess certain more or less obvious points of resemblance, and the abstraction, '' Matter," is promptly invented to account for them. But this is not only a gross instance of abstract metaphysics, but also a fiction which in the end profits us little. Certain superficial aspects of bodies are taken and exaggerated into primary qualities of Matter. The hardness of bodies is explained by the hardness of the ultimate particles of which they are composed, their divisibility and compressibility by the empty interstices between- these- ultimate atoms. So as the final result bodies are to be explained by their com- position out of atoms, possessing the attributes of gravity, impenetrability, and inertia. These attributes, however, suffer severally from the defects of being false, insufBcient, and unin- telligible. No visible material body, e.g., is im- penetrable or absolutely solid : all are more or less compressible. So the atoms of absolute solidity have been falsely invented, in order to explain a property of bodies, which, after all, they were un- able to explain ; viz., their relative solidity. For the supposed solidity of the atoms Is, according to. modern scientific views, utterly irrelevant to the /O SCEPTICISM. actual solidity of bodies. The latter is due to re- pellent forces acting at molecular distances, and not due to contact with the atoms. Nor is it even true that the complex of interacting atoms composing a body is solid in the way the body seems to be solid, seeing that the atoms are separated by distances vast when compared with their own size.* And as nothing else can come within striking distance of them and put their internal economy to the test, it is difficult to see what it matters whether the atoms are solid or liquid, empty or full inside. It follows from the atomic theory in its present shape that the solidity which we feel is not real, that the solidity which exists is not relevant, and that bodies are not really solid. And the atomic theory is not only false, but feeble. It cannot, after all, explain the behaviour of bodies, but must call to aid the hypothesis of a luminiferous ether, inter- penetrating all bodies, the vibrations of which are supposed to explain the phenomena of light. The qualities of this ether are so extraordinary that not even the boldest scientists venture to determine them all, such as whether it is continuous or atomic. Nor is this reluctance without good reason. For If the ether is continuous, it cannot vibrate ; while if it is atomic, there miast exist voids between its inter- stices, and all physical action must in the last resort be action at a distance. The first alternative, of a vibrating ether which cannot vibrate, is too obviously absurd to be explicitly stated, while the second would outrage one of the most cherished of the anthropo- morphic prejudices of science. Still, the avowed ^ As the size of the interstices in the most solid bodies is to that of the atoms as five to one, it is clear that the solidity we feel has not much to do with the hardness of the atoms. ETHER AND GRAVITY. *J I properties of the ether are sufficiently extraordinary. It is an adamantine solid several hundred times more rigid than the most solid bodies, and vibrates at the rate of from 470 to 760 billion times per second. And this intangible solid has no gravity, and thereby lacks the great characteristic of matter.^ For gravity has been since Newton's time re- garded as the primary attribute of matter, although its nature and operation is, by Newton's own ad- mission, unthinkable. For it differs radically from all the other forces in the physical universe in that it does not require time for its transmission. Sound travels at the rate of 1,100 feet per second, and light at the rate of 186,000 miles; but the changes in gravitative attraction seem to be instantaneous. So either Time or Space ^ do not seem to exist for it, and it also may be said to involve Action at a dis- tance. Such action our scientists persist in regarding as impossible, although their own physics evidently require it, and although there Is no real reason why it should be more unthinkable than anything else. The objection to it seems nothing but the survival of the primitive prejudice that all action must be like a band of savages in a tug-of-war. If meta- physics had been consulted. It would have been obvious that no special medium was required to 1 If the ether gravitated, it would be attracted towards the larger aggregates of matter, and hence be denser in the neigh- bourhood of the stars than in interstellar space ; but if its density varied, it would not propagate light in straight lines. 2 If it can traverse any distance instantaneously ; for the fact that it varies inversely as the square of the distance does not prove that gravity recognises the prior existence of space. The distances between bodies may be only the phenomenal expres- sion of their metaphysical attractions and repulsions. 72 SCEPTICISM. make interaction possible between bodies that co- exist, seeing that their co-existence is an ample guarantee of their connection and of the possibility of their interaction. Lastly, the Inertia of matter is a prejudice in- herited from a time when- the test of life was self- motion ; and its retention now makes the origination of motion by matter impossible, and thus forms an insuperable obstacle to any successful materialistic (or rather hylozoist) explanation of the world. The sum total therefore of the explanation of bodies by scientific doctrines of Matter is :■ — (i) That all things are Matter. (2) That gravitation is the characteristic quality of Matter. (3) That gravitation is entirely unthinkable. (4) That ether is Matter, but does not gravitate. (5) That Matter is solid, but that solidity is not due to the solidity of Matter. (6) That Matter does not explain all things be- cause it is inert. It will be seen from this^ that until the theory of Matter acquires something like self-consistency it is needless for the sceptic to inquire whether it ex- plains the action of bodies.. § 10. Force is the conception which does most work in science ; but it is only a clumsy depersonal- ization of our human volition, from the sense of which it sprang,, and the sense of effort still seems indissolubly associated with it. This fact is, of course, irresistibly suggestive of false ideas as to the ''cause of motion," it is subsequently defined to be. The correlative conceptions again of Activity and Passivity, which so long dominated human thought. FORCE AND INTERACTION. 73 are now discarded by science. We now say that a force Is one half a stress, and substitute interact- ion for the distinction of active and passive ; and indeed the fact that action^ and reaction are equal and opposite has become as obvious a necessity of thought as it ever was to the Greeks, that one thing must be acted upon and the other act upon it. And yet what business have we to speak even of interaction ? All we see is how two bodies seem to change each other's motions, without being able to grasp kow they do so in their action at a distance. Even so w^e have assumed too much ; for what right have we to assume that one influences the other, what justification for defining force as the cause of motion, for applying our conception of causation to the thino^s around us ? \ II. Since the time of Hume the vital import- ance to science of the conception of causation has been fully recognised, and it would now be generally admitted that a successful assault upon it is in itself sufficient to establish the case of Scepticism. And fully proportionate to its importance are the diffic- ulties of justifying this principle. Its historical antecedents are In themselves almost sufficient to condemn It ; and the existing divergences as to its nature make a consistent defence almost impossible. Originally, as has been remarked, the conception of cause was a. transference of the internal sense of volition and effort to things outside the organism. The changes in the world were supposed to be due to the action of immanent spirits. In course of time these divine spirits were no longer regarded as directly causing events, but as being the first causes which set secondary causes in motion. It was then supposed that cause and effect were con- 74 SCEPTICISM. nected by chains of necessity, which ultimately de- pended from the First Cause of the All. Then Hume remarked that necessity was subjective and falsely anthropopathic, and that the necessary con- nexion between cause and ^effect could never be traced. So It was suggested that If cause and effect were merely antecedent and consequent, science would suffer no hurt, and that It worked equally well with an (ambiguously) "Invariable" antecedent. But the arbitrary distinction between the anteced- ent conditions which were causes of the effect, and those which were not, proved untenable ; the cry was raised that all the conditions must be included. This was done, and It then appeared, as the triumphant result of a scientific purification of the category of causation, that the cause was Identical with the effect ! And this reductio ad absurdum of the whole conception was actually hailed as the highest achievement of philosophic criticism, about which it was alone remarkable that the element of temporal succession from cause to effect should somehow have dropped out of sight ! It was simply curious that the category which was to have explained the Becoming of nature should finally involve no transition whatever, and thus be unable to discern the various elements, to distinguish the different phases, In the flow of things. The true use of the conception was to teach us that every- thing was the cause or the effect of everything else, to suggest that our failure to see this arose from an illusion of Time, unworthy of the timelessness of our true Self Of course, however, It Is not Intended to suggest that an extreme of epistemological fatuity like this view of causation could ever work in practice ; it is CAUSATION.. 75 merely the legitimate outcome of the attempt to apply the category consistently to the explanation of things. And not only is Cause useless when purged of its incongruities, but It Is false, If taken at an earlier stage in the process. The necessary connexion of cause and effect Is not, as Hume rightly remarked, anything visible in rerum natura, but a fiction of the mind. All we see in nature Is how a thing Is or becomes, how one thing or phase follows upon another. Either, therefore, the necess- ary connexion is pure assumption, or all Becoming must be called necessary ; in the latter case we simply produce useless ambiguity in a useful term without curing the defects of causation. If, again, mere sequence Is causation, night, as has been long ago pointed out, would be the cause of day. The fact is, that in applying the conception of causation to the world we have made a gigantic assumption ; and that all these difficulties arise from the fact that our assumption breaks down everywhere as soon as it is tested. Secondary causes involve just as great difficulties as first causes, the perplexities of which we have already considered (oh. li., § lo). It Is assumed (i| that events depend on one another, and not on some remote agency behind the veil of Illusion. But what if the successive aspects of the world be comparable to the continuous shuf- fling of a gigantic kaleidoscope. In the tube of which we were imprisoned as impotent spectators of a world that had no meaning or intelligible connec- tion ? Would not the attempt to know phenomena, to derive one set from another by our category of causation, be inherently futile ? And (2) it Is assumed that we are both entitled and able to dis- "]() SCEPTICISM; member the continuous flow of events, to dissever it into discrete stages, to distinguish certain elements in the infinitely complex whole of phenomena, and to connect them with others as their causes or effects. But what if the Becoming of things be an integral whole, which could be understood only from the point of view of the whole ? Would not the idea of causation be inherently invalid^ just because it isolates certain factors ? And in any case it is inherently false. For w^hether our dissection of the continuous flux of phenomena be justifiable or not, the separation by which we isolate certain fragments must be false. We hear a noise and see a bird fall ; we jump to the conclusion that it has been shot. But what right have we thus to connect the firing of the gun and the death of the bird as cause and effect, and to separate them from the infinite mult- itude of concomitant circumstances ? Why do w^e neglect all the rest as immaterial ? We cannot say, " because all the other circumstances remain the same," for the world never remains the same for two consecutive moments. How then can we say beforehand that the remotest and occultest circum- stances have not been essential to the result? It was at least a merit of astrology that it faced the difficulty, and' did not disdain to suppose that even the stars had an influence over human events. The supposition of ancient divination, that the fate of a fight might be calculated from the entrails of chickens, the flight of rooks, or the conjunction of planets, may appear a sober and sensible doctrine of causation, far less absurd^ than the arbitrary and indefensible procedure of modern scrence. But even supposing that we had made good a claim to apply our subjective category of causation SUBSTANCE. ']^ to the Becoming of things, we should only have plunged into greater difficulties. For we are im- pelled by the very law of causation itself, which forbids us to say that things have been caused by nothing, to ask for cause after cause in an infinite regress, and can never find rest in a first cause in the endless series of phenomena. And even if a first cause could be reached, it would be subject to all the difficulties discussed in the last chapter (§ lo). What then shall we say of a principle of explana- tion which cannot explain, but deludes us with its endless regress as we pursue it .^ What but that it is false and as deceitful as it is incapable ? Lastly, there must be recorded against the category of causation the crowning absurdity, that, like Time, it contradicts itself. For in its later stao^es as a *' scientific conception " it becomes forgetful -of its original form, and engages in an insoluble conflict with the freedom of the will, which it condemns as an intolerable exception to its supremacy. It rises in rebellion against the will which begot it, and this final impiety adds dishonour to the damage of its fall (Cp. App. I. § 5). § 12. The category of Substance presents diffic- ulties hardly less serious than those of causation. For if substance be the permanent in change, where shall it be found in a world where nought is per* manent but change ? And in any case it must be admitted that the relation we suppose to exist between substance and attributes, the way in which we imagine substances to hold plurality in unity, is certainly false. For while we regard a substance as the unity of many attributes, and compose a thing out of its qualities, the real things are concrete unities. Their attributes or qualities are nothing 78 SCEPTICISM. but the modes of their interaction, or to state the matter with still fewer assumptions, phases we ascribe to the same substance. But this permanent identity of things from moment to moment, this hypothesis of a substantial substratum persisting through change, is a grave assumption. How do we know that successive appearances are changes of the same substance ? It is, after all, an inference that the dog who comes into my room is the same dog who left me five minutes ago, and not, as mediaeval scholars would have considered probable, a demon with intent to tempt me. And if, with Kant, we urge against this denial of Substance, that change implies permanence, it is equally easy to answer, with Mr. Balfour, that Kant himself admitted the possibility oi alternation, i.e. of a kaleidoscopic wavering of appearances, in which the sole connection between the successive phases was a fiction of our minds. § 13. Our highest and most abstract categories also, those of Being and Becoming, fare no better at the sceptic's hands. For while it soon appears that in nature nothing is\ but everything becomes, Becom- ing turns out to be a contradiction in terms, merely a word to designate a forcibly effected union of Being and Not-Being. For when we say that a thing becomes, we can describe it only by the two ends of the process, positively by what it is and negatively by what it is not. Thus the hatching of a chicken is defined by the ^gg which it is, but will not be, and the chicken, which it is not, but will be. ^ Becoming, therefore, is not properly a category of our thought, but a fact which we symbolize by the word ; and that which we try to express by it appears as the unknowable, the incomprehensible by thought, \ I THE BECOMING OF THINGS UNKNOWABLE. 79 which no category of ours can grasp. For all reality is immersed in the flux of Becoming, which glides before our eyes in a Protean stream of change, interminable, indeterminate, indefinite, indescribable, impenetrable, a boundless and groundless abyss into which we cast the frail network of our categories fruit- lessly and in vain. And this revelation of the flux of things sums up the doom of science; surely, we must say, the god- dess of wisdom could not be born of the froth and spume of such fluctuating waves ; our search for truth beneath the idle show of such appearances is surely vain ; the sensuous veil that hides the truth is all the picture. § 14. Thus the principles of our science all break down, because not one is capable of expressing the Becoming of things. Our science has turned out a patchwork raft, compiled out of the battered frag- ments of ancient superstitions, that floats idly on a sea of doubt, unable to attain to the terra fir^na of certainty, and still more incapable of wafting the ark of life to the distant islands of the Blest. But this fiasco of human science does not satisfy the sceptic : he is prepared to explain how it comes about. That the categories of our thought should prove inadequate to the explanation of reality will cease to surprise us, when we have considered the complete difference of character which exists between our thoughts on the one hand and the reality which is given to feeling in perception on the other. For it is not true that perception and conception are distinguished merely by the greater vividness of the consciousness which accompanies the former : their difference is an essential difference of character, and as soon as it is realized puts an end to the 8o SCEPTICISM. ridiculous attempts to derive the peculiarities of our thought from ''experience." Our conceptions can- not be derived from experience, for the simple reason that no amount of experience can make them square with "experience" (v. above §§ 6-13). The character of our thought (i.e. of the " intuitive " principles of the intuitionists) and that of our feeling (i.e. of the experience of the empiricists) differ so radically that no length of common employment in the use of man has made their deliverances ao^ree. And it is this difference which was described by the misleading term of the " a priori element in know- ledge " (v.. ch. 2 \ 1 7). This does not mean, or at least should not be taken to mean, that our thought is prior to sense- experience in Time, that we first have thought-categories and then classify our experi- ences by their aid ; it is intended to describe the morphology of thought, the law of its development, the intrinsic character and structure which it displays in all its manifestations. The intuitionists then were right in contending that there was in thought an element that could not be derived from " experience," an element different from and alien to "sensation," a stream of con- sciousness which sprang from the obscurity of the same origin, and has run parallel with feeling through- out the whole history of the human mind. But it was the assertion of a more dubious doctrine to claim for thought greater dignity and greater cer- tainty, nay to represent it as the sole ground of certainty on the ground of this very difference. Is it not rather a ground for the sceptical inference that since thought and feeling are fundamentally different, knowledge, which depends on a harmonious combination of the two, is impossible 1 CHARACTERISTICS OF REALITY. 8 1 It Is Into the evidence for this suggestion that we must now enter. § 15. The Real In perception, so far as the Inadequacy of our language allows us to describe It, Is always unique and individttal. It Is substantial and szibstantival, i.e. It Is not dependent on other things for Its existence, not itself an attribute, but a sttbjcct, to w^hich qualities are attributed. It exists in Time and Space, In which It continuously becomes. It is presented with an infinite wealth of sensuous detail, and interacts with the other real things In continual change. Our thought, on the other hand, does not exist either In Space or In Time. We should not come across the happy hunting grounds of the equilateral triangle, even on a voyage to the moon or one of the minor planets, neither did truth co7ne into exist- ence at the time when we made Its discovery. The truth that 2x2 = 4 cannot be said to date from the time when men first became conscious of it, or to be localized in the heads of those who are aware of It. We feel that the word 'exist* is quite Inadequate to describe the peculiarities of Its nature, for, like all the truths of our thought, it Is not, and cannot be, a fact which can fall under the observation of our senses. We may try to express It by saying that thought holds good eternally or timelessly in the intelligible sphere {^^v tottw voriTU)^ but even so It will be doubtful whether we shall avoid misconception. For the temptation to confuse the real existence of thought as a psychological fact inside human heads, with Its logical validity, which is eternal, and '* un- become," unchanging and unlocalized, is too great for most philosophy. And further, all thought is abstract, i.e. It expresses only a selected extract, R. of S. r 82 SCEPTICISM. distilled from the infinite wealth of perception, and rejects the greater part of the sensuous context as irrelevant. It is tmiversal, i.e. common to indi- viduals, and ■ hence incapable of representing their uniqueness. It is discursive, i.e. it proceeds step by step, from one definite conception to another, and hence can only state a thing successively as a series, and not simultaneously as a whole. So it is incap- able of representing the continuous except by the fiction of an infinity of discrete steps, and this incapacity is the secret ground of the constant attempts to regard Space and Time as composed of discrete atoms and moments (§§ 6, 7), and to draw hard and fast lines of demarcation, where reality exhibits one thing passing into another by insensible gradations in an uninterrupted flow. And, above all, thought is adjectival. It cannot stand by itself, but must always be attributed to some substantive reality. In other words, thought must always be somebody's thought, and any statement of our thought must refer to something : the abstractions of thought must be attached to some real subject which they qualify. No statement we can possibly make, can possibly be a fact, at the most it may be trice of the fact, and to forget this is to commit the most serious of philosophic crimes, viz., that of hypostasizing abstractions. The objects of our thought, in short, are not real existences interacting in the sensible world, but ideal relations connected by the logical laws of an ** eternal " validity. Hence the logical treatment, also, our thought requires, differs : its highest category is not actual existence, but logical necessity. And while in the real world a fact cannot be more than a fact, and is i AND OF thought: S^ either a fact or nothing: at all,, a trubh^ for thought may vary through alll the gradations of logical necessity, from possibility up to " necessary truth." Whenever, therefore, we set out to prove a fact, we are trying to derive it from a totally different order of existence, to deduce the real from the logical, and hence to reduce reality to thought. Thus all proof is perversion : it involves an unwarranted manipul- ation of the evidence on which it is based. As soon as we are not content to take things simply as they are, and for what they are, as soon as we Inquire into the reasoit of what is, we inevitably pass into the totally different sphere of what must be (or may be, for possibility indicates only the- degree of confidence with which: we attribute the logical con- nexion, necessary in itself, to reality),, in which things do not become but are related. For it is only as a psychological event in the life history of an individual whose knowledge grows, that truth becomes or changes ; in itself It possesses an ideal validity which Is eternal, and to which the analogies of Time and Space are inapplicable. Hence there is no change or motion about the world of Ideas : change and motion belong only to the world of existence and exist either in the real mind which apprehends, or in the Becoming of things which it seeks to comprehend. Instead of changes whereby one thing takes the place of another, the ideal world exhibits only logically necessary connexions between its co-existent and mutually implicated members. To speak therefore of a logical process or a process of thought, Is a misnomer, if by process we mean any change in the relations of the ideas. The ideas must co-exist, or else there is no relation between them; but if they co-exist, i.e. are both there already, 84 SCEPTICISM. there Is no change and no process. The process therefore must be a pyschological process in the mind, which travels over .the pre-existing system of mutually-dependent relations, and can only render explicit the relations which were before implicitly involved. That is to say, If our reasoning is cogent, our conclusion ought at the end of the process to appear a petitio .principii .which is Involved In the premisses, and -our conclusion ought to appear nothing new, ex post facto. And the reason is that the supra-sensible world of Ideas Is unaffected by the manipulations by which we catch glimpses of Its correlations, and that its co-existent members have nothing to do with the coming into and passing out of being of the sensible world. ^ ^ Students of ancient philosophy will have perceived that this account of the contrast betweenireality and thought agrees entirely with Plato's much-maligned description of the world of Ideas. Every one of his assertions is literally true. It is true that the Ideas form a connected hierarchy >which abides unchangeably and eternally "beyond the heavens." It is true that the Idea is the universal, the one opposed to the many which are pervaded by it, and which cannot absorb it. It is true, likewise, that the sensible is knowable only by partaking in the Ideas, that " matter " is the nonexistent, and that the Sensible with its Becoming contains an element of non-existence baffling thought. J^ = The Real is know- able only in terms of thought, and in so far as it is not so express- ible, it is nothing for thought] And Plato is no less eloquently true in his silence than in his explanatioi:is. He does 7iot explain how sensible things " partake in " the Ideas. And the reason is that this partaking is inexplicable, that the connection of thought with reality is just the difficulty, which Plato saw, but which his successors mostly failed to see. If the Sensible and the Idea are fundamentally different, such partaking is an assumption which our knowledge must assume, but which it cannot justify against scepticism. And so Platonism, as its later history showed, is capable of developing in two directions : it may either confess that the connection cannot be made, and so pass into the scepticism of the new Academy, or it must seek extra- THEIR DIVERGENCE MAKES KNOWLEDGE IMPOSSIBLE. 85 § 16, It follows from this divergence between thought and reality, that our thought can only symbolize things, and from the extent of that diverg- ence, that it can only symbolize them imperfectly, and in such a way that upon all the critical ques- tions the disagreement between thought and reality is hopeless. Thought can neither grasp the indi- viduality of the Real, which it fails to define as particularity, nor its Becoming, which it fails to describe by the categories of Being and Not- Being {v. § 13), nor the exuberant abundance of sense perception, which it fails to express in terms of thought-relations, and' cuts away as irrelevant to the abstractions with which alone it can work. Thought and feeling thus speak in different tongues, as it were, and where is the interpreter that can render them' intelligible to each other ? And yet knowledge consists only in their har- mony, in the conformity of truth and fact, in the correspondence of our thought-symbols, with which we reason, with the reality which we feel. If then such harmony cannot be attained, our reasonings may be perfectly valid within their own sphere, and our feelings perfectly unquestionable within theirs, and yet knowledge will be impossible. For we cannot bestow the title of knowledge on an inequit- able adherence to one side : neither reasoning which can attribute no meaning to facts, nor un- reasoning acceptance of facts whicb have no mean- ing, deserves the name of knowledge. And yet it would seem that to one or other of these alternatives logical certainty in the ecstasy of Neoplatonism* In the one case it sacrifices the theory of Ideas,, in the other the sensible world, but in no case does it so solve the. problem as~ to make knowledge possible. S6 :SCEPTICISM. we were confined, for ihe symbols of our thought cannot Interpret reaHty. This Is not only, as has been shown, an Inevitable result of the different natures of thought and feeling, but It Is confirmed by the character of all our knowledge. For all our knowledge, every statement about the world which can possibly be made, deals with realities In terms of thought, states facts In terms of thought-relations. But these thought-relations are not facts, and dis- aster swiftly overtakes the attempt to treat them as such. For in the first place things cannot be analysed Into thought-relations ,; one may make any number of statements about a thing and yet never be assured that all has been stated that could be said about the thing. In other words, any real thing possesses an infinity of content, which no amount of thought-relations can exhaust. But what is this but an Indirect admission that the analysis of things in terms of thought has failed ; just as the Infinite regress of causes was -an Indic- ation that the category of causation had broken down (§ ii) ? And, secondly, even if we supposed that the whole meaning ESSIMTSM. quently direct the actions of the body. In the amoeba there is scarcely any search for or effort after food : it assimilates the digestible substances it comes across. And hence there is no need of feeling. But higher animals are capable of pursuing their prey, and hence are stimulated by the pangs of hunger. In man, again, the conditions of life have become so complex that the simple feelings no longer suffice. Man cannot, as a rule, when hungry, simply put forth his hand and eat. The means to gratify his feelings and his physical needs require a long and far-sighted process of calculation, and thus reason becomes the main factor in vital adapt- ation. As Mr. Spencer phrases it, the-mor-e complex and re-representative feelings gain greater authority and become more important than the simple and presentative feelings, and the latter must be re- pressed as leading to fatal imprudences. To the consequences of this process allusion has already been made (§ lo); it produces an ever-growing dis- cord within the individual soul. More specifically, however, a single case may be m'entioned of the growing non-adaptation of the feelings to the con- ditions of modern life, because it is fraught with such fatal consequences to human welfare and be- cause no reformer dares even to attack a well-spring of evil in the soul of man which poisons the whole of modern life. ' § 17. In animals the reproductive Instinct does not do more — such is the waste of life — than main- tain the numbers of the race. But in man that waste Is so diminished that population normally in- creases, and increases rapidly. And every advance in civilization, in medicine, in material comfort, in peaceableness and respect for human life, increases THE POPULATION QUESTION. II 7 the length and the security of Hfe and diminishes the death-rate. In, other words, it diminishes the number of new births required to maintain the race and the fertiUty which \s politically necessary. But no corresponding change takes place in the natural fertlHty of the race. What is the result ? If we suppose that a healthy woman, marrying at the right age, could without detriment to her health produce six children,.^ and if we take into consider- ation also the fact that the length af life will soon on an average extend over two generations, i.e, that men may reasonably expect to see their grand- children grown up, it is evident that population will be fully maintained if one-fifth to cne- sixth of the women in a society provide for its continuance ; i.e. the services of four out of every five, at least, might be dispensed with from this point of view. If, therefore, only the one who was really wanted,, wanted to marry, while the other four were content to leave no descendants, all would be well, and human desires would be adapted to the require- ments of the situation. But in that case the repro- ductive instinct would have to be reduced, it would be hard to say to what fraction of its present strength. This is so far from being the case that even if it is not true that its strength has not been reduced at all, it is yet obvious that its reduction has not taken place in anything like a degree pro- portionate to the reduction of the need of its exercise. ^ As a fact the average fertility of marriage is four-and-a-half. But for many reasons, the actual number of children falls far short, of the possible maximum.. For under, the present conditions, healthy and strong women are by no means exclusively selected- for marriage, and other artificial conditions limit the number of, children produced, in most cases far below what it might be.. I I 8 PESSIMISM. And this IS not astonishing for many reasons. For (j) feelings are slow to be eradicated, and their persistence Is the greater the more deep-seated and Important they were. Hence any considerable change in human nature seems In this case to border upon the impossible, although it must be admitted that no Instinct which was acquired in the course of Evolution can be exempted from the possibility of being again removed by an adaptation to cir- cumstances similar to that which generated it. (2) Civilization, although It orlves the over-sensual mani- fold opportunities of killing themselves, does not directly favour the less sensual as against the more sensual, as it favours the gentler as against the more violent, the more Industrious as against the lazier; on the contrary, It perhaps makes the sensual the more likely to leave offspring. (3) Human instit- utions and social forces have. In almost all cases, done their utmost to keep the amative Instinct at its pristine strength. Christianity alone has even attempted to contend with human nature in this •respect, and even It, In Protestant countries at least, may now be said to have retired baffled from the contest. Its defeat Indeed will surprise no one who considers the meaos it adopted In order to repress sensuality, and reflects upon the fatuity, e.g., of con- demning to ceHbacy those who were presumably the most spiritually-minded and least sensual In each generation. And what are the present arrangements of society ? Are they not all calculated to foster these feelings in the young ? What else but " love " Is the tale which is dinned into their all-too-wllllnor ears from every side ? Not to speak of too un- savoury matters, what Is to be thought of the effect THE SEXUAL INSTINCT. II9 of poetry and literature ? What is the inex- haustible subject of lyric poetry ? What of the novels that form nine-tenths of the reading of mankind ? Are they not all of them tales of love, and do not nine-tenths of them inculcate as their sole fragment of philosophy that love is the one redeem- inor feature in life ? Would it not then be a miracle if men did not accept this doctrine and cherish their animal instincts to their own destruc- tion and that of others ? For what does society do for the feelings it has thus trained up ? Does it render satisfaction poss- ible ? Far from it ; it makes marriage difficult and sordid, and all other means odious and dangerous both to body and soul. Even one hundred years ago Kant could say that men were physically adult fifteen years before they were economically adult, i.e., capable of support- ing a household, and since then the age of mar- riage has gone on becoming later and later. And women in many cases never get a chance of marrying at all ! On the effect such a condition of things must have upon morality it is unnecess- ary to say anything, except that it renders all preaching a ghastly and unavailing mockery; but from the point of view of human misery the con- sequences of immorality form too great and too growing a contribution to its sum total to be ignored by Pessimism. And let us consider whether there can be happiness in the soul whose strongest feeling can find no vent in the only way which can give it permanent satisfaction, and reflect upon the myriads who are, and will be, in this condition, and then, if we dare, let us assert that the world is growing happier ! Is it not certain, rather, that it must be 1 20 PESSIMISM. growing both more unhappy and more immoral ? For the strength of the instinct being constant, and its field of action being continuously circumscribed, must not the internal pressure of necessity become more painful ? must not the outbursts of passion more and more frequently and violently burst through the limits of the law ? § 18. We have seen so far how impossible is adaptation, how ineradicable is misery, and how inevitable is the growth of unhappiness ; but it is perhaps necessary also to display the fallaciousness of the appeal which optimism makes to the law of adaptation, which may be called the evolutionist argument against Pessimism. It may be stated as follows : — Other things being equal, those men will survive whose speculative doctrines tend to make them more successful in life. This will generate in time a strong bias in favour of those doctrines, which may go the length of making their opposites not only practically impossible, but even theoretically unintelligible. Hence, quite apart from questions of their truth or falsehood, we may rest assured that doctrines tending to handicap those that hold them in the struggle for existence, must in the long run vanish away. Now Pessimism is certainly such a doctrine. It diminishes the amount of pleasure of its votaries, and thus deprives them of its vitalizing effects ; it depresses their energies, efforts and en- terprise, by its constant suggestion of the general futility of all things, even when it does not settle the question of survival by the short remedy of suicide. Hence, the optimist will survive better than the pessimist, and pessimism will receive its final answer from the brutal logic of facts. The THE EVOLUTIONIST ANSWER INCONCLUSIVE. 12 1 king of gods and men will stop the railing mouth of Thersites by the cold clod of earth, by the un- answerable summons of his dread herald Death. Thus Pessimism is hopeless, and doomed to pass away, and can cherish no hope, even if true, of per- suading men of its truth. § 19. Pessimists will doubtless use this argu- ment to explain the undeniably optimistic bias ot the generality of men, but will deny several of its assumptions. For instance. It assumed that, other things being equal, the optimist would survive. But how if Pessimism be causally connected with other qualifications for survival, e.g. with growth of knowledge ? How, if increase of wisdom be truly increase of sorrow ? Might not the wiser pessimist survive better than the ignorant optimist ? History, indeed, seems to teach that this has frequently hap- pened, and that gay savages and the lightly-living races of the South have not been more successful than those who have soberly and sadly borne the burden of civilization and of science. Thus, there Is nothing absurd in the supposition that with the attainment of a certain degree of mental development, the conviction of the futility of life should be irresistibly borne In upon all men, and that the forces of evolution should for ever urge mankind towards Pessimism, even though It meant death. Pessimism may invert the evolut- ionist argument, and urge not that the susceptib- ility to pessimistic modes of thinking will be des- troyed by the progress of the world, but that the progress of the world will be artificially suppressed, because of the destruction which pessimistic modes of thinking involve as soon as a certain point is reached. Civilization, then, would be an ocean 122 PESSIMISM. which for ever urged its foremost waves against the adamantine rocks of Pessimism that broke and shattered them, and for ever pushed forward fresh breakers to carry on a futile contest. And, moreover, the evolutionist argument assumes that the environment is constant, and that hence the law of adaptation must produce happiness in the end. But what if the environment is not constant, but itself evolving, and evolving more rapidly than our powers of adaptation ? And since the Pessimist may claim to have shown that this is actually the case (§§ 12-17), must not the world be growing unhappler in spite of all the law of adaptation can do ? Will not the constant introduction of new conditions of life, to which mankind has not yet grown adapted by the elimination of protesters, pro- vide a constant source of Pessimism ? May not the intrinsic perversity of things render adaptation eternally impossible ? And lastly, supposing the argument to be valid, would it not confirm the Pessimist in his pessimism ? Would it not seem to him one more instance of the utter malignity of the constitution of things, that his protest should be overborne by the brutal tyranny of facts, that truth should be unable to prevail, that the triumphant lust of life should lead reason captive ? It must be confessed, therefore, that the evolu- tionist answer is not only theoretically insufficient, but also inadequately supported by the facts. The facts of life admit of the pessimistic interpretation, and the difficulty is rather to see what o^/ier in- terpretation they will admit of. § 20. When once the possibility of happiness has been disproved, no possible moral value of life THE IDEAL OF GOODNESS. 1 23 can save it from condemnation. On the contrary, it would be an arrangement worthy of the most fiendish ingenuity to combine progressive growth in goodness with progressive growth in misery. But there is no necessity to anticipate this, seeing that the ideal of goodness is as unmeaning and impossible as that of happiness. And for the same reasons. Just as happiness depended on the propor^tion between desires and their fulfilment, so goodness depends on the pi^oportion between the moral standard and moral conduct. If our standard be high, and our conduct fall far short of it, we shall feel more wicked than if our standard and our conduct be alike low, and the latter approximate more closely to the former. Virtue depends on adaptation to the moral environment, on relation to the moral ideal. And as before, both the environ- ment and the ideal are capable of growing, and of growing more rapidly than the individual's adapt- ation to them. Thus it may be that the more we do, the more is given us to do ; the more duties we fulfil, the more fresh duties are laid upon us ; the further we advance, the further we are from our end. The result, then, of the moral judgment will depend on the proportion between aim and achieve- ment. If moral theory develops more rapidly than moral practice, if the refinement of our sense of sin outstrips the refinement of our morals, there is nothing improbable or impossible in the prospect that the heirs of a long course of moral improve- ment may be the most wicked of men, utter scoun- drels as judged by their own moral standard. And there is some reason to think that this 1 24 PESSIMISM. process has actually been going on, to judge by the lower type of the moral ideal in modern times as compared with ancient. The Greeks regarded the moral man as one rejoicing in the exercise of virtue, and finding his highest pleasure in virtuaus activities which were the natural expression of his nature. The conduct of a man who, in spite of sore tempt- ation, acted rightly and controlled his evil impulses, they regarded as an altogether inferior type, scarcely worthy of the name of virtue. But with us the case is different ; the unswerving performance of duty is the highest ideal to which man is considered capable of aspiring ; to expect him not to feel temptation, to find pleasui^e in doing his duty, is to expect superhuman perfection. But duty is in itself a mark of imperfection, for if there were more perfect correspondence between the internal nature and the external environment, be- tween the feelings and the conduct required, the moral act would be accompanied by pleasure, and prompted by the impulse of feeling, instead of by the coercive sense of duty. Our ideal of morality then represents a lower stage of moral progress than that of the Greeks. Are we then so far inferior to them in moral development ? Assuredly not ; there can be no doubt that though we are further from the attainment of our moral ideal than the Greeks were from theirs, we have advanced immensely beyond the Greeks in this very matter of morality, and that measured on an absolute scale our conduct and our ideal must rank far higher than theirs. Thus, if there is an absolute scale, we are objectively better, though subjectively worse. But is there such an absolute scale ? To assert this would be to assert that there is a definite limit IS VIRTUE A PHANTOM ? 1 25 to the growth of the moral environment, to the expansion of the moral ideal. It would be to assert the existence of a permanent and unchanging environment somewhere, even though it were in the heaven of heavens, the existence of an eternal Ideal, of an unalterable standard of Right. And what is there in the character of our sensible world of change to justify such an assumption ? Thus goodness is as unattainable as happiness, and like it an ideal for which the Real has no room. It is indeed in one way even more unmeaning, for the perfection of goodness would destroy its own moral character. If all our duties became pleasures, they would ipso facto cease to be duties, and the virtue which is no longer tempted to do wrong ceases to be virtue. And so must not the pessimist's judgment be that in aiming at goodness we are but pursuing the fleeting Image of a mirage^ that with its delus- ive promise of the waters of eternal life, and the green palms of victorious virtue, lures us ever deeper into the wilderness of Sin ; that mankind will do well to abandon the wild-goose chase of such a winged phantom as insane folly ; and that goodness, so far from being an alternative to happiness, is not even an end which can be rationally aimed at ? § 21. Byway of contrast to the otherwise un- redeemed gloom of their pictures of life, pessimist writers have been wont to assert that w'hatever gratification could be got out of life must be derived from the aesthetic emotions and activities ; hence it is incumbent upon us to examine whether their assertions are well founded. In the first place, there is clearly a subtle irony in fixing upon the rarest and most capricious of our 126 PESSIMISM. sensibilities as the redeemino^ feature in life. For as disputes about taste show, our sense of beauty hardly yet gives rise to objectively valid judgments. It is still in so rudimentary a state of development that we are in most cases quite unable to justify its judgments, and to say how and why anything is beautiful. We may indeed conjecture that in the end aesthetic emotion would be found to be the crowning approval of a perfect harmony, of a com- plete adaptation of means to ends, of an exact fitness of things. But if so, a developed sense of the beautiful would find little to admire In a world like ours, in which all things are more or less discordant and unadapted. What wonder, then, that of true beauty we should have no perception and no under- standing ? But even the imperfect sense of beauty we have developed is a bane rather than a blessing. For even by its standard the vast majority of things in the world are ugly, and the longing for the beautiful can be gratified only at the cost of much subserv- ience to the hideous and the loathsome. And then the pursuit of the beautiful brings us Into frequent conflict with the good ; for though w^e may come to perceive in some cases that the good is beautiful, it is yet far from being the case that the beautiful Is always good. The antagonism, too, between the useful and the ornamental is too well known to require comment. But the most fatal effect of the development of the aesthetic sense Is Its influence upon our feelings. It renders us sensitive to evils which we had not had the refinement to perceive before, and it causes us to shrink in disgust from evils we had thought it our duty to face, and to grapple with. The i THE IDEAL OF BEAUTY. 127 sesthetic temperament is naturally Impelled to avoid what Is coarse and ugly, low and common-place, and so loses sympathy with nine-tenths of human life. It Is not merely that duties and functions like those of hospital nurses or butchers, however necess- ary and morally admirable they may be, must continue to be aesthetically repulsive, but that the meanness and ugliness of the greater part of life seems too irremediable to admit of the hope of improvement. It Is not from the resignation and retirement of the aesthetically-minded that the great '' reforms " of history have received their Impulse, but from the moral enthusiasm or party spirit of men whose every step was marked by brutal utilit- arianism or unbeautlful fanaticism.^ It is well, then, that the world is still so Philistine ; for if once the hideous and unalterable sordidness of life were fully realized. It might come to pass that few would care to survive to feel it lon^: Thus the enthusiasm for beauty does but com- plicate our already all too complex lives, does but add one more warring aim which we can never realize. 1 The history of the Renaissance may seem to refute the view that culture and artistic sense have not been the moving forces of the world. But the Renaissance was a revival of learning quite as much as of art, prompted as much by the desire for knowledge as for beauty. And, after all, in the end it effected little. It was soon absorbed or swept away by the Reformation, and it is well known that, after a little hesitation, most of the chiefs of the Renaissance condoned the abuses of the old order of things and remained Catholics. The intellectual liberty (such as it is) we have since attained, we owe, not to the Renaissance, but rather to the conflict of equally intolerant and equally power- ful orthodoxies, and the progress of science has been stimulated far more by the hope of its material advantages than by the desire of pure knowledge. 128 PESSIMISM. § 2 2. Lastly, the claim of the intellectual activit- ies to provide an aim to life has really been already disposed of by Scepticism. If knowledge cannot lull asleep the discordant strife of the elements of our being, if it cannot discover the road to harmony and to bliss, then knowledge fails in practice, and then its theoretical defects stamp it as an illusion (cf ch. iii., § 20, 21). And it is an illusion for the same reason as the other activities of life, because in order to be true it requires an ideal, fixed, per- manent and definite, as the standard whereby to measure the passing and indeterminate flux of things. And such an ideal it can nowhere find in a world of Becoming. The Becoming of the world is the rock upon which the ark of life is shattered : to know, to be good, to be happy, we require a fixed standard of Being, but the ideal which our reason and our heart demand our eyes can nowhere see. Thus, all reason can do is to render us sensible of the hopelessness of our position ; it is the fire, kindled by the collision of discordant elements, which consumes the soul of man, and by the lurid light it throws upon our gloomy lot we can just see that our doom is irrevocable, that we are the helpless victims of a gigantic auto da fd, of which Evolution is the celebration. For since every advance does but widen the chasm between the ideal and the actual, our only hope would be to retrace the course of Evolution, and to simplify life by a return to the primitive contentment of the amoeba. But though the amoeba is far more per- fectly adapted to its environment than any of its descendants, it may well be doubted whether even the amoeba is happy : in any case, it suffices that TflE RUIN OF HOPE. 1 29 such an escape from misery by a return to uncon- sciousness is Impossible. Thus we must resign ourselves to our fate, and, to adapt a famous image of Plato's, allow the immortal steeds of Progress and of Reason to drag the chariot of the Soul with reckless speed adown the race-course of life, while the reluctant mortal charioteer makes vain essays to break the rush, and succeeds only in racking and rending his car asunder. And so the mad course will go on, until '' terreimni equite7n gravatiisl'^ the Pegasus of Pro- gress kicks over the traces, wrecks the chariot, and leaves the blanched bones of the charioteer to mark the melancholy track for successors neither wiser nor more fortunate. § 23. Thus ruin, final and Irretrievable, has overtaken the attempt to deal with life, such as It Is, or rather, to regard the present appearances of thinofs as self-sufficlno- and ultimate : there remains only the poor consolation of knowing that we have brought this ruin upon ourselves. For perhaps the reflection may obtrude that we are ourselves responsible for the disaster, in that we insisted on Ignoring the heavenly nature of our ideals. If we must needs drag the chariot of the soul through the mire of earth, and feed our Pegasus on the sordid fare most alien from the ambrosia that formed his proper nourishment ; if we deny him the use of his wings, and keep him down to the dusty track that dimmed his sight, and if thus we fail, is it so sure that we may rightly blame I the divine steeds of Reason and of Evolution .^ To this question the following section of this essay will attempt to give an answer. 1 " Spurning his earth-born rider." R. of s. K BOOK IL CHAPTER V. RE C O N S TR UC TI 0 N. § I. The avowed object of the preceding chap- ters has been to trace out the consequences of the denial of metaphysics, i.e. of a systematic examin- ation of ultimate questions, and of Its bearing upon the theory and practice of life. But incidentally far more serious results followed. Not merely did Positivism lead on to Aofnosticism, Aornosticism to Scepticism, and Scepticism to Pessimism, but the two latter strengthened themselves with arguments which it seems well-nigh impossible to refute. And so what advance has been made towards a solution of the problem of life ? What has It availed to show the dire consequences of the unphllosophical view, If In so doing we have destroyed also the basis of all others ? Have we not enmeshed our- selves also in a deadly snare and been beguiled into a position from which there is no escape ? Have we not ourselves destroyed all the hopes or Illusions that make life valuable ? Yet it may be that this apparent loss will prove real gain ; even now it is possible to see counter- vailing advantages. In the first place, we have faced the worst that can be said against the scheme of things, and may at least hope to be acquitted of the suspicion that weakness or disingenuousness has prompted us to 134 RKCOXSTRUCTIOX. understate or overlook the difficulties that beset the attempt to discover any meaning in life. And from this thoroughness in stating the negative position we may also draw the assurance that whatever germs of higher hopes have survived such ruthless destruction, must surely be immortal, and fraught with no humble destiny. Secondly, the wholesale havoc Pessimism has wrought has effectually cleared the ground : Pessim- ism has played the part of a Samson, and in its fall has crushed alike philosopher and Philistine. Not only has it enabled us to see the real drift and final outcome of popular theories Avhich would otherwise be continually delaying our progress, but it has also swept away the mass of philosophic con- structions, of which none have answered, and very few can even be said to have considered, the questions which have been brought forward. So, whenever we encounter doctrines based upon the veiled assumptions of agnosticism, scepticism, and pessimism, or such as have no answer to the poss- ibilities on which they are grounded, we shall be able to reduce them to their lowest terms, as It were, to refer them to their types, and thus to remove their obstructions. We shall give such opponents the choice between yielding or confessing to the latent pessimism of their views, and thus use pessimism as a sort of provisional reductio ad abs7ird- mn, justifying us in rejecting them in their Im- perfect form. And, thirdly, we have raised, in an acute form, the question of the method of philosophy, by sho wing- that the attempt to exclude all philosophic methods on the ground of metaphysics, and to speculate about the problems of life l)y means of merely i A I5ARGATN WITH SCEPT1CIS^^. 1 35 common-sense reflection leads to irremediable dis- aster. And the toil and trouble of probing to its utmost depths the abyss of Pessimism will not have been in vain, if it can bring home to us this con- viction, that either a metaphysical method can rescue philosophy or all is lost, that salvation is to be found in metaphysics or not at all. j5 2. But in addition to these, other advantages may indirectly result from an attentive criticism of what has been proved by Scepticism and Pessimism, and of how it has been proved. The demonstration of Scepticism depended on the discrepancy between thought and reality, be- tween things as we think them, and as they appear to us, on the difference of thought and feeling, on the impossibility of representing the whole by the part. And as It denied the correspondence of the elements which constitute knowledge, it cannot be directly refuted. For any argument which assumes such correspondence begs the question, while any argument which proceeds by only one of the factors, is ex hy pot he si Incapable of proving the existence of truth, i.e. of the harmony of both. Any refutation, therefore, of Scepticism must be indirect ; and of such refutations, that which Is based on its practical absurdity has been already considered. It Is transcended by Pessimism, which admits that the assumptions of our knowledge work, In a certain sense, but only up to a certain point, and work only In order to plunge us into a more irredeemable chaos. For in the end they fail, and fail us just at the critical point : they imply intel- lectual ideals to which the Becoming of sensible things will not conform. Nothing remains, therefore, but to make a kind of I ;6 RECONSTRUCTION. J bargain with Scepticism, and to assume provision- ally the unproved hypothesis of the 7'eal validity of the principles of our thought, of the substantial parallelism of our thought and reality, on condition of thereby solving a/l the problems of life. For it would be absurd to deny that we can know, if our knowledge can solve, or show the way to the solu- tion of all the problems of the world. And this concession must and should satisfy us. It is indeed no more than what we should really have been justified in demanding before we were urged to it by Scepticism, that the authenticity of human knowledge should be guaranteed by its capacity to deal with all human problems. We may claim that, if the scheme of things is rational at all, it should not mock our reason with puzzles that are insoluble. We must assert that either the human reason is competent to solve all the difficulties that human minds can properly feel, or that in all things it is the plaything of an unknowable, unmanageable and inexorable perversity of things. But whether we might have urged this claim of our own accord or not, Scepticism renders all debate superfluous : we must accept its terms or give up the hope of re- storing the vaHdity of knowledge. And the aspect of the world which Pessimism presents to us is a no ^ less stimulus in the search for a truly satisfactory philosophy. It is based on a possibility which may repel us, but which is so deeply rooted in the nature of our world that we can never wholly reject it. It thus forms an eternal contrast to the true philo- sophy, the gloomy realm of shades which receives the recreant outcasts from the light. Its conclusion that life is miserable, and not worth living, was the outcome of a speculative suggestion. WUAT rillLOSOPHY MUST ACHIEVE. I37 That suggestion was that of the ultimate perversity of the constitution of things, as a consequence of which all problems are intrinsically insoluble, all ■questions inherently meaningless, and all methods incurably impracticable. It is no use asking quest- ions, because no answer can be given ; it is futile to make any sort of effort, for we are ever baffled In the end, and the greater the effort the more bitter the disappointment : the cup of life must be drained to the dregs, and however we struggle, the dregs are bitter with death. Theoretically life is a puzzle which has no solution ; practically it is a Barmecide feast at which the wretched dupes, the victims of an inscrutable fate, make believe to enjoy delights as unreal and fleetlne as the shadow of a dream. In short, it Is all a ghastly, senseless striving after the impossible. And not the least terrible point about this view is its probability. It can claim greater simplicity, gx^'diX.^x prima facie probability, than any other. It may not be the only possible explanation of the facts considered In the last two chapters, but it is •considerably the most obvious explanation. Every alternative to it will have to explain away many things which it is exceedingly difficult to explain away. It will have to account for evil and imper- fection ; and even when it has shown the possibility of a final reconciliation. It will have to show why this could not have been attained without the long time-process of the world's development. So in theoretical matters it will have to show not merely that the Becoming of things is ultimately knowable, but also to explain how it was conducive to the end to be attained. In short, In order to have an alternative to Pess- I S^ RECONSTRUCTION. O imism, we must be prepared to account for Imper- fection, Becoming and Time — the three chief and most obvious characteristics of our world. In this, stupendous task the only favourable omen at the start is that no sane human being- will resign him- self to Pessimism if he can possibly help it, that the- merest possibility of an alternative must be hailed with delight by every one who has become con- scious of the difficulty. The search, then, for an alternative to Pessimisn^ is a desperate undertaking, which can be justified only by success ; for success alone can save us from despair. And it must be admitted that appearances, are against us, and that our only hope is to pene- trate beyond them : the very principles of our reasoning are hypothetical, conceded ad hoc by Scepticism : the end at which we aim, if attained,, would revolutionize the character of the world, and nothing short of complete success will deliver us. from the monstrous spectre of Pessimism. We set out, then, under sentence of death, like Sir Walter Raleigh, to discover Eldorado, and the- penalty of failure will be inexorably exacted if we fail. § 3. Under such circumstances we shall do well to begin by taking stock of our resources, by seeing what salvage may be. fished up out of the shipwreck of our hopes. In addition to the laws of our thouorht, there is. one principle which Scepticism did not deny, and Indeed could not deny, without manifestly cutting away the basis of Its own argument, viz. the reality of the Self or Soul. Our scepticism did not deny It, because it was Immanent and did not stray beyond the limits of THE REALITY OF THE SELF. 139 consciousness (cf. iii. § 3) : It was concerned only to establish the existence of an irreconcilable discord within the soul. Nor does Pessimism care to deny the reality oi the soul, for suffering could hardly be the supreme reality, if the soul which suffered were not real. The only thing that Scepticism and Pessimism would protest against would be the attempt to derive from the admission of the reality of the Self an admission of its existence as a simple and Im- mortal substance, after the fashion of the *' rational psychology" of old; but this we have no intention of doing. The existence of the Self is at present asserted only as the basis of all knowledge, and in this sense it cannot be validly doubted. Accord- ingly it has been denied by Agnosticism rather than by Scepticism, i.e. by a doctrine which turned out inadequate on its own presuppositions. Among these denials of the existence of the Self or soul, Hume's argument has the first claim on our attention. He contends that the soul does not exist because he never finds it existing without some particular content, never catches himself without some " Im- pression or Idea." This argument may be regarded as an Ingenious rediictio ad abstirdum of Berkeley's- nominalism, which denied the existence of universal conceptions on the ground that the psychical images in the mind always contained some irrelevant ac- cessories. But It has no efficacy against all who- avoid confounding the idea (or conception) as a universal predicate with the (Image or) idea as a psychological fact (cp. iii. § 15). And the conditions upon which Hume would admit the existence of the soul would seem to be of a ridiculous severity. So- L 40 RECONSTRUCTION. long as consciousness is consciousness 0/ something, of something more than mere existence, we cannot, says Hume, infer from it our own existence. ReaHty could not, apparently, be attributed to any soul that was not capable of being reduced to an absolute blank. But this implies, in the first place, the fallacy that mere existence is possible, undis- tinguished by any particular content, that a mere fact can be found, which is not determined by a certain character (cp. ch. ii. § 3). And secondly, one must wonder who could be supposed to be in the least concerned to assert the existence of such a perfectly void soul, and who need be dismayed at the discovery that his soul could never be caught in such a condition of fatuous nudity. The exist- ence of the soul does not depend on its capacity to dispense with all content, nor is any slur cast upon it by the fact that the contents of consciousness vary. The ideal to which the variations of consciousness point is not a soul which has been annihilated by the loss of all its contents, but one of which the contents have attained to stability and perfection. § 4. Kant's objection to the reality of the soul is similar to Hume's. But, like many of his doctrines, it is a compromise, not altogether successful, between Hume and the old metaphysics, and so rejects a good deal of Hume's argument. Kant recognises the necessity of admitting at least an epistemological reality of the soul, as the principle on which the possibility of consciousness and the unity of know- ledge depends. As such, it is the soul which forms the fleeting series of impressions, thoughts, etc., into a continuous system, and thus makes a connected consciousness possible. Yet Kant strenuously maintains that the soul is THE SELF AS THE PRIMARY CERTAIXTV. I4I only an epistemological and not a metaphysical (or ultimate) principle, and that it must not be treated as existing outside of the context of knowledge, nor supposed to exist as a " thing-in-itself." And he does this on the same grounds as Hume, viz., be- cause the " I think " impartially accompanies all the contents of consciousness and never exists apart from them : so it must be a mere form of know- ledge and not a substantive reality. But as we have already rejected Kant's separation of form and matter, appearance and thing-in-itself (ch. ii. ^ 14, ^ 12), the real existence of the self is admitted when it is confessed necessary to the existence of knowledge, and the reality of consciousness. And besides, its existence as the basis of knowledge presupposes its existence as a reality. For while the laws of our thought persist, they compel us to admit that operari sequitur esse, and that wliich is Implied In the activity of knowledge must be before it can de aetive. It is not necessary, therefore, to linger any longer over Kant's objections to the reality of the Self : we may refer for a further exposure of their fallacious- ness to the criticism of Kant's agnosticism (ch. ii. ^ 21), and accept the reality of the Self as the funda- mental basis of all life, knowledge and proof. As the most certain of all things, it Is the Alpha, the starting-point, and it would not be surprising If it turned out also the Omega, the goal of philosophy. § 5. And it Is not only the primary certainty In itself, but also affords us the first firm basis of a criticism of Scepticism. Scepticism was based on the disparateness and conflict of the elements of knowledge, on the imposs- ibility of finding a connection between the incom- 14- RECONSTRUCTION. mensurable aspects of things. But all these discordant aspects are activities of the same self ; the thought and feeling which conflict are both *' mine " ; my ''self" unites "my" thoughts and "my" feeling into a single consciousness. It gives us the unity as an accomplished fact, and leaves us the task of discovering how the miracle was, effected. Hence we are justified in provisionally accepting the parallelism of thought and feeling as a fact, and assuming that the conclusions we prove concerning the thought symbols representing reality will hold good of the facts. At any rate we cannot go wrong in sticking to realities which unite thouMit and feeling, like the conscious self. It may be false to be guided by the felt objects of perception, or by the abstractions of our thought, but the procedure by means of selves which both think and feel must surely be true. Thus the reality of the Self restores to us, even though only provisionally, the use of the categories and first principles of our thought with a view to the interpretation of things. And it justifies further a bold solution of the diffi- culty into which the hopeless conflict of thought and perception had involved us. VVe had ventured to express a suspicion (ch. iv. § 23), that possibly the excessive deference shown to phenomenal facts and the perceptions of our senses was responsible for the dire straits to which Pessimism reduced us. Pessimism was the natural inference to draw from the apparent supremacy of Becoming in the pheno- menal world, and Becoming was unknowable and irreconcilably at variance with the principles of our thought. But was it not, after all, a prejudice to suppose the appearance of Becoming higher than the AND UNION OF THOUGHT AND FEELING. 1 43 ideals of our thought ? Why should not our thought represent a higher plane of truth than the intrinsi- cally unknowable Becoming of nature ? why should not the definlteness and permanence of our Ideas approximate more closely to the ultimate constitu- tion of things than the interminable changes of phenomena ? Why should not the changes of the Real, instead of being a proof of the impossibility of the Ideal, mark rather its efforts to approximate to the Ideal ? And if so, the persistent fiction by which we interpreted Becoming by the categories of our thought, will have been prompted by a sounder in- stinct than we suspected, and will be justified by the issue : It Is not that our thought fails to penetrate into the nature of things, but that the nature of things is as yet too imperfect to come up to the ideals of our thought ; it is the Real that is tainted with unreality, because it cannot express the per- fection of the ideal. And from this point of view a meaning may be suggested even for the discrepancy which Scepti- cism made so much of, between our thought and the appearance of the reality. Might not the very extravao^ance of the contradiction between what is seen and what is conceived, taken in connection with the Inseparable conjunction of thought and feeling, be intended to lead us by a certain path to what is inferred, to raise us from phenomenal appearances and the strife of inadequate categories, to a still higher plane of transcendent reality, capable of resolving all our doubts and of reconciling fact and knowledge ? This suggestion is one which may hereafter be verified ; at present it must appear an arbitrary 144 RECONSTRUCTION. cutting of the Gordian knot. But It is the fact alone that thouo^ht and feelinof are aUke activities of the Self, the fact that all things are phenomena for a conscious soul, which renders it even possible to assign a higher authority to the Ideal, and to assert that it will in the end be found to possess greater reality. And this fact also legalizes what would appear an arbitrary act of power, for in appealing to the Self to compose the conflict between thought and feeling, we are appealing to the legitimate sovereign of both, to whom they both belong, and who has a right to arrange the order of their merit. Thus the assertion of the reality of the Self affords us the inestimable gain of enabling us to burst through the fetters of Scepticism and to clear the road for further progress. 5i 6. And from the same principle follows a cor- ollary hardly less important. We are now in a position to protest against the ridiculous charge of anthropomorphism which is so frequently brought against our thought. The sceptic might indeed have dispensed with a device which more [)roperly belongs to the agnostic, but it was too handy not to be utilized when thrown in his way. He used it fairly and impartially against all knowledge, and not like the agnostic, against a selected portion (ch. Hi. ^ 4), but he could not raise it to the dignity of a vital argument. But even though it benefited the sceptic little, its refutation will benefit us much. We shall rightly seize the opportunity of exposing a wide- spread superstition, which should really by this time have ceased to figure in any serious philosophic argument. For what conceivable meaning can be attached to the reproach that a conception is anthro- pomorphic ? Anthropomorphic means partaking of ANTHROPOxMORPHISM INEVITABLE. 145 the nature of man, and what human reasoning can fail to render the pecuHarities of the human reason ? Thus the prohibition of anthropomorphic reasoning is the prohibition of all reasoning in the supposed interests of a fiction of un-anthropomorphic thought (probably of the Unknowable ?) which can never be known to exist, and which, if it existed, would be utterly inconceivable to us. Surely it is too plain for words that all our thought and all our feeling must be anthropG7norphic. The proposal to avoid anthropomorphism is as absurd as the suggestion that we should take an unbiassed outside view of ourselves by jumping out of our skin, § 7. If, then, everything we think is of necessity anthropomorphic, the only possible distinction which can be made is not between thought which is anthropomorphic and thought which is not, but between good and bad anthropomorphism. Bad anthropomorphism is of several sorts, and we may distinguish between xh.^ false and the confused. By false anthropomorphism is meant the ascription to beings other than ourselves of qualities or attributes which we know they cannot possess because of their difference from ourselves. This is exemplified by the attribution of specifically human qualities to the animals below, and to God above us. When, e.g., I assert that my dog worships me as a god, my an- thropomorphism is false, because I have no reason to ascribe religious emotions to dogs. Similarly, when I expect God to eat the flesh of sacrificial victims, my anthropomorphism is false, for I know that God is a spirit and not a fact in the phenomenal world. § 8. By confused anthropomorphism is meant that which arises when, starting from some obvious human R. of S. L 146 RECONSTRUCTION. analogy, our principle of explanation Is chopped and chipped, In deference to the apparent exigencies of the facts, until its elements may at last become mutually contradictory, and the original points of analogy may entirely disappear. We have already had occasion to criticize such confused anthropo- morphisms from a sceptical point of view (ch. Hi. § 4), and shall have further occasion to do so from that of a consistent and conscious anthropomorphism. And yet it is In the Interests of these weatherbeaten old anthropomorphisms, whose original shape is often scarce recognizable, that protests are generally raised against anthropomorphism which keeps closer to the primary principles of explanation. This confused anthropomorphism, though not often wholly wrong, Is generally ridiculous, and its claims to superiority over the rest are simply monstrous. For even where the mutilations It has suffered In the course of its chequered career have not rendered It unfit for service, even where its modifications have brought it nearer to the facts, it is a lamentable truth that just in proportion as it departs from the analogy of human action its value as an explanation diminishes, and the process it attempts to describe becomes as unintelligible as it was before explan- ation was essayed at all. The absolute Infinite, e.g. may be the full and final explanation of all things, only unfortunately it is a conception which has exalted Itself so far beyond our grasp that it appears to the human reason a mere bundle of contradict- ions. Again, when a soporific virtue Is assigned as the reason why poppies put us to sleep, and a universal force of gravitation as the reason why bodies attract one another, we feel that the value of the explanation has been reduced to a minimum. TRUE ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 1 47 ^ 9. The Ideal of true anthropomorphism, and the ideal also of true science, would be realized when all our explanations made use of no principles which were not self-evident to human minds, self- explanatory to human feeling-s. Such Ideals are, It is true, remote from the present state of our know- ledge, but we may lay it down as a canon of Inquiry that a principle Is the better, other things being equal, the more closely it clings to^ the analogy of human agency, the more completely parallel Its course runs to the course of the human mind. When by the master-key of the Self all' problems have been undone, when all things have been shown to be of like nature with the mind that knows them, then at length will knowledge be perfect and per- fectly anthropomorphic. Our care, then, must be, not to avoid anthropo- morphism, but to avoid bad anthropomorphism, not to allow the Inevitable anthropomorphism of our explanations to become confused or inconsistent, or to lag behind the conceptions of our highest aspir- ations. We start, then, with the certainty of our own> existence, on the basis and analogy of which the: world must be Interpreted. CHAPTER VI. THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY, \ I. We are now in a position to embark upon the important subject of the method of philosophy, on which it may reasonably be suspected that th^ failure or success of a philosopTiy will depend. V Among the possible claimants to the honours of the true method we may dismiss two, viz., the epistemological and the psychological. The epistemological method must be rejected for the reasons already stated (ch. li. §§ 1.3- 17). It suc- cumbed both to scepticism and to science : to science because science could not admit that any theory of knowledge had a right to treat the mind as a fixed product that could be exhaustively analysed, instead of being an organically living and developing growth ; to scepticism, because its denial of the ultimate reality of the Self (ch. v. § 4) incapacitated it from transcending the antithesis of thought and reality, and because it could never show that its assertions held good of the real world. The psychological method is subject to the sai defects as the epistemological in a higher degn and possesses also some peculiar to Itself. It ah is Invalidated by the growth of the mind, which attempts to make the sole standard of knowled^ The human mind, as it now is, appears to scieni to be a transitory phase of a development froj 148 NOT THE METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY. 1 49 protoplasm into beings whr) may be reasonably sup- 'posed to be incalculably^ superior to existing man, and science cannot possibly make any single term of this development the measure of all things. To understand that development it must be of supreme importance to discover the origins of what is in what was, and its destiny and final condition in what will be, but it is of subordinate interest to know what it happens to be at any fleeting moment of its evolution; The actual condition, therefore, of the human mind cannot by itself afford a universal criterion of the world ; for It is necessarily imperfect and points back to a past out of which it has deve- loped, and forwards to a future which it fore- shadows. The fact that the mind has a history is fatal to the claims of the psychological method; for it destroys the final authority of its actual deliver- ances. And of that history the- psychological, method cannot take account without ceasing to be psychological, and submitting to the restrictions of historical and metaphysical methods. And besides this fatal disability, the psychological, method Involves other inherent defects. It is particularly liable to the vice of false abstract- ion. Not only is it constantly tempted to^ draw hard and fast lines between the various " faculties "' of the soul and to forget its fundamental unity, but. It Is bound to repeat the same error in its treatment of the relation of the mind to '* external " things, and to consider it in isolation from the world In which it lives. It cannot treat the mind and the world as different aspects of the same fact, as dif- ferent sides of the same stress, as the mutually im.- plicated action and reaction of interacting factors. And yet it may be boldly laid down that no ex- 150 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. planatlon of the world can be successful which for- gets that the world Is essentially one and Indivisible, and that its parts cannot be explained In Isolation, but only in conjunction. Man is the microcosm™| and cannot be understood except In the context ot the macrocosm which environs him and with which he Interacts. Hence it is a fruitless waste of labour to give isolated explanations of this faculty or that^B to trace the genesis of this sense or that, for they all can be assigned their proper place only by reference to the whole. § 2. The method of philosophy, therefore, mu be either physical or metaphysical. I. Of these, the physical may more properly b called the pseudo-metaphysical, because It attempt to extend the method of the physical sciences to the solution of ultimate questions, i.e., to metaphysics. II. The second method may be called the ab- stract metaphysical, because it attempts to state the whole truth of all reality in terms of thought ab- stractions. III. Thirdly, the true method may be called the concrete metaphysical, as combining the advantages and avoiding the defects of the other two. Thus, e.g., the first explains the higher by the lower, since the objects of the physical sciences rank lower in the hierarchy of existence than the mind while the other two agree In explaining the low by the higher. But in very different ways. F while the higher of abstract metaphysics is a me abstraction, selected at random out of the plenitu of existence with which it has no intrinsic connect- ion, the higher of the concrete metaphysical method .is organically connected with the lower. Thus -escapes the constant temptation of the first to de THE PSEUDO-METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 151 the higher, and of the second to ignore the lower. Again, the pseudo-metaphysical and the concrete metaphysical agree in rejecting the doctrine of the abstract metaphysical as to the difference in kind between the higher and the lower, but with very different motives. The one asserts the connection of higher and lower in order to degrade the higher, the other in order to redeem the lower. But it is necessary to consider the strength and the weakness of each method in detail. § 3. I. The pseudo-metaphysical method puts forward the method of science as the method of philosophy. But it is doomed to perpetual failure. It is not merely that, as we saw (ch. ii. § 2), the mental attitude required in science and in philo- sophy is different, but that the scientific material it uses is both inadequate and intractable. It is inadequate because the physical sciences are all based on all sorts of assumed first principles, often of the confused anthropomorphic order (ch. v. § 8), which are only valid within the limits of each science, and are often mutually conflicting, like the assumption of the theory of gravitation that all matter gravitates, and that of the undulatory theory that luminiferous ether does not (ch. iii. § 9), or as completely devoid of ultimate validity as the mathe- matical use of impossible quantities.^ And from a 1 The use of graphic formulas in chemistry may be instanced. ,To represent simple and indivisible atoms as equipped with all [sorts of hooks and bonds for grappling with their neighbours (or themselves) is impossible mythology, especially when we reflect ithat multiplicity of parts seems excluded by the conception of an atom. Or again, what are we to say of ^' negative elements " diminishing the atomic weight of the bodies with which they com- bine? Such a dematerializing agency is surely a mere symbol, and cannot possibly correspond to any actual fact. 152 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. scientific point of view no objection can be taken to the use of serviceable fictions, however discordant and contradictory they may be, so long as they are really useful to the particular sciences. On the other hand, it is just the business of philosophy to reinterpret these fundamental assum.ptions of the sciences, and to reconcile their conflicts, by showing that they are not ultimate truths but convenient formulae for special purposes. But for this very reason they cannot form the basis of philosophy. It is philosophy alone which renders them capable of forming parts of a single and consistent system of knowledge. And the data supplied by the physical sciences are intractable, because they are data of a lower order than the facts they are to explain. The objects of the physical sciences form the lower orders in the hierarchy of existence, more extensive but less significant. Thus the atoms of the physicists may Indeed be found in the organizat- ion of conscious beings, but they are subordinate : a living organism exhibits actions which cannot be formulated by the laws of physics alone ; man is material, but he is also a great deal more. Again, all bodies gravitate, but the activities of living, to say nothing of rational, bodies cannot be explained by the action of gravitation alone. So chemical affinities are presupposed in biological actions, but yet life is something more than and beyond chemical affinity. And it is the same Inherent flaw of the method which is displayed, not only In the palpable absurdity of explaining biological facts by chemical, or mechanical facts, but also in that of explaining] the rational or moral by mere biology. The pseudo- metaphysical method of physical VIRTUES AND VICES OF THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. I 53 science, which of necessity must try to explain the higher by the lower, constantly fails to include the whole of the higher, and is therefore constantly driven to deny what it cannot explain, and to reduce the higher to the lower. But though at first it seems plausible to explain the higher and fuller by something which seems simpler because less signific- ant, by dint of leaving out its surplus meaning, this process becomes more and more difficult the further it is carried, and if it were carried to its con- sistent conclusion, it would be seen to refute itself. It would end by explaining all things by that which is nothing in itself, and has meaning only in relat- ion to the things it is supposed to explain. The further we carry our researches into the lower, the more it appears that it is not really simple, but only vaguer and more indefinite, and that the lack of differentiation indicates not that we have got down to the fundamental principles of the complex, but that it arises from a confounding of all the distinct- ions which enable us to comprehend the thing. To take only the one example of protoplasm, which is the starting-point of biology (itself one of the higher sciences). For biology protoplasm is ultim- ate : it can no longer be derived from any lower and *' simpler " form of life. It can be defined only in terms of what it becomes or develops into. And yet this *' simple " protoplasm performs all the funct- ions which in its differentiated developments fall to the share of the most various structures and the most various faculties. It sees and hears and smells and tastes and feels, thinks and wills and moves, it absorbs and excretes, it grows and reproduces itself, and all without any discoverable difference of struc- ture. What then have we gained by deriving 154 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. differences we can see and partly understand from hypothetical differences which are invisible and in- comprehensible ? Is the mystery lessened by being relegated to the mythical region of the unknowable and imperceptible, and is it not in very deed an explanation ignoti per ignotius ? But we shall have abundant illustration of this defect of the method hereafter (ch. vii. §§ 4-14)- At present it is more pleasant to turn from the intrinsic weakness of the method to its intrinsic strength. Its great merit is the emphasis it lays on the law of continuity. It refuses to draw hard and fast divisions anywhere. It does not sever the con- nections at the articulations of the cosmos. It does not regard the higher as toto ccelo different from the lower ; it never loses its grasp of the essential unity of things, even though it may sometimes drag what is lofty in the mire. But even in its errors it is not unprofitable. The connections it establishes between the higher and the lower serve to bridge the moats which dissever the continuity of the universe, and will stand firm, even though their architects were mistaken in their ulterior aims. The scientific truths it discovers are so much gain to those who utilize the material more wisely, and, up to a certain point, it gives us pure truth. We need therefore merely pull down certain excrescences and extravagances, and we shall have firm foundations of science and material of inestimable value. We may say then, that the pseudo-metaphysical method is not so much false as insufficient. § 4. II. The abstract metaphysical method, which has been the method hitherto most frequent in philosophy, differs widely from the pseudo-meta- THE METHOD OF ABSTRACT METAPHYSIC. 1 55 physical in its character. It promises much more, but accomplishes much less. Indeed, we are con- stantly tempted to assert that it has accomplished nothing, and to say that science has never been assisted, but often been perverted by metaphysics. But such ebullitions of pardonable impatience would ignore the immense impulse, the far-reaching sug- gestions which the whole intellectual and emotional life of men has often received from metaphysical doctrines. But if the metaphysical method is more suggestive, it is also less sound. It produces artificial constructions which charm us by the harmonious interdependence of their parts, but which are fatally unstable. The demolition of a single part drags the whole edifice to the ground, and in the common ruin all its outworks perish. And so metaphysical systems have seemed like a succession of beauteous bubbles blown from the reflective pipe of genius, which delighted us for a season and then were dis- sipated into thin air. Where are the metaphysical systems of the earlier Greeks or later Germans ? Their multitudinous shades are buried in the bulky tomes of our histories of philosophy, and but rarely stalk about the earth in the eccentricities of living representatives. The fatal flaw in almost all the metaphysics of the past was their abstractness, and this is a flaw which far exceeds their merits. For what does it avail that the metaphysical method rightly protests against the explanation of the higher by the lower, if it confines itself to a mere protest, to a mere assertion of their difference ? To tell us that the spiritual is not natural, that soul is not body, that God is not man, that appear- ance is not reality, is to tell us nothing. All this does is to constitute a difference in kind between 156 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. the higher and the lower, to break in two the unity of the universe, to open an impassable abyss between here and hereafter, so that they that would pass from earth to heaven cannot pass from facts to metaphysics, while those who breathe the unsubstant- ial air of metaphysical meditation can never reach the gross but solid facts. To assert the diffei'e7ice between the higher and the lower is not enough ; we require a method which will also bring out their connection. % 5. After this breach in the law of continuity, and the assertion of the utter difference of higher and lower, the method of abstract metaphysics develops in two ways. If it retains any consciousness of the lower earthly plane at all, the difference between the higher and the lower becomes accentuated into antagonism. The spiritual becomes the supernatural, the pheno- menal becomes the unreal, the body is opposed to the soul in everlasting conflict, man to God and earth to heaven. There results, first, an irreconcil- able dualism of the higher and lower, and in the end the lower or physical plane is regarded as the sphere of the principle of evil. It is well known how near many Manichaean heresies, as well as certain forms of orthodoxy, come to making the Devil the ruler of the world, from whose dominion the individual can only escape by special miraculous grace, and the whole ascetic view of life, once so widely prevalent, really results from the same tend- ency. And that these consequences are not due to the bias of individuals, but inherent in the method, is shown also in the history of pre-Christian philo- sophy. In their asceticism and contempt for the material the Neo-Platonists yielded not a whit to THE ANTAGONISM OF HIGHER AND LOWER. I57 the most enthusiastic monk. And yet they might justly trace their intellectual descent from the most Hellenic of Hellenic philosophers, and yet they are connected by an unbroken chain of logical necessity with the doctrine of Plato, And indeed we can find in Plato both the source and the reason of Neo-Platonic asceticism. For the Platonic system is perhaps the most purely metaphysical the world has ever seen. To Plato metaphysical " Ideas " abstracted from phenomena were the only true reality, while the phenomena of sense were real only as partaking in them. The result is that the connection of the Ideas with the Sensible becomes entirely unintelligible (cf. iii. § 15, note) : the contrast has become so sharp that union becomes inconceiv- able, and Plato himself admits that he cannot explain how sensible things partake of the Ideas. And, as might have been expected, his metaphysical dualism spreads from the theoretic to the practical sphere, and in his latest and maturest work we find him seriously propounding the theory of an evil World- Soul, the action of which is to differentiate the character of the imperfect world of Becoming from the perfection of the world of Ideas.^ But from ^ Laws X. 896D, 898c. It seems hopeless to deny this anti- thesis of the phenomenal and the real on the a priori gxoMn^ that Plato was too great a philosopher to be a dualist, and for this reason to assume that a reconciliation of the Ideas and the Sensible must be found somewhere in his system. For it is no derogation to Plato's genius to say that he failed to achieve what no philo- sopher has succeeded in achieving, viz., the impossible task of reconciling the higher and the lower by abstract metaphysics. And at all events Plato showed more discernment than his critics in seeing where the real crux lay, and in perceiving that its solution was, on his principles and by his method, impossible. And if a way out of the difficulty was discovered by Plato, is it not astonish- ing that all his successors should not only have failed to discover 158 THE METHOD OF rHILOSOPHY. the admission of an evil and irrational principle in the physical world, at war with the principle of Good and Reason, to that of its supremacy in the visible world, is only a small step, easily forced upon the mind by the evils of life, and hence we find it constantly and consistently taken in the Gnostic and Neo- Platonic speculations. Thus we find the abstract metaphysical method, in one of its develop- ments, passing from the dualism of the Ideal and the Real to their inherent conflict and to final Pessimism. The separation of the physical and the metaphysical, the %ft)pto-//,o9 which the acute criti- cism of Plato's great disciple, Aristotle, detected as the central flaw of the Platonic system, has avenged itself by a fearful penalty. § 6. But the metaphysical method may essay to rid itself of the contrast of higher and lower by a still more heroic remedy. Just as the pseudo- metaphysical method yielded to the temptation ot denying the higher, so conversely the metaphysical method may yield to the temptation of ignoring the lower. The metaphysician wings his flight to the invisible, and loses sight of earth altogether. He closes his eyes and hardens his heart to the facts of life. He declares unreal whatever does not fit into the narrow limits of his theories, on the ground that whatever is real is rational, and leaving to his dis- ciples a glittering legacy of magniloquent but un- meaning phrases, he vanishes into the air before he can be caught and questioned about the meaning of his enchantments. But even he cannot outsoar the atmosphere which supports him : in the end the irresistible attraction of earth brings him down it in Plato, but have themselves one and all come to grief over this same difficulty ? I KEGELS '' METAPHYSIC. 159 with a fall more dire than that of Icarus : stripped of the false plumes in which he had counterfeited the divine bird of Zeus, and pursued by the imprec- ations of those who discovered too late the cheat which had deceived him, and at length perceive that a haughty scorn of the phenomenal does not satisfy the demands of reality, and that empty abstractions are not "the staff of life, he perishes miserably, and leaves lasting discredit on a subject which seems composed of a series of splendid failures. Of this type of metaphysics we may take as examples Eleaticism in ancient, and Hegelianism in modern times. The Eleatic philosophy seems to have simply ignored the phenomenal, and to have consisted in an emphatic assertion of the abstract unity of the universe. Its ingenious polemic against the possibility of Becoming has been preserved in Zeno's famous fallacies about motion, and "Achilles and the Tortoise " and " The Arrow " will ever retain their charm — even though the world has long ago replied to the system which they illustrated and defended by a solvitur ambulando. The same praise of ingenuity may be bestowed also upon the Hegelian system, which is doubtless the most ingenious system of false pretences that adorns the history of philosophy. For even its metaphysical character is largely a pretence. It pretends to give us metaphysics where it really has no business to be more than epistemological. We fancy it is speaking of metaphysical realities when it is really dealing with logical categories. It pre- tends to give us a thought- process incarnate in reality, but the thought remains motionless, and its transitions are really affected by the surreptitious introduction of phenomenal Becoming. It pretends l60 TFIE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. to deal with the reahtles of Hfe, but it talks of abstract- ions throughout. It pretends to explain all things, and then ascribes inconvenient facts to the " con- tingency of matter," i.e. it pretends to be a rational explanation of the world, and then admits an element of irrationality. It pretends to solve all practical problems, but finally turns out to be necessarily incapable of solving a single one. It professes to give categorical answers to disputed questions, but its most definite assertions are rendered worthless by the taint of a subtle ambiguity. It seems a hard saying, but it is no more than what is strictly demon- strable, that Hegelianism never anywhere gets within sight of a fact, or within touch of reality. And the reason is simple : you cannot, without paying the penalty, substitute abstractions for real- ities ; the thought-symbol cannot do duty for the thing symbolized ; the development of a logical category is not the same as the evolution of a real individual. The " dialectical process," if we admit the phrase, is logical and not in Time, and has nothing to do with the world process in Time. Hegelianism is the greatest system of abstract meta- physics, because it starts from the highest abstract- ion and makes the most persistent effort to work down to reality from it, because its abstractions are carried out most ruthlessly, because its confusions are concealed most artfully, and because it hence seeins to come closer to reality than systems which stopped short of such perfect illusion. But for these very reasons it is also the falsest of abstract metaphysical systems, if degrees be admitted, where all are fundamentally false. § 7. For the truth is that any theory which puts forward an abstraction as the ultimate explanation I I ABSTRACT FIRST PRINCIPLES ALL BAD. l6l of all things is false. It is no matter what we call it, whether it is dubbed the Absolute, or the Un- knowable, or the Idea, or the Will, or the Uncon- scious, or Matter, or Reason, the Good or the In- finite. Nor is it a relevant difference whether the fundamental principle be picked up out of the sphere of material or of immaterial things, and whether we pronounce that the All is the One, or Number, or a material *' element," like Fire, Water, or Air. For all these first principles are abstractions ; they will give partial interpretations of aspects of things, more or less successful according to the importance of the element denoted by the abstraction, and ac- cording to the care with which it has been selected. But not one of them can ever be wholly successful, for each of them is a part which cannot include the whole. The efforts, therefore, of such theories may present to the astounded spectator the most surpris- ing feats of mental acrobatism, but they must be as fruitless as a man's attempt to put himself into his own pocket. § 8. In addition to the evils of the ywpi^ixoq involved in the abstractions of mere metaphysics, further difficulties arise out of the random and haphazard way in which they arrive at their first principles. Philosophies are, for the most part, generated by reflection upon the difficulties of the theories of the past, and so work on from age to age in the same old narrow and vicious groove. Hence the history of philosophy presents a series of unprofitable con- troversies, like that as to the nature of universals, as to the origin of knowledge, as to the existence of an *' external " world, etc., which would either never have been raised or rapidly adjusted if philosophy had kept in closer contact with the real problems of R. of S. M 1 62 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. life, and shown itself more sensitive to outside in- fluences. And it is manifest that this sectarian adherence to the traditional formulation of philosophic questions affords but the slenderest guarantee that the first principles of philosophy will be such as to be applicable to any other subject. Such principles have no organic connexion with the positive sciences, and very often must be incapable of utilizing scientific facts. Hence the general attitude of abstract metaphysics is anti- scientific, and hence the antagonism of physical science and philosophy, which in the present day is so detrimental to the best interests of both. Thus each of the two methods on which the human mind has hitherto placed its chief reliance in order to achieve the Herculean task of silencing the Sphinx, is vitiated by its peculiar disabilities. The pseudo-metaphysical method may be compared to an earth-born Antseus, whose strength fails as soon as he is raised above the ground ; the abstract metaphysical to a flighty Icarus, who reaches the ground only in his death. The one is of use only on the earth, and the other only in the air, whereas the winged Sphinx is equally at home in either element. § 9. We require, then, a method which combines the excellencies of both the pseudo-metaphysical and the abstract metaphysical, if philosophy is to be possible at all. It must be metaphysical, and yet not abstract ; it must agree with the metaphysical in explaining the lower by the higher, and with the^ pseudo-metaphysical in admitting their intrinsic like- ness and the continuity of all existence. And so it must avoid the weaknesses of the others. Un I TRUE METAPHYSIC BASED ON SCIENCE. 1 63 like the first, It must explain the less known and less intelligible lower, i.e., the more remote from human nature by the more known and more in- telligible, i.e. that w^hlch Is nearer to human nature. Unlike the second, it must avoid the x^po-yuo? of phenomenal and real, the abstract opposition of ideal and actual. Unlike the second, too, its principles must be organically connected with the sciences, aided by them, and reciprocating their assistance. How can this be ? Simply by basing our meta- physics 071 our science. Our metaphysics must be concrete, and not abstract ; they must be the inquiry into the ultimate nature of concrete realities, and not of thought abstractions. In other words, they must proceed from the phenomenally real to the ultimately real, from science to metaphysics. And ^H so the method of philosophy must utilize the results ^Bof science ; metaphysical theories must be suggested ^Hby scientific researches, and must approve themselves ^Bby In their turn suggesting scientific advances. ^B Their principles of explanation must be systematic- al ally based on the sciences, and not picked up at ^■random, and their function must be to systematize ^Hthe fundamental principles of the various sciences. Metaphysic, In short, must again become what it I once was in the time of Aristotle — the science of ultimate existence, the science of the first principles of the physical sciences. § 10. But Is such a method more than the vision of an imagination which has soared too far above the region of the actual ? Is such a reconciliation of science and metaphysics possible at all ? It is certainly extremely difficult. 1 . . .. .. ... . . ... . 164 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. philosophical predecessors. With the mention of Berkeley's '* spirits " and Leibnitz's " monads " we have almost exhausted the list of philosophical principles which are not liable to the charge of being abstractions, or of explaining the higher by the lower. Aristotle also regarded the concrete indi- vidual as the primary reality (irpoorrj ova-la), and in his practice gives us an unequalled example of the way in which science and metaphysics should work together. Much help may be derived from all these, and in questions of method, especially from Aristotle. § II. But even with the utmost help and in- genuity, our task is still tremendous. Its difficulty arises from two main causes. (i) Our imperfect knowledge of the lower. (2) Our imperfect attainment of the higher. These two causes conspire to make most of the facts in the world unintelligible. We have to ac- cept them as facts for which we can give no reason. Why does gravity vary inversely as the square of 1 the distance ? A simple fact like this will defy ex- ! planation for many an age, for it is the lowest and most general of physical facts, and therefore the last to be rendered intelligible from the point of view of the higher. For just as in ascending a mountain the higher peaks are the first to be perceived, the firstj whose groupings can be understood, just as it is noflj until we reach the summit that we rise to a free purview of the whole, and that the Inter-connectioi of the lowlands and the direction of the valleys cai be made out ; so in philosophy we can only catcH partial and misleading views of what is below, while we toil through the dense forest of prejudice, an< can only gain mysterious hints of what lies beyond, :hVl THE HIGHER LIFE RICHER THOUGH UNIMAGINABLE. 1 65 while what is above is shrouded in the mists of early morning. § 12. And not only are we hampered by our avowed ignorance of the lower, but in view of the slight deference which the scheme of things pays to man and his desires, we must admit also that little progress has been made in the attainment of the higher. We are after all far nearer to the beast than to the angel, far closer to hell than to heaven. We can feel the throb of brutal instincts, we can conceive the anguish of undying torment ; but the calm of superhuman virtue leaves us cold, and visions of eternal bliss seem empty and unmeaning. Yet this is in the nature of things inevitable. The higher can in a way understand the lower, by tracing in it the germs the higher has developed. But the lower cannot in the same way anticipate the higher. In the case of existences higher than our- selves, we can ascribe to them the possession of certain qualities sensu emi7ie7ttiori, or the perfection of our highest activities. But how, if our activities seem essentially imperfect, bound up with imperfect conditions, relative to imperfect stages of develop- ment ? In such cases perfection means destruction. One human activity after another must be excluded from the ideal life, and we can imagine nothing which can take their place ; and owing to this pro- gressive elimination of the lower activities, it is a great achievement if we can retain any aspect of human life as a permanent ideal, and in any case the ideals of perfection become mere forms, the whole content of which has been eviscerated. And so the higher life seems dull and empty. We are able to describe it only by negatives, by the negation of the lower attributes unworthy of it. This is the 1 66 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. real explanation of the eternal emptiness of happi- ness, of the eii7mi of bliss which is so marked in the popular representations of heaven. It is the ex- planation also of the irrepressible tendency to de- scribe God by negations, as the ineffable, infinite, immutable, incomprehensible and unknowable, which is continually making religion the half-way house to agnosticism. But in reality this is a mere prejudice, though a very pardonable one. To overcome it, we should consider the parallel of the relation of the infra- human to the human from the point of view of the former. How unable would the amoeba be to realize the higher activities of man, how inevitably would the dim forecasts of its knowledge deny to man the activities, whatever they are, that make up the life of the amoeba ! To a less degree, the same incapacity is displayed also among men. The un- thinking masses also condemn the life of the thinker as dull, empty, and uneventful, simply because they cannot imagine how much fuller his heightened consciousness makes it, how much more intense are the pleasures and pains of the sage than those of coarser minds that cannot react upon the subtler stimuli. From such examples we begin to perceive that the higher is not a negation, because the lower cannot determine its positive attributes. Every step in advance does indeed mean a dropping away of some lower activities, until they have all dis- appeared. But each step in advance also opens up new activities, and fuller realizations of old activities, which progressively increase the total content of life, and make the higher life richer and fuller than the lower. But these, of course, are not visible from the standpoint of the lower. The lament, therefore I THE LIMITATIONS OF THE METHOD. 1 67 over the emptiness of the higher life, is as though one were to lament in. the ascent of a mountain that the advance was pure loss, because the scenery at the foot must be more and more obscured, oblivious of the fact that the ascent would bring new features into view of which we could not have dreamt be- low. Or to illustrate by a mathematical parallel : the higher can understand the lower just as we can abstract one and two dimensions from three dimens- ional space ; the lower cannot understand the higher, just as we cannot add a fourth dimension to Space. § 13. These defects in the concrete metaphysical method are insurmountable ; and though they do not impair its correctness, they sadly limit its achievements. They render it impossible for philosophy to solve all questions, to be more than fragmentary, to be complete and final. Philosophy must be content if it can make out the general drift of life, if it can determine its main features, if it can approximately decipher its chief enigmas, if not with perfect certainty and in full detail, yet with reasonable probability. Its function is to form a temporary roofing- in of the pyramid of knowledge, which anticipates the completion of the structure, and enables the workers to work secured against the inclemency of the skies, but which from time to time must be renewed and modified and expanded, so as to satisfy the requirements of its growing bulk. A philosophical system will share the characteristics of the sciences on which it is based. It will consist of a series of happy, but not random, guesses, more or less probable, and deriving a certain amount of support from their connexion, able to explain the broad outlines of the constitution of things to a greater or less extent, but leaving much as yet 1 68 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. inexplicable ; like scientific theories also it will be ratified by the way it works and stands the test of experience. Finality, completeness, and perfection are as impossible at present in a true system of philosophy as in any of the sciences, and if this lack is censured by the admirers of spick and span sys- tems which have a glib response for every question, we must admit that as yet philosophy can do little more than keep alive the sacred fire of hope, than throw a light upon the path of progress. But we may be more than consoled by the reflection that such philosophy, though it is imperfect, is at least alive, and that its potentialities of progress render it immensely superior to the most artful and artificial system, the symmetry of which forbids the slightest change. § 14. But little as philosophy can as yet achieve, it could nevertheless have achieved far more than it has done if it had kept in touch with science. Ought it not to have profited immensely by the unparalleled advance of the sciences in the course of the present century ? Ought it not to have gathered from this advance data of primary interest and principles of surpassing importance ? But the traditional metaphysics have known so little to profit by the teaching of science that, even in purely metaphysical matters, scientific theories are now often far in advance of philosophical ones, and involve metaphysical principles which philosophy has either not yet realized at all, or only grudgingly recognized, and failed to apply generally to the solution of its own problems.^ And yet it is the 1 Like the metaphysical principles of Evolution (ch. vii.) and the impossibility of infinity (ch. vii. § 20; ch. ix. §§ 2-1 1), and of Interaction (ch. xii. § 10; ch. vii. § i) respectively. 4, I i METAPHYSICAL GAINS FROM MODERN SCIENCE. 1 69 conviction that metaphysical principles underlie the great scientific progress of our age, and that they afford the key to the solution of the chief problems of philosophy, that can embolden philosophy to refuse to surrender to pessimistic and sceptical despair. But as the actual discussion of the metaphysical principles involved in modern scientific conceptions will demonstrate far more clearly than any general argument can do, not only that the method of con- crete metaphysics is possible, but that it is true, and yields philosophic results of supreme importance, we must delay no longer to consider the Metaphysics of Evolution. We shall see in the next chapter how a scientific doctrine, originating in the single science of biology, from the suggestion of an ob- scure sociological analogy, has pursued its triumph- ant march through all the sciences, impelled by the irresistible impetus of its metaphysical nature, and how the metaphysical conception which had been the latent cause of its success at last becomes explicit, and enriches philosophy with the accumu- lated wealth of the data it has collected. CHAPTER VII. THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. § I. The discussion of the metaphysics of Evolut- ion may come with the shock of seeming paradox on those who pride themselves on their complete exemption from metaphysical views and metaphys- ical knowledge. But In reality their surprise is quite uncalled for ; and if they knew what meta- physics were, they would perceive that it was as difficult to avoid talking metaphysics as it is to avoid talking prose. It requires a real poet to avoid prose, and it requires a real metaphysician to avoid metaphysical assumptions. For ordinary men the choice is only between good and bad metaphysics as between good and bad prose. For metaphysics is simply the science of the fundamental principles of all knowing and being, and it is impossible to act or think without assum- ing and implying some such principles. It is as impossible to carry on life without metaphysical principles as it is to carry on thought without logical principles. The only real question Is whether our various metaphysical principles are to be consistent with one another and capable of being combined into a connected whole or not ; and it is highly probable that, unless great care Is taken, they will not be so consistent. Hence the object of the systematic study of metaphysics is to render 170 I I WHAT METAPHYSICS MEAN. I7I US conscious of the errors of the bad metaphysics of common life and common science, and to avoid such views of fundamental principles as will make nonsense of all things. In this respect metaphysics resemble logic, the science of the principles on which our thought proceeds ; for logical principles also cannot be with impunity ignored. If we are ignorant of them, it is probable that our thought will misapply them ; but to dispense with them is impossible. But though metaphysical and logical principles cannot be dispensed with, it is not neces- sary to be conscious of them ; on the contrary, just as people reasoned rightly and thought logically long before Aristotle explicitly stated the principles of logic, so it is possible to discover and to use metaphysical principles in ordinary life and in . science long before they are consciously appro- priated by systematic philosophy. And so it is not too much to say that every con- siderable advance in science has involved a parallel advance in our view of metaphysical first principles ; and it would not be difficult to illustrate this by the history of metaphysical principles of acknow- ledged importance, which have owed their dis- covery, or at least their acceptance, to the progress of the other sciences. Thus it was nothing but Newton's discovery of gravitation which enabled the principle of Interaction to supersede the old conceptions of Activity and Passivity {cf, ch. iii. § 10) ; and the full import of the metaphysical re- volution which was thus worked by a physical discovery has hardly even now been realized in all philosophic controversies (ch. xii. § lo).^ ^ It must not, however, be supposed that metaphysical ad varices are always conditioned by scientific progress, and that the 172 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. This explanation should suffice to render the assertion of metaphysical principles in Evolution a truism rather than a paradox, and to convince us that, if their importance is in any way proportionate to their scientific value, they will throw much light upon the ultimate problems of life. And it will be the object of this chapter to show, not only what the metaphysical principles underlying the progress of modern science are, but also that our expectat- ions as to their value are likely to be more than fulfilled. § 2. The great method of science which has proved so fruitful of progress in modern times has been the Historical Method, which investigates things by tracing their history. Wherever it has been possible to apply it, the light thrown on the nature of things by the study of their history sciences owe nothing to metaphysics. On the contrary, the ob- ligation is reciprocal, and metaphysics react upon science and accelerate its progress. And in early times metaphysical know- ledge is often far ahead of physical science. But in such cases the metaphysical conceptions are apt to prove barren, because no physical facts are known which exemplify them. And being thus destitute of illustration by reason of the backwardness of the physical sciences, the true metaphysics are often rejected in favour of less advanced principles, which may be supported by a plausible show of facts. It is pretty clear, for instance, that in the time of Aristotle Greek metaphysics were far ahead, not only of Greek science, but also of all but the most recent develop- ments of modern science. The lack of progressiveness of pure metaphysics since is to be attributed, not merely to the disastrous introduction into speculative philosophy of the popular doctrine of God's "infinity" (ch. x. § 7), but also to the fact that meta- physics had to wait until the physical sciences had reached a point which afforded the data for further metaphysical progress. Hence, as we shall see (§ 16), the metaphysical principles of Evolution were already contemplated by Aristotle, but rejected by him for lack of the scientific corroboration which they are now receiving. 'HE POSTULATES OF THE HISTORICAL METHOD. 1 73 has been such that In most branches of science a rejection of the Historic Method would justly be regarded as a conclusive mark of unscientific per- versity. And in its origin evolutionism is nothing but a special application and development of the Historical Method, the metaphysical assumptions of which it shares. Those assumptions are so few and so simple that ordinary thought would hardly think of calling them metaphysical ; and yet they really involve some very grave metaphysical diffic- ulties. The fundamental assumption on which every form of the Historical Method is based is that the thing Investigated has had a history. And to say that a thing has had a history is to assert, not only that it has had a past, but that this past has a bearing upon and a connexion with its present condition. These postulates are so easily granted on ord- inary occasions that we are apt to overlook the metaphysical assumptions to which they commit us. The reality of history implies the reality of the past ; i.e., the reality of Time and the causality of the past with respect to the present. For the con- ditions which render the application of the Historical Method valid are absent, if a thing has not existed in the past, or if its past Is not causally connected with its present. And these conditions, which make it possible to speak of a history at all, will be found ultimately to involve, not only the reality, but also, as a further metaphysical postulate, the limitation of Time, or, at all events, of the past of the thing to which a history is ascribed. But this very important point deserves further elucidation. 174 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. § 3. The Historical Method supposes that the cause and explanation of the present state of a thing is to be found in its past, that its nature will appear when its origin has been discovered. But what if this supposition be an illusion ? What if there is no real causal connexion between the past and present states of things, and the succession of their phases resembles rather the successive arrange- ments of a kaleidoscope, or of dissolving views in a magic-lantern, in which picture follows upon pic- ture without any intrinsic connexion between them (cf. ch. iii. § 11) ?^ And again, what if things have had no origin ? Surely the search for origins, the claim that the explanation of things is to be found in their history, is fundamentally false if the infinity of Time renders the whole conception of a beginning or origin a delusive prejudice of our fancy ? If things have fluctuated to and fro from all eternity, in a confused and unintelligible series of indeterminate changes, if everything has passed into everything else by in- sensible and indefinite gradations, not in virtue of any determinate and discoverable law, but in con- sequence of the kaleidoscopic freaks of an irrational, inscrutable, and irresponsible '' Unknowable," will not their nature baffle the utmost efforts of historical research? If men have "developed" into proto- plasm and protoplasm into man, in an infinite number of infinitely various and capricious ways, 1 Of course it is not intended to assert that there is no con- nexion between the successive pictures, but only that there is no direct connexion ; />., that the earlier image is not the cause of its successor. And just as the structure of the kaleidoscope underlies the appearances in the one case, so the ultimate per- versity of things (ch. v. § 2, p. 137) would underlie them on the other hypothesis. I I what meaning can any longer be attached to the history of the Evolution of man out of protoplasm ? If the Becoming of the world has really been in- finite, no amount of history will bring us any nearer to its real origin ; it is vain to sound the bottomless abyss of the past with the puny plummet of science. The Historical Method is futile, all theories of Evolution are false, and the nature of things is really unknowable. And if we refuse to admit these conclusions, we must admit as the metaphysical postulate of the Historical Method in all its forms, that things have had an origin, and their history a beginning. And so it appears that the ancient historians, who began their histories with the beginning of the world, were prompted by a correct and truly scientific instinct ; they felt that unless they began at the beginning, they would have to leave much obscure, and, that if a beginning was in the nature of things unattain- able, all would be left obscure, and all explan- ations would ultimately come to nought. Thus the vindication of a determinate beginning and a real origin as the necessary pre-supposition of any hist- orical account, commits us to the doctrine of a be- ginning of the world, or at least of the present order of things. But it does not directly compel us to as- sert the finiteness of Time. Until the nature of the infinity of Time has been investigated (in ch. ix. § 1 1), we may here reserve judgment, all the more easily that we do not perhaps really require to limit Time for the purposes of the Historical Method. But we can avoid it only by a supposition at least as dif- ficult. The origin which the method requires need not have an origin of Time ; it is conceivable that the world existed for an infinity of time, and then 176 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. entered into the historical process of development at some fixed point in the past. Supposing e.g., that life had existed from all time in the form of protoplasm, it might suddenly have taken to de- veloping more complex forms, and this point would form the starting-point of biology, and the ideal ^xed point to which the Historical Method would go back. Or again, an " eternal " Deity may have existed always, and at some point in the past have created the beginnings of the world. In this second case the ideal starting-point of the Historical Method would be also the real beginning of the world (at least as a world) ; in the first, It would be ideal only, and mark the limit merely for our knowledge. But in either case, the Historical Method would be unable to distinguish the ideal from the real limit ; it could not determine whether its starting-point was merely an instantaneous phase in the history, or whether it had not existed for an infinity before the beginning of change and beyond the reach of all history. It is thus an intrinsic limitation of the Historical Method, that even where it does penetrate to an apparent beginning, it cannot tell us whether it is the beginning of the existence of the thing or only of its history. § 4. Now It follows from the fact that modern Evolutionism is a special application of the Histori- cal Method that it shares all the metaphysical as- sumption and limitations of that method. But in the course of its development it has superadded several others. And as its history affords the most instructive examples of how scientific progress un- wittingly develops metaphysical conceptions (ch. vi. §§ 9, 16), it will be no real digression to trace the history of the theory of Evolution. EVOLUTIONISM AND THE HISTORICAL METHOD. 1 77 The evolutionism which has revolutionized the thought of our century is the evolutionism of Charles Darwin, and confessedly arose out of an interpretation of the gradations and affinities of animal species in the light of the Malthusian law of population. That is to say, it arose out of a hint which the single science of zoology received from the science of sociology.^ After revolutionizing zoology, it found its scope so much enlarged by that process, that it could be applied with success to many other sciences, such as botany, biology and anthropology, with especial appropriateness to sociology (from which it had received its original impulse), and even to psychology and ethics.^ And every new application had the effect of bringing out more definitely the principles by which it pro- ceeded. Thus it appeared as the common result of all evolutionist histories, what had not before seemed a necessary characteristic of historical explanations, that they traced the genesis of the higher and more differentiated subsequent forms out of earlier forms which were lower and simpler and more homo- geneous. And hence arose the first specific ad- dition Evolutionism made to the Historical Method proper, which may be described as the assertion that historical research leads us from the more com- plex to the simpler, and '' explains " complexity by deriving it from simplicity. And perhaps it is the aesthetic obviousness of this process, rather than any magic virtue in mere history, which has ren- dered evolutionist explanations so plausible and so ^ Cf. Darwin's Life, I., p. 83, and compare Mr. Spencer's Study of Sociology, p. 438. ^ For a similar example, cf Study of Sociology, p. 335, ff- (13th ed.). R.ofS. j^ 178 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. popular. But It Is this addition also which commits the evolutionist theory of descent to a course of metaphysical assertion by which It becomes at the outset a specimen, though a most favourable one, of the pseudo-metaphysical method (ch. vi. § 3). And If In this It errs, Its error Is yet venial. It had achieved so much In the way of extending the borders of science, and thrown such a surprising light upon so many obscure problems, that we might well be pardoned for a greater blindness to the limita- tions of the theory than we have actually displayed. For we were able to carry the histories of things so much further back than we had ever expected, and were so wholly absorbed in disputing the details of those histories, that our dazzled and distracted reason could hardly muster the composure to in- quire whether the historical explanations of evol- utionism were successful as a whole, and whether their complete success would not bring out an in- herent weakness of the method. The consciousness of this difficulty was generated only by the further advance of the theory of Evolution itself. § 5. That historical explanations should trace the development of the complex out of the simple was at first merely an empirical fact of observation ; it was an interesting scientific fact, but not a philo- sophic principle. But when this turned out to be the invariable result of each new extension of the Historical Method, the idea was imperatively sug- gested that this fact was no mere accident, but the result of an essential law in the history of things. The development of the simple into the complex came to be regarded as the higher law which all the applications of the Historical Method to the various sciences illustrated, and the theory of Evolution I I I EVOLUTION OF DARWIN AND OF SPENCER. 1 79 thereby ceased to be merely scientific, and became avowedly metaphysical. The merit of the discovery and formulation of this great generalization belongs to Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose evolutionism is related to the bio- logical evolutionism of Darwin much as the New- tonian law of gravitation is related to Kepler's laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies. And the step taken by Mr. Spencer was not only one of the utmost importance for the development of the philosophic implications of the theory of Evolution, but also thoroughly justified by purely scientific con- siderations. For it was only by such a generaliza- tion that the applications of evolutionist principles to the various sciences could be brought into a connection that explained the similarity of their evolutions. A merely biological evolutionism, e.g., could never have accounted for the evolution of the chemical elements (§ 9) ; but from the standpoint of philosophic evolutionisrh the evolution in biology ind in chemistry are instances of one and the same law. 6. When Evolution has been recognised as the iniversal law of the Becoming of tHing^, the position )f affairs is, that all things are subject to a law, ''hich explains the higher as the deyeloprrient of lower, and that this law may be formulated by leans of the historical data of this development, 'e have thus advanced beyond the conception of [solated things having a history, to the conception a history of all things, a world-history ; not only lust things be taken in their historical context, but fhat context is one and the same for all. And the world has not only got a history, but that history has a 7neanmg, it is the process which l8o THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. works out the universal law of Evolution. The different sections of the world's history must be consistently interpreted with a reference to the universal law which they illustrate, i.e., interpreted as parts of the world-process. And here we come upon the first distinct trace of the teleology which is inseparable from all evol- utionism.^ For when the phenomena of the world's evolution are subordinated to the general law of Evolution, their relation inevitably tends to become that of means to an end. All things happen as illustrations of, or in order to illustrate the general law of Evolution. But it is still possible to disavow the teleology at this point in the development of evolutionism, although it admits of little doubt that the success of evolutionism in combating other kinds of teleologlcal explanation is due to its own tele- ology. For the attraction which teleology has for the human mind is indestructible ; an ineradicable in- stinct forbids us to renounce the hope of finding in the rest of nature that action for the sake of rational ends which is so prominent in that section of nature represented by intelligence. And, as we saw (ch. V. § 6), all knowledge is based on the anthropo- morphic assumption that the course of nature cor- responds to the operation of our minds. If, then, it must correspond to some extent for knowledge to be possible at all, the completer the correspondence, the more knowable will the world be, and tb teleologlcal explanation of things, which asserts thii 1 For even biological evolutionism is not free from teleology o a sort. It explains structure as arising by natural selection ;« order to survival in the struggle for existence, and thereby pu it in the position of a means to an end. i I WHEN IS A HISTORY AN EXPLANATION ? l8l correspondence to the fullest extent, thus becomes a legitimate ideal of knowledge. But before describing the fully developed tele- ology of an evolutionism which is fully conscious of its metaphysical implications, it is necessary to return to the question of the value and validity of the explanation of the higher by its development out of the lower, which has been asserted to be a prominent feature, not only in philosophic evolution- ism, but also in its merely biological stage. § 7. In what sense and under what conditions is a history of the development of the lower into the higher a complete and satisfactory explanation of anything ? Is the mere fact that such an evolution takes place sufficient to satisfy us ? If so, we might without further inquiry credit a conjuror, when be- fore our eyes he changes a mango-seed into a mango- tree, or an egg into a handkerchief. It is no^ suffic- ient that a fact should happen for it to be intelli- gible; on the contrary, many facts, like death, e.g:, remain mysteries although they continually come under our observation. Hence it is not true that a mere history, merely as history, always explains the matter it deals with. In so far, therefore, as historical explanations of things seem satisfactory, it must be because they fulfil other conditions also. What those conditions are will perhaps appear most clearly from an examination of the actual procedure of historical explanations. It appears from such examinations that one of ^/iree things may happen to a thing, the evolution of which is investigated by the Historical Method. (i) It may be traced up to a point beyond which historical knowledge will not carry us ; we may come to an unresolved and irresolvable residuum, 152 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. which is the basis and datum of evolution, and which no evolution can explain. (2) The thing to be explained may merge into something else, and cease to exist, or at least to be distinguishable as' such. (3) It may vanish entirely : it may be traced to its first appearance on the scene. It is possible to illustrate each of these results of the historical explanation from various evolutionist theories. The first may perhaps be said to be the most common result in the present condition of our data. If we rigorously refuse to follow the evolution- ist method beyond the data which are indisputably given, instead of prolonging our histories inferen- tially, we almost everywhere come to a point at which our evidence fails us. To take the most striking example, we can trace the history of life down to protoplasm, but we have no evidence that could explain how life arose out of lifeless matter. Strictly speaking, therefore, protoplasm is the inex- plicable dahcm of biological evolution. For, though it so happens that protoplasm, or something very like that hypothetical basis of biology, is an actually visible substance, and so capable of further analysis by chemical and physical methods, there is nothing in its chemical and physical properties to bridge the gulf between them and the phenomena of life, nothing that renders it less of an ultimate fact for biology. As an instance of the second we may quote the supposed origin of the intellectual and the moral consciousness in the evolution of life. As we trace the history of intelligence downwards, we seem to pass from the highest reason of man by insensible gradations to a form of life in which nothing that I I EVERYTHING DERIVED FROM ITS GERM. 1 83 can fairly be called reason can any longer be dis- tinguished. In the lowest forms of life there is not only no reason, but hardly any feeling, to be detected. It is only by the analogy of the higher forms of life that we ascribe to protoplasm the rudiments of thought and sensation. And what is true of intellectual and sensory consciousness, is still more conspicuous in the case of the moral consciousness. There is no need here to go down into animal life, for we find abundant examples in what must be called human beings of what seems a total absence of all moral feeling. We can all but fix the date of the origin of the moral consciousness, all but see how it differentiated itself out of the other factors of savage life. Of the third result we should obtain an example if by any chance we could witness the creation or coming into being of any- thing. § 8. But let us consider what effect would be produced upon the actual results of evolutionist explanations, if the law of evolution could be really and completely universalized. The first case will evidently not bear universalizing. An evolution which starts with an original datum is no^ com- pletely successful in explaining a thing. On the contrary, it is probable that we should attribute to the original datum the germs at least of all the qualities of the final product, and thereby render the whole explanation illusory. For if we have already got in the original germ all the differences and difficulties we detect in the final product, the whole explanation becomes a petitio principii, and merely unfolds what we have taken care to put into the thing beforehand. Neither can the second case be universalized. 184 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. For it is clear that things cannot go on indefinitely being merged into other things, for the last thing would have nothing else for it to be merged into. There remains, then, the third case, viz., that our theory of Evolution traces all things back to the point where they arise out of nothing. But is this an explanation ? Have we gained anything by showing laboriously and with an im- mense mass of illustration how A arises out of B, B out of C, etc., until we come to Z, and say that Z arises out of nothing ? And so we are, finally, confronted with this unthinkable miracle of the creation of all things out of nothing, as the final completion and logical per- fection of the historical explanation ! And yet it is an axiomatic principle of human thought that things cannot arise out of nothing, i.e., causelessly ! ^ § 9. And that origination out of nothing is not merely the logical conclusion to which a consistent use of the historical explanation must lead, appears from the fact that it has already been not obscurely asserted in certain evolutionist theories. If we follow the bolder theories of the evolution- ists, as illustrating the logical development of the method, without for the moment considering whether they are justified by the scientific data, we find that they derive all the phenomena of human life from the properties of original protoplasm. And they do not hesitate to carry us beyond this and to con- struct histories of " biogenesis," intended to account for the origin of life out of inorganic matter. They may attack the problem in a purely mechanical manner by regarding the phenomena of life as differing only in degree from processes of combina- ^ Ex nihilo nihil ; in nihilum nil posse reverti. I I MR. CROOKES' THEORY OF PROTHYLE. 185 tlon and crystallization, or they may also grapple with the logical difficulty of conceiving a transition from the unconscious to the conscious by theories of '* mind-stuff " and the like. When once this mauvais pas has been surmounted, evolutionism finds more congenial material in the region of chemical and physical theories. Indeed, the most recent advances of chemical theory, as represented by Mr. Crookes' doctrine of Protyle (prothyle ?),^ enable it to construct an extremely interesting and complete cosmogony. The importance of Mr. Crookes' views to the theory of evolutionism is so great, and they have as yet penetrated so little into the general culture of the day, that no apology is needed for dwelling on them at greater length than on the well-known theories of Darwin and Spencer.^ § 10. Chemists have for some time been struck by the fact that a certain order and connection may be detected among the " elements." The working out of the periodic law, i.e., of the law of the natural grouping of the elements, is now one of the chief problems of theoretic chemistry. But to assert that the elements are not only different, but differ in a determinate manner, is to assert that there is a con- nection underlying their differences. The fact that the elements are capable of b^ing arranged in a series, in groups of which the members resemble one another more closely than they do those of other ^ Prothyle is the proper form of the word, as it is the " prote hyle " of Aristotle, derived through the medieval " yle." We have ventured, therefore, to substitute the correcter form. 2 For Mr. Crookes' views v. his Presidential Address to the Chemical Society in May, 1888 {Journal of Chejn. Soc, p. 487). Also his Address to the Chemical Section of the British Associa- tion in 1886. 1 86 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. groups, suggests that the seventy and odd substances which are accounted elements, because we have not hitherto been able to decompose them, are not final and ultimate facts. The law which explains their grouping must be regarded as anterior to them, and its operation may be described as the genesis of the elements. Hence it becomes possible to speak of the evolution of the elements. But the analogy with biological evolution extends much further. It is impossible not to be struck with the great quantitative inequality in the occur- rence of the elements. Some of them are widely distributed and occur in large masses, whereas others only occur rarely and in small quantities. If, therefore, the elements are to be regarded as the products of a process of evolution, it is evident that the process has been much more favourable to metals like iron than to one like platinum or uranium. *' A rare element, like a rare plant or animal, is one which has failed to develop in har- mony with its surroundings," i.e., failed in the struggle for existence. And it is even possible to guess at the cause. One of the most striking facts about the rare metals is that they occur in rare minerals composed of several of these metals, and often occur in these minerals alone. Thus rare minerals, like samar- skite or gadolinite, may be found to contain three or four of the rare metals, samarium, yttrium, erbium, etc., and their close and constant associ- ation evidently cannot be a matter of chance. Now if a soluble salt of one of these earths, e.g., yttria, be taken, and subjected to an extremely delicate and laborious process of " fractionation," by which the more soluble portions are separated out from THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 1 87 the less soluble, it appears that the apparently elemental yttrium may be split up into several closely related substances, which, though in some cases their chemical properties may be indistinguish- able, yet show marked differences in their spectra. And so, instead of a single metal, yttrium, with five bright lines in its spectrum, we get five substances with one line each in their spectrum. Similar results have been obtained with didymium and other metals, and quite lately (1889), even such common and apparently well-known metals as cobalt and nickel have been found to be constantly alloyed with a third substance, and the multiplica- tion of such results seems simply a question of time. § II. Now, says Mr. Crookes, what are we to make of these facts ? Are we to give up our tests as worthless, or are we to dub all these me7nbra disjecta of an element elements ? To do this we should require some graduation of the conception of elementicity, which would dispense us from putting the constituents of yttrium and didymium on a par with oxygen and carbon with respect to their elementicity. But Mr. Crookes propounds another interpretation, which may startle old- fashioned chemists, but has the merit of being both sensible and philosophic. It is a mere prejudice, he says, to regard a thing as an element, because it has resisted all our reagents and all our tests : for each test can only cleave it in two, can only divide a compound into two portions, which are elements as fa7^ as that test is concerned. But if a new test is applied, the supposed element splits up with perfect ease. All that can be inferred from our "elements" is that the tests which would subdivide them further have not yet been discovered. And these experi- 1 88 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. ments suggest also that the supposed homogeneity of the particles of a chemical substance was based upon our ignorance. Atoms are not, as Sir J. Herschel said, and Clerk Maxwell endorsed, " manufactured articles," exactly equal and similar, but, like all other real things, they possess individual differences and have an individual character. The individual differences appear so small only because of the minuteness of the whole scale, just as from a sufficiently lofty standpoint the individual differences between men also might appear as evanescent as those between the atoms do to us. And in chemical interactions these individual differences would be manifested by differences of atomic weight, not only between the different " elements," but within them. Some atoms of calcium might have the atomic weight of 39*9, and others of 40'i, and the ''atomic weight" of calcium, viz., 40, would be only the average of the closely related groups. Hence if we discover any method of separating the atoms of the atomic weight, 39^9, from those of the atomic weight, 40*1, we should get two substances differing slightly from the ordinary calcium of the chemists, and differing still more from each other. This, or something similar, is what may be supposed to have happened in the case of didymium and yttrium. It is probable, then, that the splitting up of elements into '' meta-elements " has been first observed among these rare metals on-ly because they present greater individual divergences between their atoms than the rest, and perhaps it may be suggested that it was this very individualts?n, this lack of coherence and similarity between their more heterogeneous and loosely knitted constituents, which accounts for their comparative failure in the evolution of the elements. THE DISSOCIATION OF CHEMICAL ATOMS. 1 89 § 12. As to the manner of this evolution, Mr. Crookes' suggestion rests on astronomical facts. He infers from the fact that stars are not of all sizes, but seem to vary within certain limits, that there must be some agency to prevent the accretion of the stars beyond a certain point. He also infers from the fact that compound bodies are dissociated by heat, that the '' elements," if compound, must also be dissociated at very high temperatures. Hence he supposes that in the centre of the hottest stars all elements are dissociated. But dissociated into what ? Into that out of which they were all evolved, says Mr. Crookes, i.e., into prothyle, the undifferentiated basis of chemical evolution, the formless stuff which was the origin of all substances. And so, while from our point of view matter simply disappears at the centres- of the hottest stars, when the temperature exceeds a certain point, it is really reconverted into prothyle, which does not gravitate, because it is anterior to the differentiation of gravi- tating matter and imponderable ether. But though (sensible) matter is thus apparently destroyed at the centres of the universe, this loss is compensated by the genesis of matter at its canfines. The existence of limits to space Mr. Crookes supports by an in- genious calculation, that " if an unlimited world of stars sent us radiations, we should receive 200,000 times as much light and heat as we do receive, unless radiations are absorbed or intercepted to such an extent that only ^^^ reaches us. This Is so improbable that the conclusion that the universe is limited is with some emphasis declared by astronomy." ^ And there is the less reason to object 1 V. Mr. J. G. Stoney's letter to the Tirrm (4th April, 1888), in support of Mr. Crookes' speculations. IQO THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. to this limitation of Space, as It will subsequently appear a necessary postulate also on other scientific and philosophic grounds (ch. Ix. §§ 2-10). By this limitation of Space Mr. Crookes avoids the dissipa- tion of energy by reason of its conversion Into light and heat, and Its subsequent loss by radiation Into the Infinite. He supposes that at the confines of the universe the ether vibrations constituting light are re-converted, first Into prothyle, and then Into atoms of ponderable matter, which, as soon as they are formed, commence to gravitate Inward, and close their careers by reaching the larger stars, and there being again dissolved Into prothyle. Thus the atoms of sensible matter also are In a way Individual beings. And both their Individual and their chemical characteristics (as It were, their personal and racial character) will depend on the general physical conditions at the time and place of their formation, In accordance with the periodic law. And when formed a process of segregation and aggregation takes place among the atoms in con- sequence of which ''those which have approximately the same rates of motion " cohere to form sensible ag- gregates of practically homogeneous matter, "heap- ing themselves together by virtue of that ill-under- stood tendency through which like and like come together, that principle by which Identical or ap- proximately identical bodies are found collected in masses In the earthy crust, Instead of being uniformly distributed." There result certain '' nodal points In space with approximately void Intervals," which ex- plains a difficulty which the theory of the evolution of the elements has to meet In common with that of the evolution of species, viz., the absence or scarc- ity of Intermediate forms. And thus the larger I THE SELF-REGENERATION OF THE UNIVERSE, igi aggregates first formed tend to absorb and force into conformity with their motions the surroundino- atoms, and thus to grow disproportionately at the expense of the others : the common elements are those which have obtained a start in the process of genesis and' improved their initial advantage. Such is the life-history of the chemical atoms, for, like all things, they have a limited term of existence. They '' share with all created (? generated) beings the attributes of decay and death " ; they are gener- ated out of prothyle, according to the laws of the generation of matter, and when their due course has been accomplished, they return into that which gave them birth. § 13. But it is a more difficult question to deter- mine what is the exact relation of this genesis of the elements to the life of the universe at large, and to decide whether it took place at a definite point in its past history, or continually renews its youth. For there is much that tells in favour of either view. Mr. Crookes himself Vequently speaks of an original genesis of the elements out of prothyle as an event in the past ; he speaks of primitive matter as formed by ** an act of generative force throwing off at intervals atoms endowed with varying quantities of primary forms of energy," and even suggests, on very adequate chemical grounds, that *' it is ex- tremely probable that the chemism-forming energy is itself dying out, like the fires of the cosmic furnace." Moreover we have already seen that a real evolution implies a beginning (§ 3), and shall see that a valid evolutionism implies also an end (§ 20), so that Mr. Crookes' own interpretation of his speculations may claim greater consonance with the ultimate requirements of evolutionist metaphysics. 192 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. On the other hand, it would seem that unless new- atoms were continually generated to repair the loss of those which revert into prothyle, and to restore to the universe the energy which is radiated out to its confines, the theory will not only fail to dissipate the fear of "a final decrepitude of the universe through the dissipation of energy," but also invalid- ate the famous metaphysical postulate of science as to the conservation of the same amount of matter in the universe, at least as far as sensible matter is concerned. So it is not surprising to find passages in which Mr. Crookes asserts that '' heat radiations propagated outwards through the ether from the ponderable matter of the universe, by some as yet unknown process, are transformed at the confines into the primary essential motions of chemical atoms, which, the instant they are formed, gravitate in- wards, and thus restore to the universe the energy which would otherwise be lost to it." Hence it is perhaps preferable at the present stage of the inquiry to regard the continual generation and re- generation of the universe as the theory more in accordance with the spirit of pseudo-metaphysical evolutionism. Thus, though stars and sidereal systems may have come into being and perished, formed matter must have been as eternal as prothyle, and it must be held that the universe itself at no time was not.^ The universe is an ever active, self-sustaining, and self-sufficing organism, living on for ever, though all its parts are born and die, and nourished by the constant and correlative transformations of atomic matter into prothyle and of prothyle into atoms, and 1 In this respect also there is a marked similarity between Mr. Crookes' cosmology and Aristotle's (cf. § 16 s.f.) I PROTHYLE THE NE PLUS ULTRA OF SCIENCE. 1 93 having In prothyle a basis which all things have been and will be, but which itself never is. For though prothyle is the ground of all reality and the basis out of which all things are evolved, it is itself never actual : when atoms are dissolved into pro- thyle, they apparently perish, when they are gene- rated, they arise out of nothing : for prothyle lacks all the qualities which could make it knowable or perceptible (§ 14). Such is the theory of the evolution of all things out of prothyle, a theory deserving of the highest praise, not only for its scientific ingenuity, but also as being the logical completion of the evolutionist method of explanation. For it has derived all com- plexity and all differences from the absolutely simple and homogeneous, viz., prothyle. And as it depicts the universe as a perfectly self-existent whole, we may predict for it a very considerable popularity among the foes of *' supernaturalism," as dispensing with the last apology for the belief in creation. § 14. But the very excess of the theory's suc- ess paves the way for its irretrievable overthrow of he method of which it is the logical result. The prothyle, from which it derives all things, is n reality nothing, for it is devoid of all the charac- eristics of sensible reality. It is not tangible, be- ause its particles, if it has any, would exist in tomic isolation ; nor audible, because sound de- ends on vibrations in very complex matter ; nor isible, because it is anterior to the differentiation of ravitating matter and ether, upon which the phen- menon of light depends. For the same reason it an have neither colour, nor weight, nor electric properties. It has no temperature, because heat is but molecular motion, and ex hyp. it precedes dis- R. of S. Q 194 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. tinctlons of chemical properties. In short, it has no qualities that could render it in any way percep- tible ; in the words of Empedocles, — V 9 OVT009 OUT eTTioepKTa Tao avopacriv, out eiraKOua-Ta, ouT€ VOW irepiXriTrTa^^ and if it could actually exist, its existence could not be known. And so the transition of matter into, and gener- ation out of, prothyle, would have every appearance of a couple of miracles, of a passing into nothing, and of a generation out of nothing. For let us sup- pose that we were somehow able to be present when this unperceivable prothyle developed some proper- ties. What we should experience would be that at one moment nothing appeared to exist, and that at the next so^nething came Into being. And similarly In the case of the destruction of formed matter with definite qualities ; it would appear simply to vanish away. Even, therefore, if we could be present at the evolution of prothyle, we should be none the wiser, and any explanation would appear more probable than the miraculous generation of something out of nothing. Thus it seems to have been a mere delusion that prompted us to trace the origin of things out of what has no meaning, no qualities, and no reality apart froin that which it develops into. In tracing the universe back to prothyle the Historical Method has reduced It to a fantastic and irrational nonen- tity, without form and without qualities, which differs from all other nothings only by its mysterious capa- city to develop Into everything, 1 Thus it is neither to be seen by men, nor to be heard, nor t< be grasped by thought. A PURE POTENTIALITY IS NOTHING. 1 95 § 15. Shall we conclude from this result that the evolutionist method is worthless, after the fashion of many who have perceived this intrinsic weakness of a professedly " unmetaphysical " {i.e., pseudo-meta- physical) evolutionism ? It is true that as an ulti- mate explanation of things it has failed. It has reduced the "complex" to the ''simple," until it arrived at things so simple as to be indistinguishable from nothing, at simple substances which had a meaning only with reference to the complex ones which they were supposed to explain. Must we then reject the whole method as an error and the whole process by which it traced the connection between the higher afid the lower as a delusion ? To do this would be to do violence to our best instincts : we cannot lightly or wholly abandon a method which has added such great and varied realms to science. But the difticulty is such as might convince even the most anti-metaphysical of [he necessity of a systematic criticism of ultimate [uestions, and of an investigation of the metaphys- :al implications of the evolutionist method, as being done capable of separating the valid and valuable elements in it from those which ^re delusive and ibsurd. § 16. Taken as the type of the pseudo-meta- physical method, which explains the higher by the >wer, the theory of Evolution derives the actual j'eality from Its germ, i.e., from that which was, ^hat it became, potentially. Wherever we cannot conceive the lower as containing the germ of the ilgher potentially, the method fails. Thus it does lot explain the genesis of consciousness out of mconsclous matter, because we cannot, or do not, Lttribute potential consciousness to matter. 196 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. Now the metaphysical Implications of the potent- ial and the actual, z.^., of the theory of Evolution in its only tenable form, were fully worked out by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. Aristotle's doc- trine of potentiality and actuality (Svva^ig and evepyeia) is the most complete form of evolutionism conceiv- able. It admits of no differences in kind anywhere in the universe. From the lowest form of matter to the highest form of mind, the lower is the potent- iality of which the higher is the actuality or real- ization. And so we ascend by insensible gradations from the first matter (prothyle), which is merely potential and never actual {cf. § 13), to the divine being which has completely realized all its potenti- alities, i.e., is all it can possibly be. It is true, however, that Aristotle does not con- ceive this process from the potential to the actual to be one in Time, as the historical theories of Evqlution are wont to do, but supposes the different degrees of perfection to coexist in Space rather than to $uc,ceed one another in Time. For he regards the world as eternal, and rejects the supposition of a secular progress in things. But it is remarkable that he rejects it merely on the ground of lack of evidence. It would be absurd, he says,^ on account of slight and brief changes, like the growth of the Nile delta, to sup- pose a general cosmic motion (kiv6iu to irav). Thus, for lack of the requisite scientific illustration, the true theory of Evolution had to remain still-born for 2,000 years, until the progress of physical science could ratify the results Aristotle had anticipated ! But as soon as the scientific evidence was forthcom- ing, it was found necessary to revive Aristotl ^ Meteorol. I. 14. I EVOLUTION IN THE LIGHT OF ARISTOTLE. I97 jpeculations down to their special details, down to ^he very name bestowed upon the potentiaHty of lecoming, down to the assertion of the finiteness of the universe, and of the generation of its energy at |ts confines. And the correspondence between Mr. Tookes and Aristotle is the more valuable because [t seems undesigned, and because the name of >rothyle is (as its incorrect form shows) borrowed :hrough the mediation of Roger Bacon. 1 7. But Aristotle had the advantage of being "a metaphysician as well as a scientist, and so was well aware of the metaphysical value of the symbol he used in his physics and called prote hyle. He recognized that it was nothing in itself, and so laid down the axiom, v^^hich is so contrary to our ordin- ary modes of thinking, viz., that though the potent- iality is prior to the actuality in the order of time (eV 'yevmei) and in the order of our knowledge (71/600-6^), yet the actuality is really prior to, and presupposed by the potential (it is (^va-ei or aizKthq irporepov). That is to say, to take the old puzzle which really involves the whole question of philosophic method, though historically the egg comes before the chicken, it is yet an egg- only in virtue of its potentiality to be- come a chicken ; the egg exists in order to the development of the chicken out of it. Or, to put it into modern phraseology, the lower is prior to the higher historically, but the higher is prior meta- physically, because the lower can be understood inly by reference to the higher, which gives it a Leaning and of which it is the potentiality. It is clear that this derivation of all things from, pure potentiality, and the subsequent analysis of Its meaning, explains, justifies, and reconciles the scientific and the metaphysical way of regarding 1 98 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. things. Neither of them is gratuitous or useless, but each is adapted to certain purposes. In ordinary Hfe and science, where we think back- wards, and are more concerned with the past than with the future of things, the explanation by their causes, germs and potentialities is more in point. But in ultimate analysis none of these explanations are metaphysically adequate : things must be ex- plained by their significance and purpose instead of by their ''causes," by their ideals instead of by their germs, by their actualities instead of by their potentialities. And these two ways of looking upon things are reconciled by the fact that they regard the same connexion of things in reverse order ; the process is one and the same, but we find it con- venient to look at it now from the one end and now from the other. § 18. Applying these results of the Aristotelian analysis to the prothyle of evolutionism, it appears that the more certainly it can reduce the whole sensible and material world to a pure potentiality, the more necessary does it make the existence of a prio7^ actuality, as the cause of the evolution of the sensible. And that actuality must be not only prior (in Time, if the process is conceived as one in Time, or only in idea, or in both), but, by the very terms of the hypothesis, external to the evolv- ing world, non-material and non-phenomenal. For since the whole of the material and phenomenal was supposed to have been derived out of the^ pure potentiality, the reality pre-supposed by thai potentiality cannot itself have formed part of th< material and phenomenal world. And thus, so far from dispensing wdth the nee( for a Divine First Cause, the theory of Evolution, THE ACTUAL PRIOR TO THE POTENTIAL. 1 99 ^f only we have the faith in science to carry it to its conclusion, and the courage to interpret it, ►roves irrefragably that no evolution was possible ithout a pre-existent Deity, and a Deity, more- >ver, transcendent, non-material and non-pheno- lenal. And for the power of such a Deity to produce ^the world, the pure potentiality with which evolu- :ionism starts is merely the expression. And the world as actual is prior to the germ which potent- ially contains it, simply because the world-process is the working out of an anterior purpose or idea in the divine consciousness. And as all things are, LS far as possible, directed to the realization of that [end or purpose, the real nature of things is to be [found in their final cause, and not in their historical antecedents, which, just because they take prece- dence in Time, are means to an end, and of inferior significance in truth. Thus it is not true, in the last analysis, that the , lower explains the higher, or that the antecedent is truer than the final cause. On the contrary, it is only from the standpoint of the higher that the lower can be explained, and it is only by a recog- nition of final causes that the conception of caus- ation can be cleared of its difficulties (cf. iii. § ii). The evolutionist method, which was to have a- bolished teleology, turns out itself to require the [most boldly teleological treatment. § 19. And the same conclusion as to the ne- cessity of teleology may be reached, perhaps more clearly, from an investigation of the other meta- physical implications of evolutionism. It has been already stated (§ 4) that the evolu- tionist method involved the conception of a world- 200 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. history and the belief that that history had a meaning, and was capable of rational formulation. But we may now go a step further and assert that the conception of the world as an evolution is the conception of the world as a process. In applying to the world the conception of evolution, we apply to it the metaphysical conception of a process, and hence we continually hear evolutionists talking of " processes of evolution." But they hardly perhaps realize how much metaphysic is contained in that single word. § 20. In the first place, a process is necessarily finite and involves a beginning or starting-point and an end, as two fixed points, between which the process lies. For a process consists in A's be- coming B ; but if neither A nor B is fixed, the becoming cannot be described as a process. In order to describe what happens we must have a definite and determinate starting-point in A, and a definite and determinate end in B. And even if the real does not, strictly speaking, appear to possess this definite character, we must assttme it in idea for the purposes of knowledge. For our thought, and the language which is the expression of that thought, can only work with definite and determinate conceptions, and would be rendered unmeaning if the flux of the Real extended to them, and a term did not mean one thing to the exclusion of everything else. For this reason mere Becoming, which nowhere presents any salient phases which our thought can seize upon as fixed points for a process, is unknowable (ch. iv. § 22, ch. iii. § 13). Nothing that happens, therefore, can ever be described except as a process, for our thought cannot grasp nor our language express a THE METAPHYSICS OF A PROCESS. 20I becoming which does not indicate, however vaguely, something definite happening within fixed Hmits. If, e.g., we say, as vaguely as possible, '* something became something else," we do at least imply that the ill-defined " something " was at least not any- thing and everything else ; for in that case it would have been the "somethinor else," and nothincr would have happened at all, seeing that the "some- thing" was the "something else" already, and so did not have to become it, and thus there would have been no becoming at all, and the original statement would have been false. But if both the "somethings" mean something with a definite though unspecified character, then the becoming is limited, In this case also, by the initial something at the one end and the final something at the other. All this may be illustrated by the old and famous example of the Q,gg and the chicken. Supposing we are considering the process of the hatching of the chicken, then the ^gg will represent the fixed starting-point A, and the chicken the fixed end B, and the process will consist In A's becoming B. Now let us suppose per impbssibile that neither A nor B Is fixed, i.e., that no chicken ever results. In that case we may give any name we please to the manipulations to which we subject the ^gg, but the " process " cannot be described as one of " hatching." For the end of the process Is never reached, and we hatch nothing. But now suppose that what we had described by the definite term "Gg'g" was not an ^^^ at all, but, say, a piece of chalk. In that case surely our original description of the process of hatching a chicken out of an ^gg becomes ludicrously false and Inapplicable. If A 202 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. is not A, B is not B, and A (which is a delusion) cannot reach B (which is still more of a delusion) from A. And if our supposed egg was not even a piece of chalk, but an illusive appearance, an ever- changing Proteus, we can not only make nothing of it, but can not even describe what happens. In saying, therefore, that the w^orld is evolving, we say that it is in process, i.e., it is becoming somethinor determinate out of something determ- inate. And Evolutionism shares this assumption of the knowableness of things, in spite of their apparent flux, with all description and knowledge of the world, and only goes a step further than I he simplest utterance concerning the world, by being more conscious of all that is involved in the least that can be said. If, therefore, that initial assumption is justified (ch. v. § 2), and if our description of the w^orld as a process is trtte, the world must satisfy all the characteristics of that description. Hence, if the conception of a process involves two ideal fixed points, then if we assert the process to be a real one, its fixed points must also be real fixed points in the history of the world. We may infer, then, from the supposed truth of our theories of Evolution that the world-process is a determinate Becoming, proceeding from one fixed point or beginning to another fixed point or end, and that all the events which take place within it are susceptible of having their places in that pro- cess assigned to them as members of a series, and with i^eference to those fixed points. In other words, all things are susceptible of explanation from the point of view of the end of that process, as tending towards, or aiming at that end. But such an THE TELEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION. 203 explanation is necessarily teleological, an explanation by ends or final causes. If everything that is is grouped with reference to the end of the process, and has a meaning only in its context, it is what it is only as a means to the end of the process. The teleological explanation, therefore, is not only a perfectly valid one, but the only possible one (./§6). § 2 1. But it is teleology of a totally different kind to that which is so vehemently, and on the whole so justly, dreaded by the modern exponents of natural science. It do,es 7ipt attempt to explain things anthropocentrically, or regard all creation as existing for the use and benefit of man ; it is as far as the scientist from supposing that cork-trees grow in order to supply us with champagne corks. The end to which it supposes all things to subserve is not the good for man, and still less for any in- dividual man, but the universal End of the world- process, to which all things tend, and which will coincide with the idiocentric end and desires of the sections of the whole just in propoiHion to their position in, the process. Hence the world will not appear perfect from the point of view of the imperfect, and if it did, it would be most truly imperfect ; it can be only from the loftier standpoint of the highest members in the hierarchy of existence that the world will seem to be what it ought, in their opinion, to be, and that all things will be really seen to be " very good." And to judge by the treatment which is meted out to man by the present constitution of things, and the still more ruthless disregard of the feelings of the lower beings, which nature almost ostentatiously displays, there is little in our position 204 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. that could minister to the conceit of anthropocentric teleology. On the contrary, we shall be disposed to hold rather that the spiritual value of human existence is no greater in the spiritual cosmos, than is the physical imp07'tance of our earth in the sidereal universe. And yet there is a grain of truth even in anthro- pocentric teleology. For after all, man is the highest of the beings we know, and the most highly evolved, and so the nearest to the end of things, and hence in a way entitled to regard the other beings he knows, representing lower phases in the process of Evolution, as means to his ends. And this teleology is not only true and inevitable, but in no wise conflicts with the principle of scien- tific mechanism. For it does not supersede, but supplement it ; it permits, nay, requires, science to carry its mechanical explanation to the furthest possible point, because it desires to know the whole mechanis7n of the teleology^ and because it is confi- dent that only so it most easily and most clearly displays the whole extent of the essential limitation and insufficiency of the mechanical explanation. It is only when the explanation of *' unmetaphysical " science has reached the limit of its tether and ended in perplexity, that the consciously metaphysical explanation of teleology steps in and reinterprets the facts in their proper order. But any attempt to introduce teleological points of view in the purely scientific explanation of things must be resisted as fatal to the true interests both of science and of philosophy. And in its reinterpretation of the scientific facts teleology again comes into no conflict with mech- anism. For It Is guided by the data amassed RELATION OF TELEOLOGY TO MECHANISM. 205 by science, and does not indulge in random specu- lation. It is only from a knowledge of the tend- encies of things in the past that we are able to predict their future : it is by a study of what has been that we discover what is to be, both in the sense of what is about to, and of what ought to, be. The process which the theory of Evolution divined the history of the world to be, must have its content and meaning determined from the basis of the scientific data ; it is only by a careful study of the history of a thing that we can determine the direction of its development, and discover the general principle which formulates its evolution. And it is only when we have discovered a formula holding good of all things that we can be said to have made the first approximation to the knowledge of the End {r&koi) of the world-process. Thus the new teleology would not be capricious or random in its application, but firmly rooted in the conclusions of the sciences, on which it would be based and by which it would be regulated. It would stand in definite and recognized relations to the methods of the sciences, and would share in and stimulate their growth. § 22. The only danger to be guarded against, when a valid principle of teleological explanation has been obtained, is that arising from human im- patience. We must not allow ourselves to forget that the teleological method just reverses the order of historical explanation. What comes first in science, comes last in metaphysics. It is in the higher and subsequent that the explanation of the lower and anterior is to be sought. And instead of being simpler and more susceptible of explanation, the lower stages of the process are really the 206 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. obscurer and more unintelligible, because they do not so clearly exhibit the drift of the process. Hence their explanation comes last, just because in the historical process they came first. We must not therefore hastily conclude that because the teleo- loglcal method is true, it will be at once possible to give a teleological explanation of the physical laws of nature. The physical laws of nature are the earliest and lowest laws of the world-process, the first at- tempts at the realization of its End, and so are the very last to become intelligible. If we ever arrive at a teleological explanation of them, it will be only after we have worked down to them from the higher laws of the more complex phenomena. The basis, in other words, for a teleological interpretation of nature will not be found in sciences like physics and mechanics, but in sciences like sociology and ethics. But if this principle is borne in mind, and no attempt is made at premature interpretation of the lower orders, which is bound to fail, we need not despair of ultimately being able to give a rational account of why everything is what it is and nothing else. § 23. But though enough has perhaps been said to elucidate the teleology of the world-process, its relation to Time yet requires further discussion. We saw in § 2 that every assertion of the reality of history involved the reality of the Past, i.e. of Time, and a beginning of that history either In or with Time. But we must now consider whether the end, which is involved In the conception of a world- process, applies also to Time, whether it is a real or merely a logical end. We saw (§ 13) that It seemed not impossible to regard the world as a process which went on ever- I I I THE END OF THE WORLD-PROCESS. 20/ lastingly reproducing itself, without beginning and without end. It might be that the development of prothyle into matter and of matter into prothyle should go on to all time, without change of charac- ter. But though this would be a conception tenable in itself, it must yet be rejected as inadequate to the explanation of terrestrial history. The evolution of the planets and of the life they bear would be an utterly irrelevant concomitant of the evolution of prothyle. Terrestrial evolution would be an inex- plicable and meaningless bye-product, which has aimlessly diverged on a bye-path very remote from the world's real process, viz., the formation of atoms at its confines and their subsequent destruction in the centres of the hottest stars. For in the majority of cases the life-history of the atoms would come to an end, without their reaching any further stages of development into inorganic and organic com- pounds, animal life and human reason at all. If, therefore, the world- process is one, either our terres- trial evolution has no part in it, or our view of the development of prothyle was an imperfect one. For its development cannot include our terrestrial evolu- tion. Biological, and even the later forms of chemi- cal, development cannot be stated in terms of this merely chemical evolution, and so they must either be illusory, or our formulation of the latter is erroneous. And that the latter is the alternative to be adopted, appears not only from the fact that it can- not interpret a large portion of our data, and that the evolution of the earth lies without its scope, but also from this, that a constant generation and de- struction of atoms is not properly a process at all. It could hardly be called even a history of the world. 208 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. for It would be a history in which nothing ever really happened and no progress was made, and this history could certainly not lay claim to any meaning. For In so far as anything new happens, It happens on our planet and falls without the main process, while in so far as the main process Is real our history Is unreal. If, then, as has been agreed, we must regard the process of Evolution as the same for the whole of the universe, it must be formulated so as to include the course of events on our earth, and similarly situ- ated parts of the world. It is preferable, therefore, to construe the evolution of elements also in terms of Time, and to regard It also as exemplifying that general process towards heterogeneity which has been emphasized by Mr. Spencer. In this way the world- process will be one and will have a real beginning In Time, and also a real end — in the attainment of the maximum or perfection of that In which the process con,sists. Foir a process cannot go on for ever, but must pass into a generlcally different state of things when it has reached its highest develop- ment. To suppose anything to the contrary would be as erroneous as to suppose that motion could continue when all the bodies in the universe had attained to a position of equilibrium. § 24. Hence we need not hesitate to reject Mr. Spencer s theory of alternating periods of evolution and dissolution. This belief is one of venerable antiquity : it Is found in the mythologies of ancient religions and endorsed by the speculations of ancient philosophers. Hence we may be confident that it is concerned with what appears a real dlf^culty to the human imagination. That difficulty is twofold. It relates In the THE GREAT CYCLE THEORY. 2O9 first place to the difficulty of really grasping the reality of the process and admitting a real increase and growth in the content or significance of the world. The force of facts compels to the admission that the world really progresses, really contains more than it did of the quality in terms of which the pro- cess is formulated, that its Becoming involves a progressive increase in Being. But in spite of the avowal of dynamical principles, the statical tendency to regard the amount of Reality as stationary, ir- resistibly re-asserts itself. The actual fact of growth cannot be denied, but its significance may be dis- puted. And so it is asserted to be merely apparent : it is really only the manifestation of the great Cycle, which reels off the appointed series of events in precisely the same order for ever. It is therefore a mere illusion to fancy that the total content of the universe changes : it is an equation which is repre- sented by A = A = A . . . to infinity, in spite lof the apparent progress of the phenomenal series [from A to Z. And, as will be shown (ch. x. § 12), there is a jense in which this is true, but it is not true in any lense which is relevant to the explanation of the [Becoming of the actual world. In as far as we and >ur world are real at all, in so far the change and [progress of our world is real, and the world- process [is a real growth in the content of our world. The second difficulty to which the cycle-theory is lue, is that men find it hard to conceive the world LS reaching the end of any process without the [uestion of — What next ? And as they have not Toubled to consider the nature of the eternal state >f equilibrium, which would supersede the Becoming )f the world-process (cf. ch. xii.), they have failed to R. of S. P 2IO THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. perceive that It would render meaningless the question they ask. And so It seems easier to say — " Oh, when heterogeneity has reached Its maximum, a return to homogeneity will set In," or " the systole will follow on the diastole of the world," or " the night of Brahma, In which all worlds are re-absorbed Into the Absolute, recurs after each cycle of creation" (jnanvantara). But really this belief In cycles of progression and regression Is based upon a mere prejudice. Inde- fensible alike on philosophic and on scientific grounds. Philosophically It is to be execrated ; for It would be difficult to Imagine any theory that rendered the world more meaningless than this pointless and futile fluctuation of things : the cease- less play of systole and diastole may be the amuse- ment of an insane Absolute, but It Is not an end the human reason can ever hope to appreciate. Scienti- fically It is gratuitous : for, ex hypothesis if all things In the universe are evolving heterogeneity, there cannot possibly be any evidence In favour of a reverse process towards homogeneity. The assertion, therefore, that process of dissolution will again re- duce the world to homogeneity Is an entirely base- less speculation, necessarily unsupported by evidence. It is an arbitrary assumption, devised "for thcj pastime of eternity," by systems which mistake its nature. Neither our science nor our philosophy hai any valid reason to stray beyond the limits of th( world-process and the states which are directly In- ferred from Its character. § 25. We may sum up, then, the results of th( investigation of the metaphysics of Evolution as being that if our theories of Evolution are true, (i)j the Becoming of the world is a process: {2) a reai SUMMARY OF CHAPTER. 2 I I process, and not a process in or of thought : (3) with a determinate beginning and end in Time: (4) tend- ing towards its perfection without any suggestion of a reversal : (5) the process proceeds from the potential to the actual, and hence the world possesses more actuality, more real significance and " Being " in the later stages of the process than in the earlier. But as (6) in the order of Time the less perfect pre- cedes the more perfect, that order reverses the true relations of things. Hence (7) the true method of philosophy is necessarily teleological, and explains the lower as the imperfect realization of the higher, and with a reference to the End of the world-process. And lastly (8), the End and meaning of the process must be determined from the historical data, the future must be predicted from the past. And it is to this task of determinino; the meaninof of the world-process, by means of formulas which hold good universally of the Evolution of things, that we must next devote our attention. CHAPTER VIII. FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTLON. § I. We have seen in the last chapter what Is impHed in saying that the world is an evolution. To speak of Evolution, of a world-process, is to put before ourselves a metaphysical ideal, to which we assert the course of Reality will conform. And this faith might be held even though we were utterly unable to define this world-process, to divine the content of our conception in our particular case, or to predict from what the wqrld develops Into what. We might say that the world wp-s evolving, and as yet not know what it was evolving. We might feel sure that the phenomena of the world are not merely an aimless flux of change, but a development In a definite direction, even thoucrh the state of our know- ledge might not enable us to determine and to for- mulate that direction. But such a strain upon the faculty of faith is fortun- ately uncalled for. The same scientific evidence which first suggested the application of the meta- physical conception of process to the world, also instructs us as to the nature of that process. The formulas of the law of Evolution are generalizations similar to the other generalizations about the world, and to some extent they have already been dis- covered, ACCORDING TO SPENCER. 213 § 2. Mr. Spencer defines the process of Evolution as being- *' an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, and the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." ^ As the first to give in these terms a general for- mula of the law of Evolution, Mr. Spencer deserves the undying gratitude of all philosophers. But it will only enhance Mr. Spencer's glory if, contrary to the drift of his own utterances, we maintain that being the first he cannot for this very reason be the last, and express a hope that he may prove the founder of a long dynasty of evolutionist philosophers. For he has begun, but he has not ended the philosophy of Evolution. His statement may be true, and wholly true, but it is not on that account the whole truth. Nay, if we reflect, this is impossible. It would be improbable, though possible, that the first shot should have hit the mark, but it is not possible either to state the whole truth of the higher in terms of the lower, or to state the whole truth about Evol- ution in a single formula. Thus, in the first place, Mr. Spencer's formula is inadequate, because, though all things are perhaps matter and motion, many things .are so much more, and the conceptions of matter 'and motion cannot reach their deeper import. Hence, though it is a great triumph to have shown ihow a definite formulation can be given even of the 'material changes that accompany Evolution, yet this does not suffice. That violin-playing " is a scraping of the hair of a horse on the intestines of a cat " is i doubtless true, but it conveys no adequate idea of the music. The most accurate and scientific analysis ^ " First PrinG.," p. 396. 2 14 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. of the pigments of a picture will not take the place of an explanation of its meaning. And so with Mr. Spencer's formula : it is true, but it is not significant, it is a formula which cannot be utilized to explain many things in life, although as Mr. Spencer has so well shown, it will throw fresh light on many more things than might have been expected. Secondly, though true, it is neither exhaustive nor exclusive, as indeed no formula of the law can well be. For all our formulas attempt to state a real process in ideal terms, and if the Evolution of the world is real, its content can, like all reality, never be exhausted by our ideal symbols. Hence various formulations of the law of Evolution may all be true and equally true : true not merely in the sense of approximating in different degrees to the truth, but rather as each embracing a more or less prominent aspect of the whole truth. Hence it is no disparagement of Mr. Spencer's formula to say that it is unsuited for many purposes, for which more significant statements of the nature of Evolution are required. Thus, in sociology the promotion of heterogeneity, is not an aim for which it is possible to feel much enthusiasm, nor even one which would stimulate to any definite course of conduct. For so many things might lead to so many kinds of heterogeneity, many of which would appear far from desirable, that we should probably neglect more pressing necessities in the perplexities of promoting heterogeneity. § 3. If, on the other hand, we take a formula likej Eduard von Hartmann's, according to whom Evolu- tion consists in the development of consciousness,! or more precisely, in the development of conscious reason out of the Unconscious, we find that thej I ACCORDING TO V. HARTMANN. 215 process is at once raised from the merely physical to the intellectual sphere, and that we have a formula which would afford considerable guidance in soci- ology. Indeed, it would be both significant and true of the whole of organic evolution ; for whatever else, and whatever more it is, it certainly involves a continuous raising and intensifying of consciousness. But on the other hand, it seems difficult to apply this to inorganic evolution. How shall we regard the evolution of the solar system out of a homogen- eous nebula, to say nothing of the evolution of dif- ferentiated matter out of indeterminate prothyle, as a growth of consciousness ? And even if in our distress we had recourse to the difficult, and perhaps gratuitous, hypothesis, that inorganic matter was really conscious, it would be difficult to detect any higher consciousness In a stone than in an incandes- cent gas. Or shall we say that the inorganic evolu- tion prepared the way for the organic ? But why then all these aeons of inorganic evolution ? Surely It Is too large a factor in the world's history to be denied all intrinsic sicrnlficance. If it is a mere means to the production of conscious organisms, could the means not be prepared without such a portentous waste of time and energy ? Von Hart- mann's formula, then, cannot be applied universally without supplementary hypotheses which largely im- pair its value. Let us see, however, whether it Is not possible to discover a formula as true as Spencer's and as significant as von Hartmann's, and to elicit from nature a lesson which shall at the same time illus- trate more clearly than all previous discussions, how the method of concrete metaphysics draws its philo- sophical results from scientific facts. 2l6 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. § 4. In Studying the wonderful organization of the poHtles of social Insects like the ants and bees, the political philosopher will be tempted to compare their States with those of men. And at first sight the comparison is greatly to man's disadvantage. The social insects appear to have solved many prob- lems the solution of which would in human States be justly esteemed Utopian. They have solved the great fundamental questions of Feeding and Breed- ing, which underlie all social life: the demons of Hunger and of Love have lost their terrors for the citizen of the City of the Bees. Short of natural calamities such as no foresight can avert, his labour secures to each member sufficient food and shelter (for clothing he does not need). Nor can starvation arise from over- (or under-) population, for population can be accurately regulated, without difficulty and without disturbance. No amatory passions can dis- turb the calm of social amity, for all the citizens are sexless, or at least unsexed. No wonder, then, that the cities of the Ants and Bees have no need of prisons or police, that their discipline displays perfect obedience and perfect harmony, that their members support one another like one united family, that, in a word, their instincts prompt them to do what they ought, and are perfectly harmonious with their social environment. We have here perfect socialism har- monized with all but perfect industry, organization and legality, and there Is no doubt that, as far as form goes, the structural perfection of these societies Is far higher than that of any men have ever attained to. In so far as civilization Is measured by the capacity for social communion and co-operation, the ants and bees are immeasurably our superiors. § 5. Why, then, are they not the masters of our THE CITY OF THE BEES. 2 1 7 planet ? Their diminutive size is an obstacle, but size is unavailing against Intelligence. The real reason is different. The social insects did not achieve these marvellous results, except at a severe and, as it proved, a fatal cost. They solved the social question by elimin- ating the factors they ought to have reconciled with the social welfare. Sexuality and the difficulties of population being disturbing elements in social organ- isms, they cut the Gordian knot by confining mem- bership of the State to the sexless. The males and females, both of the bees and of the ants, contribute mxore or less to its existence, for which they supply the necessary basis, but they do not form part of the community. The males are, as is well known, simply turned out to starve, while the queen-bee or ant, In spite of the reverence shown her, is kept as a sort of State-prisoner, upon whom the security of the State depends. What is the effect of this curi- ous solution of the social problem ? This, that the training of the citizens in each generation is wasted, and that, as they leave no descendants, there is no possibility of hereditary improvement^ either by direct Inheritance of acquired intelligence or by the survival of the descendants of the more intelligent. Each generation is descended from queens that have no training, and no occasion to exert their intel- lectual faculties, and hence each eeneration is as wise as its predecessor. In other words, the State of the social insects is unprogressive, because the develop- ment of the individual has been stopped ; its perfect- ion has been bought by the sacrifice of progress. The individual has been harmonized with social requirements, but only by having his individuality 2l8 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. race. The ants and bees, therefore, may be said to present a terrible example of the fallacy of Abstract Socialism. § 6. This example may well suggest the reflection that true progress avoids alike excessive individ- ualism and excessive socialism, and consists in a harmo7iious development of the individual and his social medium. And in fact w^e find that whereas neither the individual by himself, nor the society wdiich has crushed the individual, can develop beyond a limited extent, all real progress concurrently develops both the individual and the sociahnedium. It is a develop- ment of the individual in society, and of society through individuals, A harmonious development like this does not develop the individual in a fakir-like isol- ation, by himself and for himself, but as a member of society and together with society : and similarly the development of society involves that of the indivi- duals who compose it, and consists therein. The two progress pa7^i passu, so that we may perhaps conjec- ture that they are not two facts but 07te. And by the development of the individual is meant that the individual becomes more of an in- dividual, a fuller and more perfect individual ; by the development of society, that society becomes more of a society, a fuller and more perfect society, of which the members are more and more dependent on one another, act and react upon one another with greater and greater intensity. But this formula must be tested and verified by its applicability to the different stages of Evolution, alike to the evolution of human society, to that of the lower animals, and finally to that of the inorganic world. DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY. 219 § 7. With regard to actual human society the illustrations of its truth meet us on all sides. Thus it is to adopt what has become almost a commonplace definition of civilization to say that a civilized society is a highly complex, differentiated and specialized organism, and that in progressive societies its complexity, the specialization and differentiation of the functions of the parts, are in- creased every day. But what does this mean but that in the progress of Evolution the social organism is ever becoming more and more of a society ? The division of labour, which is one of the chief factors of increasing efficiency, makes each special- ized class more dependent on the others, which supply it, in exchange for the products of its labour, with the means of satisfying all the wants of life ; for everything but the single article which it pro- duces far in excess of its own requirements, it is dependent upon society. The effect of higher evolution in making the individuals of higher societies more individual, is less obvious at first, because highly specialized w^ork becomes monotonous and mechanical, and so soul- destroying. But perhaps much of the mischief is due to the fact that our social sympathies are not yet sufficiently developed for us to take interest in each other's specialisms. And in any case, the evil works its own cure, for surely some of the surplus wealth produced by the division of labour might be devoted to the alleviation of its secondary mischiefs. And if we consider the total effects of the division of labour on society, we find that it does facilitate higher developments of individuality. Division of labour and the general complexity of social structure in higher societies renders possible accumulation of 2 20 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. wealth and the growth of leisured classes, possessing that leisure (o-)(oX>7) and freedom from the soul-de- stroying drudgery (^(Bavava-la) which the Greeks so well perceived to be essential to the highest developments of the human soul, i.e., in this more perfect society more perfect developments of individuality become possible, and if our leisured classes have not hither- to made a particularly good use of their oppor- tunities, the fault once more lies in the society which has educated them perversely. Our social reformers are too apt to forget that their labours in raising the lower classes are likely to be to a large extent wasted, while the social ideal the upper classes put before the masses is one of '* sport " and merely animal enjoyment. § 8. If, again, we consider the second great factor in social progress, the growth of knowledge and of the consequent command over the material conditions of life, we find that it is closely bound up with a proper correspondence between the indi- vidual and his social medium. Knowledge can only be accumulated in a society sufficiently wealthy and civilized to support a leisured class which can cultivate knowledge. Only a highly elaborated social order offers the induce- ments necessary to the cultivation of the sciences, and secures the fruits of discovery. Hence it is only in such a society that knowledge can be permanent. A society which is so little of a society that violence reigns supreme, and the arbitrary aggressions of individuals upon others remain unchecked, can neither itself acquire knowledge nor maintain the knowledge it possesses. Hence the path of pro- gress is closed to it, its members remain immersed in brutish ignorance and Cyclopian barbarism. On THE INTERACTION OF INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY. 22 1 the other hand, good patent laws are the greatest encouragement of material, and good copyright laws of moral and intellectual progress. The social order which makes the growth of knowledge possible is not only a permanent source of greater wealth, but also of higher culture. It generates a higher stamp both of society and of individuals. And these higher individuals are more dependent upon society. The great author or the great poet whom we may perhaps take as the type of the highest individualiz- ation, pre-emiqeatly needs the social mediym of the public which reads him ; and society again is bene- fited by his work. And the social medium not only enters indirectly Into the growth of knowledge, by supplying the conditions of life which make it possible, but to a growing extent also directly. For the growing complexity of modern sciences renders co-operation in work as indispensable to the achievements of great results in science as in industry, and will con- tinue to do so Increasingly in the future. Thus, on the one hand, perfect societies can be composed only of perfect individuals, and on the other, the perfection of individuals implies a corre- sponding growth in the perfection of society. For any considerable perfection of the individuals im- plies more or less complete exemption from the degrading influences of the material conditions of life, i.e., a considerable command over nature. But both the sources of this command over nature, alike division of labour and knowledge of the properties of things, require a highly developed social organiz- ation, and this again, to be stable, must possess a very considerable power over nature. Unless the amount of leisure in a society is relatively consider- 22 2 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. able and well-employed, i.e.^ unless the wealthy classes are comparatively numerous and benevolent, the constitution of society will hardly be permanent. There is much latent or explicit social amity and good feeling" involved in the very existence of a complex and highly organized society. Thus much social sympathy is necessary to the existence and security of highly developed individuals, nor ought we perhaps to regard those individuals as highly developed In whom that sympathy Is wanting. § 9. This mutual implication of individual and social development is seen not only in Industrial progress, but even more obviously in the methods of social competition, e.g. warfare. For it Is clear that social combination and co-operation Is of primary importance in warfare. No Individual fighting for his own hand, however strong he may be, can possibly maintain himself against combinations of many Individuals. Society, therefore, is based upon the simple physical fact that in the long run two are stronger than one, and that hence the limitation of the struggle of all against all by social restraints Is a more effective method of survival than unrestricted competition. Thus socialism conquers the atomism of Individuals in the interests of the individuals themselves. And so the least military efficiency Implies some limitations on the aggressions of in- dividuals on one another ; for evidently no man will fight, if he is liable to be treacherously attacked by his comrades. And as It was, so it still is : discipline, superior organization and equipment, all of them Implying a superior capacity to subordinate oneself to social aims and to co-operate with others, are ever growing more Important factors In military success, than Individual courage and mere numbers. PHYSICAL SUPERIORITY OF HIGHER SOCIETIES. 223 Yet even numbers are in a way a test of social virtue. For they indicate at least a capacity to act together on a large scale. And while military efficiency thus implies a growth of social co-opera- tion, social development does not in the long run involve a deterioration in the military prowess of the individual. It is true that in ancient times civilization had an unfavourable effect on the military virtues. But this was perhaps due to the want of firmness in the moral texture of the social tissue, which caused wealth to lead merely to luxur- ious self-indulgence, rather than to any intrinsic effect of civilization. It is also true that owing to the different directions which the development of the Individual has taken in modern societies, the superiority of the civilized individual over the savage is less marked in military than in other matters. But even on this score it is not true that the average civilized European soldier is inferior in physique, courage and endurance to the average savage war- rior, while our picked and trained men will chal- lenge comparison with the most warlike savages. § 10. There is, in fact, no aspect of life in which the intensity of social action does not depend on the development of its component individuals. Even in the case of social intercourse it appears that its pleasantness is largely dependent on the personal distinction of the individuals who take part in it : social '* lions " are individuals distinguished for some quality in which they differ from and surpass other individuals, and individuals are interesting in pro- portion as their individuality is more marked. Thus civilization, even though it destroys the spurious individuality which is bestowed by varieties of costume, and the vagaries of barbarous customs, 2 24 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. is everywhere aiming at developing the intrinsic individuality of its possessors, and at developing it in harmony with the social environment. § II. But it is not enough to show that our formula is an adequate description of the actual condition of the world. We must show also both that the same tendency may be traced in the lower stages of the process beneath civilization and be- neath man, and that it may be anticipated for the higher stages, and will afford an adequate end and ideal of cosmic evolution. Now with regard to the lower stages of Evolution, it will not be difficult to show this while the lower staofes are still human. It is clear that under bar- barous and savage conditions of life both the in- dividual and the society are only imperfectly de- veloped; it is a commonplace that even physically one savage looks almost exactly like another. The individual has as yet hardly emerged from the type, and a horde of savages are as like as a herd of sheep, or, as we say, by ^ comparison with still lower grades of individuality, ^s one pea is to another. And even the apparent exceptions in history only serve to confirm our theory, while at the same time it throws fresh light on the historical facts. § 1 2. Thus it seems at first sight anomalous that In an early civilization like the Greek, individuality and sociality should have been more perfectly de- veloped than in any modern society, and that at the dawn of history States with highly developed structure and highly complex organization, like the caste-states of Egypt, India and China should lead the van of civilization, while after a time they were overwhelmed and outstripped by barbarous tribes THE EXPLANATION OF SEEMING EXCEPTIONS. 2 25 with comparatively little social coherence. Why did civilization arise in the despotic East? ,why did Greece remain free, to become the mother and model of science, art and philosophy ? why, again, did Greece succumb to Rome, and Rome to the rude vigour of the Teutons ? At first sight the course of civilization does not seem to have always run smooth. Now in order to understand these facts, we must remember the rhythm of progress, which may be likened to the billows of an ever-growing tide which never recedes. But as it deepens, disturbances of its surface waves bear an ever-diminishing propor- tion to its total bulk. While civilization was young, its temporary vicissitudes and its transient eclipses, which accompanied the decay of the nations that represented it, might well seem alarming, and If we confine our view to sufficiently narrow limits, we may find ages of almost unmitigated retrogression. But for all that civilization advances, and the rate of its advance is ever accelerated with the growing [momentum of its growing bulk. Secondly, we may idmlt that in some respects the early civilizations [were more perfect, not only than the societies which [supplanted them, but even than our own {cf. ch. iv. 15). A society which is articulated Into castes [does possess a higher structure and a higher formal perfection of organization than one in which func- tions are not yet differentiated, and every one is a [jack-of- all-trades. So, too, the highest insects are lore highly organized than the lowest fishes. And ■a system of castes is not only a high form of social organization, but also one particularly valuable In the beginnings of civilization, and conducive to the [progress of tribes which adopted it. As Is so well R. of s. Q 2 26 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. shown by Mr. Bagehot,^ the chief difficulty of early societies was that they had to bring wild men with rudimentary social instincts to live together in States. The caste-system effected this admirably, and hence the early civilizations were all dis- tinguished by the rigid and rigorous character of the social organization. But subsequently, as the structure consolidated and ossified, it became incom- patible with the mobility requisite ; the ancient civil- izations were, as it were, stifled in the armour which had protected them ; their institutions became too rigid to be adapted to the changing conditions of life. And above all, the system depressed individ- uality too completely. The time came when there was need for it, when the individuals energy and sense of responsibility alone could save the State, and when they were not forthcoming. What wonder then that the earliest civilizations decayed and perished, and that their cumbrous organizations collapsed for the same reasons as the State of the Incas collapsed when Pizarro had seized its ruler ? So, too, the Persians could not conquer Greece ; be- cause the blind onset of slaves was no match for the voluntary combination of intelligent men who knew the value of individual effort. Again, Greek civiliz- ation was in some ways more perfect than ours ; their ideas of the formal perfection of science, of ethics, and of a noble life generally, were higher than any to which we dare to aspire. But the basis of Greek civilization was extremely narrow, and so it was fatally unstable. It developed the individual to an unequalled perfection, but at a heavy cost. The economic basis of the *' noble " life of social leisure was slavery. The Greek ideal of life was 1 " Physics and Politics." THE REASON OF THE FALL OF GREECE. 227 one for a select and privileged class. Nor were the relations of the individual to the State really satisfactory. In theory, no doubt, the State was supreme ; but in practice the individual was con- stantly recalcitrant, and generally succeeded in doing pretty much as he pleased — at least to judge by the complaints of Greek thinkers. There were only very few Greek States which were not chronic- ally in danger of subversion by the lawless ambi- tion of their own citizens. And such practical con- trol over the individual as the State did attain was only gained by the almost complete sacrifice of the institution which is the primary source of the indi- vidual's altruism, viz., the family. The State crushed the family life in Greece, in the supposed Interests of the social life ; but It could not tame the exuber- ance of the Individual. The Greeks discovered no antidote to the excessive ambition and vanity of the Individual Greek. Not only Athens, but every Greek city was ruined by Its Alcibiades. And indeed the political failure of the Greeks as a nation ^as also due to an extension of the characteristic ^hlch ruined the different Greek cities. The Inerad- :able particularism and mutual jealousies of the rreek cities, which rendered any lasting combln- ition or joint action impossible, Is only one more Instance of their Irrepressible vanity and self- conceit. The individual Greek and the individual iity alike preferred to let the common cause perish bther than tolerate a policy In which they should lave no opportunity of playing a leading part, nd just as the minor actors in the melodrama of rreek history were incapable of self-subordination, io the leading States were equally incapable of self- control, and consequently sacrificed a just and gen- 2 25 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. erous policy to short-sighted whims that prompted them to abuse their power. The secret of Rome's success, on the other hand, lay in her poHtical virtue. The Romans were justly proud of the sternness of Roman discipline, and rightly reckoned among their heroes the men who were capable of sacrificing their lives and the lives of their dearest for the letter of the law. The cruel rigour of Brutus and Manlius was but the extreme manifestation of a spirit of strict legality, unques- tioning obedience, and unflinching adherence to duty, which made Rome great. This self-control and respect for legality was displayed in a marvel- lous way during the struggle between the plebeians and patricians ; and it may be safely asserted that in no other state would the Licinian and Sextian laws have been rejected for eight years without causing a revolution. But this was a quality the Greeks could never learn ; general principles of policy and respect for the forms of legal procedure were always powerless against the impulse of the moment ; the Athenians sacrificed their empire rather than postpone the trial of Alcibiades on a domestic charge until his return from active service. With the Romans, on the other hand, the immunity of magistrates from accusation during their year of office was a cardinal principle of state-craft. They yielded implicit obedience to their magistrates, how- ever arbitrary and incapable they might be, and with whatever severity they might call them to account when they had laid down their functions. And the reason why the Roman was able to practise a self-control as wise as it was difiicult was that from his youth he had been trained to obey as well as to command, and that the discipline of the army was ROMAN TRAINING UNEQUAL TO IMPERIAL PROBLEMS. 229 but the continuation of the discipline exercised by the father of each family. For absolute as was the devotion which the State required of its citizens in military matters, it yet did not crush the individual, because the State never thought of interfering with the relations of a Roman to his family and his household. Hence the ambassadors of Pyrrhus might well report that the Roman Senators were 300 kings ; and we may add a truth no less incom- prehensible to Greek ears, that not one of them would have been capable of playing the tyrant. The Roman training produced a succession of " golden mediocrities," who carried out their task with unhesitating devotion and unyielding per- tinacity. But it was too narrow to cope with the problems which arose out of the growth of the city by the Tiber into a world-wide empire, too narrow to reconcile the spirit of old Roman morality with ^the claims of Hellenic culture. It could neither pro- luce a man who could solve the political problem >f combining empire with freedom, nor one to solve [he intellectual problem of combining reason with ^irtue. And so the Romans lost first their virtue md then their freedom, and in the end their empire. Thus we may learn from the history of Greece md Egypt how necessary it is to keep the proper )alance between the development of society and of :he individual ; from that of Rome, how necessary It is to advance, if one desires to avoid failure due lot to any intrinsic deterioration, but to inability to :ope with new and uncalculated conditions. It is From excess of conservatism and self-satisfaction, from unwillingness to adopt new methods for iealing with new difficulties, and not from any ineluctable law of natural mortality, that civiliz- 230 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. ations have decayed, and that backward races, who have not been too conceited to modify the tra- ditional methods that did good service in the past, have outstripped the leaders of civilization who had handicapped themselves by their previous successes. And so we may say that the keenness of the struggle for existence between European nations at present is the best guarantee of progress, the best security that no physical, intellectual, or moral ele- ment of success will be neglected. § 13. When from the earlier stages of human development we pass to the higher stages of animal development, we find that among animals, if we except the case of the social animals already con- sidered, both individuality and sociality have been little developed. The chief exceptions to this state- ment are to be found amone domesticated animals. Dogs, e.g:, have very distinctly marked individual characters, so much so that we may be tempted to rank their individuality above that of many savages. But what is the reason of this development of indi- vidual character ? What but the nature of the social medium in which their domestication places them ? They are the slaves of man, but their slavery to superior beings raises them above the level they could have reached unaided, and develops their souls to a degree not justified by their position in the hierarchy of existence. But though in general the development both of individuality and of sociality is slight, neither of them disappears entirely among the animals sexu- ally reproduced. There must always be among them at least that amount of social connection which is implied in the relation of male and femal< and of parents and offspring. THE FORMULA APPLIED TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 23 1 § 14. But when we go still lower, the lines of demarcation between one individual and another seem to grow faint, and perplexities beset us. Is each segment of a tapeworm an individual, and which is the original individual when a jelly-hsh is cut up into equal pieces, each of which develops into a perfect animal ? Shall we say that each leaf of a tree is an individual, or confine that term to the whole tree ? And if each leaf is a true individ- ual, why not each cell ? And if it is not, what shall we say of cuttings and leaves, each of which is able to develop into a perfect tree ? What, again, of the colonies of zoophytes ? Are they one or many ? Is a coral reef one animal or a multitude ? Shall we regard rather the individual polypes or their common organization ? The only answer, perhaps, which it is possible to give is that we have sunk too low to find anything exactly corresponding to our conception of individ- uality. We receive here the first hint that individ- Iuality is an ideal, to which the reality only imper- fectly attains, a category of our thought, to which even the highest developments of reality only ap- Iproximate. But nevertheless we can trace the working of the ideal even in the lowest forms of the real ; with the appropriate modifications the unity of the same design runs through the whole. As we trace it downwards, the formula is trans- brmed but not destroyed : it persists in a lower brm. The social bond which connected physically dis- rete individuals was spiritual, and can no longer be raced as such : but it now takes the lower and grosser brm of physical connection. A coral reef is a society in which the union of the individual members is no 232 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. longer conscious and voluntary, but compulsory and physical ; their connection Is no longer trusted to their own action, but forced upon them from without. Sociality Is no longer a moral but a physical necessity. Or If we choose to regard the facts from the opposite point of view, we may say that the coral reef is an Individual In whom the erowine insubordination of the members to the central authority has almost dissolved away the individuality. § 15. But It matters little how we decide, and whether we decide, the question of the individuality of the lower organisms : the essential point is that they are transitional between Individuals and socie- ties in the higher sense, and the form which they take In inanimate nature. Thus, In a crystal formed out of crystals, or a drop of water composed of drops of water, the individu- ality of the component parts seems evanescent, and their combination to be purely physical. Yet their combination is as real whether it is that of a system of physical particles or of a society of conscious Indi- viduals. The difference Is that the forces which hold It together are In the one case physical, and In the other psychical/ But they exist as much in the one case as in the other, and Inanimate bodies also are held together by forces of cohesion, surface-tension, etc. And if we next descend below the limits of the visible to chemical theory and the question of the composition of substances, we find that the same law still holds. As the individual molecules are hypothetical, we cannot indeed detect any gradations ^ This does not imply that social combinations are unaffected by physical influences, but that these only act mediately^ by pro- ducing certain states of mind. THE ASSOCIATIONS OF CHEMICAL ATOMS. In their individuality ; but In the complexity of the physical systems of associated particles, the fact which here corresponds to the development of social complexity, we can trace a gradual evolution. § 16. Of all chemical compounds, the so-called organic compounds are the most complex, i.e.^ they contain and unite the largest number of Individual molecules. They are thus the most highly organized forms of matter. And they are also the most recently evolved. For a comparatively slight degree of heat will break them up, or, as chemists say, with a significant suggestion of the social character of chemical combination, will dissociate them. Hence they cannot have been formed until the earth had cooled considerably. And yet their appearance must have preceded that of living matter, as they supply the basis of the higher evolution of the animate. Thus the organic compounds represent the highest form of chemical combination, not only because they are the basis of living organisms, but also because they are evolved later. Taking next the Inorganic compounds we find that they are on the whole less complex and more stable than the organic. But though they can stand a higher degree of heat, they are yet dissoci- ated at high temperatures. Hence they stand lower In the scale of evolution, and if the nebular theory may be trusted, they are also, historically speaking, more ancient. The chemical *' elements " again are *' simple " bodies which we have not hitherto been able to dis- sociate. And yet, under the delicate manipulations of modern chemistry, and In the terrific temperatures of the hottest stars, they also betray signs of dis- sociation (cf. ch. vli. §§ 10, 11). And as was shown In 2 34 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. the last chapter (§ 12), the evidence points not only at their dissociation into simpler forms of matter, but at something radically different and very much more interesting. Mr. Crookes' ingenious infer- ences from the subtle differences he has discovered among the molecules of the same " element " irre- sistibly suggest that the atoms and molecules out of which it is composed still possess individual differences and individual characters. And so, at the very lowest grade of cosmic evolution, we should still detect the persistence of individual entities combined with others into social systems ; and though our elements be complex, their name would not be wholly undeserved, in that their structure is simpler and their generation earlier than that of any other forms of sensible matter. § 1 7. But what lies beyond ? Can we penetrate beyond the evolution of the elements ? In one sense we can not ; the primitive condition of things which precedes Evolution forms the zero-point of Evolution, the absolute negation of the process in which Evolution consists. But if we recognize that we are now deallnof with a state of things generlcally different from that of cosmic evolution, we may yet form certain theories about the pre-cosmic conditions of the world- process. Indeed, we may be troubled by alternative theories, according as we adopt more or less ad- vanced views about the evolution of the elements. If we accept Mr. Crookes' theory of prothyle, the question vanishes, for, being anterior to the differ- entiation Into atoms. It leaves room neither for individuals nor for their combination. But prothyle is nothing (ch. vii. § 14), or rather, a symbol standing for the action of spiritual forces (ch. vii. § 18) : If, THE ZERO-POINT OF EVOLUTION. 6D therefore, the question is to be pursued further, the method must be changed into one of metaphysical investigation {c/. ch. xii. § 3). But we may check the impulse of speculation before it oversteps the ground of chemical theory, and suppose that Evolution stops short at something which has still Q-ot enougrh of the characteristics of sensible matter to be atomic. Evolution, then, would start from matter in which the atoms existed in per- fect isolation and without the least combination. But this would raise a difficulty. If, as has been maintained, the evolution of society and of the indi- vidual is coincident, and the perfection of society produces also the maximum of individuality, indi- viduality should vanish at the opposite extreme together with combination. Whereas now the individual at this very point appears completely in- dividualized, entirely independent and self-sufficing. This difficulty may be explained in several ways. In the first place, we may lay stress on the fact that at the outset of the process the individual is a mere abstract individual, an individual and nothing more, an atom of which nothing can be said except that it is an atom, and that individuality here has a minimum of meaning, which is surpassed by every individual who enters into the combination of a system. Secondly, we may point out that even so it is contrary to the accepted chemical doctrine to sup- pose that the individual atoms can exist in isolation, and may remember that the minimum of indepen- dent existence is the molecide composed of at least two atoms. And if it be supposed that this rule does not apply to the atom of primitive matter, the answer is that no scientific rules or conceptions do o 6 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. apply to it, that in it we have reached the Hmits of scientific thought, and that the whole condition of things in the primitive nebula is an over-ingenious fiction of the scientific imagination, which could never have existed in actual fact. For unless this nebula was prior to the development of gravity, a uniform distribution of matter in space is impossible, while as soon as we have aggregation, combination at once follows. And lastly, from a metaphysical point of view, it is not true that the atoms in the primitive nebula exist in entire isolation, so long as they coexist : they must have formed some sort of a system in order that their interaction or attraction could be possible either then or afterwards. § 1 8. We have seen that the formula of the de- velopment of the individual in social combination is applicable both to the actual condition of the world and to its past evolution, although, in the latter case it ends in no more or less perplexity, like all merely scientific explanations, if it is driven back too far. It now behoves us to ask whether our formula is equally satisfactory when regarded as the ideal and end of Evolution, i.e., as that to which the history of the past justifies us in expecting that Evolution will tend. Regarding the development of the individual in society as the end of Evolution, will compel us, in the first place, to assert that not even the highest existing societies and individuals are perfect, either as societies or as individuals. And with respect to existing societies this will perhaps be easily admitted. But it is at first more difficult to realize that we are not yet perfect individuals. In the sense, indeed. HUMAN INDIVIDUALIZATION INCOMPLETE. 237 that we are not all we are capable of being, it is perhaps pretty obvious that we are not yet perfect individuals, but it is equally true that we are not yet perfectly individualized. There are many facts about our constitution which it is difficult to explain except on the theory that from a higher point of view our individuality would appear almost as shadowy and imperfect as that of a zoophyte does to us. If by a person we mean a conscious and spiritual individiial, possessing moral and legal responsibility, who must be treated as an end and never as a means, then the higher phase of individuality, which we designate by the term personality, is an ideal to which we have very imperfectly attained. Heredity, which seems to render our moral, intel- lectual and physical characteristics more or less dependent on the action of our parents and ances- tors, limits, if it does not destroy, our freedom and our responsibility. A corresponding limitation is indicated by the feelings which prompt us to the maintenance of our species and thereby put us in the position of means to the production of other beings ; and perhaps they are indicative of imper- fections of personality in other ways also (ch. xi. § 24). Our spiritual liberty, moreover, is constantly depend- ent on the physical necessities of our organism, which are very far from being always compatible with the requirements of our spiritual activities. This, indeed, is only a single instance of the imperfect correspond- ence which prevails between the elements of our being and of the imperfect co-ordination of the portions of our organism. For it is not merely in disease that the subordinate parts of the organism disobey and ignore the behests of the ruling prin- 238 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. ciple, and act on their own account : the physical processes of our organism are always largely in- dependent of our will. But the clearest proof of the imperfect combina- tion of the elements of our personality is to be found in the curious phenomena of "multiplex" conscious- ness or personality. These represent what we are ordinarily wont to call our self, i.e., our normal con- sciousness, as but one out of many psychical pro- cesses which go on within our organism. The nor- mal consciousness is the primary self, but there are indefinite possibilities of secondary selves, which may coexist with it, alternate with it, and even supplant it. So it has been well said that the normal self is that which has a good working majority for carrying on the affairs of life, and that when the majority becomes disorganized, there ensues chaos in the soul, i.e., insanity. But perhaps we need hardly go so far afield for examples of this imperfect psychic synthesis, for we nightly experience in our dreams powers which our waking self does not possess. It is not merely that we may remember in dreams what we had forgotten in waking life, but that the dream-self possesses the power of clothing its ideas with all the vividness and wealth of sensuous perception ; its fancy is creative of its objects, and while the dream lasts they are real. And yet when we awake, we cannot give sensuous shape to our thoughts, and no amount of thinking of a cat will enable us to see one. Or again, who has not experienced the delicious cer- tainty of the intuitive knowledge we possess in dreams, and the ease of absolute conviction with which we attain to the knowledge we require ? § 19. These and similar facts which we shall THE FORMULA AND THE IDEAL OF ''HEAVEN." 239 subsequently have to regard from a different point of view (ch. ix. § 2 3), more than justify the assertion that our individuaHty is as yet very ill-defined, and that consequently personality is for us an Ideal, which we have not yet fully realized. And if we had realized it, what would it be ? What but the life of perfected individuals in a per- fect society ? And what, again, is this but the ideal of the Com- munion of Saints, of the Christian conception of Heaven ? If, then, the process of Evolution may be defined as the progressive development of the individual in combination with other individuals, in which the individual passes from the atom to the moral person, does not the completion of the process promise us the attainment of our boldest desires ? § 20. This formula for the world-process cannot at least be accused of lacking in significance or fulness of import. And perhaps the reason is that it deals throughout, not with abstractions, but with realities ; it makes use of abstractions, but con- tinually refers them to the realities which they symbolize. For while all the terms of the other definitions of Evolution (§§ 2, 3), "heterogeneity," " motion," " matter," '' consciousness," etc., are ab- stractions which stand for qualities of reality, which could never exist by themselves, terms like " indi- vidual," "person," and "society," designate realities. Atoms (?) crystals, animals, and men, the successive embodiments of the process towards individuality, are all of them real, and as such possess an infinity of attributes. Hence, while the other formulations of the world-process can give us only partial aspects of reality (§ 2), we here seem to have grasped the 240 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. ultimate reality itself. It Is true, however, that not even so do we escape the taint of Imperfection : for though we see the ultimate reality, we as yet behold it only as in a glass darkly, and can express It only inadequately ; Its true nature is as yet scarce conjectured. But even this has the advantage that we need not shift our ground in order to obtain new views of the world-process by means of new abstractions ; for after all, reality Is the three-dimensional which can never be fully expressed by one-dimensional thought. If, however, we have grasped the Real, even though dimly, we need merely persevere In order to ar- rive at Its deeper and deeper comprehension, as It manifests Itself In higher and higher forms, and to enter more and more fully Into the meaning of the Individual and of society. And as we ourselves are the highest examples of Individuals we know. It Is In exploring the depths of our own nature that the clue to the riddle of the world Is to be sought, and we are once more led back to take an ancient saying In a novel sense, to know the universe In knowing ourselves, to seek the truth In seeking what we are.^ Thus the end to which things seem to tend Is an end which is also capable of being regarded teleo- logically, and an aim of action we can adopt. Our only doubt can be as to whether the world will attain It. But why should not things attain the end to which they tend? What, short of the pessimistic possibility of an Incurable perversity of things, Is to prevent the world from reaching the goal of Its evolution ? For no failure of partial processes with- in the All can justify this fear : for these fail through ^ Tvo)6l creavTov and iSc^rjaa ifxavTov {^HeracUius). FORESHADOWS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. 241 the interference of other things, and what could interfere with the all-embracing vjor\d-^roc&s,s} But the full vindication of our hopes will be the arduous task of the succeeding Book ; for the present we must content ourselves with the first glimpse of Heaven we have caught through a rift in the clouds. R. of S. BOOK III. CHAPTER IX. MAN AND THE WORL\D, § I. We are now in a position to attack the "riddles of the Sphinx" themselves, which, as we said at the outset (ch. i. § 3), concern the relation of Man to the World which environs him, to his Cause and to his Future. Of these questions we shall most fitly conimence with the first, for, as will be shown, it leads on to the others. By the environment of man we mean primarily his material environment, the world of material things in Space and Time, the existence of which presents in abundance of perplexities to the philosophic lind. In this question of the relation of man to lis environment are involved the questions of the existence of an external world, which has beerl died the battle-ground of metaphysics — because :he inconclusive skirmishes of unprofitable philo- sophies have been largely conducted in a field in ^hich neither side could gain anything but con- fusion— of the nature of Matter and its relation to Spirit, of the infinity of Space and Time, and gener- illy of the characteristics of the Becoming of things. Of these it will be convenient to consider first the existence of the world in Space and Time. For if our environment is infinite in respect to [Space and Time, all hope of a solution of the 246 MAN AND THE WORLD. problem of life must be at once abandoned ; for to an infinite environment there can be no adaptation (cp. ch. iv. § 4). Hence to admit the infinity of Space and Time is to give up all hope of tran- scending Pessimism, and it is necessary to subject this doctrine to careful criticism. § 2. It is necessary, in the first place, to determine the proper sense of infinity. First of all we must reject the popular and poeti- cal use in which infinity is vaguely used as the equivalent of any extremely large quantity, and indicates merely the point at which the intelligent appreciation of magnitude ceases. This limit, of course, varies immensely with times and seasons and stages of civilization. Thus the Greeks, as their language shows, at one time regarded 10,000 as an infinitely large number ; the Romans con- tented themselves with 600, while to many savages everything above two or three is ''many," and *' infinity " begins before five has been reached. So, too, the sands of the seashore, the hairs of the head, and even the stars of heaven have all been popular representatives of infinity. Yet an exact computa- tion shows that a luxuriant head of hair does not contain much over 100,000, and that the stars visible to the naked eye at any one time amount to less than 3,000. And the number of grains of sand on a definite piece of shore, though it may be indefinitely large, is not infinite. The popular usage, in short, means very little : infinity is merely a big word which impresses people because they do not understand it. And how little they understand its proper meaning is shown by the history of allied words like " endless,' ''immense," "incalculable," "immeasurable," "in- THE MEANINGS OF INFINITY. 247 numerable," etc., all of which originally implied infinity. From this point of view infinity is the jast straggler of a whole host of words, which under Ithe persuasive influence of popular usage have long come to mean nothing more than great magnitude, ;and is distinguished from them merely by the precarious allegiance it still owns to the technical terminology of the learned. § 3. From this wholly improper and positive use of infinity we may pass to one wholly proper, when used in its strictness, but negative. This is the mathematical use, which asserts that there can be no end to the successive synthesis of unity in measuring a quantity. We can never in our thought arrive at a point when the addition of unity to a quantity, however large, is impossible. Now as to this, it is noticeable (i) that the definition is purely negative, and makes the con- ception of infinity the conception of a limit, and (2) that it is purely subjective. The definition makes no reference to reality, but merely asserts that ''we cannot help thinking. ..." We seem thus to receive a hint that the idea of infinity indicates a defect, imperfection or limitation of our thought, to which reality is only subjected in so far as we must interpret it by our thought. § 4. From this, the true conception of infinity, is derived the mathematical doctrine of infinity, that since infinity contains a number of given units greater than all number, all finite quantities maybe neglected in comparison with it. This reasoning involves a subtle transition from the negative to a positive conception, which finally results in infinity becoming a kind of mathematical topsyturvydom, where two parallel straight lines meet and enclose spaces, and 248 MAN AND THE WORLD. two circles intersect at four points, etc. And, of course, so long as these symbols are recognized as fictions convenient, and even necessary, for the technical purposes of mathematicians, nobody need complain (cp. ch. vi. § 3), but unfortunately mathe- maticians, like other mortals, are apt to forget this, and frequently require a gentle reminder of their logical absurdity. When, e.g., they say that two parallel straight lines meet at infinity, they really mean that they do not meet at all, or that we can continue to conceive ourselves as prolonging them, without their approaching. Or, again, the doctrine that one infinity can be greater than another, is, to say the least, inaccurate. For if infinity be taken positively, it must mean something out of relation to quantity, and different in kind, to which, therefore, phrases like ''greater and less than" are totally inapplicable. If, e.g., one of two straight lines may be produced indefinitely in one direction and the other in both, the mathematical doctrine is that the second infinity is greater than the first. But the question whether one will at any time be greater or less than the other will depend on the rate at which they are produced and the size of the "successive syntheses," and not on their being infinite in one or two directions. But in order to measure them at all, and so to be able to speak of greater or less with respect to them, they must both be limited first, which is ex hypothesi impossible. Hence the category of quantity is inapplicable to the case, and the positive conception of infinity is absurd, an infinite quantity being a contradiction in terms. For being infinite, no measure can exhaust it, while a quantity is that which is composed of units of measurement. INFINITY ALWAYS IDEAL A DEFECT OF THOUGHT. 249 § 5. Now does the infinity of Space resemble the vaHd negative, or the invahd positive conception _of infinity ? There is no need to regard it as anything but the [former. We need not mean by the infinity of Space ^anything more than that we cannot thmk a limit to Space, can conceive no space which is not bounded iby spaces, and similarly in the case of Time ; we can conceive no time which was not preceded by Ian earlier time. It is evident that this infinity is purely conceptual .nd negative. No man has ever found by ex- [perience that Space and Time have no limits. The infinity of Space and Time can never be given as an actual fact. We can never, except in poetry, get to the limits of the universe, and gaze into the Void beyond, if only because of the prosaic attraction of the bodies behind us. But, unfortunately, we seem since the days of Aristotle to have forgotten the obvious fact that infinity can never be anything real, anything more than a potential infinity in our thought. But can we argue from this potential infinity of our conceptions to the infinity of the spatially extended world, and of the Becoming in Time .^ This would seem to be an argument based upon hazardous assumptions and resulting in inextricable difficulties. ; 6. It involves, in the first place, a relapse into rthe illegitimate conception of infinity as something )Ositive and actual, if it is to state facts about the real world and not to make correct but useless state- ments about our subjective frame of mind. For Awhile we adhere to the true definition of infinity, the proposition that the world is infinite in Space and 250 • MAN AND THE WORLD. Time must resolve Itself into the assertion that we cannot think Space and Time exhausted and limited by successive additions of spaces and times. But this tells us nothing as to whether the real world is infinite, when not In relation to our present modes of thinking it. This brings out, secondly, the robust assumption, on which the inference of the infinity of the world from the infinity of our conceptions is based. It assumes a complete agreement between reality and thought, In virtue of which an infinity, which is true primarily of our ideas, may be safely transferred to the real world. But our experience in dealing with Scepticism (ch. ill.) ought to have left us very sceptical' as to the ease with which such a corre- spondence can be effected. And even if we hope and believe that concord between thought and reality will be ultimately attained, this faith will afford but one more reason for regarding the asser- tion of their present correspondence with grave suspicion. The Infinity contained in our conceptions of Space and Time, therefore, so far from leading on to the infinity of the real world as a matter of course, militates rather in favour of the conclusion that the real world is limited in Space and had a beginning In Time. And this presumption Is confirmed by the strongest positive reasons. The doctrine of the Infinity of Space and Time turns out. In the first place, to be vicious in its origin and based upon an abuse of the faculty of abstraction. And further, it cannot even claim the undivided support of the necessities of thought. On the contrary, it is In the sharpest conflict with some of the strongest necessities of our thought. The Infinity of Space and Time INFINITY A FALSE ABSTRACTION. 25 I contradicts some of the chief conceptions of our thought, and that of Time even contradicts itself (ch. iii. § 6). The infinity of Space conflicts with the conception of the world as a whole, the infinity of Time with that of the world as a process, and as has been already shown (ch. vii. §§ 3, 20), all evolutionist or historic methods imply that Time is limited and that the world had a beginning. Lastly, the in- finity of the world involves a reductio ad absurdum of the category of causation. And, of course, these metaphysical difficulties about the infinity of Space and Time reappear in science, and generate conflicts between the principal and most approved scientific doctrines and this alleged infinity. It is not merely that science knows nothing of anything infinite, but that it is in various ways compelled to assert that infinity is directly incompatible with verified knowledge. It is neces- sary, therefore, to give a sketch of these objections. § 7. We are too apt, in the first place, to forget that " Space " and '* Time " are mere abstractions. We speak as though things were plunged in Space and Time, and as if Space and Time could exist without them. But as a matter of fact Space and Time are constituted by things, and are only two prominent aspects of their interaction. It is as the result of the attractions and repulsions of things that they constitute certain spaces between one another. Empty Space and empty Time are bogies which we have no business to conjure up out of the limbo of vain imaginings. Hence there is no real difficulty in conceiving (with Aristotle) that Space should be limited by the spatially-extended, i.e. bodies, seeing that the conception has no meaning except in connection with bodies : where bodies 252 MAN AND THE WORLD. cease, there Space would cease also, and the question as to what is beyond is unanswerable, because unmeaning and invalid. If, then, ''pure " Space is an abstraction from the spatially-extended reality, and if real Space is actually delimited by that which fills it, viz. bodies, the resulting position of affairs is, that the infinity of conceptual Space is merely a trick of abstraction, which imposes upon us by dint of its very simplicity. For it ceases to be surprising that if we abstract from that which really limits Space, the remaining abstraction, viz., conceptual or ideal " Space," should have to be regarded as unlimited — in idea. Only of course this vice of our thought proves less than nothing as to the infinity of the physical world. A similar argument would dispose of the question as to the infinity of real Time and as to what existed before the beginning of the world, and thus the whole difficulty would be shown to rest upon a miscon- ception. § 8. The metaphysical difficulties of the infinity of Time amount to a self-contradiction, i.e., to a conflict with the supreme law of human thought. For the infinity of the past is regarded as limited by the present, i.e., it is a completed infinity. But a completed infinity is a contradiction of the very conception of infinity, which consisted in the im- possibility of completing the infinite by successive synthesis. Again, the infinity of the world in Space involves a hopeless contradiction of the conception of a whole. For when we speak of the world or uni- verse, we mean the totality of existing things. But in order to attain to such a whole, it would be necessary to grasp things together as a totality, and 'HE METAPHYSICAL CONTRADICTIONS OF INFINITY. 253 I ^Ho define off the existent against the non-existent. ^^But this condition cannot be satisfied in the case of ^^n infinite, which can never be completed by succes- ^^kive synthesis, and never therefore be grasped ^■together as a whole. We may generalize the case ^^of the infinite quantity (§ 4), and say that an in- j^»finite whole is, like a bottomless pit, a contradiction ^Bin terms, in which the infinity negates the whole ^Band the whole excludes infinity. We must aban- don, therefore, either the conception of a totality or that of the infinity of the world. If the world is a whole, it is not infinite, if it is infinite, it is not a whole, i.e.^ not a world at all. And there is a parallel contradiction between the conception of infinity and of a process. It w^as shown in chapter vii. § 20 that a process is necessarily and essentially finite, and limited by the two points between which the process lies. Unless it were finite, it would be a mere wavering and fluctuating Becoming, void of Being, and as such unknowable. The Becoming, therefore, of reality must be en- closed within the limits of a conception, which enables us to define it as having Being relatively to one point and Not- Being relatively to another. To apply to the world the conception of a process is to imply that its Becoming is definite and finite. If, therefore, we wish to assert that the world has a real history, that its Evolution is a fact and that our (formulas of Evolution are true, we must think the world as finite in Space and Time. Lastly, the belief in infinity conflicts with the most indispensable organon of all knowledge and all science, the conception of causation (cp. ch. iii. § II s.f.). For a chain of causation depends on the 2 54 MAN AND THE WORLD. causes be Infinite, If there be no such thing as a first cause, the whole series dangles uselessly in the air or falls asunder, inasmuch as each of the rela- tive causes receives no necessity to transmit to the next beneath it, and hence the ultimate effect also is not necessary. § 9. And, as might have been expected, these metaphysical contradictions reappear In science in the shape of conflicts between the supposed Infinity of the physical world and some of the most valu- able scientific principles. Thus the Impossibility of thinking a world Infinite In Space as a whole nullifies the principle of the conservation of energy, makes It Impossible to re- gard the universe as a conservative system, and thus brings upon physics a terrible Nemesis in the shape of the dissipation of energy. For if we duly take successively Increasing spheres In Space, It Is easily apparent that there is uncompensated loss of energy in each, and that the greater part of the energy radiated out by the bodies within it Is lost, not being arrested, by bodies on which it can im- pinge. Hence the larger the concentric spheres become, the greater the loss of energy, until finally the amount of energy would become infinitesimal. Now at first it might seem possible to reply to this by the mathematical argument that the universe being Infinite, the energy radiated out In any direc- tion Is certain sooner or later to hit upon some body hnd thus to avoid being lost. But to this It might be similarly answered, that as In an Infinite number of these cases the body absorbing the energy would be at an Infinite distance, the energy protected would be infinitely small, i.e., nothing. And besides the argument presupposes an Impossibility, and I THE SCIENTIFIC CONTRADICTIONS OF INFINITY. 255 tacitly assumes that It is possible to speak of the universe as an Infinite whole possessing Infinite energy. Hence our present physics cannot evade the Inference that the energy of any finite part of the world must be undergoing gradual dissipation, and would have been entirely dissipated, If It had ^^xlsted Infinitely In the past. And as this has not ^^s a matter of fact happened, the conclusion Is that the world with Its store of energy, which Is now being dissipated, came Into being at some definite point In the past. In order, therefore, to assert the real Infinity of Space, the facts of the world and the principles of science compel us to deny Its Infinity In Time, and to Infer both a beginning of the existence of energy and an end, In Its Inevitable dissipation. Science, In short, must be consistent and treat the Infinite extension of Space as it has already treated Its Infinite divisibility. In idea Space is not only infinite but infinitely divisible ; in reality science posits the atom as the indivisible minimum of spatially-extended reality. If there- fore science is entitled to assume a ^ninimum of material reality and to reject the reality of the infini- tesimal, it is by a parity of reasoning entitled to postulate also a maxi7iiu?n extent of the world and to reject the reality of the infinite. Further, it was shown in ch. HI. § 8 that the in- finity of Space contradicted the reality of motion and hence of energy, and scepticism inferred from this the illusorlness of the latter. But we may equally well infer the Illusoriness of infinity, and when science is reduced to a choice between the reality of energy and the reality of infinity, it cannot for a moment hesitate to reject the latter. But if science must reject the infinity of Space it 256 MAN AND THE WORLD. cannot maintain that of Time. Just as the infinity of Space, combined with the finiteness of Time, resulted in the destruction of energy by dissipation, so conversely, the finitude of Space, combined with the infinity of Time, results in the destruction of energy by equilibration. For in infinite Time a finite world must have gone through all possible changes already, and thus have arrived at a con- dition of equilibrium and a changeless state of Being sharply contrasted with its actual Becoming. As to the infinity of Time, it contradicts, under any circumstances, the conception of the world as a process, i.e., as a whole in Time. This contra- diction gives us no choice between denying the infinity of Time and admitting that the search for a beginning is comparable to the labour of the Danaids, that common sense, which inquires into the *' whence " of things In order to discover their nature, is but the crude basis of subtler error, that the Historical Method is futile, that all our theories of Evolution are false, and that the nature of things is really unknowable. Yet science is surely entitled to struggle hard against the relinquishment of such approved principles, against the demolition of the whole fabric of knowledge, in deference to what cannot but appear to it a mere metaphysical pre- judice. And not only is the finiteness of Time essential to knowledge, but it also carries with it that of Space. For a world finite in Time but infinite in Space cannot be included under a finite process, and hence baffles all attempts at grasping it by an intelligible conception. A spatially infinite world cannot be said to be evolving or engaged in a pro- cess at all, i.e., to be passing from state A to state INFINITY NEED NOT BE PERMANENT. 257 For it could never wholly get to A, and hence lould never wholly be becoming B. And the converse supposition of a world finite in pace and infinite in Time, which from the point ^f view of a whole has been already shown to be absurd, is equally impossible from that of the con- ception of a process. Its absurdity may be illus- trated by the fact that if it were engaged in a process, it would require an infinite Time to reach any given point in the process, and an infinite number of infinities to reach the present, i.e., would lever reach the present at all. 10. And to set against the cumulative force of all these metaphysical and scientific contradictions, nothing can be urged in favour of the infinity of Space and Time, except a disability of our imper- fect thought, a disability, moreover, which does not even profess to warrant the assertion of a positive infinity of real Space and Time. We cannot think Space and Time as limited, we cannot conceive how the world is limited in Space and Time. But can we assert this ideal infinity of the real world 1 Assuredly we can not: nothing compels us to go behind the contradiction. At the utmost all it proves is that there is a lack of correspondence between the constitution of our minds and that of the world, and there is no need to regard this con- flict as likely to be permanent. If, therefore, we are not satisfied with saying that the world must be finite, though we cannot, while our intuition of Space remains what it is, see how, a solution is yet possible through a change in that intuition/ 1 The word " intuition " here is used merely as a translation of the preciser German term " Anschauung," and has no reference to any contrast with " experience." R. of s. ^ 258 MAN AND THE WORLD. The idea of infinity need not form part of an intuition of Space different from ours, and after all, that intuition is only subjective. Subjective not only as existing in consciousness like the whole world of phenomena (cp, \ 13), but subjective also as being a peculiarity of thought unconfirmed by feeling. There is nothing, therefore, impossible in the suggestion that in the progress of Evolution the infinity of Space should disappear either with or before the intuition of Space itself It would thus turn out to be nothing more than a transitory phase or conditio7t of our 7ninds, accidental to our present imperfect development, which would cease to lay claim to ultimate reality when the upward struggle of Evolution had raised us to a more harmonious state of being. And indeed there would be nothing inadmissible even in the idea of a non-spatial and non-material existence as the goal of the develop- ment of the spatial and material, if our examination of the nature of the material should justify a doubt of the permanence of Matter as a mode of our con- sciousness (cp. §§ 17-32). Our attitude, therefore, towards Space will be twofold : speaking as scientists and accepting the phenomenal reality of Space and of the sensible world for what it is worth, we shall distinguish between otir idea of Space and real Space, deny that real Space is infinite, and contend that the sensible world is finite. But this scientific postulate does not so much solve as carve through the meta- physical perplexity. To metaphysicians, therefore, the conflict between the conceptual and the sensible will suggest their reconciliation in a non-spatial " intelligible world." And with regard to this in- telligible world, we must protest against two mis- I SPACE A TRANSITORY FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 259 I ^■pnstructions by which Kant sought to damage the ^^onceptlon. It is 7tot unknowable, and has nothing to do with what Kant strangely called Noiimena (objects of thought), because they were unthinkable. And, secondly, it is not the abstract conception of a world in general. It is a real existence, which is legitimately, and perhaps necessarily, inferred from the discords of the phenomenal world. And though our data may not at first enable us to assert much more than its real existence, there is no reason why similar inferences should not eventually give us more definite information as to the nature of that existence. The final solution, therefore, may be briefly stated as being that the subjectivity of Space, or at least of the infinity involved in its conception, is likely to be brought out in the future evolution of the world, and this solution has the advantage of har- monizing with two such important doctrines as those of Evolution and of Idealism : and Idealism would surely be a still more futile and useless doctrine than its worst enemies or wildest champions would assert, if it cannot be appealed to to rescue philo- sophy from this perplexity. § II. The infinity of Time, however, can not be disposed of so easily by a decree of subjectivity. For the reality of Time is involved in the reality of the world-process. Now a process need not be in Space (as, e.g., a process of thought), and the world-process may therefore retain its meaning,, even though spatial extension be nothing more than a passing phase of that process in our consciousness ;. but the subjectivity of Time would destroy the whole meaning and reality of the world-process, and negate the idea of the world as an evolution. '260 MAN AND THE WORLD. 'Hence theories which have reo^arded Time as an illusion, as the phenomenal distortion of the Eternal, have ultimately had to confess their inability to assign any meaning to the course of events in Time, and so arrived at despair, practical and theoretical, with regard to the phenomenal world. For it is evident that a process is necessarily in Time,^ and involves a temporal connection between its suc- cessive phases. Our dilemma then is this, that if the reality of Time is denied, the whole meaning and rationality of the world is destroyed at one blow ; if it is admitted, we do not rid ourselves of its infinity and its contradiction of itself and of science. A clue out of the labyrinth may be found by observing with Aristotle (Phys. IV. 223a) that our consciousness of Time depends on the perception of motion (^Kivrja-ig), I.e., on the changes, and the regularity of the changes, in short, on the Becoming of the world. Time, as the consciousness of suc- cession, is not indeed, as we feel at first sight tempted to assert, bound up with the permanence of physical motions, by which we at present mea- sure it, and regulate the subjective times of our several consciousnesses (ch. iii. § 6) ; but it does seem to depend upon our consciousness of Change or Becoming in the wider sense, of which physical motion is but a single example. If, therefore, there were no change. Time would not exist for us, i.e., would not exist at all. The question therefore arises whether we can form a conception of a state in which change is 1 A " logical process " is really a psychological one : the pro- cess is only in the mind which traces the co-existing links of logical necessity. Cp. ch. iii. § 15 s/. I TIME AND ETERNITY.. 26 II transcended, and to this question we must answer yes. The ideal of perfect adaptation is such a con- ception, and in a, state of perfect adaptation there would be no consciousness of change (cp. ch. ii. § 9,. p. 32; ch. iv. § 4). Unless, therefore, happiness and harmony are the illusions the Pessimist asserts them; to be, we must conclude that in such a state of perfection Time would be transcended. But transcended by what ? It is easy to answer that its place will be taken by Eternity, but less easy to explain the meaning of that much-abused word, and its relation to Time. For nothing would be gained if Eternity were regarded merely as the negation of Time : this would neither save the meaning of the world-process nor correspond> to the positive character of happiness. Eternity must be regarded as positive, and its relation to Time must be conceived analogous to the relation of Being to Becoming. The parallelism of the two Is indeed surprising. The Idea of Time involves an inherent contradiction, and so also does Becoming. For though Becoming Is a fact of daily experience. It remains a contradiction to thought, and cannot be defined except as a union of Being and Not- Being (ch. ill. \ 13). And In this union Being Is the positive element, the standard to. which all Becoming Is referred. That which becomes, is only In so far as It has Being, and In so far as It Is not> It Is nothing. Construed on this analogy, Time would be real only as the presage of Eternity, and Eternity would be the ultimate standard by which Its contradictions would be measured and har- monized. And Time and Becoming are not only analogous, but Inseparably connected. For not only does all Becoming take place in Time, but without 262 "MAN AND THE WORLD. Becoming there would be no Time. And may we not then say that what Becoming is without Being, that Time would be without Eternity, viz., self- contradictory and unmeaning ? Thus we begin to perceive the nature of the limits of Time. The beginning of Time and the birth of our present universe (cp. ch. ii. § 20 s.f.) must have been a coincident transition from equable and unchanging Being, from the harmonious Now of Eternity into the unrest, struggle and discord of ^Becoming, and the self-contradictory flow of Time. Thus Time might be called a Co7''ritption of Eter- mity, just as Becoming is a Corruption of Being. For in either case the change must be conceived as one of decadence, and Being and Eternity as the positive conceptions from which Becoming and Time represent a partial falling away. And both Time and Becoming- may be called corruptions of Eternal Being also with reference to their intimate connection with Evil and Imper- fection. For in the ever- chan 2^1 nor world of Time complete adaptation and adjustment, a perfect har- 'mony between a thing and its environment does not and can not exist, and it is just certain aspects of this non-adaptation, non-equilibrium and discord, that we denominate evil (oki, iv. § 4). Thus Time, Becoming, and Evil form part of the same problem (cp. ch. V. § 2 s.f.), and to recognize that the question as to the origin of each is a question as to the origin of all, is the first great step towards the solution of this triune perplexity of philosophy. And the mystery of Time is in a fair w^ay of solution when we can express it in terms of the others, and say that Time is btU the measure of the impermanence of the ijitperfect, and that the reason why we fail to HOW TIME PASSES INTO ETERNITY. 263 Lttain to the ideal of Eternity is that we fail equally attain to the cognate ideals of Being and Adapt- Ltion. The question thereby resolves itself into the >ld difficulty (ch. v. § 5) of why the Real cannot Realize the perfection of the Ideals of our reason. lUt if it could, is it not evident that there would )e an end of Time, as of Change and of Evil, and ^ould not Time pass into Eternity ? Regarding Eternity, therefore, as the Ideal, and wt as the fieo-cttion of Time, as that into which Time tends to pass in the process of Evolution, as that Into which it will pass at the end of that process, [t is possible to resolve the difficulty of the depen- ience of the world-process on the reality of Time. f Time is the corruption of Eternity, if it is but :he imperfect shadow cast by Eternity c^n the pre- jcient soul of man, then what is true of Time holds if Eternity sensic eminentiori, and in becoming a irocess in Eternity the world-process does not have [its meaning annihilated. On the contrary, it for [the first time attains to its full plenitude of import. We may conclude therefore, for the present, that [the solution of the problem of Time lies in its [re-attainment of Eternity. \ 1 2. The next subject which awaits discussion [in our relations to our environment is that of man's [relation to the material world. But before entering into a discussion of the relations and functions of Matter and Spirit, it will be necessary to allude as briefly as may be to the question of Idealism and the external world. Idealism is popularly supposed to consist in a denial of the existence of an external world. But this accusation is really a corollary from the funda- mental fact of Idealism, which idealists have been 264 MAN AND THE WORLD. by no means anxious to draw. On the contrary, they ' have made every effort to evade it, although their opponents may uncharitably think that their efforts were either unsuccessful, or succeeded only at a disproportionate cost of further absurdities. But that idealists should strain every nerve to escape from the most obvious corollary of their doctrine was but natural. No serious philosopher c^in really hold a doctrine which would hardly be credible even at an advanced stage of insanity, viz., that nothing exists beside himself. Or rather, if he is all that exists, he is certainly insane.^ Sub- jective idealists therefore do not exist outside lunatic asylums and certain histories of philosophy. Into the various devices of idealists to avoid sub- jective idealism, it is not necessary to enter, as they mostly consist in appeals to a deus ex mackina, a '* divine mind in which the world exists." But even if it should not be considered derogatory to the divine majesty that a God should be invented to help philosophers out of a difficulty of their own creation, the difficulties that beset the relation of the individual and the "universal" mind are even greater than those of Idealism. It will be more profitable, therefore, to analyse the basis of all Idealism, and to consider what it proves, and whether it necessitates the inferences of Idealism. § 13. The primary fact of Idealism is that all things exist in our consciousness — exist as objects of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions ; that 1 Compare the remark Goethe attributes to the idealist : — " Fiirwahr, wenn ich dies alles bin, So bin ich heute narrisch." Faust I. : WaJpurglsnachtstrattm. 4 IDEALISM AND THE ''EXTERNAL WORLD." 26 ^ ^m that which does not and can not enter into our ^^ consciousness in one of these ways is unknowable and imperceptible, and therefore nothing. It is thus kthe positive converse of the proposition that the unknowable is nothing (ch. ii. § 6), But this fact is - just as unimportant, controversially, as it is scientific- ally irrefragable. Thinkers of all parties, who know what they are about, are agreed that it is undeniable, and that It is impossible to acquiesce in it as final. Idealists and realists alike perceive the necessity of so interpreting it as to render it com- patible with the objective existence of the phe- nomenal world : their only difference is about the means. Idealists mostly seek to preserve the verbal state- ment of the primary fact of idealism by saying that all things exist in consciousness, but in a divine consciousness, appear to a divine " I," and hence are subjective to the Absolute, but objective to us, and independent of our thoughts and feelings. But in so doing they forget that they have trans- muted a fact into a theory, if not into a fiction. " My" consciousness assures me that all things appear to me, exist in my consciousness, but it carries with it no such reference to a divine consciousness. There is only a verbal and illusory identity between my own *' I " and that of God. My consciousness tells me nothing directly about, the way in which things appear to God. The transition, therefore, from my consciousness to God's is an extremely hazardous one, and does not of itself imply any similarity between the contents of my consciousness and of God's. Indeed, upon reflection, it will seem pro- bable that things would appear widely different to a divine being, and one would be sorry to think that 2 66 MAN AND THE WORLD. they should appear no better. But the '* objective world " is a world which appears to me, and no appearances to some one else will explain it. For the pantheistic proposition that in appearing to me, the world really appears to God, and that my own " I " is but a section of the divine *' I," is not one capable of being thought out. For the universal " I " either has another consciousness beside mine, or it has not. If it has, the objective reality of things will be things as they appear to that consciousness, and things as they appear to mine will be reduced to a subjective illusion, i.e., we fall back into the subjec- tive idealism from which we are seeking to escape. If it has not, why should the reality of things be constituted by my consciousness, rather than by that of any other self-conscious " I,." which is also a fragment of the divine self-consciousness ? Things appear differently to me and to others, but to whom do they appear as they really are ? It matters not what answer is given to this question, the result will be the same ; the world, as it appears to every con- sciousness but one, will be an illusion. § 14. But if Idealism cannot extricate itself from the toils of tllusio7tism, let us see whether Realism is more successful in getting over the primary subjec- tivity of the world. Realism will naturally seek to draw a distinction between existing in consciousness and existing solely in consciousness. It does not follow that because the world exists in my consciousness, it exists only in my consciousness. We may cheerfully admit even that the world cannot exist ozU of my consciousness. For it may be that ultimately the in- dependence, either of the world or of the " I," will be seen to involve the same fallacy of false abstrac- [E world's reality given with the self's. 267 tlon (cp. ch. vi. § 2 s.f.), and that in the end "T' can no more exist without the world than the world can exist without me (cp, ch. x. § 20). Indeed, even now the content of the Self is given only by inter- action and contrast with the world, or Not-Self. But at present this is a mere suggestion, and we must content ourselves with showing that the fact will bear the interpretation Realism puts upon it. It is a mistake to suppose that the only inference from the existence of the world in consciousness is that it exists only in consciousness, and that its existence is therefore dependent on the subject's conscious- ness. For, granting the self-existence of the world independently of my consciousness, it would yet exist for 'jne only as reflected in my consciousness. In other words, the fact of its existence in my consciousness would be the same, whether or not the world were self- existent. Both interpretations being thus possible, there can be no doubt as to which is preferable. Sense and science alike require us to believe that the existence of the world is not dependent on its appearance in any one's consciousness. The phenomenal world and the phenomenal self, to whom it appears, are mutually implicated facts, and we have no business to assume the existence of either out of their given context. And this mutual implication of the self and the world is equally fatal to both the extremes, both to subjective Idealism and to Materialism. We have as little ground for asserting that consciousness is merely a phenomenon of Matter, as for asserting that the material world is merely a phenomenon of any one's consciousness. But a choice is still left be- tween transcendental, or ultimate, and phenomenal, or immediate, realism. 268 MAN AND THE WORLD. This choice is decided in favour of the former, not only by the contradictions which the assumption of the ultimate reality of the phenomenal world in- volves {cp, ch. iil. .§§ 2-12, and § 21), but also by the fact that one of the factors in the phenomenal world lays claim to ultimate reality. For each of us is strongly persuaded of the absolute existence of his own self. And the proper inference from this is, not that the phenomenal world exists in an absol- ute Self, but that a transcendent world of ultimate reality corresponds to the reality of the: Self Of this existence of ultimate realities outside our- selves we can have no direct proof: there can be no direct disproof of subjective idealism, just as there can be no direct disproof of pessimism. It is sufficient to show that it is practically impossible and absurd, and that its competitor can give an alternative interpretation of the facts, which gives a rational and harmonious solution. And indeed it is a mistake to suppose that all things require to be proved {pp. ch. ii. § 5), for proof is an activity of thought, and thought does not constitute the whole of consciousness. A fact may be as surely attested by feeling or will, as by the most rigorous demon- stration, and ultimately all demonstration rests on such self-evident facts. ^ The existence of a reality 1 The only alternative to this view of ultimate certainty is that which regards consistency as the basis of proof.. But consistency may mean two very different things. If we mean by it that the premisses of arguments do not contradict one another, and that on the strength of this we can go on proving everything by every- thing else all round, we are surely deluded. For such an argu- ment in a circle is fallacious, as Aristotle pointed out long ago, even though the circle be as large as the universe. If, on the other hand, it means that things are so fitted together as to excite no sense of incongruity, then consistency just describes one of IDEALISM VERSUS MATERIALISM. 269 outside ourselves is such a fact, irresistibly attested by feeling, and one which does not require further proof. In this respect it is exactly on a par with the existence of one's self. No man can prove his own existence ; and, we may add, no- sane man wants to. The correlative facts of the existence of Self and Not- Self are certified by the same evidence, the irresistible affirmation of feeling, and their supreme certainty cannot be touched, and much less shaken, by any idealist argument. § 15. Was Idealism, then, merely an unprofitable sophism — merely a troublesome quibble which ob- structed our path ? By no means : we may learn much from the difficulty to which it drew attention. In the first place, it brought out clearly the impor- tant distinction, which we had already anticipated in our account of Space and Time, of phenomenal and ultimate reality, and our answer depended on the distinction between them. What was reasserted against subjective idealism was the existence of ultimate reality, but we refrained from identifying this with phenomenal reality. We did not commit ourselves to the assertion of the absolute reality of every stick and every stone exacdy as we now be- hold it. The world, as it now appears to us, may be but the subjective reflexion of the ultimate reality, and thus idealism would be true, at least of our phenomenal world. And, secondly, Idealism supplies the antidote to the materialism which regards consciousness as an accident without which the world is quite capable of existing. Idealism and Materialism, starting from opposite the chief characteristics of self-evidence, and becomes simply a lax statement of the rival theory. 2/0 MAN AND THE WORLD. Standpoints, are impelled by the force of all but in- superable reasonings towards contrary conclusions, and as they meet midway, the shock of their col- lision seems like to shatter the authority of human reason. For just as Idealism concluded from the fact that the world exists in consciousness, that it existed only in the individual's consciousness, so Materialism concludes from the fact that the w^orld dispenses with every individual, that all may be dispensed with. The exaggeration and the flaw is the same in both. Materialism overlooks that the world it speaks of is phenomenal, that the indivi- dual dispensed with is phenomenal also ; and that what appears need not be all that ultimately is. Its arguments, therefore, do not touch the individual's conviction of his ultimate reality. Similarly, Ideal- ism cannot affect the individual's conviction that there must be something beside himself to account for the appearances to him. If, then, we recognize the distinction of the phenomenal and ultimate reality, the contradiction between Materialism and Idealism ceases to be insoluble. § 1 6. And to say nothing of other difficulties which it alone can solve, this fact is in Itself suffici- ent reason for making the distinction between phen- omenal and transcendent reality, which may at first sight appear somewhat needless. In so doing we are proving true to the principle of our method, by solving a conflict between thought and fact by an appeal to metaphysic. And it is certainly a more satisfactory method thus to reconcile the contending parties than for each to go on re -asserting the un- tenableness of Its opponent's position from its own point of view. Students of philosophy must be well- nigh sick by this time of hearing the well-worn WANTED A METAPHYSICAL ACCOUNT OF MATTER. 27 1 philosophic argument against MateriaHsm, that it is " a gigantic hysteron-proteron " and a logical contra- diction. And the small impression this mode of argument has hitherto produced, might well arouse the most supine of philosophers to abandon the method of sterile and captious criticism, and to bethink himself of an alternative explanation of the phenomenal world. If Materialism is bad meta- physics, what is the true metaphysical explanation of Matter ? If self-consciousness is the primary fact of knowledge, what part does it play in the explanation of the phenomenal world ? What is the relation of Matter and Spirit ? what is the mean- ing of the distinction of Body and Soul ? and what is the function and purpose of the arrangement of the material cosmos ? If we remember the primary subjectivity of the phenomenal world, and proceed by the right method, we shall be enabled to give substantially sufficient answers to these questions. And the right method will here as elsewhere be one which derives its meta- physical conclusions from scientific data and justifies them by parallels from acknowledged scientific facts. § 17. In analysing the conception of Matter, the first thing to remark is that Matter is an abstraction from material bodies or things. Things are all indi- vidual and no one thing is exactly like any other. Nevertheless we detect in them certain resemblances in virtue of which we call them material, and regard them as composed of the abstraction " Matter." Matter, therefore, like all abstractions, is an adjective but not a substantive fact (cp. ch. iii. § 15, p. 82), and it is this which justifies the philosophic protest against the materialist annihilation of the mind by means of one of its own abstractions. 272 MAN AND THE WORLD. This abstract Matter, moreover, stands in a curious relation to the equally abstract conception of Force. According to the ordinary scientific doctrine, which ignores the metaphysical character of Matter, forgets that it is an abstraction, and treats it as a reality, Matter is the substratum or vehicle of Force. All the sensible qualities of Matter are due to forces, gravitative, cohesive, repulsive, chem- ical, electrical, or to motions (like Heat, Sound, Light, etc.), or " motive forces." Matter itself, therefore, is left as the unknown and unknowable substratum of Force. There is no reason why the term Matter should appear from one end of a sci- entific account of the world to the other. It is not required to explain the appearance of anything we can experience, and is merely a metaphysical fiction designed to provide forces with a vehicle. Hence the idea easily suggested itself to scientists to drop out the totally otiose conception of Matter, and to regard the *' atoms " of physics as Force- centres. But though physics could perfectly well employ such force- centres, their nature requires further elucidation. It is impossible^ in the first place, to regard them, with Faraday, as mateinal points, devoid of magnitude. For this would not only stultify the whole aim of the theory by reintro- ducing Matter, but involve the further difficulty that as the material points would be Infinitely small, the velocity which any force, however small, would Im- part to them, would be infinite, and they would rush about the universe with infinite velocities, and never remain long enough anywhere for their existence to become known. If, on the other hand, the force- centres are really points, i.e., mathematical points " without parts and without magnitude," it is diffi- MATTER AND FORCE. 273 cult to see how real forces could be attached to ideal )oints. And again, unless each of these atomic forces were attached to some real substratum, what rould keep them separate, or prevent them from :ombIning into one gigantic resultant Force, which vould sweep the universe headlong into Chaos ? In short, the whole conception of independent force-centres rests upon insufficient metaphysical inalysis. A force which has no substratum, which Lcting from nothing. Is the force of nothing, but as [it were in the air, is utterly unthinkable. But Is this any reason for reverting to unknowable f* Matter " as the substratum, in order that our forces lay inhere in it, and not stray about helplessly .-^ t would be a great mistake to suppose this. Our " forces " may require a substratum, but there is no •eason why that substratum should be material. It [is, as Mr. Mill says, a coarse prejudice of popular thought, to which science has needlessly deferred, [to suppose that the cause must be like the effect, that a nightmare, e.g., must resemble the plum-pud- ilng which caused it. So there is no need to sup- pose that an unknowable " Matter " is an ultimate reality, merely because phenomenal things have the attribute of materiality. Matter is not the only con- ceivable substratum of Force. § 18. We found just now that Force-centres, in order to be a satisfactory scientific explanation of things, required some agency to prevent the indi- vidual atomic forces from coalescing into one. This postulate is realized if the force-atoms be endowed with something like Intelligence, and thus enabled to keep their positions with respect to one another, i.e., to keep their positions in Space. We shall then say that they act at or from the points where they R. OfS. r^ 2 74 MAN AND THE WORLD. appear, and shall have substituted a known and knowable substratum, viz., intelligence, for unknow- able ''Matter." Our *' force-atoms " will have deve- loped into " monads',' spiritual entities akin to our- selves. Thus the dualism of Matter and Spirit would havve been transcended, and the lower, viz. Matter, would have been interpreted as a phenom- enal appearance of the higher, viz. Spirit. I 19. And a similar result follows from the ana- lysis of the conception of Force. Just as Matter was a conception which could not be applied to ultimate reality at all, so Force is a conception which inevitably implies the spiritual character of the ult- imate reality. Historically it Is undeniable that Force Is depersonalized Will, that the prototype of Force is Will, which even now Is the Force par ex- cellence and the only one we know directly. The sense of Effort also, which is a distinctive element in the conception of Force, Is Irresistibly suggestive of the action of a spiritual being. For how can there be effort without intelligence and will ? It is this closer reference to our own consciousness which makes Force a more satisfactory explanation of things than Matter : it is nearer to the higher, and hence more capable of really explaining than the lower. And we see this also by the Issue of the attempt to interpret Force In terms of lower concep- tions. Force is frequendy defined as the cause of motion (cp. ch. Hi. § 10), and If this definition were metaphysically true, the sooner Force were obliter- ated from the vocabulary of science the better. Its association with the sense of effort would lead to groundless suggestions of similarity with the action of our wills, which could only be misleading. But, as we saw (ch. Hi. §11,8), the conceptions of cause and MATTER ULTIMATELY REDUCIl^LE TO SPIRIT. 275 motion are even more replete with .contradiction and perplexity, and to explain Force in terms of cause and motion is to explain what is imperfectly known in terms of what is still less known. When we assert that the Becoming of things is due to the action of forces, we can form some sort of inadequate idea of how the process works, but we have not the least idea of what causation consists in as soon as we rigidly exclude all human analogies. To use caus- ation without a reference to our own wills is to use a category which has been reduced to a mere word without meaning, a category, moreover, the use of which involves us in the inextricable difficulties of an infinite regress. § 20. If, on the other hand,. we admit that Matter may be resolved into forces, and that the only pos- sible substratum of Force is intelligence, the way is open for a reconciliation of the metaphysics of Ideal- ism with the requirements of science. Idealism admits the phenomenal reality of the " material " world, and science recognizes that it has neither need nor right to assert its ultimate reality. The unity of philosophy and of the universe is vindicated by the discovery of the fundamental identity of Matter and Spirit, and the ultimate reduction of the former to the latter. And not only has science no need to assert the ultimate reality of Matter, but it actually benefits, in a hardly less degree than metaphysics, from the interpretation of the phenomena of Matter we have propounded. If Matter is not and can not be an ultimate mode of being, it follows that the pseudo- metaphysical speculations as to its ultimate consti- tution lead only to a loss of time and temper. The conceptions of atoms, ether, space, etc., are not 276 MAN AND THE WORLD. capable df being cleared of their contradictions, because they have only a relative validity in the phenomenal world, and the phenomenal world taken by itself is full of contradictions. Science therefore need not concern itself to pursue its assumptions beyond the point at which they are most useful practically, nor attempt the hopeless task of solving the :perplexities which arise when it is essayed to give them an ontological validity. And this is the true answer to the sceptical criticism of the first principles of science (ch. iii. §§ 6-1 1). Hence it will be sufficient to assume as many undulating agencies as are requisite to explain the phenomena of light and electricity, without troubling whether the assumption of the reality of a luminlferous ether would not involve impossibilities. The difficulties inherent in the conceptions of Matter, Motion, and Infinity, puzzles like that of ^the infinitude of the material universe, of the infinite divisibility of Matter and the relativity of Motion, lose their sting, when we cease to imagine that the facts with which they are concerned are ultimate. It is enough to know that we shall never get 'to the end of the world, or come to a particle we cannot divide. But though Matter ultimately be but a form of the Evolution of Spirit, difficulties remain in plenty. Before the reconciliation can be considered com- plete, e.g., it Is necessary to determine the nature of the Intellityence which Matter Is divined to conceal, and to discover what is the function of this disguise of Spirit. § 21. After the dispersion of the doubts which Scepticism had cast on the first principles of science, we must consider the nature of the Intelligence of the Force-atoms. It is possible either to regard I THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF ''ATOMS. 2/7 each atom, with Leibnitz and Lotze, as a meta^ physical entity or monad, and to regard their inter- actions as constituting the material universe, or to ascribe them to the direct action of divine force. Nor is it a question of vital importance which we prefer. For, on the one hand, we cannot dispense with the divine force in trying to understand the arrangement of the world and the aim of its pro- cess, and, on the other, it is not very much more difficult to conceive of an atom as possessing rudi- mentary consciousness and individuality than to- do this in the case of an amoeba. But perhaps- it is better. In the present state of our knowledge, and until Mr. Crookes' theories of the individualities of atoms (ch. vil. § 1 1) have received fuller confirmation, to recognize the distinction betweea organic and inorganic being, and to ascribe consciousness only to living beings, out of which It is historically pro- bable that our highly evolved consciousness has directly developed. An atom, then, may be defined as a constant manifestation of divine Force or Will, exercised at a definite point. In this definition, which moreover can be easily adapted to new requirements, should the old conceptions of atoms cease to be serviceable expressions for the scientific facts, the constancy of th^ divine Will excludes the association of caprice, while the localization prevents the fusion and confusion of the force-atoms. It must not, however, be supposed that there is any intrinsic connection between the forces and the mathematical points at which they act. It is merely that at these points we come under the influence of a certain intensity of divine Force. That this Intensity Is a constant and definite one, and that we can therefore measure it in num- 278 MAN AND THE WORLD. bers of force units, and speak of the conservation 'of mass and energy, is a fact given only by experi- ^etice, anH one which need hold good only in so far as it subserves to the idea of the whole. And if It be objected that a thing can not act where it is not, it may be replied that the divine Force is omnipresent, or its action in matter may be com- pared to a piece of machinery which remained in action In the absence of its constructor, which affected us on reaching certain spots, and which might fairly be said to represent a constant will of its constructor. But if we penetrate a little deeper, the difficulty will appear gratuitous. For we have seen (§ 10) that Space can not be an ultimate reality, but must be regarded as a creation of the divine Force on precisely the same footing as Matter, and need not ■ appear real to us except in our present condition. Thus the '' objective " world in Space and Time "would be the direct creation in our consciousness of the divine Force, and represent merely a state or condition of our mind, which need not be true or exist at all, except for a being in that condition. And yet it would be the only reality and the primary object of knowledge for such a consciousness. § 22. We have spoken hitherto of the world as a manifestation of divine Force, and treated the physical forces from the point of view of the sub- ject of which they were forces. But Force, to be real, requires at least two factors, and cannot act upon nothing, any more than it can be the force of nothing. We must consider, then, the objects also upon which the divine Force acts. It must be a manifestation to (something or) somebody, it must act upon (something or) somebody. Upon whom ? Upon us, surely, for it Is to us that the THE WORLD A ST/^£SS BETWEEN GOD AND SPIRITS. 279 world appears. But that it should appear to us implies a certain independence and distinction from the Deity. For Force implies resistance, and there would be nothing for the divine Force to act upon, if we were not distinct and resisting entities. Or rather, we should remember that the conception of Force is imperfect, if we regard only the force which acts, and not that which it acts upon, and which calls it out by its resistance, that every action implies reaction, and that to speak of forces is but a convenient but inaccurate way of speaking of a Stress or Inter-action between two> factors. And of these factors each must be real in order to make pos- sible the existence of the force exercised by either. When, therefore, we call the universe a manifestation of divine Force, we are not speaking with perfect precision, but leaving out of account the other half of the Stress, viz., the Reaction of the Ego upon that force. The cosmos of our experience is a stress or inter-action between God and ourselves. And in such interaction both sides are affected. K God appears to us as the world, if the splendour of -perfection can be thus distorted in the dross of the naterial, the Self also, which is a factor in that interacion, cannot appear in its fulness. We n^ist distinguish therefore between the Self as it ultiriately is, and as it appears to itself in its interaction with the Deity. This distinction may be marked .y calling the Self as it appears, the phenomenal setf^ and the self as the ultimate reality, the Ti-anscende^tal Ego. By the latter name it is intended to exp^ss its transcendence of the limit- ations of our ordin>ry consciousness and of our phen- omenal world, and o^ ^o emphasize its fundamental kinship with our nomal self. And in agreement 28o MAN AND THE WORLD. with Kant's phraseology, it is called " transcend- ent^/," because its existence is not directly pre- sented, but inferred, based upon a metaphysical inference from the phenomenal to the transcendent} On the other hand, our ordinary selves 2X^ phenome- nal, just as phenomenal as the phenomenal world. We can discover our character only from our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and introspective psychology is a science of observation. It is by experience and experiment that we arrive at a knowledge of ourselves, by an examination of the varying flow of consciousness. But in order to be conscious of the connection of the flow of phenomena in consciousness, in order to be convinced that my feelings to-day and yesterday both belong to me, it is necessary that there should be something pe7'manent which connects them (cp. ch. v. § 3). This permanent being, which holds together the Becoming of the phenomenal selves, is secured by the Trans- cendental Ego, which is, as it were, the for7n con- taining as its content the whole of our psychic life. But the form cannot be separated from its conteHt (ch. ii. § 14), and hence the Ego cannot be rediv:ed to an empty form, or regarded as different fro«i the Self. They must be in some way one, an-^ their unity must correspond to our conviction ^hat we change and yet are the same. What, tb^n, is the relation of the Ego to the Self? For i* seems that 1 7'here is, however, this difference : in Ka'^^ " transcenden- tal" = that which is reached by an epistemy^gical argument, a truth imphed in the nature of our knowlec^- Having, how- ever, rejected epistemology, we must modi/ ^^e meaning of a ''transcendental proof" into being "a proc/^f the transcendent," viz., that which transcends— not expe/"ce generally, as in Kant— but our actual presentations, />./hich is based on meta- physical necessities. THE SELF AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL EGO. 28 1 the Transcendental Ego can neither be separate from or equivalent to the phenomenal self ( = the content of consciousness). If it were separate, the " I " would be divided, would be not one but two ; If It were equivalent, the self which Interacts with the Deity would be equivalent to the self which Is the result of that Interaction. To understand this relation, we must remember that the ordinary phenomenal '' I " Is essentially changing, and displays different sides of Its nature at different times. Hence Its actual consciousness never represents the w/iole capacity of the self What " I " think, feel, etc.. Is only a small portion at any time of what I am capable of thinking and feeling, and its amount is very different when I am Intensely active and half asleep. But do not the latent capacities of feeling, etc., truly belong to myself, or does Its reality admit of degrees corre- sponding to the intensities of consciousness ? Am " I " annihilated when I fall asleep, and resurrected when I awake ? Assuredly this would be a strange doctrine, and one from which the acceptance of the Transcendental Ego delivers us. The Transcen- dental Ego is the *' I " with all its powers and latent capacities of development, the ultimate reality which we have not yet actually reached. The phen- omenal self is that portion of the Transcendental Ego which is at any time actual (exists epepyeln), or present in consciousness, and forms but a feeble and partial excerpt of the Ego. But the Self is as yet alone real, and as In the progress of its develop- ment it unfolds all Its hidden powers, it approximates more and more to the Ego, until at last the actual and the potential would become co-extensive, the Self and the Ego would coincide, and in the attain- 282 MAN AND THE WORLD. ment of perfection we should be all we are capable of being. § 23. And this account of the relation of the Ego to the Self is not only metaphysically necessary, but supported also by the direct scientific evidence of experimental psychology. For it seems to pro- vide an explanation of the exceedingly perplexing phenomena of double or multifold and alternating consciousness, multiplex personality and ''secondary" selves. These curious phenomena forcibly bring home to us what a partial and imperfect thing our ordinary consciousness is, how much goes on within us of which we know nothing, how far the pheno- menal falls short of being co-extensive with our whole nature. And yet we must either include these changes of personality within the limits of our own "self," or ascribe them to possession by "spirits." And there can be little doubt that the former theory is In most cases obviously preferable. The secondary selves show such close relations to the primary, display such complications of inclusive and exclusive memories, betray such constant tendencies to merge into or to absorb their primaries, that we cannot exclude them from our "selves." Indeed, it is often difficult to decide which of several personalities is to be regarded as the primary self. What, e,g., is the real self of personages like Fellda X. or Madame B. ?^ Is it the Leonie of waking life, the dull uneducated peasant woman, who knows nothing of the higher faculties she is capable of displaying when the habitual grouping of the elements of her being has been resifted by hypnotlzation ? Or is it the bright ^ Compare Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. iv. p. 129. The case of Felida X., given fully in Hypnotisme et Double Coftscience^ par le Dr, Azam. Paris ^ 1887. SECONDARY AND NORMAL " SELVES. 283 and lively Leontlne of the hypnotic condition, who knows all that Leonle does, but speaks of her in the third person ? Or is it not rather the Leonore of a still deeper stage, with her higher intellect and perfect memory of all that she, Leontlne and Leonle have done ? By the theory suggested all these difficulties may be solved. They merely illustrate the contention that our ordinary selves are neither our whole selves nor our true selves. They are, as Mr. Myers phrases it, merely that portion of our self which has happened to come to the surface, or which it has paid to [develop into actual consciousness In the course of Evolution. They are our habitual or normal selves, more or less on a par with the secondary selves, and like them, phenomenal. But the Ego includes them all, and this inclusion justifies us in reckoning these phenomena part of ourselves. In it the phenomenal selves unite and combine, and as a beginning of this fusion It is interesting to find traces of coalescence in the higher stages of personalities which at lower stages had seemed exclusive and antagonistic.^ § 24. The way in which the world arises may now be represented as follows. If there are two beings, God and an Ego, capable of interacting, and if thereupon interaction takes place, there will be a reflexion of that interaction presented to or con- ceived by the Ego. And If, for reasons to be sub- sequently elucidated (ch. x. §§ 25, 26), there is an element of non-adaptation and imperfection In this interaction, both factors will appear to the Ego in a distorted shape. Its image of the interaction will not correspond to the reality. And such a distorted image our universe Is, and hence the divine half of ^ Compare Proceedings of the Psychical Society^ vol. iv. p. 529 s.f. 284 MAN AND THE WORLD. the Stress (cp. \ 22) is represented by the material world, and that of the Ego by our present pheno- menal selves. But just as the development of our- selves reveals more and more our full nature, so it must be supposed that the development of the world will reveal more and more fully the nature of God, so that in the course of Evolution, our conception of the interaction between us and the Deity would come to correspond more and more to the reality, until at the completion of the process, the last thin veil would be rent asunder, and the perfected spirits would behold the undimmed splendour of truth in the light of the countenance of God. \ 25. But many difficulties remain. Granting that Matter is the product of an interaction between the Deity and the Ego, we have not yet fully accounted for the objective world. The objective world includes not only things but pe^^sons, i.e., spiritual beings. Are these then also subjective hallucinations of each man's Ego ? It is not as imperative to deny the ultimate reality of spiritual beings as It was to deny that of unknow- able and lifeless Matter. But it is undeniable that the admission of their reality creates some difficulty. For how can others share in the subjective cosmos arising out of the Interaction between the Deity and the Ego of each of us .^ Metaphysic alone might long have failed to find an answer to this question, and the Idea of a " pre-established harmony " be- tween the phenomenal worlds of several spirits might long have continued to seem a strange flight of fancy, if the progress of science had not enabled us to conceive the process on scientific analogies. The problem, in the first place, has much affinity, with what we see in dreams. In a dream also we: THE ANALOGY OF DREAMS. 285 ■Tiave a sensuous presentation laying claim to reality, and yet possessing only subjective validity. A dream is a hallucination, and yet not a random hallucination : each feature in the wildest dream is causally connected with a reality transcending the dream state (in this case our ordinary *' waking " life), and when we awake we can generally account even for its greatest absurdities. And yet those absurdities do not, as a rule, strike us while we dream. We live for the nonce in topsyturvydom, and are surprised at nothing. While it lasts, therefore, a dream has all the characteristics of reality. And so with our present life : it seems real and rational, [because we are yet asleep, because the eyes of the soul are not yet opened to pierce the veil of illusion. But if the rouorh touch of death awoke us from the lethargy of life, and withdrew the veil that shrouded from our sight the true nature of the cosmos, would not our earth-life appear a dream, the hallucin- ation of an evil nightmare ? Certainly the analogy holds very exactly. The world of dreams is moulded, althougrh with strange distortions, upon that of our waking life ; so is our present world on that of ultimate reality. It is real while it lasts ; so is our world ; when we awake, both cease to be true, but not to be significant. And both, moreover, may be seen through by reflec- tion. Just as we are sometimes so struck by the monstrous incongruity of our dreams that, even as we dream, we are conscious that we dream, so philosophy arouses us to a consciousness that the phenomenal is not the real. But yet the parallel would not be complete unless different people had parallel and corresponding dreams or hallucinations. Exceptionally this cor- 286 MAN AND THE WORLD. respondence has been recorded even In the case of dreams/ but for a frequent and normal occurrence of such parallelism we must go to the nascent science of hypnotism. Not only are hypnotized subjects easily subjected to hallucinations at the will of their operator, both while hypnotized and when they have apparently returned to their normal condition, but it Is quite possible to make several subjects share in the same hallucination. Now as yet our knowledge of these phenomena Is too rudimentary for us to assign limits to the extent and complexity of the hallucinations which may be in this way induced, but even now their consistency Is quite astounding. The subject to whom it has been suggested that he will at such and such a time have audience of the President of the French Republic, Is not disillusioned by any incongruity in the appearance and demeanour of his phantom president : a hallucinatory photograph on a spotless piece of paper obeys all the laws of optics ; it is reflected in a mirror, doubled by a prism, magnified by a lens, etc.^ And if such effects are possible to us, if we can experimentally create subjective worlds of objective reality (i.e., valid for several persons), even though of comparatively limited extent and variety, in a human consciousness, what may not be achieved by an operator of vastly greater knowledge and power } Shall we assert that this hallucinatory cosmos would fall short even of the almost infinite complexity and variety of our world ? 1 Vide Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 380 fF., 590 ff. '^Proceedings of the Psychical Society, vol. iv. p. 11, vol. iii. p. 167. THE ANALOGY OF HYPNOTIC HALLUCINATIONS. 287 We may put, then, the analogy in terms of a con- tinuous proportion, and say that the hypnotic or dream-consciousness is to the normal, as the normal is to the ultimate. And in each case the lower is related to the higher as the actual to the potential : while we sleep our dream-consciousness is all that is actual and our waking self exists only potentially ; while we live on earth our normal consciousness alone is actual and our true selves are the ideals of unrealized aspirations. And thus to philosophy, as to religion, its reproach has become its glory. Just as the Cross has become the symbol of religious hope, so philosophy has answered the taunts that truth is a dream and God a hallucination, by gathering truth from dreams, and by tracing the method of God's working through hallucinations. § 26. But though the '* objective world" be a hallucination, subjective in its mode of genesis, it is not on that account without a meaning, without a purpose. Not even our own casual and disconnected hallucinations are without connection with the real world, without the most direct significance for our real life. Still less can this be the case with the material world : it must be possible to determine the teleological significance of Matter, and of the phenomenal selves incarnated in it. For it is neces- sary, on metaphysical grounds, to endorse the protest which is generally made in the interests of Materialism, against the separation of Body and Soul, the dualism of Matter and Spirit, and to wel- come the accumulating proofs of their complete correspondence and interdependence. For the universe is one ; Body and Soul, Matter and Spirit are but different aspects, the outside and 288 MAN AND THE WORLD. the Inside of the same fact : the material is but the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual state. No other theory of their relations can possibly be drawn from our premisses : for if the phenomenal world is a stress between the Deity and the Ego, the soul is but the reaction of the Ego upon the divine action which encases it as the body. But this very analysis of a stress, this very distinction between force and resistance, action and reaction is a logical and not a real one, and so it is not surprising that they should be distinguishable In thought but inseparable in reality. § 27. And this close connection of the material and the spiritual will enable us to understand why the single process of Evolution is a correlated development of both, why the development of a spirit is naturally accompanied by a growth in the complexity of its material reflex. Of this fact Materialism gives an explanation which Is not only plausible In itself, but persuasive by its favourable contrast with all the other meta- physical explanations hitherto offered. It is all very well, a materialist may urge, to give meta- physical explanations of Matter In the lofty region of vague generalities, but when we come down to humble but solid facts, and require a specific ex- planation of this or that, the courage and the meta- physics of the opponents of Materialism evaporate, and shedding around them a " divine mist " of mystical verbiage they hasten to regain the cloudy peaks of metaphysics. Granted, therefore, that It is hard to conceive the constitution of Matter as an ultimate fact, that Matter may quite well be an immediate activity of the Divine Energy, that the conception of the universe as a stress between the I MATERIALISM AND BODILY ORGANIZATION. 289 Deity and the Ego Is a possible explanation of the interaction and close connection of Matter and Spirit, — granted all this, the question may yet be sked why the growth of the complexity of material organization should be the invariable accompani- ment of the growth of consciousness. Is it not the asiest and most reasonable explanation of this fact o suppose that spirit is a kind of harmony, resulting rom the proper collocation of material particles ? nd indeed, do not the facts of the evolution of life irectly negative the supposition that Matter is an nstrument of the Deity ? For if the world-process ere the realization of a Divine purpose, the lower brms of material organisms would necessarily be ess harmonious to that purpose, and hence should equire a more powerful and complllcated machinery f Matter than the higher and more harmonized, nstead of which, material organization rises in com- lexity and power /^r/ passu with the development f consciousness, and the obvious inference is that it is the cause of the development of consciousness. That such a materialistic explanation of the facts s the most obvious to the vulgar, it is needless to 'dispute, that it is also the soundest, it is imperative to deny. We may boldly accept the challenge of Materialism., and if we succeed, we may reasonably xpect that a defeat of Materialism on the ground f Its own choice will not mean merely a passing bray of the metaphysical mountaineers, but a final onquest of the rich lowlands of science from the materialists who have terrorized over them so long. For the greater complexity of material organiz- tion in the development of the world several reasons ay be given. In the first place, we may appeal to R. ofS. U 290 MAN AND THE WORLD. the fact that growth of complexity seems to be the law of Evolution in all things, and might parallel the greater complexity and delicacy of the individual organism by the growing complexity and delicacy of the higher social organism {cp. ch. viii. § 7). For if growth of complexity is a universal law of Evol- ution, there need be no inter-dependence between the manifestations of that law, i.e., no causal relation between the greater complexity of material organ- ization and the development of consciousness. Secondly, we may say quite generally, that if the world-process represents a gradual harmonizing of the Deity and the Ego, it must bring with it an increase in the intercourse and interaction between them. Hence the reflex of that interaction in the consciousness of the Ego, viz., the world, would show a parallel development. The greater intensity and the greater number of relations between the Ego and the Deity would generate an intenser consciousness on the one side and a more complex organization on the other. Thus the materialist explanation of the fact would in both these cases be a fallacy of cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and confuse a parallelism due to a common origin with causal dependence. These considerations, however, are perhaps insuf- ficient to explain the whole function of Matter in the Evolution of the world, and we must examine rather the part material organization plays in the different organisms. In the lowest and simplest forms of life, e.g., proto- plasm, consciousness is reduced to a minimum, and it has no organization to speak of. The protoplasm has to do all its work itself ; the amoeba catches its food consciously and digests it consciously. When ORGANIZATION AS LABOUR-SAVING; MECHANISM^ 29 1 feels, its consciousness has to be all there, and ►n the spot where the feeling is.. Now let us suppose that it differentiates itself and {ets up a rudimentary organization, say a stomach, t no longer requires to supervise the digestion of ;s food in its proper person and with its whole con- iciousness, but only gets called in by the structure jt has set up when something has gone wrong, and [t has dyspepsia. It is a familiar observation that ^e know and feel nothing of our bodily organism intil it is out of order. In health our nerves and our iigestion do not demand the attention of our con- sciousness. And the conjecture may be hazarded lat this is precisely the reason why we have grown lerves and a digestive apparatus. For the estab- ishment of a nervous system makes it possible for consciousness to be concentrated at the centre of iffairs and quietly to receive reports and send )rders through the nerves, instead of rushing about ill over the body. There is thus a considerable econo^ny of consciotts- less involved in every piece of material organization, ts raison d'etre is that it liberates a certain amount \i consciousness. That is to say, consciousness, instead of being bound down to the performance of lower and mechanical functions, is set free to pursue higher aims or to perfect its attainment of the lower, and thus the total of intelligence is increased. E.g., our original protoplasm, when it has got a stomach, can devote the attention it formerly bestowed upon, digesting its breakfast to improved methods of catching it, and so its descendants, as they increase the complexity and efficiency of their organic ma- chinery, may rise to the contemplation of the highest problems of life. 29'2 .^MAN ANB THE ■WORLD. Thus organization Is not a primary fact In the history of Hfe. The unconscious material organiz- ation Is simply the ex-conscious. Our unconsciousness of how we (our wills) control our bodies, gives no support to the view that body and soul are different : we have merely forgotten how we grew our bodies In the long process of Evolution. But as the pro- cess still goes on we can retrace the steps of our past development. Our acts still form our bodies for good and ill. First, they generate habits, and habits gradually become mechanical and uncon- scious. Habits, again, gradually produce organic changes, at first slight changes, it may be, in the development of th^ muscles and the expression of countenance. But In the course of generations these are summed up Into hereditary organization. The only reason why this production of physical changes as the expression of psychical nature Is not more obvious Is, in the first place, -that for reasons already stated (ch. iv. §§ lo, i6), our faculties have not been harmoniously developed, and that the corre- spondence between the different elements of our being is very far from perfect. And moreover, by far the greater part of our nature is given us, and in the course of a single life-time comparatively little can be done towards changing the outer Into conformity with the Inner man. Nevertheless, it may perhaps be suspected that our direct control of our bodily organism, though an obscured. Is not an extinct power, that under favourable circumstances we possess what appears to be a supernatural and is certainly a supernormal power over our bodies, and that this Is the true source of the perennial accounts of miracles of healing and extraordinary^ faculties. I MATTER AS- THE RESTRAINT OF SPIRITS. 293- The essential meaning, then, of material organiz- ation in the evolution of the individual is Mechanism-^ nd structure is essentially a labour-saving appai^ahts hich sets free consciousness. And this estimate of the function of Matter and he meaning of complexity of organization in the ndividual is confirmed by its- applicability to the rganization of society. For both the complex tructure of higher societies (cp. ch. viii. § 7) and heir elaborate material machinery are essentially ontrivances for liberating force, and enabling them o produce a higher intelligence, which shall be ompetent to deal with higher problems. § 28. And it is not only from the point of view f the individual organism that Matter seems to be echanism, but no less from that of the Deity. It is not merely that Atoms have the appearance of being ** manufactured articles," from their equality, regu- larity and similarity, for they may not be of divine manufacture, and we may be compelled to deny their uniformity {cp. ch. vii. § 11). But if we think ut the relation which on our theory must exist be- tween the Deity and the Egos, we shall perceive that Matter is an admirably calculated machinery for regulating, limiting, and restraining the conscious- ness which it encases. Its impersonal character gives it the superiority which Aristotle ascribed to the law over personal rule.^ It does not cause hatred, and escapes ''the detestation w^hich men feel for those who thwart their impulses, even when they do it rightly." Even children and savages cannot long be angry with sticks and stones. The dull resistance with which it meets and checks the outbursts of unreasoning passion, is more subduing 1 Eth. Nic. X. 9, 12. 294 MAN AND THE WORLD. than the most active display of power. The Irre- sponsive and Impassive Inertia, against which we dash ourselves In vain, binds us with more rigid and yet securer bonds than any our fancy could have Imagined. Matter constrains us by a necessity we can neither resist nor resent, and to dispute its sway would not only be a waste of time and strength, but display a ludicrous lack of the sense of the ridiculous. But If Matter be a controlling mechanism, we can see also why the lower beings possess a less com- plex organization. A simpler and coarser machinery depresses their consciousness to a very low point, and so they have not the intelligence seriously to affect the course of events. On the other hand, in order to permit of the higher manifestations of consciousness, admitting of greater spontaneity, of greater powers for good and for evil, a more com- plex, elaborate and delicate mechanism of Matter Is required, to secure the necessary control of the resultant action. Slaves may be driven by the lash, governed by simple and violent means, but free men require to be guided by subtler and more compli- cated modes of suasion. Or, to vary the metaphor, if the material encasement be coarse and simple, as in the lower organisms, It permits only a little intelligence to permeate through it ; if It is delicate and complex, it leaves more pores and exits, as it were, for the manifestations of consciousness. Or, to appeal to the analogy already found so service- able (§ 24), it is far easier for the operator to pul his hypnotized subject asleep than to produce th( higher manifestations in which the consciousness o| the subject is called forth, but guided by the will oi the operator ; and these require far more elaborat( I THE FINAL ANSWER TO MATERIALISM. 295 ^Bw and delicate preparations. On this analogy, then, we may say that the lower animals are still en- tranced in the lower stage of brute lethargy, while e have passed into the higher phase of somnam- bulism, which already permits us strange glimpses of a lucidity that divines the realities of a transcen- dent world. And this gives the final answer to Materialism : it consists in showing in detail what was asserted at the outset (§ i6), viz., that Materialism is a hysteron proteron, a putting of the cart before the horse, which may be rectified by just inverting the con- ection between Matter and consciousness. Matter is not that which produces consciousness, but that which limits it and confines its intensity within cer- ain limits : material organization does not construct 'consciousness out of arrangements of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the sphere which it permits. This explanation does not involve the denial either of the facts or of the principle involved in Materialism, viz., the unity of all life and the con- tinuity of all existence. It admits the connection of Matter and consciousness, but contends that the course of interpretation must proceed in the con- trary direction. Thus it will fit the facts alleged in favour of Materialism equally well, besides enabling us to understand facts which Materialism rejected as '' supernatural." It explains the lower by the higher. Matter by Spirit, Instead of vice versa, and thereby attains to an explanation which Is ultimately tenable Instead of one which is ultimately absurd. And It Is an explanation the possibility of which no evidence In favour of Materialism can possibly affect. For if, eg., a man loses consciousness as soon as his brain Is 296 MAN AND THE WORLD. injured, it is clearly as good an explanation to say the injury to the brain destroyed the mechanism by which the manifestation of consciousness was ren- dered possible, as to say that it destroyed the seat of consciousness. On the other hand, there are facts which the former theory suits far better. If, e.g., as sometimes happens, the mian after a time more or less recovers the faculties of which the Injury to his brain had deprived- him, and that not In consequence of a renewal of the Injured part, but In consequence of the inhibited functions being performed by the vicarious action of other parts, the easiest explan- ation certainly is that after a time consciousness con- stitutes the remaining parts into a mechanism capable of acting as a substitute for the lost parts. And again, if the body is a mechanism for inhibit- ing consciousness, for preventing the full powers of the Ego from being prematurely actualized. It will be necessary to invert also our ordinary ideas on the subject of memory, and to account for forgetfulness instead of for memory. It will be during life that we drink the bitter cup of Lethe, it will be with our brain that we are enabled to forget. And this will serve to explain not only the extraordinary memories of the drowning and the dying generally, but also the curious hints which experimental psychology occasionally affords us that nothing is ever forgotten wholly and beyond recall.^ ^ And yet this is a fact which to materialism is utterly inexplic- able. For on a materialist hypothesis the memory of anything must consist of a certain arrangement of certain particles of brain tissue, and in the case of complex facts, the memory would evi- dently require a very complex system of particles. Now as the contents of the brain are limited, it is clear that there can only be a limited number of such systems of particles, and hence a limited number of facts remembered. It would be physically I THE SPIRITUALIZATION OF MATTER. 297 § 29. And that Matter is ultimately divine force and divine mechanism, is shown also by the develop- ment it undergoes. For coincidently with the spiritual development of spiritual beings, Matter also undergoes a process of spiritualization. And of spiritualization in two senses, (i) The gulf be- tween its (apparent) properties and those of Spirit diminishes. We discover that it possesses more and more analogies with Spirit. And curiously enough this is one of the chief reasons why the advance of science has seemed favourable to Materialism. For as the spiritual character of Matter became better known, it became less absurd to explain all things by Matter. But such successes of Materialism have been gained only by absorbing alien elements, and have hopelessly impaired its metaphysical value. In this sense Materialism has, since the days of Democritus and Lucretius, been fighting a losing battle. Its seeming victories have been won by the absorption of spiritualistic elements which have corrupted the simplicity of its original conception of Matter, and caused it to diverge further and further from the " clear and definitely intelligible" motions of solid particles. The con- nection of the scientific conception of Matter with the hard Matter of common experience has become fainter and fainter, as science is compelled to multiply impossible that the brain could be charged with memories beyond a certain point. And if we consider the number of impressions and ideas which daily enter into our consciousness, it is clear that even in youth the brain must soon reach the saturation point of memory, and that the struggle for existence in our memory must be very severe. If therefore we receive unexpected proofs of the survival in memory of the facts most unlikely to be remembered, we have evidently reached a phenomenon which it is exceedingly difficult for materialism to explain. 298 MAN AND THE WORLD. invisible, impalpable and imponderable substances in the '' unseen universe," by which it explains the visible. The ignorance of Lucretius permitted him to give to his Atomism a far greater formal perfec- tion, than the fuller knowledge of modern physicists admits of, and every far-sighted materialist must lament that science should have been driven to give metaphysicians such openings for crushing ^u qicoqties as it has by asserting the existence of supra-sensible substances like the ether and of timeless forces like gravitation {cp. ch. ill. § 9). For with what face after this can science protest against the admission of supra-sensible world of eternal Being, as involved In the co77tplete explanation of the physical universe, when precisely similar assumptions have already been used by science for the purposes of a partial explanation ? Metaphysicians, on the other hand, will regard these facts as indications that the de- velopment of Matter and Spirit proceeds along con- verging lines, and that by the time the supra-sensible is reached a single reality will be seen to embrace the manifestations of both. § 30. And (2) the spirltualizatlon of Matter is displayed also in its relations to spiritual beings. As in the course of Evolution these become more harmonized with the Divine Will, Matter, the expression of that Will, becomes more and more harmonized with the desires of spiritual beings. The chains that bound us are gradually relaxed, the restrictions that fettered us are one by one removed, as intelligent insight grows strong enough to take the place of physical compulsion. We obtain command of Nature by knowledge of her laws, and it is by our obedience to the laws of the material that we win our way to spiritual freedom. Hence I SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL PROGRESS. 299 there Is deep symbolic truth In the myth of Prome- theus the Firebearer, which connects the discovery of fire with man's advance to a higher spiritual con- dition. For it Is difficult to realize, and impossible to over-estimate, the importance of this step In the splrltuallzation of Matter, whereby what had seemed hopelessly unmanageable and Immovable vanished and volatilized at the magic touch of flame. And In the splrltuallzation of man the discovery of fire was no less essential, as the foundation of all subsequent spiritual progress. And It is still true that spiritual progress In the long run depends on material progress, and this Is equally true of the development of the Individual and of the race. Indeed, It Is even more obviously true In the case of the race, when the process takes place on a larger scale and our survey extends over a longer history. Historically It is true that the higher has developed out of the lower, the moral and intellectual life out of the material, and ulti- mately it can only rise pari passu with the improve- ment of the material. It is a fact to which our vulgar Theodicy loves to blind Itself, that a great, and perhaps the greater, part of the evil in the world Is not due to the perversity of men and institutions, to the tyranny of priests and princes, but to the material conditions of life, and cannot therefore be removed by the mere progress of intel- ligence or morality. These evils are but the reaction of ordinary human nature upon the ineluctable pres- sure of material conditions, and can be eradicated only by a completer command of those conditions, by the knowledge which is power. On the other hand, the growth of knowledge brings with It a slow but sure remedy for these evils : every extension 300 MAN AND THE WORLD". of our knowledge of the nature of Matter affords the material basis for a higher spiritual condition ; ultimately material progress means spiritual pro- gress. And thus it is true of social, as of metaphys- ical, problems, that many which at present seem insoluble are slowly ripening ta their solution. Hence it is our business to take care that a due balance of functions, a proper harmony is preserved of the material, intellectual and moral' elements of progress. For a one-sided development is in the end fatal to all. Material progress alone, if it neglects the spiritual elements of life, will in the end bring about moral and' intellectual decay, and a condition of society not only unfavourable to further material progress, but incapable of maintaining the prosperity it has acquired. Power over Matter which does not rest on an assured basis of intelligence and morality is certain to be lost in the ignorance and violence of a society which does not make a proper use of the knowledge it possesses. And the limits of spiritual progress in the absence of a material basis are equally obvious. When " plain living " becomes a euphemism for starvation, "high think- ing " is no longer possible, and fakirism is a carica- ture of spirrtuality. And so in the case of the individual. Psychical progress is evolved on a physical basis. The in- tellectual and moral qualities are developed sub- sequently to the physical-, and developed out of them. And though this does not of course explain them away — for the lower cannot explain away the higher — it yet shows that the distinction of body and soul must not be exaggerated into an irreconcilable dif- ference. For just as Matter approximates to Spirit in the course of Evolution, so the body approx- A HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT REQUIRED. 301 imates to the soul. In neither case, indeed, does the lower become absorbed into the higher, but it becomes more distinctly subordinated to it. As we progress, the higher intellectual and moral qualities play a more and more important part in life, and tend to predominate in consciousness over the physical functions. For the physical processes tend to become unconscious. Conscious- ness, therefore, is less engrossed by the mechanism of life. Hence the body itself becomes more and more fitted to be the body of a spiritual being, better and better adapted as the vehicle of a life which is more than physical. It develops higher physical powers, and becomes less of an obstacle to spiritual progress. And when the individual development is allowed to proceed normally and harmoniously, there does not arise any conflict between the higher and the lower stages : the lower are the potential- ities of which the higher are the realization, the promise of which the higher are the fulfilment, the foundation upon which the higher rear the edifice, the stem of which the higher are the flowers. Hence the higher does not destroy or supersede the lower, but transforms it, and includes it in what is its realization also. The intellectual and the moral life is higher than and more than the physical, and also its perfection. Wherever, therefore, there appears an antagon- ism between the higher and the lower, we may rest assured that there the hiofher also has not been fully attained, and that whether the blame fall on the individual, or, as is more frequently the case, on the society, a higher life which involves the mortification and neglect of the physical is both wrong and foolish, i.e., both morally and intellectu- 302 MAN AND THE WORLD. ally defective. Ethical systems, therefore, which inculcate such a neglect of the material are funda- mentally false : for just because the physical duties are the lower, they take precedence over the higher: the physical necessities of life (to ^^i/) precede both in Time and in urgency the moral necessities of living we// {to eu ^ijv). On the other hand, the true meaning and function of the lower activities is to be sought in their rela- tion to the higher, which they prepare and promote. The natural shows its spiritual nature by supplying the machinery of spiritual progress and by promot- ing it in spite of the unavailing protests of spiritual beings. For though human stupidity has hitherto resisted rather than assisted the steady pressure of " natural " causes, we may trace, even within the narrow limits of human history, an irresistible secu- lar progress, which has strengthened the intellectual and moral elements in human nature at the expense of the purely animal. And even if we do not always approve of the methods employed, who are we that we should pit our insight against that of the power that works in Evolution ? Thus this view enables us fully to appreciate the social value of a materialism which calls attention to the importance of our foundations ; and while it is no less powerful in dispelling the Utopias of our fancies, dissipating our castles in the air and com- pelling us to uprear the structure of the higher life, stone by stone, by unremitting labour, it yet solaces us with loftier prospects based on the surer found- ation of scientific retrospect. § 31. And yet there is an element of truth even in the ascetic view of Matter. We might indeed have gathered this from the frequency and per- MATTER AS THE MARK OF EVIL. sistency at all times and under all conditions of the theory which makes Matter the principle of Evil ; for it would be contrary to all belief in the ration- ality of Evolution to suppose that even error, when persistent, is ever gratuitous. Accordingly we find that though Matter, being nothing in itself, cannot be the principle of Evil, and is not in itself evil, it is yet characteristic of an essentially imperfect order of things : it is, as it were, the outward indication and visible reflexion of Evil. For Evil is, like all things, ultimately psychical, and what is evil about Matter is the condition of the spirits which require the restraint of Matter. If, therefore, as Plato says, the body is the grave of the soul, and Matter is the prison of the Spirit, it must yet be admitted that it is not the existence of prisons which is to be deplored, but of those whom it is necessary to imprison. And Matter is connected with Evil in its double aspect, both as the engine of progress and the mechanism of the divine education of spirits, and also as the check upon consciousness. For if evil, i.e., inharmonious spirits were permitted the full realization of their conscious powers, they would be able to thwart and to delay, if not to prevent, the attainment of the divine purpose of the world- process. But if they are permitted intelligence only when they are ready to recognize the cosmic order and in p7^oportion as they are ready to do so, the aptness of the contrivance of Matter becomes mani- fest. The lower existences, i.e., the less harmonized, have their consciousness limited and repressed by material organization, in order that their power for evil may be practically neutralized, and that in the impotence of their stupidity they may have little 304 MAN AND THE WORLD. influence on the course of events. On the other hand, the higher existences who have learnt the necessity of social order and harmony, are thereby enabled to acquire that knowledge which gives them power over Matter. Thus there is a corre- spondence, on the whole, between the spiritual con- dition of an individual and a race and their material resources. We are too apt to chafe against the material limits of our being, too hasty in resenting the physical obstacles to our higher aspirations : it is possible that the real obstacle lies in the con- dition of our own souls, and that God knows us better than we know ourselves. What man, at all events, could claim to be entrusted with higher knowledge, and confidently assert that he would use the Ring of Gyges, the Philosopher's Stone, or the Elixir of Life, so as to further the highest spiritual interests of himself and of the world ? And so with societies. Let us suppose the reaHzation of what many of our social philosophers regard as the proper goal of human ambition. Suppose a humorous fairy revealed to us a secret by which we might satisfy all the material wants of life without labour. What would be the result on a society at the present level of intelligence and morality ? Would it not convert it in very deed into a " city of the pigs," intent only on making merry and making love, and totally forgetful of any higher destiny of man ? The truth and the true justification of the divine government of the universe is that we are not fit to be better off than we are, and that the whole gigantic mechanism of the material world is designed to further the attainment of the purpose of the world. But we need not fear that this mechanism will be IDEALISM AND PREHUMAN EVOLUTION. O'-'D found too rigid and mechanical, that in the ripeness of time it will put an absolute limit upon spiritual evolution. The time may come when Matter will no longer offer any obstacles to our wishes, and when in sober truth Man will, with a word, precipi- tate a mountain into the sea. Or can it be that a completer harmony of the human with the Divine Will can anticipate the course of social ev6lution, and give to saints and sages a power over Matter which transcends that of ordinary men, and even now enables their faith to move mountains ? Micrht not their power over Matter already rise to the level to be attained in far-distant ages, just as their intellectual and moral development towers above that of the societies in which they dwell ? But whether a belief which has found strong favour at all times and in all countries be well founded, is not a question for a philosopher to decide : it is enough for him to assert that there is nothing inherently absurd in the supposition, and that a will completely congruous with the Divine would needs have a complete control of the m.aterial. § 32. And with this suggestion we must leave the subject and close a chapter which has already been unduly prolonged, by a brief explanation of a difficulty which has often been felt an insuperable obstacle in the way of any idealist view of the material world. Granted, it may be said, that Matter is in itself unknowable, that a satisfactory metaphysical account of the world must always explain it in terms of Spirit ; yet how is it that the material world existed, apparently, long before spiritual beings came into existence ? Is not this conclusive proof that the world does not exist in the consciousness of spirits, R. ofS. X 300 MAN AND THE WORLD. whether as an " objective hallucination " or other- wise ? The objection sounds more serious than It Is, and the evolutionist Idealist at least will have no diffi- culty In answering It. For In the first place, what does the previous existence of the world prove ? What but that the world-process was proceeding at a time when, to judge by the knowledge which we, immersed in a certain stage of that process, at present possess, there were no beings in that phase of the process represented by physical existence on our earth. But this falls very far short of being a refutation of Idealism, or of proving that the material world Is not a phenomenon In the con- sciousness of spirits. For (i), as we saw In chapter vIII., material evolution Is an Integral part of the world-process, and obeys the same law as spiritual evolution, viz., that of the development of the individual In associ- ation. Hence it Is not true that the material existed outside of and before the spiritual process, We may not be in the habit of calling the development of atoms an evolution of spiritual beings, but the process which developed the material world and developed spiritual beings is one and the same, and the material Is but an earlier and less perfect phase of the spiritual development. (2) It Is at the utmost true only from our present point of view that in Its earlier stages the universe contained no spiritual beings for whom it existed, and our Ignorance of the possibilities of existence is no proof against the idealist view of Matter. For there might have existed, and still exist, myriads of beings In the world of a different order from our- selves, the denizens of stellar fires or interstella 1 THE PROCESS ONE AND SPIRITUAL. 307 Space, whose constitution and mode of life concealed them from our sight. There may be phase upon jDhase of existence, forming worlds upon worlds im- penetrable to our knowledge in our present phase, the existence of which may be indicated by the pre- human evolution of our world. And, lastly (3), the objection shows how slowly scientific discoveries find their way into philosophy. Philosophers still argue as if our earth were the universe, as if spiritual existence must be conceived to be confined to a single planet of a tenth-rate sun. Because 10,000,000 years ago no conscious beings inhabited our earth, it is forsooth impossible that other heavenly bodies were more populous ! But if spiritual beings in our phase of physical existence existed in other worlds, it is surely as probable that our solar system existed to adorn their skies, as that we are now the sole intelligent beings in the universe, and that the uncounted hosts of suns and planets exist either for no purpose at all or to provide employment for our astronomers. Thus it is (i) highly improbable that the phen- omenal world ever existed without spiritual beings in many, if not in all, the heavenly bodies. (2) It is highly probable that there are many other phases or stages of Evolution, different from that which constitutes our present physical world, and of which the existence of the world before that of spiritual beings would be a symbol, a piece of salutary scene- painting, which would produce an illusion in lieu of a reality we were not yet fitted to grasp. Or (3), it may be directly denied that the material world existed without spirit, seeing that it represented the lower stages of the evolution of spirits. And which- ever of these explanations be adopted, they are one o oS MAN AND THE WORLD. and all competent to account for the existence of the material world and in harmony with the account given of the spiritual nature of Matter in the above chapter. The result, then, of this chapter has been to show that the difficulties presented by the nature of our environment admit of solution only if we refer the phenomenal world to the transcendent or ultimate reality. By this reference we were enabled to transcend the infinities of Space and Time, the conflict of Ideahsm and the facts of life, to give a rough sketch of the nature and function of Matter in the economy of the universe, and so to solve the old puzzles as to the relation of Matter and Spirit, of body and soul. But in so doing, two further subjects were also introduced, those of the nature of God and of Evil. These subjects will have to be investigated In the following chapters, in which it will be necessary to make good the assumptions that God and Good and Evil exist in any intelli- gible sense, and so that they can make intelligible anything else about the world. CHAPTER X. MAN AND GOD. § I. The subject of this chapter is that of the relation of man to his cause, or his past, and if we denominate the supposed First Cause of the world God, it will possess two main connections with the preceding inquiries. In the first place, the concep- tion of a first cause of the world requires to be vindicated against the criticism stated in chapter ii. (§ lo). In the second place, we were led in the last chapter to explain the material cosmos as an interaction between God and the Ego, and to sug- gest positions which require further elucidation- It was shown by an examination of the contradic- tion of causation in chapter ii. that a first cause of existence in general is an irrational conception, in chapter iii. (§ ii) that causation is a thoroughly anthropomorphic conception, derived from, and ap- plicable to, the phenomenal world. On both these grounds, therefore, to say that God is the First Cause of the world is to say that God is the First Cause of the phenomenal world, i.e., the cause of the world- process. For the category of causation does not carry beyond the process of Evolution or the phenomenal world (cp. ch. ii. § 9). But if so interpreted, there is no absurdity in the conception of a First Cause. Our reason impels us to ask for a cause of the changes we see, and at the same time forbids us to say that 3IO MAN AND GOD. they arise out of nothing, i.e. causelessly. But if we applied these postulates of our reason to all things, to existence as such, they would lead us into the absurdity that all things having been caused, they must ultimately have been caused by nothing. But if this is impossible, if we cannot derive existence out of nothing, then there must be at least one existence which has never come into existence. Such an existence would be an ultimate fact, and the question as to its cause would be unmeaning. For being non-phenomenal, the idea of coming into existence, or Becoming, which is a conception apply- ing only to the facts of the phenomenal world, would not here be applicable. If, then, God is such an existence, such a conception of God satisfies both the requirements of our demand for causation and solves the difficulty which the conception of a First Cause presents, if taken in an absolute sense. Thus God is, (i) the unbecome and non-pheno- menal Cause of the world-process — the Creator. (2) We saw in the last chapter that God was also the Sustainer, as being a factor in the inter- action of the Ego and the Deity. (3) It has been implicitly asserted in our discus- sions of method in chapters v. and viii., that the Deity must be conceived as an intelligent and personal Spirit. For Cause is a category which is valid only if used by persons and of persons (cp. ch. iii. § 11), while personality is the conception expres- sive of the highest fact we know {cp. ch. viii. § 18) ; hence it is only by ascribing personality to God that He can be regarded either as the Cause or as the Perfector of the world-process.^ Lasdy, Evolution ^ fPersonality being avowedly an Ideal (ch. viii. § 19), the attri- THE FINITENESS OF GOD. 3^1 is meaningless if it is not teleological {cp. ch. vll. §§ 20, 21), and we cannot conceive a purpose except in the intelligence of a personal being. And we are prevented by the principle of not multiplying entities needlessly to invent gratuitous fictions like an impersonal intelligence or unconscious purpose. It follows (4) that God \^ finite, or rather that to God, as to- all realities, infinite is an unmeaning epithet. This conclusion also has already been foreshadowed in many ways. Thus (a) it followed from Kant's criticism of the proofs of the existence of God, that only a finite God could be inferred from the nature of the world {cp. ch. ii. § 19 s.f). No evidence can prove an infinite cause of the world, for no evidence can prove anything but a cause adeqicate to the production of the world, but not infinite. To infer the infinite from the finite is a fallacy like infeFring the unknowable from the known, and all arguments in favour of an infinite God must commit it. We argue with finite minds from finite data, and our conclusions must be of a like nature. (b) It follows fro mi the conception of God as Force {ep. ch. ix. § 21) ; for Force implies resistance, and if God is to enforce His will upon the world. He cannot just for that reason, be all — unless indeed He is by some inexplicable chance divided against Himself. And so, too (^), just because God is a factor in all things, He cannot be all things. bution of personality asserts merely that God is the perfection of the process whereby personal beings have arisen out of the lowest individualities of atoms.. There is lao objection, however, to the use of terms like supra-personal or ultra- personal, if we mean by them something including and transcending, rather than exclud- ing, personality. For doubtless the personality of God transcends that of man as far as that of the highest man transcends that of the atom. 312 MAN AND GOD. For to interact implies a not-God to react upon God. Lastly (a), finiteness follows from the whole account given in the last chapter of the divine economy of the world. § 2. But these conclusions conflict sharply with the ordinary doctrines both of theology and of philo- sophy. In theology we are wont to hear God called the infinite, omnipotent, Creator of all things, while in philosophy we hear of the all-embracing Absolute and Infinite, in which all things are and have their beingf. And as this conflict can be no longer dissembled or postponed, we must now either make good our defiance of the united forces of theology and philosophy, or be crushed by the overwhelming weight of their authority. In so un- equal a contest our only hope lies in the divisions and hesitations of our adversaries. For it may be that their agreement is not so perfect as we had feared, that the bearing of some of their chief objections is ambiguous, and that with a little skill we can find efficient support in the very citadels of our opponents. Hence we must aim at reconciling to the novelty of our views all but the most hope- lessly prejudiced, and seek to address appeals to them to which they cannot but listen. In dealing with philosophy we may appeal to reason, in dealing with religion to feeling, and In dealing with theology, which has not hitherto always shown itself very sus- ceptible either to reason or to feeling, to its own interests. Thus we shall show to the first that the rational grounds for the assumption of an infinite existence are mistaken and absurd, to the second, that Its emotional consequences are atrocious and destructive of all religious feeling, and to the third, that it is this doctrine which has been the fatal canker THE CONFLICT OF THE FINITE AND INFINITE. 313 that produced the chronic deblHty of faith, and the real obstacle to the practical supremacy of religion. § 3. In pursuance of our practice of starting from the apparently simple and intelligible, but really so confused, conceptions of ordinary thought, we shall examine first the religious conception of God. In the course of that examination it will soon appear that it is a self-contradictory jumble of inconsistent elements, of which those which are practically the most important imply the finiteness of the Deity, and tend in the direction of the doctrine we have propounded, while the others, •which are theoretically more prominent, but might be with great advantage dispensed with in practical religion, would, if carried out consistently, result in philosophic atheism. And not only is the combination of human and infinite elements in the conception of God an out- rage upon the human reason, but it leads to no less outrageous consequences from the point of view of human feeling. For by ascribing unlimited power to God, it makes God the author of all evil, and imprisons us in a Hell to escape from which would be rebellion against omnipotence. To be brief, the attribute of Infinity contradicts and neutralizes all the other attributes of God, and makes it impossible to ascribe to the Deity either personality, or con- sciousness, or power, or intelligence, or wisdom, or goodness, or purpose or object in creating the world ; an infinite Deity does not effect a single one of the functions which the religious consciousness demands of its God. It is easy to show that every one of the religious attributes must be excluded from an infinite Deity. Thus an infinite God can have neither personality 314 MAN AND GOD. nor consciousness, for they both depend on Hmlt- ation. PersonaHty rests on the distinction of one person from another, consciousness on the distinction of Self and Not-Self.^ An all-embracing person, therefore, is an utterly unmeaning phrase, and if it meant anything, it would mean something utterly subversive of all religion. For the infinite person- ality would equally embrace and impartially absorb the personalities of all finite individuals, and so Jesus and Barabbas would be revealed as co-existent, and the7^efore as co- equal incarnations of an infinite God. The phrase infinite power Is, as has been stated (§ i), equally meaningless. Not only is power a finite conception, applicable only to a finite world in which force implies resistance, but when used out of its settinpf it becomes a contradiction. Power is power only if It overpowers what resists, and it is not infinite if anything resists It. Infi.nite power, therefore, is as unmeaning as a round square. Neither can intelligence or wisdom be ascribed to an infinite God. For such a God could have neither personality nor consciousness, his intelligence would have to be impersonal and his wisdom un- conscious^ and to such terms our minds can give no meaning. And moreover, what we understand by wisdom is an essentially finite quality, shown in the adaptation of means to ends. But the Infinite can neither have ends nor require means to attain them. § 4. Goodness, again, is doubly impossible as an attribute of an infinite God ; in the first place, because 1 Or perhaps we should rather say " distinctness," for it is as a ratio essendi, and not as a ratio cognoscendi, that the distinction is important. It is important that God should ^'^ distinct from the world, but not that He should know Himself as such. I THE MYSTERY OF EVIL. 315 to him all things are good, and in the second, because the distinction of good and evil must be entirely unmeaning. To put the difficulty in its homeliest form, God cannot be both all-good and all-powerful, in a world in which evil is a reality. For if God is all-powerful everything must be exactly what it should be, from God's point of view, else He would instantly alter it. If, then, evil things exist, it must be because God wills to have it so, i.e., because God IS, from our point of view, evil. Or conversely, if God is good. He must put up with the continuance of evil because He cannot remove it. This is the * terrible mystery of evil ' which for 2,000 years has been a stumbling-block to all practical religion, tried the faith of all believers, and depressed and debased all thought on the ultimate questions of life, and is as ' insoluble a mystery ' to theologians now as it was In the beginning. And it is perhaps likely to remain so, seeing that, as Goethe says, "a complete contradiction is alike mysterious to wise men and to fools," and that no labour can ever extract any sense out of a orratuitous combination of incoherent words. o Hence it is not surprising that no attempt at re- conciling the divine goodness with divine power has ever been successful ; indeed, the only way in which they have ever appeared to be successful was either by covertly limiting the divine power, or by misusing the term goodness in some non-human sense, to denote a quality shown in God's action towards imaginary beings other than man. Thus Leibnitz's famous Theodicy, e.g., depends on a limitation of God. For to show that the world is the best of all possible worlds is to imply that not all worlds were possible, so that the best possible did not turn out a perfect one. o 1 6 MAN AND GOD. So, again, to say that God created the world because it was good, is to limit God by the pre- existence of a good and evil independent of divine enactment. Nor, again, can the responsibility for evil be shifted to the Devil or the perversity due to human Free-w^ill, unless these powers really limit the divine omnipotence. For if we or the Devil are /^r- mitted to do evil while God is able to prevent or destroy us, the real responsibility rests with God. On the other hand, the commonplace suggestion that, if we could see the whole universe, the good would be seen to predominate immensely, depends on an invalid use of goodness out of relation to man. For *' what care I how good he be, if he be not good to me t " What does goodness mean to us, if it is not goodness to us .'^ And besides, it does not answer the difficulty ; for it is still necessary to ask why God could or would not create a world, which was not only predominantly, but entirely good. It surely does not befit infinite power to neglect even the most infinitesimal section, to overlook even the remotest corner, to fall short of making the whole universe perfect. But perhaps the most curious interference of human limitations with the course of superhuman action is shown in the argument which sets down evil to the imperfection of Law. It is supposed that by a series of miracles all things might have been made perfect, but that this would have been inconsistent with the divine determination to con- duct the world according to natural laws. Thus evil is the price paid for ' the reign of Law,' for which we have in modern times developed a good deal of superstitious reverence. But the plausibility ^ DUE TO THE DOGMA OF INFINITY. 317 of the argument depends upon a wholly unwar- ranted analogy with human law^ It is true that human laws cannot avoid the commission of a certain amount of injustice, because law is general, and cannot be made to fit the requirements of particular cases. But how can we argue from the impotence of limited beings to the powers of mnipotence ? How can we suppose the divine intelligence incapable of devising, or the divine omnipotence incapable of executing, laws, which should not fail to be just in every case, to be absol- utely good always and under all circumstances? The argument surely forgets that the laws of nature are ex hypothesi the outcome of absolute legislative power directed by absolute wisdom, and might surely have been so enacted as to work with per- fect smoothness. And even if the universality of law were incompatible with perfection, why should not perfect goodness have been secured by a series of miraculous interventions ? How should we have been the wiser or the worse ? Would not such a series have ipso facto become the legitimate order of things? And how could even the most fastidious taste have objected to a deus ex machina, when no other procedure was known ? What then can have prompted the preference of law with its imper- fection ? Shall it be said that it was preferred as demanding less exertion of the divine power ? But it is both unprofitable and repugnant to exhaust the resources of unworthy human analogies in order to reject one after another the foolish palliatives of an insoluble contradiction. § 5. The simple truth is that the human dis- tinctions of good and evil have no application to an infinite Deity. We mtist admit that either all 3l8 MAN AND GOD. things are good, or that God himself is evil ; but in either case the value of the human distinction is destroyed. From the standpoint of an infinite Deity, on the other hand, all things must be good, for they depend absolutely on his will, and it is his will that all things should be what they are. God alone is responsible for all that happens, and every action is wholly God's and wholly good. And yet a true instinct tells us that the distinction of good and evil is a vital one, that things are not perfect, that Evil is as real as Good, as real as life, as real as we are, as real as our whole world and its process, and that it can be explained away only at the cost of dissolving the world into a baseless dream. Yet this is precisely what this unhappy dogma of the infinity of God leads to ; it denies the reality of evil, because it denies the reality and destroys the rationality of the whole world. So long as we deal with finite factors, the function of pain and the nature of Evil can be more or less understood, but as soon as it is supposed to display the working of an infinite power, everything becomes wholly unin- telligible. We can no longer console ourselves with the hope that " good becomes the final goal of ill," we can no longer fancy that imperfection serves any secondary purpose in the economy of the uni- verse. A process by which evil becomes good is unintelligible as the action of a truly infinite power which can attain its end without a process ; it is absurd to ascribe imperfection as a secondary result to a power which can attain all its aims without evil. Hence the world- process, and the intelligent purpose we fancy we detect in it, must be illusory, in precisely the same way and for precisely the I NO REVELATION OF THE INFINITE. 319 same reason, as evil. God can have no purpose, and the world cannot be in process. For a purpose and process both imply limitation. To adapt means to ends implies that the ends cannot be achieved without them ; to attain aims by a process implies that they cannot be reached instan- taneously. An infinite power, therefore, can have no need of means to attain its ends, no need of a process whereby to evolve the world, no need of evil as a means to good. It requires no means, and hence the '' means " it uses can have no mean- inof. The world becomes an unintellimble freak of irresponsible insanity. If the world is the product of an infinite power, it is utterly unknowable, be- cause its process and its nature would be alike unnecessary and unaccountable. Thus the attribute of infinity, so far from exalt- ing the Deity, would rather make him into a devil, careless of, and even rejoicing in, evil and misery, infinitely worse than the Devil of tradition, because armed with omnipotence, and, in view of the im- possibility of admitting the independence of the Finite, also infinitely more unaccountable, inasmuch as in inflicting misery on the world, he would after all only be lacerating himself. \ 6. And perhaps it may be added, for the benefit of theologians, and in order to complete the cycle of absurdities in which this supposed infinity of the Deity results, that it is utterly fatal to any belief in revelation. Revelation may be conceived appropriate on the part of a Deity of limited powers, who either cannot govern the world per- fectly by ordinary law, or uses it as an exceptional means which it would be too expensive to employ constantly, or as an occasional stimulus to acceler- 320 MAN AND GOD. ate a process which cannot be completed at once. But no such suppositions will apply to an infinite Deity, who does not require to economize his forces. For what novel perfection could he reveal to a world already perfect, or how could one thing reveal his will more than another, when all have been sealed with the approval of infinite might ? All things would reveal his will equally, and would be equally perfect and equally remote from the necessity of revelation. § 7. We have considered so far the contradic- tions in the current theological conception of God, and pointed out that they could be easily removed by omitting the attribute of infinity. But it must appear astonishing that so simple a solution was not adopted, especially when we consider the history of the conception. The monotheistic con- ception of God has existed in the world for nearly 3,000 years, and yet it has never been purged of so fatal a contradiction. Shall we then suppose that mankind takes a perverse pleasure in contra- dictions for their own sake, or rather admit that there must have been good reasons why so contra- dictory a conception was originally devised and has survived so long and on the whole so successfully ? A brief historic retrospect may clear up matters. The God of the theologians is, and has always been, a mass of contradictions, and the reason is that he is a hybrid between the God of the philo- sophers and the God of the people. Theological Monotheism is a compromise between Pantheism and Polytheism which has arisen but once in the history of the world, a marvellous accident in the development of the religious consciousness, which may well be esteemed divine by all who recognize THE HISTORY OF MONOTHEISM. 32 1 that the contradictions were the husk which pre- served a kernel of substantial truth. For Monotheism cannot be esteemed a stable or normal form of religion. It requires so perfect a balance of conflicting considerations, so accurate a retention of a very restricted standpoint, and, it may be added, so pious a blindness to its latent contradictions, that it has not hitherto succeeded in permanently existing, except in Judaism and the two great religions which are its direct descendants. The earliest religion of man is, as has been stated (ch. i. § 6), animistic, and gradually passes into polytheism, as the consciousness of the uniformity of nature becomes more vivid. As the result of this process, monotheism arises when the supreme god absorbs all the minor deities, and degrades them to the position of obedient ministers or angels. But as the minor deities are generally deeply rooted in the affections of the people, matters hardly ever advance so far towards unification before the thinkers have made religion the subject of their speculations. Philosophy thus begins in the poly- theistic stage, while the majority of men still be- lieve in many personal spirits, and so, by an easily intelligible reaction, the ultimate reality of the uni- verse is conceived to be both one and impej^sonal. In other words, polytheism passes directly into pantheism, without traversing any monotheistic phase, and this process may be traced in the relig- ionsr of Egypt, Greece, India, China, etc. Thus the vulgar are permitted to retain their personal gods, while the educated regard them as being all manifestations or epithets of the One and All, of Brahma, Isis, etc. Now the interesting point about Jewish mono- R. ofS. Y 322 MAN AND GOD. theism is that it stopped in the middle of this process. The tribal God of the Hebrews was indeed exalted into the absolute Creator of all things, but, either from lack of philosophy, or from the intensity of their conception of personality, they yet illogically retained the attributes of personality, goodness, wisdom, consciousness, etc. Hence there was from the first an irreconcilable conflict between the discordant elements of personality and of pan- theism, which could be palliated by various exped- ients, but never transcended, and which has been passed on from Judaism to Christianity and Mo- hammedanism. And while, with the aid of a personal Devil and a personal Redeemer, the personal element in our monotheism has received more popular emphasis, the more philosophic theologians have shown a constant tendency to lapse into pantheism. And so religious philosophy has varied through all shades of opinion, from Pantheism and the confines of Atheism to those of Dualism and Manichaeism, without ever arriving at consistency. Nor was it possible to arrive at consistency without sacrificing elements which seemed indispensable. To have renounced the pantheistic side of monotheism would have been to defy, not so much philosophy — which at that time at least was largely dualistic, and subsequently accepted its doctrine of the Infinite largely from religion — but the popular prejudice which regarded infinity as the ideal of magnitude {cp. ch. ix. § 2), and could not distinguish between creation out of Aristotle's *' formless matter " and creation out of nothing. To have abandoned the personal elements would have been still more fatal. It was by finiteness and limitation that God was [E INFINITE r brought near to the rehgious consciousness ; it was the personaHty of God which suppHed the real motive force of the rehorious emotions. For where- as many reHgions have failed because they did not render God human enough, the success of our own fis an eloquent example that no religion can> ever make God too human. Accordingly, it was felt that if the personality of God were lost, all. would be [lost, nothing would be left that would be: able or [desirable to explain the world. And so it was felt to be better to assert the personality of God ;as an irrational and incomprehensible dogma of faith than to annihilate religion in the abyss of [pantheism. And we may trace in this the work- ing also of the feeling that the personality of God embodied a truth which could not as yet be stated in set terms, the working of the faitb which pre- serves the truth until it grows great and prevails. Thus the contradictions of monotheism in the past have preserved the doctrine of the divine person- ality, which would otherwise have been merged in pantheism, have preserved a truth which the earliest stage in the development of religious consciousness instinctively grasped, but which the spiral of the line of progress subsequently obscured. But the merits of monotheism in the past are no reason why we should for ever acquiesce in its failure to find a solution : it is neither prudent nor reasonable to regard the contradiction as final. And least of all is it feasible in a crisis like the present. The incomprehensible has passed from the lan- guage of religion to that of irreligion, and by a Nemesis not wholly undeserved, theology is now being devoured by a phantom of its own creation — the Unknowable. The traditional monotheism has 324 MAN AND GOD. lost most of its hold over thinking minds, and has been expelled by the very Agnosticism it had fostered for Its own protection. The world no longer seeks to escape from the perplexities of the human reason by an appeal to the Bible : the appeal lies to "the exact methods of verified knowledge," which by their very nature are bound to treat the Book of the Revelation of an (unknowable) God as one of the most curious of the repositories of primi- tive superstition. Thus do the eternal laws of retrib- ution avenge the truth upon those who wittingly or unwittingly use bad arguments, by the way In which they Invariably recoil upon their authors. Even, therefore, if acquiescence In a contradiction ever really profited the cause of religion, It can now do so no longer. Religion Is lost if It sinks Into the morass of the unknowable Infinite, In which It can find no foothold. In pressing this advice upon the religious guides of mankind. It Is impossible not to feel painfully that the patient to whom the advice is tendered has already suffered much advice from every quarter. But though a sick man receives much advice, it does not follow that It is all bad. And In this case the advice Is at least new. For It has at last be- come possible for religion to save Itself by the other alternative. It has become possible to purify Theism of its contradiction without dissolving It in Pantheism. The accumulation of the data enabling us to estimate the drift of the world-process enable us also for the first time to develop consistently the finite and personal elements In Theism ; and follow- ing out this train of thought we shall come to realize that religion, philosophy and science alike demand a belief in a personal and limited God. I PHILOSOPHIC PANTHEISM. 325 § 8. But before we can engage upon this task It will be necessary to wage a lengthy war with philo- sophic Pantheism, in order to demonstrate that the grounds on which it claimed to be rationally un- assailable are without exception illusory. The philosophic conception of God is that of the unity of the universe, the all-embracing, all-sustain- ' Irig whole of which all things are parts, the under- lying reality of which all things are manifestations. All is God, even where It Is attempted to deny that God = the All, and there is attributed to him an existence for himself. But by God, through God, for God, and In God all things are. § 9. This conception of God, which In the more consciously anti-thelstic systems is also called that of the Absolute or Infinite, occurs more or less explicitly in nearly all modern philosophers. An honourable exception must be made in favour of Mr. Mill, who alone In modern times has pleaded In favour of a limited God.^ Such limitation, more- over, is really required by consistency in all indi- vidualistic systems, notably in those of Berkeley and Leibnitz. Greek philosophy, on the other hand, is almost exclusively dualistic, and hence, though the Deity Is rarely conceived as personal, he Is never = the All, i.e., Is never Infinite. But down to the latest times of Neoplatonism, Matter Is conceived as a principle which contests the supremacy of the Good. And though of course this dualism of Matter and Reason, of the unknowable and knowable. Is objectionable on several grounds — and not least because Matter is not able to explain itself, much less the world and the limitation of the Deity — it may be thought a moot point whether a false dis- ^ In his Essays on Religion (3rd ed.), p. 36 ff., p. 176 fif. 326 MAN AND GOD. tinctlon was not preferable to an unjustifiable con- fusion. It seems doubtful whether an assertion of the unity of things which left no room for the recog- nition of their difference was a change for the better. Certainly philosophy has since had occasion to repent of its hasty identification of the Deity with the unity of the universe, and to lament the failure of every system which attempted to understand the world on this assumption. Bitter experience alone of the impotence of philosophy, of the stagnation and retrogression of metaphysics, which have now dropped as far behind the physical sciences as they were ahead of them 2,000 years ago, might have raised doubts as to the correctness of this funda- mental assumption of philosophy. And those doubts our examination will fully confirm. § 10. The conception of the Deity adopted by philosophic pantheism is from every point of view a mistake. Emotionally it is a mistake, because the philosophic Infinite is not God, and cannot satisfy the religious emotions. Scientifically it is a mistake, because it is not a principle which is capable of ex- plaining anything in or about the world. Logically it is a mistake, because it is grounded upon fallacies and paralogisms. Emotionally Pantheism is disastrous, because it has destroyed the soil on which alone human emo- tions can develop. Religious emotion is destroyed by the fact that the god of Pantheism is, to all intents and purposes, fiothing. Moral activity is destroyed by the fact that the distinctions of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, what is and what ought' to be, must to Pantheism be ev-er and entirely un- meanmof. Scientific activity is destroyed by the fact that WHY PANTHEISM IS ATHEISM. 327 the world, In whatever way we look at it, must of necessity be meaning- and purpose-less. In short, it is in vain that Pantheism tries to avoid the con- fession that our life is a senseless illusion : it cannot vindicate the reality of our partial life against the all-absorbing claims of the whole. In the first place Pantheism is Atheism, and only a lack of courage or of logic can distinguish between them. For if all is God and all is one, all distinc- tions vanisL All is right and all is well, for all things exist but by the favour and support of the Infinite: to decry the perfection of any existing thing is to blaspheme against God. Hence all appeal to God is futile: it is for God to appeal to God against God. So being equally in all, God is not a factor in the course of life : God is a quantite ndgligeable, because equally shared by all things. To suppose that Pantheism leaves more room for religion than Atheism is as absurd as though we thought to diminish the inequalities of wealth by multiplying every man's property a thousandfold. So for prac- tical purposes Pantheism and Atheism are the same, except that the latter has the frankness to call things by their true names. In the mouth of a Pantheist the accusation of Atheism is indeed ridiculous. For just as King Charles II. wittily declared during the Popish Plot, that he feared to be dethroned for his complicity in the plot against his own life, so the Atheist may plead against the Pantheist that in his impiety he ofiends against no one but himself, and that no one need interfere if it pleases God to blaspheme himself. In the second place, Pantheism is no less fatal to the moral than to the religious sentiments. For it must regard all good and evil as relative and there- 2,28 MAN AND GOD. fore as illusory. It is only from our perverted standpoint that the distinction of Good and Right and Evil and Wrong and imperfection exists ; from that of the Infinite, that which is, is what it ought to be, and everything occupies just the position it should. The '' God " of Pantheism is not only im- potent to alleviate our sufferings — sufferings which he himself inflicts upon himself — but he is actually indifferent to them ; the physical and mental tortures of myriad beings are actually seen to be " very good" in the eyes of "God." And of this diabolical indifference he can only be acquitted if we reflect that it must evidently proceed from ignorance. For God cannot be in any way aware of our woes, not only because an infinite God cannot be in any way conscious (§ 3), but because, from the standpoint of the Infinite, our whole phenomenal world must be nought, unfelt, uncared for, and unknown. Our '' real " world is as relative as good and evil, and like them would vanish sub specie cEtemitatis, For the all-embracing Infinite admits of change as little as it does of imperfection or of Time. It is all things and has all things, and therefore no change could add to or subtract from its substance. If, therefore, change appears to exist, it must be an illusion of our deluded sight, which does not pene- trate to the Infinite. The world would be an inex- plicable illusion, an unmeaning, incoherent pageant, dreamt by the grotesque creatures of the Absolute's unconscious dream, an unreal chase of shadows across the dark background of the Absolute, a phantasmagoria existing only in the fancy of the phantoms that behold it. And so its fleeting shadows would not affect the Absolute, nor it them : not though we cry aloud shall we awake the sleep- WHY PANTHEISM IS UNSCIENTIFIC. 329 in Of " orod " of whom we are the dream. Heaven is as dumb and irresponsive to the prophesyings of the philosophers of the Absolute as it ever was to the priests of Baal. § II. And earth also: for the Absolute is no less incompatible with the methods of human science. An infinite God is as much out of relation to human knowledge as to human feeling. Pantheism ex- plains nothing, just because it professes to explain everything. For a principle which may be regarded as the ultimate ground of all things cannot be used as the explanation of anything in particular. Hence we arrive at the paradox that the ultimate ground of all things, and cause of their existence, is the cause of nothing in the nature of that existence. In other words, for the purposes of science as well as for sentiment. Pantheism resolves itself into Atheism. It follows that there is an irreconcilable conflict between Pantheism and all the finite methods by which men have sought to understand the world. The evolutionist method especially, regarding the world as a process, is pledged to deny the Infinite in every form {cp, ch. vii. § 20). For nothing infinite can be in process, or if it is in process, the process must be unintelliofible. The vulgar hear and admire such explanations of things as that '' the Absolute can realize itself only in the world," that '' it becomes self-conscious only in man," and even that '' the history of the world is the process whereby the Absolute returns into itself enriched." But if such phrases can, upon reflection, satisfy philosophic minds, the whilom adversaries of anthropomorphism must have come to content them- selves with the flimsiest metaphors of a very sorry anthropomorphism. n n I oJO MAN AND GOD. If, e.o-.^ the Absolute is realized in the world, then either the existence of the world is necessary to that of the Absolute, or it is not. If it is, the world must either have existed for ever, for the Absolute to be real, and it is absurd to speak of the Absolute as the First Cause (ch. ii. § lo), or the world and the Absolute have come into existence together. But if the Absolute has come into existence, it must have become either out of something or else out of nothinof, for it cannot have originated out of itself before it existed itself. If out of nothinof, cadz^ qucestio ; it is admitted that nothing is the ultimate ground of existence, and that existence is ultimately irrational. If out of something else, then that some- thing and not the Absolute is the real ground of existence ultimately, and the same question must be raised about it, and so on to infinity. If, on the other hand, the world was not necessary to the existence of the Absolute, then why was it generated ? If it was generated for any reason, then why did that reason impel the Absolute to generate the world at the time it did, rather than at any other ? Did the Infinite begin to find infinite time hang heavily on its hands, and if so, why did it begin to do so ? Or if the world was generated for no reason, if we are driven to admit that the Absolute cannot be moved by reasons, is not this the most absolute indeterminism (ep, App. § 4), the most complete confession of the irrationality of the world? For what explanation is it of the world to derive it from an uncaused, unprovoked,, and (as we shall see in § 12) impossible change in the Absolute ? And even supposing that in some utterly inscrut- able way the Absolute somehow had something to do with the o^eneration of the world, what could it WHY THE ABSOLUTE CAN HAVE NO PURPOSE. 33 1 possibly have effected thereby ? What difference could creation make to it ? What could it realize by creation that was not already real ? It must be supposed to have created all things out of itself, seeing that it could create them neither out of nothing nor out of something outside it. But it already was all things, and contained all things ; and so could neither realize itself nor anything else any more than it was realized already. And the idea that the Absolute attains to self-^ consciousness in man is equally untenable, when analysed. The Absolute either contains self-con- sciousness already, and then it is nothing new, or it does not, and then the same question arises as to how anything can come into being within the circle of an all-embracing being. For the paltry excuse that all things exist potentially in the Absolute be- fore the creation, but not actually until the world is created, will not help us out of the difficulty. Poten- tial existence, as we saw, is nothing (ch. vii. \ i8), nothing but a reference to a higher actuality. And in this case there is no higher actuality to refer to ; for it would have to be an actuality that could dis- pose the all-mcluding Absolute to realize its poten- tialities. We require something to explain how in the Absolute potentiality can be something and something different from actuality, to explain how the difference between them could arise. If the world was ever potential, then why did it become actual ? And besides, the idea that our consciousness is of any value to the Infinite surely displays the most extreme extravagance of human arrogance. Why should the Absolute become self-conscious in man ? Because he happens to be the highest being with which our limited knowledge is acquainted 1 But 332 MAN AND GOD. why should not the unnumbered stars contain myriads of beings Incomparably loftier than the obscure denizens of a paltry planet ? What, then, is the use of man, and the use. In any case, of count- less beings ? Why should the Absolute strive to become Imperfectly self-conscious in the lower stages of spiritual existence, when it might do so perfectly In the highest ? What sense is there in attaining by a long, laborious process, what might have been attained with instantaneous ease ? Assuredly, neither the human nor any other reason can ever discover the meaning of a world-process, which takes means to an end which mi^ht have been attained without them. To our " finite " minds such a process must always appear an absurdity ; it is a process which can reveal nothing but the ulti- mate insanity of all things. And if the means of the world-process are thus absurd and irrational, its end Is no less meaning- less. For how can it " enrich the Absolute " } Can any process which takes place within the infinite All add one feather's weight to its sub- stance, diminish or increase by one jot or tittle the belnof of that which Is all thin£s and has all things ? Will it not be what It is alike amid the crash of worlds and amid the throes of their birth '^. It would be paying the utter absurdity of this con- ception of the Infinite concerned In a process, an un- merited compliment to liken it to a spider spinning elaborate cobwebs out of Its own substance, and then, finding that there was nothing else to catch In them, proceeding to enmesh itself in its own web, and after infinite labour succeeding In reabsorbing its own production. And yet such melancholy absurdities are put forward not by one or two philosophies, but I WHY THE ABSOLUTE CANNOT BE IN PROCESS. 2>33 by nearly all who attempt these ultimate questions at all, as the deepest truth about the nature of things ! It is perhaps fortunate that the obscurity of their language conceals this final void from the generality of men, but it exists in all philosophies which make an infinite God their first principle.^ § 12. Pantheism, then, destroys the reality of the world-process. But we may go further and say that it is for similar reasons equally incompatible with all Change or Becoming. This is not, it is true, a ^ It is sufficient to show this in one case, for excjnplo ab uno disce o?fines, and we shall choose for that purpose one who is as certainly the frankest and clearest as he is the ablest of modern metaphysicians. E. von Hartmann is strongly and sincerely con- vinced that the world is a process, and that, too, a process of redemption. A redemption of what ? Of the Absolute ! For the Absolute is now no longer absolute, but a mere ci-devant Absolute, and requires to be redeemed from the deplorable con- sequences of a youthful faux pas. It created the world, or en- tered upon the world-process, in a fit of temporary insanity. Or, as von Hartmann puts it more politely, when the absolute Uncon- scious is quiescent, its Reason is non-existent, and its Will is potential. Only, unfortunately, the Will is not in this condition guided by Reason, and so the Unconscious commits an irrational act of willing, and becomes actual. But by the nature of things (superior to the Absolute-Unconscious ?), to will is to be miser- able, and the Unconscious is supremely miserable. So it stirs up its Reason, and the Reason devises the world-process as a sort of homoeopathic cure of the misery of the Absolute, the end of which is to bring the Unconscious back into the quiescence from which it so rashly and irrationally departed. It is interesting to note in this, (i) the frank admission that the ultimate cause of the world's existence is the irrational, in this case an irrational act of Will ; (2) that even when this has been assumed, it must be supposed also that for practical purposes of explaining the world, the Infinite has ceased to be infinite. Not even when we have been told that the ultimate reason of things is something for which no reason can be given, can anything be made of the world except on the sup- position that somehow this irrational Absolute has ceased to be infinite. 334 MAN AND GOD. consequence Pantheists have been willing to admit, since the days of the Eleatics, but all this proves Is the pitiful inferiority and Inconsistency of subsequent Pantheists. For the impossibility of Becoming fol- lows incontestably from the reality of the All. For let us suppose that the world has a content or meaning A, i.e., A of the quality or attribute in which its meaning consists. Now let us suppose that a change takes place, and its content becomes a. Now whether the change of A into a be an increase or a diminution, the amount of its Being has changed. Its content or meaning has increased or diminished. But the Absolute can neither increase nor diminish the amount of its Being, for it already is and has all. Its content, therefore, must be expressed by the equation A = A = A to all eternity, i.e., it is un- changeable.-^ If, therefore, changes take place in the phenomenal world, the Inference is either that that world is not the absolute All, or that the absolute All is a delusion. If, however, we Identify or connect the chancrinof world with the Absolute, we must neces- sarily hold that Its changes are merely phenomenal, illusions of our senses which do not affect the Absolute, that properly speaking, i.e., from the true 1 Cp. ch. vii. § 24. It may, perhaps, be objected to this illustra- tion that to assume a content A is to Assume the finiteness of that content. And this is true, but the assumption is really first made when the world is supposed to have a meaning, i.e., a content expressible in terms of the All. For (owing to the finiteness of our minds ?) all the conceptions of our thought imply finitude, and an infinite meaning is a meaning which means both this and that, i.e., is indeterminate, and so means nothing at all. If, therefore, we are to reason about the Infinite at all, we can only do so in terms constantly implying finiteness, a fact which is significant enough to those who deny the reality of the Infinite, though it may well drive its champions to despair. WHY THE ABSOLUTE CANNOT CHANGE. 335 Standpoint of the Absolute, change Is impossible. And this is precisely what the Eleatics did : they showed that the conceptions of the changes and motions which appeared to our senses involved con- tradictions to our reason {cp. ch. iii. § 8), and inferred from this that the sensible world was an illusion. And, we may add, an inexplicable and impracticable illusion. For what theory or practice is possible of life, if change, the fundamental characteristic of the world, Is to be treated as nought ? To us change is real, and change of content is real ; to us there Is a meaning in saying the world is poorer in virtue and in wisdom when a good and wise man dies. Does it not then sound like a derision of our whole life to say the All is as rich as before, and all our changes and our losses are illusions ? A view of the Deity which leads to such conclusions has nothing to do with human life ; it must be banished from all minds that wish to retain their sanity. For the examination shows that if the Absolute is real, the relative is absolutely unreal, and that the philosophic account of the real world thus leads to the curious conclusion that it is supposed to be ex- plained by a principle which reduces it to absolute unreality. The pantheistic conception of the Deity absorbs the world into God, and then discovers that the latter cannot assimilate it : so it Is compelled to reject it as an illusion, and arrives at the self-contra- dictory reductio ad absurdum, that from the stand- point of the finite, God Is nothing, while from the standpoint of the Infinite, the world is nothing, whereas from the standpoint of Practice they both agree in the corollary that the world is irrational and inexplicable. § 13. But here we may fitly introduce the 2,2,6 MAN AND GOD. hackneyed objection which may long have seemed the only refuge of the belief In the Infinite. These difficulties, it may be said, only show that our finite minds cannot grasp the Infinite, and that the Infinite, therefore, must appear a mass of contradictions from the standpoint of the Finite. The abstractions of our finite reasoning produce a show of contradiction in what Is perfectly consistent from the standpoint of the Infinite. The true attitude of the human mind in such matters is a reverent confession of weakness, which admits as a faith, and bases upon feeling, 3. mystery which Is Insoluble to our finite 7^eason. Such has ever been the language of hard-pressed absurdities, when driven Into a corner. They en- velop themselves In a cap of darkness, and seek to escape under the protecting gloom of our ignorance. But in reality this pseudo-religious agnosticism has as little to do with religion as it has with reason. Agnosticism is a superstition equally baleful and hateful, whether it masquerades in the vestments of religion or of science (as in ch. li.), and the worship of the Infinite Is an idolatry precisely on a par with the reverence for the Unknowable. They are both self-contradictory phantoms which the human mind has conjured up out of the boundless maze of error, and hypostaslzed and materialized by parallel paralogisms. And If we look at the magnitude of the issues Involved, It must surely be admitted that the worst of all Idolatries Is that which requires the human mind to sacrifice Its faith In the rationality of things, in its own competency to solve the problems of its life. In order that it may fall down and worship the contradictions It has Itself set up. The argument from the *'finlteness" of our minds THE INFINITE AS A FAITH. 337 will not bear the light of day. Its very statement is involved in all sorts of insuperable difficulties. It declares, e.o-., that our minds cannot grasp the Infinite, and yet, in the same breath, goes on to assert what it had asserted to be impossible. Just as the very assertion of the Unknowable involved its knowableness (ch. ii. § 3), so the very assertion of the Infinite involves either its finiteness or the infinity of the mind which somehow claims to be conscious of its existence. For if the Finite could not really grasp the Infinite, it could not so much as become aware of its existence. We must dismiss, then, the absurd contention that our minds cannot grasp the Infinite. If it had been true, they would assuredly never have formed so troublesome a con- ception as that of the Infinite. But the inquiry into how the human mind arrives at the idea of the Infinite is no less perplexing. We may suppose the mind itself to be either finite or infinite. Now if the mind is finite, and if the whole phenomenal world is finite also, there can be no ground either in thought or in things for assuming an infinite, and the saying that the Finite cannot understand the Infinite is true merely because there is nothing to understand, because the Infinite is an utterly gratuitous fiction. In order, therefore, to infer the existence of a real ^^nfinite, either thought or things must in a way be ^Bnfinite. Now, as has been shown (ch. ix. § 5), the ^■nfinity cannot lie in things, for if Space and Time ^Kire ultimately infinite, the world is unknowable. It ^Remains that the mind is infinite, that the so-called ^■Finite is of like nature with the '' Infinite," and that ^■there is no difference in kind between them. But if ^Bthe mind forms the conception of the Infinite in ^"virtue of its infinitude, that conception also must R. of S. 7 33^ MAN AND GOD. follow the laws of the mind's thought, and can as little contradict the laws of logic as its thought upon the most trivial of finite things. As, therefore, no matter whether we call the mind finite or Infinite, there can be no such thing as a real difference in kind between the Finite and the Infinite, but only a difference in degree, the Infinite Is not exempted from the sway of the laws of logic and of sane thought, and hence no indulgence can be shown to the attempt to combine contradictory attributes in the same conception. The Infinite must be judged by the logical rules applicable to all things, and In dealing with the Infinite, as with everything else, a contradiction must be taken as an Indication of somethinor amiss somewhere. § 14. But perhaps it will be admitted that the belief in the Infinite is not a matter of reason, not susceptible of logical statement. It Is a matter of feeling, and not even of all feeling (for it Is not a matter of perception, ch. ix. § 5), but of subjective emotion. Now this plea may be admitted in so far as it seems to recognize that the belief in the Infinite is reached by an unprovoked and ungrounded leap into the Void, which can be justified neither by reasoning nor by sense-experience. But the feeling to which It appeals must assuredly be of the most curious description. It affords an Intuitive and immediate consciousness of the Infinite, which is superior to all argument. It assures men not only of the existence of the Infinite, but also of its infinity. Its perception is so delicate that, even in the most ignorant and unthinking, It can distinguish with absolute certitude between real and practical In- finlteness. So when it asserts that God's power I* infinite rather than incalculably great, we are bound: THE LOGICAL BASLS OF PANTHEISM. 339 to credit it against all the opposition of our reason and of our senses. Such an emotion would truly be the most fearful and wonderful thing in our mental furniture, and we should have to contemplate it with unceasing amazement if there were any ground for supposing that it existed. As a matter of fact it has already been shown that our feelings not only do not require the assumption of an Infinite, but vehemently repudiate it (§ lo). A deity which is unknowable, inactive and in- different to all that happens in the world, is not one which '* finite minds " can either grasp or cling to. § 15. We have been considering hitherto the inferences to be drawn from Pantheism in its bear- ing upon life and science, and shown how unaccept- able it is from every emotional and scientific point of view. But the real root of the doctrine, the real reason of its persistence, in spite of its more or less obviously unsatisfactory consequences, is to be found in certain supposed requirements of logic and metaphysics. Hence it is necessary to subject the logical validity of the philosophic conception of [the Absolute or Infinite to a most careful scrutiny. jAs the result of that scrutiny, it will appear that the logical arguments for Pantheism are either fallacious lor inconclusive. § 16. It must be observed, in the first place, that Ithe conception of a whole or totality, which is used :in the arguments concerning the Infinity of the Deity, Is ambiguous. When, e.£:, we speak of the attribute of omni- potence, we may mean two very different things. To say that the Deity possesses "all" power may mean either that he has all the power there is, and can do all that can be done, or that he can do any- 340 MAN AND GOD. thing and everything. We may assert by "all" either perfection with respect to the attributes in question (power, goodness, wisdom, etc.), or an unlimited maximum. But the first of these con- ceptions is really that of a finite whole. To say that God can do all that can be done, is to Imply that there are things impossible even to God, is to assert that He Is limited by an ultimate constitution of things. And, as we shall see (§ 17), this is the true conception of a totality or whole; the true interpret- ation of the "all" is ''almighty," the true reconcili- ation of " omnipotence," with the finiteness, which is the condition of reality. But on the other hand, the generality of men do not realize that a whole or " all " is necessarily finite, and that an Infinite whole Is a contradiction {cp. ch. II. § 20; ch. ix. § 8), and imagining that an Infinite maximum can be a whole, they attribute infinity to God. But in reality an Infinite whole is Impossible, and the Infinite is only the negative limit of the finite, which can exist only in idea, and can never be actual. § 17. Now it is evident that if we can make good what has been asserted above, viz., that a whole is necessarily finite, the assumption of an infinite Deity becomes logically Inadmissible. It will follow not only that the All must be finite, but. that the Infinite is an absurd and misleading appel- lation of the All of Pantheism. But we must go further and assert that not even as a finite whole can the All be rea/, and thereby destroy the whole logical basis of Pantheism. For the Infinite or absolute " God " of Pantheism is nothing but the hypostasizatlon of the conception of the world as a whole, nothing but the abstract conception of a totality of things, nothing but the logical form of a I A WHOLE NECESSARILY FINITE. 34J universe as such. And as every world, irrespective of its content and character, may be equally con- ceived as a whole, it was inevitable that the Deity of Pantheism should be absolutely indifferent to the world (§§ II, 12) and to everything happening within it. For the inference from the worst world, and the most discordant content to such an Absolute would be just as valid and just as cogent as from the most perfect. God would in any case and under all cir- cumstances be the totality of existence. But this reasoning contains flaws which thoroughly vitiate it. In the first place, a whole is necessarily finite, for two reasons, (i) Because all our thought deals only with conceptions, and conceptions are necessarily finite {cp, \ 1 2 note) : hence we, in applying to a thing any conception of our thought, \n this case the conception of a whole, necessarily imply that the reality is as finite as our conception, (2) Because, according to its only true and valid definition, infinity consists just in the impossibility of completing a whole by successive synthesis {cp, ch. ix. § 3). If, therefore, the world is a real whole, it is for that very reason not infinite. But this proof of the necessary finitude of wholes may be said to show not so much that Pantheism is mistaken in- deifying the universe as a whole, as that the expression of ''the Infinite" is ill-suited to describe the totality of things. Yet even granting this, it would be no. slight help to the cause of clear thought, if the Infinite could be finally banished from the vocab- ulary of philosophy. § 18. Secondly, even permitting Pantheism to regard its deity, the absolute whole, as. finite, it is yet impossible to regard it, in the way Pantheism does, as a real and all-embracing existence. For. 34^ MAN AND GOD. such a View would involve a mistaken conception of the relation of a whole to its parts. For the conception of a whole is finite also In this, that it is modelled upon the wholes given In our experience, and that we have no business to extend the analogy off-hand to a whole in which the rela-- tion to its parts would be fundamentally different from anything with which we are acquainted. The wholes which fall within the range of our experience may be conceived in two ways, and in two ways alone. They must either be regarded from without, and given as wholes external to the spectator, or regarded from within, as the sum of their parts. In the first case alone, however, are the parts at once given as parts by direct inspection, and is the whole 2^ reality which includes the parts. In the second, the whole has to be constituted by the successive synthesis of the parts, and hence it is always ideal and exists for thought only. Now the universe, as the totality of things, is necessarily a whole of the second kind, since it is evident that there cannot be any existence outside it, which could regard it from without. But If so, it follows that the All is not a real whole, but literally ■*' the sum of things " ; the universe, as a whole, is simply a collective expression for the sum of its "parts." In other words, the whole is simply the ideal limit of its parts, and not anything which has real existence apart from them. The individual 'existences in the universe alone possess reality, and ;are the " first substances," and their inclusion in a supposed Absolute is simply an unpardonable repet- ition of the old Platonic fallacy of a transcendent universal, apart from and superior to the real individual. But the All is nothing beside the THE UNIVERSE NOT A REAL WHOLE. 34. I individual substances who compose and define it, just as the British nation is nothing real by the side of the individual Britons. For though it may be claimed that such a whole is in a sense real, it is not real in the sense in which Pantheism asserts the reality of the Absolute. The reality of a nation depends on the existence of its individual members, and simply expresses the fact that they act together in certain ways. Hence such a whole might be destroyed without the destruction of a single real individual, if, e.^-., all the members of a nation joined other communities. It follows, therefore, from the analysis of the rela- tion of a whole to Its parts that our experience of the real world affords us no analogy for the existence of a 7'eal whole, which should be both all-embracing and more real than its parts : the universe is not anything to which this our human conception of a w^hole can be applied. Thus Pantheism, in deifying the All, is proceeding upon a mistaken logical analogy, and we have here traced to its logical source the practical equivalence of Pantheism and Atheism. For If '* the sum of things" cannot be a real being, it can have no real effect upon life. § 19. Thus Pantheism must resign itself to the conclusion that no valid meaning can be given to the assertion that God is the All, unless we frankly depart from the facts of the phenomenal world. For it is possible to conceive the ideal of a third way of relating a whole to its parts. It is possible to conceive parts which should be logically implied in the whole, and incapable of existing except as parts of the whole. In such a case the w^hole w^ould be as real as the parts, by which it was irresistibly and certainly suggested, so that in stating the part 344 MAN AND GOD. we should ipso facto stdX^ the whole, and in asserting the existence of the part we should also assert the existence of the whole. And In this way, and in this way alone, we could argue from the given reality of the parts to the reality of the whole of which they were parts. And at first sight it would seem as if this concep- tion of a whole was not only logically thinkable, but also actually realizable. But this would be an over- hasty inference. For owing to the discord between thought and reality which at present exists {cp. ch. Hi. § 14; ch. V. § 2), we cannot argue from an ideal of our thought to a corresponding reality. The Real is ''contingent," things cannot be deduced, and facts cannot be demonstrated. At the best, reality is only realizing our ideals, and will not attain to them until the world-process is completed. And so It Is not surprising that the apparent examples of such a relation of parts to wholes, with which reality as yet presents us, turn out upon closer inspection to be delusive. All real things are more or less capable of being parts of many wholes, of being wholes that can vary their parts. There Is never any real necessity to regard a thing as the part of any single whole, and hence we can never conclude by a sure and single inference from the given existence of the parts to that of any parti- cular whole. The inference from the part to the whole is always precarious and probable, and never attains to strict and absolute certitude. We can find no examples even in the ideal regions of mathe- matics. There is nothing in an angle to compel us to regard it as the angle of a triangle, or in a semi- circle to prevent us from treating it as a simple curve, without reference to the circle of which it THE RELATIONS OF PARTS AND WHOLES. 345 may form part. Nor do the relations of a body to its members realize this ideal. The mutual implic- ation of members of bodies is in all cases more or less transitory and impermanent. The parts of all bodies are more or less capable of existing inde- pendently of their wholes, while all bodies have the power more or less of repairing the loss of their parts. In the lower organisms especially, the mutual independence of whole and parts reaches an astonishing height. To say nothing of leaves and cuttings capable of developing into complete plants, of the grafting of one plant upon another of a totally different order, we find that crabs will repair the loss of their legs, claws and eyes, that a lizard will part with its tail with the greatest equanimity, and that the arms of a male cuttle fish can sever them- selves from their body and embark upon the ro- mance of life on their own account.^ Even in man operations like the transfusion of the blood of one organism into another, and the transplantation of skin from one body to another, are perfectly easy. Hence we cannot from the mere sight of a member infer the existence of the body of which it was a member, although, as knowledge grows, we can define within gradually narrower limits the sort of body it must belong to. But the mere sight of an arm wull not enable us to assert positively whose arm it is, nor even establish its connection with a body ; for it may have been cut off from its body, nor will it tell us whether the body is alive or dead. Everywhere we find wholes which can dispense with their individual members with disgusting facil- 1 The hectocotylus. It matters not that this independence of the parts endures only for a limited period, for the wholes also which dispense with their parts are equally impermanent. 346 MAN AND GOD. ity, and parts capable of standing related to many and various wholes. The connection is never per- manent and unconditionally valid. But perhaps it may be answered that in the case of an all-embracing whole, like the universe, the source of error arising out of the multiplicity of wholes to which the parts may be related is elim- inated by the fact that there is only one whole of which the individual existences can form part. There can be no misinterpretation of the parts of the universal whole, for everything that exists must form part of the Absolute. This rejoinder, however, would rest upon an illu- sion. It appears correct only while we treat " the universe " as an abstract conception, and only be- cause the real question has already been begged in the mode of statement. In speaking of "the uni- verse," i.e., of an empty category, its imity has already been covertly assumed, i.e., it has been assumed that no misinterpretation of the parts was possible, that they could only be related to a single whole. But it is a delusion to suppose that when things have been shown to form part of a whole, they have also been shown to form part of a7iy pai^t- icular whole. Accordingly, as soon as ever it is attempted qualitatively to determine our category, i.e., to infer that the individual existences must form part, not of a universe as such, but of a real universe of a certain character, the old difficulty recurs, and it appears that they might form part of all sorts of qualitatively different cosmlcal construc- tions, and hence are not logically implied in any 07ie of them. Taking, that is to say, the individual existences as our data, we can so arrange them as to construct '' the universe " in many different ways. I I THE IDEAL OF A REAL WHOLE. 347 and oar data do not compel us to assume any part- icular kind of universe. For instance, we are attempting to interpret the facts of life upon the assumption of the ultimate rationality of existence, but we were in Book I. forced to admit that they might also be interpreted consistently with its ulti- mate irrationality. But which of these two theories about our data is right, is just what we want to know, and what Pantheism does not enable us to decide. To tell us that things may be regarded as a universe by means of the conception of a totality, is to tell us nothing of the least importance, and to offsr us this trivial truism in lieu of a God, is to mock our demand for a reality with the unsubstan- tial shadow of a logical distinction. Pantheism, therefore, has elucidated and explained nothing by applying to the world the abstract conception of a whole ; its Deity is indifferent to the world, because an abstract conception carries with it no reference to any definite content ; its Deity is not real, be- cause it is merely an irrelevant play with logical counters ; its Deity is not valid, because it requires an unwarranted manipulation of its data. § 20. The conception, then, of a whole necessarily inferred from its parts is an ideal and not a reality, and as such cannot guarantee the reality of the pantheist's All, nor affect our belief in the self-suffic- ing reality of the individual existences. And yet it is interesting to observe that, even if it could be realized, it would after all vindicate the reality of the whole only at a cost of concession to the parts which more than compensates them for the loss of their logical self-existence. For though it would have to be admitted that the whole possessed a sort of honorary priority, the 34^ MAN AND GOD. necessary implication of the whole and the parts would yet have to be really reciprocal. For in order to secure the certainty of the Inference from the part to the whole, the part must be incapable of being anything but the part of that whole, and as essential to the whole as the whole Is to it. The parts could not escape from the whole, but neither could the whole destroy the parts. If the whole Is necessary, the parts would also have to be neces- sary. There could be no such thing as coming into or passing out of existence in the relation of the parts to such a whole, no possibility of regarding their relation under the category of cause and effect. And even the most self-assertive individual might well endure to be called a section of the Absolute, if this relation guaranteed to him eternal and changeless existence. In this reciprocity of mutual dependence doubt- less lies the true solution of the difficulty, and the true reconciliation of the conflicting claims of the individual and the whole of which he is a part, a re- conciliation equally remote from either extreme, from an intractable self-assertion of the parts no less than from an all-absorbinof encroachment of the whole. And though it is an ideal which as yet finds no exact counterpart amid the imperfections of the real world, we have yet some reason to believe that the world is approximating towards It. The individual is becoming more valuable to the whole as certainly as he Is becoming less able to dispense with it. As the intrinsic worth of the individual rises, so does his social value. The greater a man, the greater the void his loss leaves, the more keenly is it felt by the society in which he had been a factor. And it is one of the crudest necessities of our imperfect THE FINITE LIMITS ITSELF. 349 State that we are not able to mourn our dead as we ought, that love and grief are transient, and, like ourselves, are swept away in the rushing flood of life. But even so, we may, in this approximation to a mutual dependence of part and whole, catch another view of the ideal we first caught sight of at the end of chapter viii., that of an eternal and har- monious interaction of individuals, who could not exist except as members of a perfect society, in a society which could not dispense with the services of a single member. But though such a whole would be heavenly, it would not be God, for it would be a hypostasization of the Interaction of the existent. And still less would It explain what after all needs explanation most, viz., the why of the world-process, why the world of which we form " parts" at present falls so far short of the purity of our Ideals. If, therefore, we choose to hypostasize the Interaction of the Existent under the name of the Absolute, we must do so with a full conscious- ness that it Is out of relation to the world as it actually exists, and can explain nothing in it. But there is no need to hypostasize it ; no reason to assume an " Infinite" to envelop and sustain the " Finite." To make the Infinite the metaphysical support of reality only involves us In superstitions as endless and as groundless as those which sup- ported the physical world on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, etc., etc. But just as little as the physical world requires an Atlas to bear it up, as little does the spiritual world require an infinite Absolute to confer reality upon it. And just as the celestial bodies maintain their positions by their mutual attractions and repulsions, so the Finite suffices to /zmz^ itselj] and the individuals are real 350 MAN AND GOD. and are also limited in virtue of their actions and reactions upon one another. All things are finite and relative, and the relative is relative to itself, and not to an absolute and unlimited nonentity, which must needs be out of all relation to the Real. § 2 1. The preceding sections have shown that the loo^ical orrounds on which Pantheism was based o o are fallacious and unnecessary, and as it had already been shown to be equally valueless for religious, moral and scientific purposes, every possible basis and motive for asserting its validity has really been disposed of. Nevertheless there remains a strong metaphysical prejudice in favour of Pantheism which cannot be uprooted without an inquiry into the most fundamental question of metaphysics, viz., that whether existence is ultimately one or many. If the ultimate oneness of all existence is main- tained, the doctrine is Monisrn ; if existence is asserted to be ultimately of two kinds, e.g., Matter and Spirit, it is DiLalism; if plurality is asserted to be ultimate, it is Pluralism. Of these, Monism has maintained a sort of pre- ponderance, because it appeared simpler and more satisfactory to " the philosophic craving for unity." On the other hand, it is incurably pantheistic, and disposed to dissolve away all the distinctions between things. Dualism, again, seemed able to preserve the all- important distinction between good and evil, for which Monism had left no room ; but it harmonized neither with the apparent plurality of the world nor with the philosophic demand for unity. Pluralism, lastly, had the advantage of departing least from the phenomena of the real world, but it seemed difificult to carry it out consistently. THEORIES OF ULTIMATE EXISTENCE. 351 Of these theories of ultimate existence, the inter- mediate theory of Dualism, which falls between two stools, may be rejected at once. It was virtually disposed of with the rejection of the ultimate differ- ence of Matter and Spirit (ch. Ix. § i6). The real battle has to be fought out between the champions of the One and of the Many, between Monism and Pluralism. And contrary to the opinions of most previous philosophers, we are in- clined to hold that the Many Is a far more Important principle than the One, and that Pluralism, consist- ently Interpreted and properly explained, is the only possible answer to the ultimate question of ontology. Monism, on the other hand, really has nothing to recommend It. It might indeed be possible to applaud the statement that philosophy aims at the unification of the universe, If it were not promptly made a pretext for asserting the reality of this unity, in the face of facts which deprive this so-called unity of all practical value, and reduce It from an assertion of a real oneness to that of a merely abstract unity. It would be more to the point If Monism could show a little more unanimity in the world, even at the expense of a little unity. And If more attention had been paid to the aiming at unity, the results would perhaps have been somewhat more satisfactory, and Monism might have recognized that a unity aimed at, and worth aiming at, Is for that very reason not yet attained. If they had taken the trouble to inter- pret their theory strictly, Monists might have realized that though Monism would be an excellent theory when the world-process was ended, it is for this very reason quite Inapplicable and extremely mischievous while It Is still going on. Then again, the supposed simplicity of Monism is 352 MAN AND GOD. a great delusion. It does not simplify the under- standing of the world to deny plurality, in order to assert its abstract unity. Or if the One of Monism be taken as the unit of Number, it certainly requires an astonishing amount of simplicity to see any diffi- culty in passing from one to as many as are wanted. For how is it more difficult to assume many ulti- mate existences than one ? One would have thought that when one was given, it was easy to count a thousand. If, therefore, the One of Monism is the unit of Number, the unity of ultimate existence is no simpler than its plurality, while if it is an abstract One, Monism is unable to explain plurality at all. And unfortunately, Monism has no choice of evils; it is forced to interpret the One as an abstraction which excludes all plurality. No Monism can ex- plain the existence of plurality: how the One became the Many, or how, having become, the Many can be distinguished from the One. For the One, being the sum total of existence, could generate the Many only out of itself, and however generated, their generation could not serve any purpose, nor could the Many really be independent of or distinct from the One. In whatever way we put it, the existence of the Many must be illusory : they are of the sub- stance of the One, and can neither disown their parentage nor dissever themselves from the One which was and is and will be all things. The Many can have no real existence from the standpoint of the One, and no raison d'etre. For supposing even that the One found the single blessedness of eternity tire- some in the long run, and created a diversion by mysteriously '* pouring itself out " into the world, there was yet no reason why plurality of types should not have sufficed, and this in no wise I MONISM CANNOT EXPLAIN PLURALITY. 353 explains what is after all the real crux of plurality, viz., its indefinite multiplication of imperfect individ- uals under the same types, the lavish prodigality and meaningless repetition of the Many. Why were so many millions of fleas essential to the happiness or comfort of the Absolute ? Would not a single specimen, nicely got up, have sufficed to show what absolute wisdom combined with absolute power could effect in the region of the infinitely little and infin- itely disagreeable ? Et niutato nomine de te, oh monistic philosopher, y^^^//^ narratur ! It appears here again that monistic Pantheism has to deny the reality of our world of Becoming and plurality. All systems which profess to explain the world from monistic principles have to make this transition from the One to the Many, and not one of them can make it intelligible. They labour in vain to describe it by inexplicable and unintelligible processes, which severely tax their resources in the way of obscure metaphor. But in reality the gulf between the One and the Many can be bridged by no fair or valid means : nor has the self-sacrifice of monistic philosophers, who have dis- carded all restraints of prudence and consistency in order to precipitate themselves into it with a reck- less devotion worthy of Mettius Curtius, availed to close the gulf. § 22. We may reasonably conclude, then, that Monism is a failure, that by assuming zmity at the outset it incapacitates itself for the task of explain- ing phenomenal ^///r<3;///jj/, and a fortiori for the still higher task of really uniting the Many in a signi- ficant union. But is Pluralism any better ofT? Pluralism, by assuming the ultimateness of plurality, does indeed A A R. of S. 354 MAN AND GOD. avoid the difficulty which is so fatal to Monism. It starts with an immense advantage over Monism : it has no need to explain away the appearance of plur- ality. But unless its position is very carefully stated, with more precision and consistency than pluralist philosophers have hitherto bestowed upon It, it has considerable difficulty in explaining the possibility, not of the abstract unity It rejects, but of real union. This difficulty may be elucidated by the example of the greatest of pluralist systems, that of Leibnitz, and the criticism upon it. Leibnitz asserted that the world was ultimately composed of spiritual beings, '' windowless monads," each of whom Ideally In- cluded, but really excluded all others. And this statement In its natural sense might have been taken as a forcible expression of the fact that the mutually Impenetrable consciousnesses of spiritual beings yet communicate through the common world of thought. But an unappreclative criticism could easily discover obscurities and flaws in Leibnitz's expressions. It was observed that if the monads were absolutely exclusive, they could not communicate at all, and hence no world could exist, nor plurality in It, and that Pluralism thus supplied its own refutation. If, on the other hand, the Leibnitzlan conception of God as the Central Monad, including all the rest,! was to be taken seriously, there was an end to the] substantiality of the others, and here again Plural- ism was abandoned. Such criticism, though it disregards the spirit, 11 not the letter, of Pluralism, may serve at least to! bring out the subtle way In which Pluralism includesj and involves the unity of things. It Is absurd, in the first place, to suppose thatj Pluralism asserts the existence of the Many In a PLURALISM. 355 sense and under conditions which would destroy the very fact it is most anxious to explain. The exclus- iveness and self-existence of the Many must not be so interpreted as to make nonsense of the whole position and to stultify the whole solution of the problem of plurality. For it is clear that if the Many were absolutely exclusive and incapable of having any connection or communion with one another, there would ^^ no Many, and no Plurality could exist. Each monad would form a world by itself, would be a One as impervious to criticism and as unconscious of all outside influence as the One of Monism itself. Pluralism would be no better than Monism. When, therefore. Pluralism asserts that the Many as a matter of fact exist, it must be taken to have thereby implied that they are also capable of existing as many, i.e., the- possibility of the inter- action of the Many is implied in their very existence, and does not require any special proof. And Leibnitz might well take for granted that as the Many do interact, they must also be capable of interacting, and that it was unnecessary to demon- strate that what actually existed was also capable of existing. He himself was far too well^ versed in Aristotelian philosophy to. suspect that his critics would require him to justify the possibility of the potentiality, where the actuality was obviously given. To such criticism, from the Leibnitzian as from the Aristotelian standpoint, there could be but one answer ; viz., that the potentiality was nothing without the actuality (ch. vil. \ 17), and con- sequently that the One, as the possibility of their interaction, was nothing without the Many, and that the real reason of things must be sought in the Many. 35^ MAN AND GOD. Yet as this possibility of the interaction of the Many is the One, PluraHsm is in a way based upon Monism : the Many presuppose the One. But not in any sense which can affect the substantlaHty of the Many. The One which is presupposed by Pluralism is the most meaningless of all things ; it is a mere possibility of the interaction or co-exist- ence of the Many ; it is a mere potentiality which has no actual existence except as an ideal factor in a real plurality. It is the actual interaction of the Many that gives a meaning to the One ; Monism becomes possible only when it has been included and absorbed In Pluralism. For if each of the many individual existences had never actually exerted its power of interacting with the others, no world would have existed. The terms " one " and "many" would have had no meaning, and there would have been no occasion for Monism to be. in- vented in order to explain how the many could be one. Monism is thus essentially parasitic in Its nature ; it is a theory which becomes possible only on the basis of the real fact of plurality. And it is equally dependent upon Pluralism for its further develop- ment. It is a theory parasitic also in this, that it construes the One on the analogy of the Many and after a fashion derived from its knowledge of the phenomenal world with its many substances ; in other words, it hypostasizes it. But by this hypo- stasization it refutes itself; by treating as a real and transcendent substance this co-existence and possibil- ity of the interaction of the Many, this immanent and impersonal ultimate nature of existence, it reduces the real world of existences, which it set out to ex- plain, to absolute unreality. And all this in order now PLURALISM IMPLIES UNITY. 357 to be able to assert the reality of a unity which, on its own showing, lies beyond all human thought and feeling ! It would be a sufficient justification for Pluralism that It protects us against such absurdities. § 23. But Pluralism can do more than this : it not only vindicates the actual plurality of things, and explains how the unity implied in plurality may be treated without dissolving all reality in an un- meaning One, but it can assert unity in a higher sense, which no Monism can reach. To assert the unity of the universe at present is to assert what is either trivial or false. If by unity is meant the abstract unity of the category of one- ness, if unity means merely that in. thinking '' the universe" we must from the nature of our thought imply its oneness, or, again, if it means the possi- bility of the interaction of the Many, the statement is the most trivial and unimportant that can possibly be made. If by unity is meant something incom- patible with plurality, it is false. If, again, a real tmity is meant, It is false ; for a real and complete union of the elements of the world does not exist. The interactions of things are not harmonious, they are not at one but at war. But Pluralism can hold out to us a hope that such a real union may yet be achieved. The Many, who at present Interact discordantly, may come not only to interact, but also to act together ; and their per- fect and harmonious interaction would realize the ideal of a true union, of a real unitedness, as far superior to the imperfect union of our present cosmos as the latter is to the abstract unity of the underlying One. Thus, in a way, the One is Alpha and Omega : as the basis of the Many, it is the lowest and least of 358 MAN AND GOD. things :; as their perfection and final harmony, it is the highest and last of things ; but it is Pluralism alone that can distinguish between these two senses of unity, which Monism inextricably confounds. Thus satisfaction is given to the legitimate claims alike of the One and of the Many, in a higher synthesis which transcends the extremes both of Pantheism and of individualism. Unity (in the sense of union) is admitted to be a higher ideal than plurality, but for that very reason it cannot be treated as real in an imperfect world. For the explanation of our existing world the first sense of the One is irrelevant, as being included in the mere fact of the world's existence, whereas the second is inapplicable, as being not yet attained. In the interpretation, therefore, of our world Pluralism is supreme ; it is the only possible and relevant answer to the ultimate question of ontology. It Is only by asserting existences to be ultimately many that we can satisfy the demands either of the Real or of the Ideal. And it' is a mere prejudice to suppose that there is any intrinsic difficulty in the ultimate existence of many individuals ; for the conception of ultimate existence is no more difficult in the case of many than of one. All thought must admit the ultimate- ness of some existence, admit a limit to the question of the origin or cause of existence ; for otherwise it would have to confess to the absurdity that the ultimate cause of everything is nothing or unknow- able (§ i). But as we saw in chapter ii. (§ 5), our thinking faculty, when rightly interrogated, does not require such an infinite regress of reasons, but readily acquiesces in the self-evident, and the ques- tion as to the cause of existence as such is idle I THE FINAL UNION OF THE MANY. 359 and Invalid. Our Inquiry must come to a stop somewhere, and this Hmit, the ultimate ground of existence, must be either the Irrational or the self- evident and self-sufficient. Now of these alterna- tives, It has been made abundantly evident that monistic Pantheism adopts the former, and reduces the world to the Irrational, to *' the delirium of an insane God," whereas Pluralism, by uniting the Many in an eternal harmony, necessarily arrives at the latter, at a state in which the ever-present reality of perfection permits no question Into what lies be- yond and before the actual. But though this reconciliation of the One and the Many affords us once again a view of the Ideal we have already twice caught sight of, once in dis- cussing the relation of the individual to society (ch. viii. § 19), and once in analysing that of the part to the whole (§ 19), we must leave its elucida- tion to a later period (ch. xii.), and content ourselves for the present with settling the comparative merits of Monism and Pluralism. Irrespective of the hopes Pluralism holds out for the future, it is enough that it is superior in the present. Whatever the diffi- culties that beset the question of ultimate existence, they are the same for both, the same whether exist- ence be ultimately one or many. And we are clearly bound in our inquiry to draw the line at a point where the conception of ultimate existence will throw light upon the phenomenal existence of our world. The world exists, and its existences are many ; Pluralism admits the facts, and thereby affords a valid theory of the world ; Monism can not admit the facts, does not explain the world, and therefore is not a valid theory of ultimate existence or ontology. 360 MAN AND GOD. § 24. An elaborate investigation of the doctrine of the Infinity of the Deity has been found necessary, but it was fully warranted by the magnitude of the issues Involved, and of the results attained. For it ought to have resulted in a firm conviction that neither religion nor science nor philosophy has anything to gain rather than everything to lose by the assertion of this doctrine. It ought to be at length clear to all that the Pantheism which is arrived at by deifying the abstract category of the unity of the universe arises out of paralogisms and confusions, is unable to explain the interaction of existences which do not require it, and, were it conceivable, would plunge all speculative and practi- cal philosophy into irredeemable chaos. The assertion, therefore, of the finiteness of God Is primarily the assertion of the knowableness of the w^orld, of the commensurateness of the Deity with our Intelligence. By becoming finite God becomes once more a real principle in the understanding of the world, a real motive in the conduct of ^ life, a real factor in the existence of things, a factor none the less real for being unseen and inferred. For it is much that the Deity can once more be made the subject of Inferences, that intelligible reasons can once more be given for the existence of God, and that the Kantian criticism of the " physlco-theo- logical proof" (ch. II. § 19) falls to the ground. And it is a sufficient concession to the instinctive humility of religious feeling to admit that the Deity Is tin- known to us as yet, that He is a God who "wears a fold of heaven and earth across His face" ; we must not permit it to ascribe to Him the suicidal attribute of unknowableness. And the discussion of the relations of Monism WHY THE WORLD IS IN PROCESS. and Pluralism should have largely brought out also the nature of God's finiteness. The finlteness of God depends on the very attributes that make Him really God, on His personality, on His being, like all real beings, an Individual existence. God Is one among the Many, their supreme ruler and aim, and not the One tmderlying the Many. The latter theory makes the Many inexplicable and the One Indifferent. God therefore must nol be Identified with Nature. For if by Nature we mean the All of things, then Nature Is the possibility of the in- teraction of the ultimate existences, and of these God Is one. And the existence of these ultimate existences explains also how God can be finite ; He is limited by the co-existence of other individuals. And from His relations to these other existences, which we have called spirits (ch. Ix. § 31), arise all the features of our world which were so insoluble a puzzle to Monism — its Becoming, its process, and its Evil — and in them also must be sought the ex- planation of the arrangement of the world down to its minutest detail. For as the existence of these spirits is an ultimate fact, God has no power to annihilate them ; the most that can be done Is to bring them into harmony with the Divine Will. And this Is just what the world-process is designed to effect, this Is just the reason why the world is in process. For if the divine power were infinite, It would be unnecessary to produce the harmony with the divine will by a long and arduous process. As it is not Infinite, occasion arises for the display of intelligence and economy, for that adaptation of means to ends which has always been justly esteemed the surest ground of a belief In God. And this same limitation is also the general ex- 362 MAN AND GOD. planatlon of Evil ; the world is evil because it is imperfectly harmonized with the divine will. And yet as God is not all things, He can be an ''eternal (or unceasing) tendency making for righteousness," and need not be, as on all other theories He must be, the responsible Author of Evil. For when once the identification of God with the whole of Nature is given up, the evil in the world may be due to that element in it which is not God, to the resistance of existences God cannot destroy and has not yet reconciled. And there are many points about the specific character of evil which bear out this inter- pretation. § 25. For let us compare the deductions from such a theory of the nature of Evil with the facts we find. We start with a number of spiritual beings struggling against and opposing the Divine Power, which may overpower, but cannot destroy them. What is to be done ? To leave them in the full possession of their powers and intelligence w^ould be to give them the power to do evil, to reduce the spiritual order to a chaotic play of wild antagonisms. To destroy them is impossible. But it is possible to do the next best thing, viz., to reduce their conscious- ness to the verge of non-existence. In such a state of torpor it would be possible to induce them to give an all but unconscious assent to the laws of the cosmos, and gradually to accustom them to the order which the divine wisdom had seen to be the best, and the best means to attain a perfectly harmonious co-operation of all existences. And as they grow more harmonized, a higher development of con- sciousness, and a higher phase of life becomes per- missible. Nevertheless every advance in conscious- ness renders possible a correspondingly intense THE NATURE OF EVIL. 363 relapse into antagonism or Evil, nor will such relapses cease to be possible until a complete harmony of all existences has been attained. Now do not the facts accurately correspond to this scheme ? The history of the world begins with beings to whom we can hardly attribute any con- sciousness or spiritual character. This obliteration of consciousness Is dependent on Matter, which has been recognized in the last chapter (Ix. §§ 27, 28) as a mechanism for depressing consciousness. Out of these lowest and hardly conscious beings there are gradually evolved, in periods which to us appear almost " infinite," higher beings with a higher con- sciousness and higher powers. And on the whole they display progressively higher phases of associ- ation and social harmony. The abuse of their higher powers for evil purposes, on the other hand, though possible, is confined to very narrow limits. For the physical and social laws of life form an effectual system of checks upon the selfish lawlessness of in- dividuals, and prevent evil-doing beyond a certain point. However evil the Intentions of a refractory spirit may be, his actions must involve some degree of submission to the cosmic order. And not only is he forced to recognize this order, but in proportion as he fails to mould himself in accordance with it, he tends to lose his power of disturbing it, by reverting to a lower and less dangerous type. To say that an evil-doer makes a beast of himself is true In more senses than one ; for by his indul- gence in his evil passions he tends to lose the higher consciousness which raises men above the beasts. His vices destroy his moral and intellectual perceptions even more surely than they do his body. For the lowest depth alike of ignorance and of 364 MAN AND GOD. wickedness Is unconscious : the utterly degraded criminal has lost the moral and Intellectual Insight, the conscience and the Intelligence, which the beast has not yet acquired. And even physically, could his life be prolonged, he would revert Into an animal state. For as evil is anti-social, the extreme evil- doer would be outcast from society, and so become unable to secure the manifold appliances of civiliz- ation. He would have to depend for his livelihood on his own unaided resources, on his strength of hand and fleetness of foot. His expression would be coarsened and animalized by his life. The higher mental activities would find no scope for their exer- cise, and the part of the brain by which they were expressed would be atrophied by disuse. For lack of the means of making clothing, he would have to grow a thicker covering of hair; for the lack of tools, he would have to develop his nails into claws. Nor is it inconsistent with this view that more intelllo^ent and cold-blooded wickedness maintains Itself In society, and often too In honour. For It is just by Its obedience to the laws, divine and human, by the moderation which, from self-regarding pru- dence, avoids offences which a superior power would surely punish, that such wickedness is possible. The criminality Is confined to intentions, and not per- mitted to Issue In overt acts. A bad man in a modern society is probably worse than a bad man 10,000 years ago, because his intelligence Is higher. But his instincts will not be as brutal, nor his actions as outrageous as those of his predecessor. He will be more consciously selfish in the choice of his ends, but he will not be as ruthless and barbarous In the choice of his means. He will, e.g., beware of a free indulo^ence In manslauo^hter, for the conditions of THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. 365 civilized life render murder too dangerous a pastime. Physically, also, his conduct will be more prudent, for he will find that the more complex dissipations of modern Hfe are more exhausting to his physical powers than the simpler debaucheries of the savage. Thus Evil is impotent and infra-human, in our world at least, rather than superhuman. And such a character of Evil serves to further the world- process indirectly also. It makes the attitude of resistance to the Divine Purpose ridiculous, con- temptible, and disgusting, as well as futile. The adversary of God is not a defiant fiend, armed with archangelic powers and irreconcilable in the intense consciousness of his undying hate, not the Demon we had been wont to fear, but the beast we had been wont to despise, a sordid swine, whose narrow out- look over the nature of things is limited by the barriers of his garbage, and the boundaries of his sty. And so the nature of our world confirms what we ought to have conjectured beforehand, viz., that the divine wisdom does not permit the world to be made a playground for devils, but imposes upon Evil disabilities which minimize its power to thwart the purposes of God and to affect the course of history. § 26. And so we find that Evil is that which resists the Evolution of the world, and fights a losing battle against the tendencies of things. It consists in this, that the end Is not yet, that the purpose of the world- process is still being achieved, that the discordant elements are still being harmonized, and that hence what is cannot yet realize what otcg/U to be. But though on this account Evil is an inseparable element in our world, an ineradicable element in all existing things, yet from the beginning Afo? S^ereXeiero 366 MAN AND GOD. ^ovXrj^^ and constrained chaotic wills Into the scheme of cosmic order. But this cosmic order of perfect harmony Is as yet unattalned, and so the world con- tains a neeative element of the unknowable, im- personal {'' Matter "), indeterminate ('' Becoming "), impermanent ("Time"), indefinite ("ignorance"), and imperfect (pain) — in short, of Evil; it is a world of Becoming and of Time, and not a true cosmos. But yet it is ever progressing towards perfection ; Evil and Imperfection is that which is ever vanish- ing away. It is impermanent itself and the cause of impermanence in the imperfect, the lawless and a- cosmic factor, which must be continually transcended and ultimately eliminated in the process towards perfect Being. And of that process all phenomenal things are transitory phases, that bear within them the curse of change and the seed of death, and we ourselves also must pass away. We are imperfect phases in the interaction between God and the Egos, the reflexes of relations that are not satisfactory or harmonious, and hence endure but for season. Hard then as is our lot, and bitter as are the pains the flow of Time and the impermanence of life inflict, it is yet not ill that the all-receiving gate of Death should open up to us a prospect of promotion into a more abiding state of being. § 27. Thus the complete account of man's rela- tion to God is that our actual selves, and the world In which we live, are correlated results of an inter- action between the Deity and ultimate spiritual beings or Egos, of whom we form the conscious part (ch. ix. §§ 22, 24). The imperfection and transit- orlness of this world of ours is conditioned by the 1 "And the plan of Zeus was working out its fulfilment." — Iliad GOD BOTH IMMANENT AND TRANSCENDENT. 367 unsatisfactory and unstable nature of the relations between the Deity and the Ego, and to this also must be ascribed the all-pervading element of Evil. But as the Deity is one factor in this interaction, i.e., in all things, there is within and throughout the world also an element of good, that makes for a more perfect harmony between God and the Egos, ourselves and the world. Thus God is immanent in all things, a constant, all-inspiring, ever-active Force. And yet God is not dissolved in the All, which was the heavy price paid by Pantheism for the immanence of its " God," but has also a real personality, a truer and transcendent existence for Himself. In this way we solve the old controversy of the transcendence or immanence of the Deity, by showing how God is in different ways both imman- ent and transcendent, and oppose to the Pantheistic Monism, which could not explain the world, a plural- istic Theism, which can. § 28. And if this doctrine seem at first somewhat to detract from the effective supremacy of God, and to shock the ears accustomed to an unthinking worship of the " Infinite," and if the ascription of Evil to the limitation of God seem even to reduce His power to a shadow, let us reflect, and realize that omnipotence becomes impotence in the absence of resistance, that resistance also Is the measure of power. Hence, though it may seem a task un- worthy of the divine power to overcome the re- sistance of fools and beasts, it does not follow that the apparent is a true measure of the real resistance. For to impress on fools and beasts even a dim sense of the rationality of the scheme of things, is a task more difficult by far than to prevail over the dissent of superhuman intelligences. And besides, how do 368 MAN AND GOD. we know that this very contemptlbleness In appear- ance of the obstacles to the world's progress {cp. § 25 s.f.) is not in itself an effective method of the divine guidance of the process, that it does not form part of the humorous element in things, of that subtle "irony of fate" and that gentle cynicism of nature's ways, which we so often fancy we can trace in the course of the world ? We have hardly yet got the data for estimating the strength of the spiritual resistances to the divine purpose. It is only when we see how slowly the vast and incalcul- able power which is displayed in the order of the physical universe grinds small the obstacles to its purpose, how many millions of years were required to evolve man, how many thousands of years to civilize him, and how slow even now the stubborn obstinacy of unreason makes the ever-accelerating progress of the world — It is only when we observe and ponder on all this, that we may form some faint image of the strength of the spiritual resistances to the world-process, and obtain an idea of the grandeur of the Divine Purpose immensely more vivid and impressive than the vague hyperboles of an uncritical adulation of the Infinite. The con- ception of the Divine Power as finite exalts the Deity, actually and morally, as far above an unin- telligible Infinite as modern astronomy has exalted our sense of the grandeur of the universe, as com- pared with the ancient fancies that the stars were set in the firmament to adorn our skies, or that the sun was " about the size of Peloponnese," and was put out every night in the " baths of Ocean." And the moral stimulus and emotional relief also of such a conception of the world-process ought to be Immense. It represents us no longer as the WHY PLURALISM REQUIRES A GOD. 369 helpless playthings of an infinite and infamous Deity, the victims of a senseless tyranny of an Omnipotence we can neither resist nor assist, pur- posely condemned to some idle task- work or equally unmeaning idleness in a purposeless world, that could achieve nothing the Infinite might not have achieved without our sufierinofs and without our sorrows. We are now ourselves the subjects of the world's redemption ; we can ourselves assist in our own salvation ; we can ourselves co-operate with God in hastening the achievement of the world- process, co-operate in the sweet assurance that no effort will be rejected as too petty or too vain, that no struggle will lack divine support. It is beyond the scope of an essay like this to draw out in detail the practical consequences of theoretic principles, and to proceed to the exhortations of practical re- ligion, but it is evident that it would, be difficult indeed to imagine a creed more apt than this to fortify the best elements in the human soul, or to appeal more strongly to all the higher instincts of our nature. § 29. But perhaps it may be asked, if God is not identical with Nature, and if the interacting Many are the ultimate nature of things, why need we go beyond the phenomenal Many at all, and why com- plicate our scheme of things by a reference to a transcendent God and ultimate realities ? Granted that the sum of things cannot fitly be called God, why do we require a God besides ? Why should our Pluralism be theistic ? Should we not do just as well by regarding the world as it appears as the world of ultimate reality, composed of interacting material beings, which can admit of no God that is not like it phenomenal ? R.ofS. j3 B 3 JO MAN AND GOD. The raising of this question is In reality merely one form of asking why we need to go behind the phenomenal. And the ultimate answer to it is that all science and all knowledge, every intelligible view of life, must go behind the phenomenal. Even the most materialistic and unspeculative science must do it to some extent, must form theories of the unseen and imperceptible, in order to account for appear- ances (cp. ch. ill. § 3). And so the philosophic ground for the existence of a God is of a precisely similar character to the scientific ground for assuming the existence of atoms or undiscovered planets. It Is an inference to account for the actions of the appa- rent : we infer the existence of the unseen reality God, just as the astronomer Inferred the existence of the unknown planet Neptune from the motions of the known planet Uranus. We infer it because there is no other reasonable way of accounting for the motions of the world. That this is the case will easily appear, if we consider what are the characteristics of the world which directly necessitate the inference to the exist- ence of a God. It is agreed, in the first place, that if the pheno- menal world is ultimate, the individual existences in it are alone real, and that it is a superstition to hypostasize their interaction as '' Nature " or " the All." Nature is not a reality superior to the indi- viduals and capable of controlling their destinies, but simply the sum total of their interactions, and all the operations of nature must be explained by the capacities of the known Individuals. Hence all the intelligence, reason, or purpose we discover in the world must be conscious intelligence, in some or other of its real existences. Even, therefore, if I THE WORLD-PROCESS GUIDED BY INTELLIGENCE. 3/1 we could think such things as unconscious purpose or impersonal reason, even if all canons of valid thinking did not forbid us thus gratuitously to multiply entities, which no experience can. suggest, there would be no room for them, in our world. Whatever intelligence, therefore, is. found to be active in the world must be due to the action of some real beingf. But we do find in the world manifold traces of an intelligent purpose which is not that of any known intelligence. Intelligent observation of the course of events strongly suggests that there is '' a Provi- dence that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." And even strict science is forced to re- cognize this in the Evolution of the world. Here we have all things tending persistently and con- stantly in a single and definite direction. This ten- dency of things goes on while as yet no one had discovered it, it goes on although no one consciously aims at it, nay, in spite of the constant opposition of a large portion of the conscious intelligence of the world. But the idea that this constant tendency is due to any of the known intelligences of the world refutes itself as soon as it is stated ; to suppose that atoms and amcebas could, at the time when they were the hiofhest individuals in the world, direct its process towards the development of individuals in association (ch. viii.) is absurd. We have, therefore, in the world-process the working of an intelligence which not only guides the actions of the unconscious material existences, but overrules those of the con- scious intelligences. The only possible inference from the fact of the constant and definite tendency of the world-process is that it is purposed by the intelligence of a real bein^, of a God, who, though 372 MAN AND GOD. not seen, Is yet known by His action on the pheno- menal world. And when It becomes possible to formulate the tendency of the world's Evolution In terms which appeal to our own Intelligence, this inference as to the existence of God becomes as certain as any of our inferences can be. And a similar conclusion follows from the elimin- ation of evil and the contemplation of the moral aspects of the world-process. If we admit — and unless we are pessimists we must admit — that Good is gradually prevailing over Evil, that the world- process tends towards harmony, we must admit also that this improvement Is neither Inherent In the con- stitution of things nor yet due to the efforts of the known existences. It Is not Inherent In the consti- tution of things, for the present condition of the world sufficiently shows that in Itself that constitu- tion is perfectly compatible with the existence of disorder, conflict, and Evil, that the existence of the world Is just as possible with a discordant as with a harmonious interaction of Its parts. The constitution of things Is equally consistent with a good and with a bad world, and hence cannot be regarded as the cause of the world's Improvements. Nor can we ascribe it to the efforts of the known existences, in face of their Ignorance of the good, and their frequent and lamentable failures to dis- cover the conduct which really benefits them. The progress, therefore, of the world direcdy points to God as its author. Thus a personal and finite, but non-phenomenal, God is the only possible cause that can account for the existence and character of the world- process, and the belief In God's existence is intimately bound up with the belief in the reality of the world- process. COD REVEALED IN THE WORLD-PROCESS. '^'] 3/ O I Hence the method also of our proof of God's exist- ence stands in the sharpest contrast with that of Pantheism. It is not based on a supposed necessity of hypostasizing the abstract formula of a logical unity of the universe, a unity indifferent to every content and intrinsically empty. It does not yield a God who is equally implied in every sort of world, without reference to its nature and its character, a God indifferent to the course of things, and without influence upon it, a God unknowable and unprov- able. On the contrary, it proves His existence in the only way in which it has been evident, since Kant, that it could be proved (ch. ii. § iq)^ viz., not a priori, from the consideration of a world, as such, or of an abstract totality of reality, hwl.a posteriori from the particular nature of this particular world of ours. And beinof an inference from real data it will permit the proof of something beyond mere exist- ence {cp. ch. ii. § 3). The character and nature of God and of His purpose may be obscured in the gloom of our ignorance and degradation, but- they are not intrinsically unknowable. And the divine education of the human race lies just in this, that in studying the nature and history of our world, we are .spelling out the elements of God's revelation to men. § 30. It will be necessary to touch upon one more objection to the principles laid down in the preced- ing sections, not because it is very important in itself, but because it contains a certain amount of truth. The question may be asked, how does- this view assure us that God is one and not many .'* In answer it would certainly have to be admitted that the unity of the divine person was not a matter of philosophic principle. If there are other reasons for holding that God is three, our theory offers no 374 - MAN AND GOD. obstacle. For we cannot infer from the unity of the world's plan and working anything more than iina7iimity or harmonious co-operation in its cause. But if the world-process displays, as it surely does, perfect unity alike in its conception and its execu- tion, there can certainly be no philosophic reason either for assuming a plurality of guiding intelli- gences. Still less would our experience of combined action in our world warrant such a hasty belief in its efficiency as would justify us in substituting a heavenly democracy for the monarchical rule of a single God. And so it will doubtless appear prefer- able to most minds to retain the unity of the God- head, to which their feelings have grown accustomed, in a case where the assumption of plurality could not possibly serve any practical purpose. What is alone important is that the conception of the Deity sketched in this chapter should not be thought to afford any support to polytheism, with its discordant interferences and jealous animosities of conflict- ing deities ; beyond that it is needless to dogmatize prematurely upon a subject which possesses neither theoretic nor practical importance. § 31. We have completed the second great stage of our journey by the investigation of man's relations to his cause, and of the whence of life. We have also traced the nature and origin of his present environ- ment, and discovered that we are spiritual beings living in a spiritual universe ; but the final question of the ** whither^ ? " of life yet remains to be solved in accordance with the results already attained, before we can formulate a complete answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx. CHAPTER XL IMMORTALITY, \ I. At length we have come to the last of the great questions of life, viz., that of our Future. And in a way this is the most important of all questions. For the Past is irrevocable, the Present more or less calculable and provided for, but the whither of man is a mystery which each one of us will have to solve in his own proper person. Death 7nust be experi- enced by all, and experienced alone, and may have to be experienced at any moment. It requires, therefore, unusual strength of soul or recklessness to ignore this ever-present problem of our future. Hence the question, of how to live in order to die well, has always seemed a question of primary im- portance to all who had any care of their future. And yet mankind has always displayed a curious dread of really coming to close quarters with this question. It has always been hedged round with unreasoning awe and vague obscurities of mystic language. Whether it was believed that life continued or passed away, both parties have always shrunk from saying so in plain words, and treating their beliefs as facts. To this day the question of our future life or annihilation has re- mained a subject for violent prejudices and fierce animosities, for insensate hopes and fears, for de- clamations and denunciations, for confident asser- 376 IMMORTALITY tlons on either side of meaningless or ambiguous sophisms — for anything, in fact, rather than for calm consideration and dispassionate inquiry. Nothing, indeed, presents a more curious study in human psychology than the reckless violence with which both the adherents and the opponents of traditional doctrines concerning man's future have resented any attempts to approach the subject in the serious spirit of scientific philosophy. In times now happily past orthodoxy has been equally severe upon those who believed too little and too much, and burnt all misbelievers, whether atheists or magicians, at the same stake. In the future it seems possible that the lunatic asylums will be charged with the function of preventing inquiry into this question. But just at present the conflicting orthodoxies of science and religion are, by a rare felicity of the times, so nearly balanced that a philosophical investigation seems comparatively safe. And the first point such an investigation would have to consider is the reason for such an irrational attitude of men. Half the world profess to believe in a highly sensational and stimulating account of their future life. But its effect upon their conduct is disproportionately small. Insanity due to the fear of Hell contributes only a comparatively small quota to our madhouses. The hope of Heaven does not inspire to superhuman virtue. Of most cultivated Christians it may be safely said that their belief in Hell Is practically a very faint and unimportant factor in their life, and that in Heaven fainter still. And they shrink with genuine reluctance, not fully accounted for by their latent consciousness of the difficulties of their beliefs, from all reasoning calculated to make them realize them. IS IT DESIRED ? '^']'] The Other half of the world is convinced that a future life is unprovable, if not impossible, and often prepared to argue this thesis at length. But it is even more reluctant to bring its a priori arguments to the test of practical experiment. And why should both parties agree in objecting to treat the subject like any other, as a question of supreme practical interest, to be settled by reasoning and investig- ation ? Such conduct naturally raises doubts about the sincerity of men's professions of interest in the subject. In fact, it would not, in spite of the appa- rent paradox, perhaps be too much to say that a final establishment of the reality of a future life would prove highly inconvenient to all parties, and this inconvenience is the real reason of men's dislike to its investigation. The generality of men do not care enough about their future to welcome a belief which would make it really necessary to look far ahead, and they do not want to care about it.^ So it is extremely convenient to leave the future life in the realm of vague speculation, to be believed when desired, and to be disregarded when belief would suggest unpleasant reflections, in order to avoid regarding it as a fact to be steadily and consistently kept in sight. For a fact is something which must be faced, even though it may be very tmpleasant to do so, but an opinion may be manipulated so as to suit the exigencies of the occasion. § 2. But this disregard of the future is often not only admitted but defended, on the ground that over ^ It is gratifying to find this view as to the comparative rarity of real interest in this question, supported by the high authority of Mr. F. W. H. Myers, whose unrivalled experience has caused him to come to substantially the same conclusions about the real feelings of men. (Cp. Proceedings of the Psychical Soc, pt. xvi. P- 339-) o/ 8 IMMORTALITY anxiety about the future Is by no means to be re- commended, and that a behef in another life is apt to lead to a neglect of this. Now, though it must be admitted that such excess of concern is possible, it is by no means probable that it will ever constitute a serious danger. The immediate pressure of the present makes such overpowering demands upon our attention that there is no real ground for the fear that men can ever to any extent become oblivious of the importance of this world, and least of all will they do so if they have rationally investigated the question of a future life. It is the fancy eschato- logles which are uncritically accepted that do the mischief, and no rational doctrine which regards the future life as a natural continuation of the present is in the least likely to lead to an antagonism between the claims of the present and the future, different In kind or much greater in degree than that which already exists between the different sections of our life on earth {cp. ch. iv. § 7). And so, although it is not possible that the ques- tion of a future life should ever be an absorbing and permanent occupation of the mind In the heyday of youth and in the vigour of life, while death seems a distant cloud on the horizon of reality, it must yet be regarded as a salutary and appropriate occup- ation in the leisure of declining years. For it is the only interest which can prevent the degeneration of the moral and intellectual nature In old age. With- out it, when the active work of life Is done, men be- come slothful. If they have nothing further to look forward to, there is no reason for employing their activities : the game is played out and they lag superfluous on the stage ; the battle of life Is over as far as they are concerned, and they must leave Its I IT DESIRABLE ? conduct to more vigorous hands. They have be- come useless and intrinsically unimportant, unprofit- able burdens of the ground at the best, or obstacles that obstruct the path of fitter men. And this feel- ing is both bitter and embittering ; they relax too soon their efforts to preserve their powers of mind, and cling with demoralizing tenacity to whatever fragments of their former glories they can lay hold of. And so they become both intellectually torpid and morally exacting, and frequently cynical, with a cynicism which has lost even the consciousness of the ideals it controverts. And all these demoralizing effects of a disbelief in their future are, it should be observed, quite inde- pendent of the emotional stimuli of hopes and fears. If men believed in a future life from which they neither hoped nor feared anything sensational, it would yet be a most salutary belief For it would provide old age with an aim, and redeem it from the undignified futility it so often displays at present. And hence it would be of the greatest service not only to the Individual but also to society, as tending to raise its moral and intellectual tone. Nothing would act as a more powerful tonic to improve the whole moral and spiritual condition of mankind than a belief which would induce men to realize more vividly the solemnity of the Issues involved in human life. Thus there are two advantages, at the very least, in the belief in a future life, which no other doctrine can offer; the motive it alone supplies for continuing the activity of life to the last, and the sense it en- genders that life is not a fleeting, senseless, play of feverish appetites, to be hastily glutted with whatso- ever pleasures each passing moment can afford, but 380 IMMORTALITY — must be consecrated to higher and more permanent aims, to activities which, it may be, will enrich us with a serener contentment even here, and certainly \vill prove an inexhaustible source of abiding bliss hereafter. And these advantages are a sufficient reason, alike on personal and on social grounds, for inclining favourably towards this belief But there are other reasons, no less forcible and more obvious. One need not necessarily be violently enamoured of one's own life, or cherish any abject desire for personal continuance, in order to feel that if the chapter of life Is definitely closed by death, despair is the end of all its glories. For to assert that death is the end of all beings, is to renounce the ideal of happiness (ch. iv. §§ 5-17), to admit that adaptation is impossible, and that the end of effort must be failure. And It is to poison the whole of life with this bitter consciousness. And further, it is finally to renounce the faith In the rationality of things, which could hardly be re-asserted against so wanton a waste of energy as would be involved In the destruction of characters and attainments it re- quired so much patient toil and effort to acquire. A good and wise man dies, and his goodness and his wisdom, his incalculable powers to shape the course of things for good, are wasted and destroyed. In the light of such a fact, we should have to put the worst construction alike upon the waste and the parsimony of nature elsewhere. They will both ap- pear inexplicable freaks of a senseless constitution of things. Hence we must reject the extremes on either side ; we must refuse, not only to be terrified by maddening fears, to be intoxicated by unwarranted hopes, but also to be cajoled by a disingenuous IS IT ESTABLISHED BY GHOSTS ? T,S I rhetoric, which would persuade us of the superior dignity of unquahfied negation. But if we preserve an attitude of critical moderation, there is little fear that reason will so far play us false as to commit us to any extravagant or unacceptable conclusions. § 3. But before we consider what reasons may be urged for or against the belief in immortality, we must examine with what reason that belief is sometimes based upon facts which would render all argument superfluous by directly establishing the existence of a future life. It is one of the chief advantages of the assertors of a future life that they can bring forward direct evidence in its favour, whereas the doubts of their opponents must be inferential, and there can be no such thino^ as direct evidence agfainst it. The ghost of Lord Lyttelton, in the famous story, might admonish his friend that his doubts were unfounded, but not even an Irishman could return to us with the assurance that there was no future life. If, therefore, the allegations that the dead do return are worthy of belief, if we can regard the tales of ghosts and spirits as scientifically adequate, they evidently settle the question. Nor is there anything intrinsically absurd or Im- possible about this conception, or any reason to reject such stories, because of our preconceived notions, or on the orround of a misuse of the word supernatural. It Is useless to assert that the super- natural is impossible, for if these stories are true, the facts to which they testify ipso facto cease to be supernatural. The inference to be drawn from these phenomena would simply be that we were mistaken In thinking that the change of death produced an absolute severance between us and the dead, and 382 IMMORTALITY. that there was no connection at all between our world and theirs. But if such intercourse is a fact, it is also possible and natural, and the laws and conditions thereof would be as capable of being determined as anything else. And it would surely be the most ridiculous of prejudices, or the most indefensible of lingering superstitions, to refuse to investigate scientifically so interesting a subject, on the ground that the evidence did not accord with our preconceptions as to what was appropriate and permissible conduct for the departed. What shall be said of the mental condition of those who assure us with one breath that they do not believe in the existence of spirits, but are quite sure that spiritism is false because spirits would never behave in the manner represented ? And yet this evidence, probably the vastest body of unsystematized testimony in the world, varying in value from the merest hearsay to the carefully recorded experience of the ablest and most compe- tent men, is persistently put beyond the pale of science, and the isolated attempts to investigate it systematically have met with nothing but discourage- ment from the general public. The experience, e.g., of the Society for Psychical Research would afford a most curious commentary on the sincerity of men's supposed interest in a future life. Surely, if men had cared to have the question settled, they would not have allowed these phenomena to remain in doubt and perplexity from age to age, as a standing challenge to science and a standing reflection upon their desire for truth. We spend thousands of pounds on discovering the colour of the mud at the bottom of the sea, and do not grudge even the lives of brave men in exploring the North Pole — although WIIV MERE FACTS ARE INSUFFICIENT. 383 there is obviously not the remotest prospect of es- tablishing, a trade in Manchester calicos with the Eskimos and polar bears — ^but we would not pay a penny, nor sacrifice the silliest scruple of a selfish reticence, to determine whether it is true that our dead do not pass wholly beyond our ken. And yet, with a tithe of the attention and study that has often been devoted to the most trivial and unworthy objects, the real nature of these " psychical " phen- omena might have been explored — had it suited men to arrive at certainty on the subject. But in any case ou7^ course is clear : as men of science we may deplore the apathy of mankind, as philosophers we must recognize that the present con- dition of the subject prevents us from treating these phenomena as admitted facts, on which it is possible to base inferences. And from a philosophic point of view they possess in any case two defects. The first is that they are presented to us as mere facts. Now facts, we are apt to think, are mighty things, and able to force their way into all minds by sheer weight. But nothinor could be more mistaken : a mere fact is a o very feeble thing, and the minds of most men are fortresses which cannot be captured by a single assault, fortresses impenetrable to the most obvious fact, unless it can open up a correspondence with some of the prejudices within, and enter by a gate which their treasonable support betrays to the be- sieger. Or, to drop metaphor, the mind will either not receive, or gradually eject and obliterate elements which it cannot assimilate, which it cannot harmonize with the rest of the mental furniture, be they facts ten times over, and the occupation of the mind by facts is extremely precarious until reasons for them 384 IMMORTALITY. have been given which will reconcile them with the other constituents of the mind Now the facts alleged are of a very startling character and run sharply counter to many old-established prejudices of most men, who are simply upset by them, shocked and perplexed, but quite unable to believe '' facts " which do not seem to fit into any reasonable scheme of things. Hence the assertion of facts does not dis- pense with the necessity of giving reasons. And secondly, the facts are not in themselves adequate : they prove a future life, indeed, but not immortality.* § 4. It would be impossible, therefore, to avoid making the question of immortality one of reasoning, even if the reasoning should be as insufficient as that of the ordinary arguments on either side. And certainly we shall soon discover that most of these arguments are worthy of their origins in the pre- judices of men, i.e.^ inconclusive and of little value. We must not expect then to find that the argu- ments in favour of a future life, whether based on authority or on reason, are either conclusive or secure. To take, first, the most popular of these argu- ments, that which claims to base itself on the Christian religion. We shall find that though the 1 Hence it has been suggested by several authors that ghosts are a sort of semi-material " shells," containing a few relics of the intelligence of the living, which gradually decay and fade away. And there is something in their recorded conduct v/hich justifies such theories. But of course we have no business as yet to dog- matize in any way upon the subject, and the futility of ghosts, which is certainly sometimes very marked, is explicable in many ways, e.g.^ if we suppose that their appearance in our world in- volves what to them also are abnormal conditions, or that they are *' dead men's dreams," />., effects on our minds produced in states analogous to dreaming in our world. THE CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY. 385 traditions of the Christian Church apparently sup- port the doctrine of a future life, its assurances are anything but explicit, and we must be easy to satisfy if we are content to accept them as conclu- sive. For it would be difficult to devise any eschato- logy more obscure, fragmentary and ambiguous than that of the traditional religion, or one which so ingeniously combines the defects of raising insoluble difficulties, and of yet leaving us without answer upon the most critical points. The end and the origin of the soul are alike shrouded in perplexities which religious dogma makes no serious attempt to dispel. For instance, what happens to the soul after death ? Does it sleep or is it judged ? If it sleeps, — and to judge from the inscriptions of our graveyards this may claim to be the accepted view, — is not this an admis- sion of the possibility of its annihilation at least for a season ? And if for a time, why not for ever ? Or if it is judged, what are the relations of this prelim- inary judgment to the Last Judgment ? Or, again, whence does the soul come ? Does it exist before the body, is it derived from the souls or the bodies of its parents, or created ad hoc by the Deity ? Is Pre-existence, Traducianism, or Cre- ationism the orthodox doctrine ? The first theory, although we shall see that it is the only one on which any rational eschatology can be or has been based, is difficult, and has not been very prominent in religious thought, but the other two are alike im- possible and offensive. And it would be difficult to decide which supposition was more offensive, whether that the manufacture of immortal spirits should be I a privilege directly delegated to the chance passions of a male and a female, or that they should have R.ofS. c (^. o 86 IMMORTALITY. the power at pleasure to call forth the creative energy of God. And however well the former theory may have agreed with the speculative views of the early Church, it would be well-nigh impos- sible now-a-days to distinguish it from materialism. And if the progress of science has rendered Tra- ducianism untenable, has not the progress of moral insight done the same for Creationism ? For it surely cannot explain the different dispositions and faculties of different souls by the varying excellence of the Creator's work, nor make the creation of souls with unequal endowments compatible with divine justice, even if it be supposed that the natur- ally inferior souls are judged by a more lenient standard. For how can a soul that has led the best life possible under very unfavourable conditions, has been, e.g., a good Fuegian, be adjudged worthy of heaven ? If our life on earth has any educational value as a preparation for Heaven, the Fuegian would be utterly unfitted for any heavenly life, which could only make him supremely miserable; if it has not, he (and every one else) would have to be fitted for it by a miraculous fiat of the Deity. But in this case, what is the use of earth-life, and why should not everybody be at once transmuted into an angel or devil, according as it pleased God to predestinate him ? Does it convey an ennobling view of God's action to call in the aid of needless miracle in order to make good the original injustice of an unjustifiable inequality, and is it well to save the divine justice at the expense of the spiritual value of life ? From these and similar difTficulties it will be seen that it is not merely the mania for making " conces- sions to science " that has more than once prompted ** liberal " divines to undertake the proof that a belief thp: argument from moral necessitv^. 387 in a future life was not an essential part of Christian- ity. And, indeed, they may be admitted to have established that there is no logical necessity for this doctrine within the system of the traditional religion, nor even any explicit affirmation of the continuance of all individuals. On the contrary, the Scriptures contain many passages which implicitly and explicitly deny it, and compare man to *' the beasts that perish." And the positive assertions of Scripture are all in- conclusive. Thus, e.g., no conclusion evidently can be drawn from the resurrection of Christ. For it is impossible to argue from the bodily resurrection of a divine being to the continuance of the soul of ordinary men. If there is one thing certain, it is that our future life can not be similar to the resurrection k and ascension into a super-terrestrial sphere of the terrestrial body of Christ. Whatever else we do when we die, we leave our bodies in our sepulchres. Nor need the specific promises of Heaven or Hell made to individuals in special cases be held to estab- lish a universal rule. Thus it appears that the traditional religion not only does not give us any serviceable information , concerning any future life, but does not even secure I us our fancied heritage of Heaven or of Hell. And once this is realized, it surely becomes evident th^t it cannot be accepted in any sense as conclusive of the matter under discussion. § 5. We may consider next two closely allied grounds for the belief in a future life, viz., its asser- tion on the ground of its practical or moral necessity, or of its being a postulate of feeling. These are probably the favourite bases for the hope of immort- ality among those who cherish it, but neither of 388 IMMORTALITY. It does Indeed at first sound a persuasive and at- tractive line of argument to say that there can be no retribution of o-ood and evil if there is no future life, o and that the belief in it is therefore a practical neces- sity, if there is to be any reason or justice in the order of things. But what if the constitution of things admit neither of reason nor of justice, and hence be unable to recog- nize any such moral necessity? What if things be inherently irrational and perverse ? That all should come right in the end is an assumption we can by no means make as a matter of course, but only with the utmost difficulty (cp. ch. v. § 2), and until It is estab- lished the argument from moral necessity is simply arguing In a circle. And even when it is admitted, as In a sense we have admitted it (§ 2, s.f ), it can never be admitted as an Independent and substan- tive argument. It must always result from a general view of the world, which has previously established Its rationality. And this Is precisely what most of those that make use of this plea neglect to do. They make an appeal to moral necessity, although their systems have left no room for morality, for the dis- tinction of Good and Evil. If, as is the case in the pantheism of the Infinite (ch.x. §io),orinthe atheism of Buddhism, the distinction of Good and Evil Is merely phenomenal and really unmeaning, we have no business to expect from the All any perception of the "■ moral necessity " of bestowing a future life upon us. Again, the assertion of a future life as a postulate of feeling seems to require something like univer- sality in the feeling. But not only have we been led to observe phenomena (§§ 2 and 3), which throw considerable doubt on the genuineness of the alleged AS A POSTULATE OF FEELING. 389 desire for Immortality, but the history of Hinduism shows that under certain circumstances the prospect of the continuation of life may actually come to be pretty universally regarded with horror and detestation, and that the loss of personal existence by absorption into the Absolute may become the highest object of de- sire. Nor can human nature be utterly different in the West ; and if among us the desire for annihil- ation Is less prominent, it is not because it is there less reasonable. For surely it must indicate a deplorable lack either of imagination or of real belief. If men who admit that if there Is a future life they have merited the severest punishment — and there must be many such — can prefer the torments of eternal damnation to the cessation of life. Not only, there- fore, does the argument from feeling involve the somewhat dubious thesis that men desire continu- ance at any price, but It also has first to posit the rationality of things. The constitution of things must not be so wantonly perverse as to baulk us of the satisfaction of our desires. And even granting this, and granting, as we may perhaps do, that the desire for immortality has played an important and beneficial part In furthering the progress of the world, we are not yet assured of a personal immortality. It may be that our feelings are not destined to utter disappointment in their ultimate form, but that we were yet mistaken as to the real drift of our present desires. It may be that what would really satisfy them will be attained, and yet prove something considerably different from what we now desire. Yet we may concede to this plea a certain amount of truth. It would truly be an outrage upon our conviction of the rationality of things if a feeling so 390 IMMORTALITY. deep-seated should prove groundless, if a feeling which has played so important and increasingly im- portant a part in the Evolution of the world should not stand in some essential relation to the aim of the world-process. § 6. And lastly, all arguments drawn from the simplicity and unity of the soul are dangerous and fallacious (cp. ch. ii. §§ 20, 21). They rest upon an untenable dualism which inevitably raises insoluble questions as to the relations of body and soul, and the nature of the bond which connects them. For such dualism lends countenance to the idea that the connection between body and soul is extraneous and mechanical, that each might exist without the other, and yet be what it is. It is incompatible w^ith the view which we have seen to be the only intelligible account of matter, and the only adequate reply to materiaHsm i^cp. ch. rx. §§ 26-28), viz., that matter exists only forspirits, and that the soul is the soul of a particular body, the internal reflex of a spiritual inter- action of which the body is the external expression. And as in this dualism the body is the obvious and visible partner, whereas the soul is neither, there is an easy transition to a denial of the invisible soul and the crassest materialism. And the dualism of body and soul is not only physically incompetent to account for the facts, but also, to a hardly less degree, psychologically. The conditioning of certain activities of the soul by the body is so manifest and irresistible, that a distinction between the '' bodily feelings," engendered in the soul by Its connection with the body, and its own proper feelings, must be made, even though the unity and simplicity of the soul is thereby sacrificed. The bodily feelings are then regarded as transitory, THE DISTINCTION OF BODY AND SOUL. 39 1 and produce the distinction between the mortal and immortal "parts of the soul," and this distinction destroys the human personality. F'or, with any strictness and consistency, more and more of our psychical activities must be extruded from the im- mortal part of the soul, until it is suddenly dis- covered that all our activities are indelibly stamped with the impress of mortality, and the " immortal part " is left as an empty shell from which all con- tent has been extracted, which has no feeling that any one ever feels or is capable of feeling, and is nothinof the continuance of which human feelinof can possibly desire. And then the last step is inevitable : as all the attributes which express the individuality of the soul have been abstracted from, nothing remains to distinguish one person's soul from that of another ; and so the immortal part is declared to be the Universal Soul, in which all the individual souls partake and which is one and the same for all. And whereas the personal indi- vidual souls are transitory, the impersonal Uni- versal Soul Is eternal : as a principle of metaphysics the unity of Soul is after a fashion maintained, even while personal immortality is declared a delusion. Such is the doctrine of immortality which is the genuine and logical outcome of every dualistic view of the relations of body and soul, and the history of philosophy shows that it may be read into, or developed out of, every dualistic system.^ But 1 With and without the leave of their authors. Thus Averroes developed his impersonal immortality of the Active Reason (vovs TTOLTjTLKoq) out of Aristotle's dualism, with, it must be con- fessed, considerable support from the vagueness and obscurity of Aristotle's language, who in this matter was unsuccessfully trying to reconcile conflicting views. Similarly Spinoza's doctrine does but draw conclusions implied in the dualism of Descartes. And 392 IMMORTALITY. whatever its philosophic merits, and as to these what has been said about Pantheism will mutatis mutandis be applicable, it Is pretty clear that the eternity of Universal Soul Is not what men bar- gained for, nor anything that men desire, or perhaps ought to desire ; It may or may not be an excellent doctrine philosophically, but It will hardly do duty Instead of a personal Immortality. § 7. And the arguments against the possibility of a future life are equally Inconclusive. The most popular of these is also the most worthless ; for the different forms of materialism are fatal only to the mistaken dualism which regards body and soul as separable entitles. They do not touch the Idealist view which refutes the materialist inference from the facts by the reply that the con- nection of " body " and '' soul " Is at least as well explained by regarding Matter as a phase of the content of Spirit as vice versa {cp. ch. ix. § 28). § 8. And idealism also enables us to see the Inconclusiveness of the phenomena of death, which form a silent but continual protest against the belief In a future life, all the more forcible because It ap- as for Plato, the founder of the philosophic doctrine of immortal- ity, there has been no lack of commentators ready to show that if he had understood his principles as well as they did, he could never have asserted a doctrine so contrary to them as that of a personal immortality, and that his very explicit assertions must be interpreted as figurative expressions designed to mislead the vulgar. And though we may doubt whether deliberately ambi- guous language upon so vital an issue is not rather a modern refinement of professional philosophy, alien to the frankness and freedom of the ancients, it must yet be confessed that, owing to his dualism, Plato's theory of the soul, with its mortal and im- mortal parts, does not admit of being combined into a consistent and tenable whole. I THE SELF- EVIDENCE OF DEATH. 393 peals to some of our deepest feelings at times when our powers to resist the impression are weakest. He would indeed be a strangely constituted man who did not in the presence of his beloved dead feel the unanswerable impressiveness of death, the utter and irretrievable severance which its agency effected. And no argument or consolation can get over the fact that whether or not the dead continue to exist, they are lost to the survivors, and that the ties which bound them to their earthly environment are broken. For whatever . mysteries the future may hold in store, no future meeting, no recognition even, can resume the thread or restore the sweet- ness of the human relations death has severed, or assure us that under conditions wholly different the charm of human relationships will be renewed. Though, therefore, we must thus renounce what- ever hopes we may have based on Impure and im- perfect relations rather than upon the highest and purest of spiritual sympathies, we must yet resist the Impression of this spurious self-evidence of the finality of death, and reassert against the impulses of agonized feeling that the apparent need not be the real. And thus we may come to realize that our view of death is necessarily imperfect and one- sided. For we contemplate it only from the point of view of the survivors, never from that of the dying. We have not the least idea of what death means to those that die. To 7cs It is a catastrophic change, whereby a complex of phenomenal appear- ances, which we call the body of the dead, ceases to suggest to us the presence of the ulterior existence which we called his spirit. But this does not prove, nor even tend to prove, that the spirit of the dead has ceased to exist. It merely shows that he has 394 IMMORTALITY. ceased to form part of our little world, to interact, at least in the way in which we had been accus- tomed, with our spirits. But it is at least as probable that this result is to be ascribed to his having been promoted or removed, as to his having been de- stroyed. And for such suppositions nature offers us mani- fold analogies. It would be a change similar to that whereby a being which had lived the earlier stages of its life in the w^ater, by a sudden change in its organization, took to living in the air, and this we know is the case with many insects. Hence it was not by a mistaken fancy that the butterfly was at all times regarded as the type of immortality. For the analogy is really fairly complete : in both cases there occurs an apparently catastrophic change in the mode of life, a breach in the continuity of existence, a passing into a new environment with very different functions and conditions. And in both cases also there is left behind an empty shell to deride the fears of those who cannot understand that identity can be preserved through all the transformations of metamorphosis. To judge by the first appearance of the cast-off slough, we should deem the change, of which we see the symbol, to have been that of death, and yet we now know that it indicates a fresh phase of life. Is it then so bold a conjecture that by the time when we know as much of the spiritual aspects of existence as we now do of the physical, the dead body may seem a shell as empty as the chrysalis from which the butterfly has flown, and as sure a token of re- lease into a wider sphere of life ? But, it may be urged, is there not the great dif- ficulty that the chrysalis is empty, while the organiz- IS DEATH BUT CHANGE? 395 ation of the dead body remains intact, and that we can trace the development of the butterfly in the chrysaHs, while we cannot see how the spirit is pre- pared for its new life, as its old body gets worn out with age : the change in the one case only seems castastrophic, in the other it really is. Such objections owe their undeniable plausibility to the deficiencies of our knowledge and the gross- ness of our perceptions. But for these there might be some hope of our understanding that from a spiritual point of view the dead body is really just as empty as the chrysalis, a meaningless mass of machinery, from which the motive force has been withdrawn ; but as its emptiness is spiritual, and not visible and palpable, we fail to see the parallelism. And so again it might be, if we lived more wisely, that the body would not be outworn before the spirit wearied of its life on earth, or before it had prepared for itself a spiritual tenement, with which, at the summons of the angel of death, it would soar aloft as gladly as the butterfly. But yet again, it may be asked, if death is but change, why should the complex of phenomena we call the body be left behind to decay and to pollute a world from which the spirit has departed ? But what would such critics have ? Would they prefer that men at death should silently vanish away, and be dissolved into air like ghosts ? Would this be a more satisfactory mode of effecting one's exit ? And does not, after all, the objection on the ground of the decay of the body rest upon a misconception ? There is no reason why the body should not be preserved : death, as we now know, has nothing to do with the decay of the body. For decay is a phenomenon of life, not of death, of the life of the 39^ IMMORTALITV. micro-organisms that live upon the bodies of the dead. And is there not a certain symboUc fitness in the persistence for a season of the body in the phenomenal world in which the spirit worked, and which its action will affect as long as that world remains ? It forms, as it were, a symbol of a spiritual agency whose spiritual development has taken other forms, and left this shell behind in its advance to higher phases of existence. There is no reason, therefore, why we should take the phenomenon of death as conclusive of the matter, or regard it as inconsistent with the con- ception of a spiritual process of purification by means of the g^radatlons of existence. For if such be the essential meaning of the world-process, it is evident that no Indefinite stay can be made in any one stage, and indeed none could permanently meet the spiritual requirements. It Is, moreover, pretty obvious In our case that long life is by no means an unmixed blessing : for by an intelligent mind the lessons of life are soon learnt, and while the social environment remains what it is, the experience of a protracted life is apt only to engender a conviction that all Is humbug, a cynical disbelief in all ideals and the possibility of realizing them. § 9. Such considerations may tend to counteract the overwhelming Impressiveness of the fact of death, but they only demonstrate the possibility of a future life. And moreover, thouo^h death makes the strongest appeal to our feelings, the doctrine of a future life involves a difhculty far more serious in the eyes of reason. This dif^culty arises out of the impossibility of fixing the point at which im- mortality begins, either in the beginning of the individual's life or in that of the race. It seems so b WANTED A GRADUATED IMMORTALITY. 397 Utterly Impossible to attribute an Immortal, or Indeed any sort of consciousness, to the material rudiments of our Individual existence ; and the modern doctrine of the descent of man makes It almost as Impossible to do so In the case of the race. The union of two minute particles of Matter Is the historical origin, at all events, of all conscious beings ; and at what point in the historical development can we Introduce a transition from the material existence of the germs, which exists only for consciousness, to the spiritual existence of an Immortal consciousness?^ Or again. If all living beings have been propagated from living protoplasm, and if man is but the highest of the animals, but does not differ from them In kind, how can we, In the Infinite gradations of spiritual evol- ution, draw a line anywhere to separate men or animals who possess Immortal souls from those that do not? It would seem that they must all be treated alike ; either all animals are immortal or none. And yet, while some might welcome a be- lief In the immortality of the higher animals, e.g. of dogs, how could any one admit the immortality of an amoeba ? And even if our generosity rose to the absurd pitch of admitting it, how could we carry this belief into practice ? how should we discern the immortality of beings which possess so little in- dividuality ? Is every leaf or cell of a tree, and every segment of a zoophyte — In short, every part of an organism which under favourable conditions is capable of Independent existence — an immortal in- dividual ? If so, can we multiply Immortal souls by dividing a jelly-fish ? Surely, when once the question Is definitely raised that we must be just as Immortal 1 Cp. Mr. F. H. Bradley's Logic^ p. 466, for a forcible and frank discussion of this difficulty. 39^ IMMORTALITV. as the germs and protoplasms from which we sprang, the answer our reason must give is that immortaHty is a foolish dream. § lo. It is to be feared that reflections like these present almost insuperable obstacles to the belief in a future life in modern minds. But if they can be answered, their very difficulty would make the answer the more satisfactory. Yet no at- tempt at answering the difficulty can be successful which does not realize where its real point lies. Its essence lies in the fact that whereas conscious- ness and the conscious life of spiritual beings is a matter of degree, it seems impossible to admit degrees of immortality. It seems as though a being must either have a future life or not, must either be immortal or perish utterly. But if the lowest passes into the highest forms of consciousness by a continu- ous development, it is nowhere possible to draw a line of demarcation, and to assert the immortality of man without admitting that of the amoeba. To assert the continuance of spiritual beings, therefore, it would be requisite to assert gradations of immortality. We must somehow distinguish between the case of the embryo and the adult, between the highest man and the lowest animal. We must, in short, discover degrees in a spiritual evolution corresponding to the degrees of the physical evolution. § II. Now, though these postulates may at first sight appear strange and impossible, yet if we dis- card ancient prejudices, they will not perhaps prove incapable of fulfilment. We require, in the first place, a careful analysis of the conditions on which a future life depends. To have a real meaning, immortality must be per- I SELF-IDENTITY DEPENDENT ON MEMORY. sonal immortality ; i.e., it must involve in some sort the persistence of the ** I " which in this life thinks, and feels, and wills. It must preserve our personal identity,/.^., there must be continuity of consciousness between the Self of this life and of the next. The Buddhist doctrine of ^' Karma,'' of a person who is the resultant of one's actions, but does not share any part of one's consciousness, is a miserable com- promise between the desires to deny the eternity of personal suffering (for to Buddhism to exist is to suffer), and to retain the moral stimulus of a belief in a future life. But it falls between two stools, and does not satisfy the conditions of a genuine future life. For it is impossible to regard the person who inherits one's Karma as identical with oneself, or to feel a responsible interest in his fate. His con- nection with the man whose Karma moulds his character and predestines his circumstances seems purely arbitrary, and due to a tyrannous constitution of things whose procedures we are not called upon to endorse. And, to a less degree, the same defect of failing adequately to preserve the sense of personal identity in its doctrines of the future life, is observable also in the current religious eschatology, and is probably one of the chief reasons of its practical ineffective- ness. We are led to think of the breach in con- tinuity as too absolute, and feel little real concern in the angel or demon whom the catastrophe of our death produces in another world. If, then, a future life without self-identity is a meaningless mockery, let us inquire on what self- identity depends. And the answer seems plain that it primarily depends on nothing else than me?nory. It is only by means of memory that we 400 IMMORTALITY can Identify ourselves with our past ; It Is only by memory that we can hope to enjoy the fruits of present efforts In the future. If every morning on awaking we had forgotten all that we ever did, if all the feelings, thoughts, hopes, fears and aspirations of yesterday's self had perished overnight, we should soon cease to regard to-morrow's self as a personage in whom it was possible to take any rational Interest, or for whose future it was necessary or possible to provide. We take an interest in our own future, because we believe that we can forecast the feelings of the future self, because we believe that the future self which enjoys the fruits of our labours will be conscious of its past, because. In a word, its welfare Is organically connected with that of our present self. Thus, to all intents and purposes, self identity, and with It Immortality, depend on memory. § 12. But memory is a matter of degree. Here, then, we have the key to a theory of immortality which will admit oi graduation. If we can conceive a future life, the reality of which depends on memory, It will admit of less or more. And if, as seems natural, the extent to which the events of life are remembered depends largely on the Intensity of spiritual activity they implied, It follows that the higher and intenser consciousness was during life, the greater the intensity of future consciousness. Hence the amoeba or the embryo, with their in- finitesimal consciousness, will possess only an in- finitesimal memory of their past after death. And this for a twofold reason : not only must the im- press life produces upon so rudimentary a conscious- ness generate only a very faint memory, but the contents also of life will present little that is capable of persisting and worthy of being retained. Thus I PROPORTIONED TO MERIT. 401 the lowest phases of spiritual existence will have nothing to remember, and hardly any means of remembering it. We cannot, therefore, ascribe to them any vivid or enduring consciousness of their past lives, and yet need not deny it altogether. They have a future life, but it is rudimentary. This view will open up to us an alternative to utter extinction or fully conscious Immortality, and we shall no longer be haunted with that nightmare of orthodoxy, the vision of *' little children, a span long, crawling In hell." But by a self-acting ar- rangement the condition of consciousness hereafter will accurately correspond to its attainments here. Just in proportion as we have developed our spiritual powers here will be our spiritual future. Those who have lived the life of beasts here, a dull and brutish life that was redeemed by no effort to Il- lumine the soul by spiritual enlightenment, will be rewarded as "the beasts that perish." They will retain little of what they were, their future life will be brief and faint. On the other hand, we need not hesitate to attribute to the faithful dog, whom the strength of pure affection for his master has lifted far above the spiritual level of his race, at least as much immortality as to the brutal savage, whose life has been ennobled by no high thoughts and redeemed by no elevating feeling.^ Those, again, 1 For, as Goethe well says {Faust, Pt. 2, Act 3 s.f.) : — " Wer keinen Namen sich ervvarb noch Edles will Gehort den Elementen an : so fahret hin — Mit meiner Konigin zu sein verlangt mich heiss ; Nicht nur Verdienst, auch Treue wahrt uns die Person." [They that have won no name, nor willed the right, Dissolve into the elements — so pass away ! But / to follow on my queen do ardently desire ; Not merit only, but attachment, keeps our personality.] R.ofS. D D 402 IMMORTALITY whose activities have been devoted to the com- mission of evil deeds, that burn their impress on the soul, will be haunted by their torturing memory. Those who have trained and habituated themselves to high and noble activities, who have disposed their thoughts towards truths which are permanent and their affections towards relations which are enduring, will rise to life everlasting, and will have actions worthy of memory to look back upon. The cup of Circe, the debasing draught of forgetfulness, which turns men into beasts, and renders them oblivious of their divine destiny, will pass from them. And they will be capable of remembering their past life, glad to retrace the record of great and noble deeds and lofty aspirations, the promise of a spiritual progress they have since nobly ful- filled. Nor will the memory of the past fade until it pleases them to forget it in the ecstasy of still sublimer activities. Thus each of us will be the master and maker of his own self and of his own immortality, and his future life will be such as he has deserved. § 13. But it may be objected that memory does not last for ever, and that hence a future life de- pending on it would endure but for a season. And the fact that this and several other objections might be brought against the views we have hinted at, should admonish us of the necessity of dropping the negative method of criticizing inconclusive arguments, and proceeding at length to a connected account of a positive doctrine. It may be a salutary and necessary discipline to begin at the beginning as it appears to us, to start with the obvious diffi- culties which a subject presents to our first attack ; but after such efforts have cleared the ground, we ITS METAPHYSICAL BASIS. 403 must learn to discover the real root of the matter, and discuss it in its logical and not in its historical order. Hence it is necessary to supplement the results of critical discussion of perplexities by a systematic exposition, beginning with a statement of the ultimate positive ground of the doctrine of immortality. § 14. The only absolutely secure basis either for the assertion or for the denial of immortality must be metaphysical. It is only the all-devouring One of Monism which can make the permanent existence of the Many impossible ; it is only the plurality of ultimate existences which can ultimately make it possible. The ultimate self-existence of spirits, the doctrine that existences are many, spirits uncreated, uncaused, that are and ever have been and can never cease to be, is the only metaphysical ground for asserting the immortality of the individual. And this metaphysical ground' we have secured by the preference given to Pluralism over Monism (ch. x. §^ 21-23), and by our account of the Transcendental Ego as the reconciliation of idealism and science and as the explanation of the material world (ch. ix. §§ 22, 24, 26-31). Now what is the bearing of our metaphysics on the question before us ? It follows necessarily and at once from the pluralistic answer given to the ulti- mate question of ontology that the ultimate existences are eternal and immortal, and this assertion also applies to the Transcendental Egos that underlie our phenomenal selves. In some sense, therefore — to the extent to which we are to be identified with ultimate existences and transcendental Egos — it is absolutely certain that we are immortal. And further, as the whole world-process is a process 404 IMMORTALITY. taking place In the Interaction between the Egos and the Deity, the different stages of material evolu- tion must correspond to different phases of that spiritual interaction. Parallel, therefore, to the physical evolution, there runs a spiritual evolution, related to it as meaning and motive to outward and visible manifestation. And there is no reason why this process should not be the development, not of Spirit In general, but of particular spirits, why a single Ego should not pass through the succession of organisms and developments of consciousness, from the amoeba to man, and from man to perfection. This gives, as it were, the spiritual interpretation of the descent of man from the beasts, and at the same time assures him of his due and proportionate share in the immortality of the ultimate spirit. § 15. But though the plurality of ultimate exist- ence affords the only safe and sure ground for meta- physical immortality. It is too remote from the phenomena of our world to be at once appealed to in settling the nature of our future life. It is neces- sary to make out the connection of the metaphysical with the physical, and it is just on the subject of this connection that considerable variety of doctrine might prevail. We may admit without derogating from the substantial truth of our principles, that our data are as yet too Inadequate for us to regard speculations concerning the connection of our pre- sent selves with the ultimate spirits as more than probable guesses, to be ratified or modified by the course of future discovery. Hence, though It may be laid down generally that the ultimate spirits manifest themselves in the phenomenal, it is yet necessary to ask what Is the relation of such an eternal spirit to Its successive phases, which form THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 4O5 our phenomenal existences, and in what sense can these be said to have a future Hfe ? Upon the answer to this question it will depend whether we can continue to speak of ou}" future life in any ordinary sense. Now, that the Insufficiency of our data renders the question a difficult one, it would be affectation to deny. And the reflection that with a little more knowledge the greatest obscurities would seem plain and self-evident fails also to assist our fainting imagination. But we may perhaps convey some idea of the facts by the aid of a simile. If the world-process aims at impressing the divine image upon the hard metal of the Ego, then each phenomenal life may be supposed to stamp some faint impression on its substance. And as the Im- pressions are multiplied, they gradually mould the Ego Into the required shape, and each successive impress, working upon material already more com- pletely fitted Into shape, produces a more definite impression of itself, and also fashions more definitely that which it Impresses. As the material comes nearer to its final shape its resistance becomes less,, and each impress produces fewer features which must . be erased as divergent from the ideal. Or, in other words, the spiritual value of the lower stages of consciousness is small ; they produce their effect only by their repetition and multiplication. But as the higher grades of Individuality are reached, the spiritual significance of a single phenomenal life is intensified, and it leaves a more enduring mark, upon the nature of the spirit. If, therefore, we ask In what sense the phenomenal phases of the spirit's, development persist and continue, we must answer generally, that they persist as factors in the develop- 406 aMMORTALITY. ment. The future lives of the spirit are the result- ant of its past. But the individual impress of a single life persists only in so far as it has coincided with the course of spiritual development. So, too, the impressions produced by single blows upon a coin persist only in so far as their shape coincided with that to be ultimately (produced ; the individual divergences and eccentricities of a single impress are obliterated by their multiplication. Thus in a way, the good, i.e., the action in the line of upward development, would be immartal, however humble the sphere in which it was enacted : the good char- acter would persist even when it was absorbed and included in a higher stage of development, for such development would only be the natural and neces- sary development of the highest aspirations of the lower life. And this mode of spiritual progression Is not an arbitrary conjecture of our ifancy concerning a tran- scendent sphere of which we know nothing ; it is the law of all life even now. It is the law whereby all organisms take up and assimilate what they can utilize, i.e., what serves their purposes, and reject what they cannot ; it is the law whereby the world- process preserves what promotes its purpose, viz., the good, and dissolves the rest away. And this law may be traced throughout all individual and social progress. To be impressed by any experi- ence requires the previous attainment of a certain correspondence between the agent and the patient ; to be persistent, the impression must be not only congenial to the nature impressed, but consonant with the line of its development. A lasting impres- sion, in other words, is one which is important to us, not only for a moment but for the course of our THE IMMORTALITY OF THE GOOD. 407 history ; if it. runs counter to our nature and our history, its Influence is rapidly obliterated. And so with events that had little intrinsic importance, i.e., little spiritual significance, they are forgotten and their effect is evanescent. For memory is not in- discriminate : it selects what is significant and thus preserves it : and yet again all the experience that moulds the character, though it may be forgotten, has not wholly perished, for it persists in the result- ant habits. And what Is true of impressions is true also of persons and of actions ; in social progress also it is emphatically not true that "" the evil that men do lives after them. " Like a polluted stream, the course of history runs Itself clear of the errors and crimes of the unconscious or unwilling human instruments of the divine purpose : the blindness and perversity of its champions cannot stop the progress of a good cause. On the other hand, it is vain to struggle against the spirit of the ages and the neces- sities of evolution ; neither virtue nor genius can prop a falling cause. Christianity triumphed in spite of the murder of Hypatia.; but Demosthenes could not save Athens, nor Hannibal Carthage, and Cato could not recall the ghost of Roman freedom by the blood of his self-sacrifice. Force may effect reactions that run counter to the course of things, but they soon pass away, and leave no trace behind. How much remained of the constitution of Sulla, or of the restored rule of the Bourbons, twenty years after its institution? Thus all the elements of the lower phases of life that are capable of development are transformed into the higher, and the continuous thread of con- sciousness is never broken. And this continuity of the phases, of consciousness is really sufficient 408 IMMORTALITY. to secure also the identity of the self, for though self-identity depend on memory, it is not neces- sary that the memory should be perfect. It is not necessary that we should remember all we did ten years ago in order to feel ourselves the same persons now as then, nor need we expect to re- member all we feel now, in order to identify our- selves with ourselves ten years hence. The con- tinuity of the chain of consciousness suffices to constitute the identity, even though from any given point the remoter links have passed out of sight ; and hence a future life may in a sense be ascribed to all conscious beings. Nevertheless it is not until the higher stages of individuality and spiritual development are reached that the phenomenal self of any single life, i.e., the memory of its past, can be supposed to form a pre- dominant, or even an important, factor in the total or final consciousness of the Ego, or one that can display any great permanence. The lower phases of Evolution do not generate sufficient psychical energy to attain to any considerable degree of immortality. For as we saw (§ 12), the continuance of life depends on memory, and memory on the intensity of the im- pression thoughts and feelings make upon the soul, and on the whole the capacity to receive impressions corresponds to the degree of spiritual development. But how does all this apply to man ? Shall we assert that man has reached a sufficient height of spiritual evolution so that the human soul, the phenomenal self of our earth-life, persists as Jnmzan ? Certainly man has in many cases shown such capacity for thoughts more than human, for a '' love that is stronger than death," that it would seem monstrous to deny him the intensity of conscious- i THE SURVIVAL OF IMPERFECT PHASES. 4O9 ness which substantially preserves his personality. And yet, when we look upon the sordid lives of others, whose outlook is limited to the grossest features of this world, we cannot but feel that the persistence of their personalities would be only an obstacle to the development of their spirit. And so it will perhaps seem a probable compromise to make the aspirations of the soul, ix., the fitness of the phenomenal self to adapt itself to the conditions of a higher spiritual life, the test of immortality, and to suppose that the desire of continuance, whether widely or exceptionally felt, affords a fairly adequate measure of personal survival. We need not suppose that personal immortality will be forced on those whose phenomenal self has not desired it nor pre- pared itself to survive death, and who make no effort to preserve the memory of their past, nor yet that those should be baulked who have really and in- tensely desired it. And for these latter the practical outcome of this doctrine cannot be formulated more truly and more concisely than in the maxim of Aristotle, oo-w fxaK^TTa aQavaTiQeiv} bidding them " as far as possible to lead the life of immortality " on earth, ix,, to live constantly in communion with the ideal, and in co-operation with the aim of the world's evolution. § 16. Such are the outlines of a theory of im- mortality which would meet the main difficulties of the subject, and explain how a future life can admit of gradations proportioned to the grades and con- ditions of consciousness. But our account would be incomplete if it did nothing to elucidate several points not yet touched upon. The easiest miscon- ception, e.g,, to fall into would be that of regarding 1 Ar. Eth. Nich. X. vii. S. 4IO IMMORTALITY. the Ego as a reality different from the self. It has already been remarked, and must here be em- phasized again, that the Ego is not a second and alien consciousness concurrent with and distinct from the selves (9^. ch. ix. § 22). The self or selves (ch. ix. § 23) are simply the actually conscious part of the Ego, which represents the potentialities of their development on the one hand and their primary and pre-cosmic condition on the other. The Ego is both the basis of the development and its end, but within the process the selves alone are real. For as will be shown in the next chapter, both the pre- cosmic basis and the post-cosmic end, though neces- sarily implied in and inferred from the cosmic process,, belong to a radically different order of things from our present world of Becoming, and the Ego does not as such enter into the cosmos. Even if, therefore, we adopted a supposition which may per- haps commend itself from a moral point of view, that after death, in the intervals, as it were, of its incarn- ations, the Ego recovered a fuller consciousness and the memory of all- its past lives, these lucid intervals, though they might produce great moral effects, would not in themselves form part of the phenomenal de- velopment, and the latter would appear to be continu- ous from phase to phase of phenomenal consciousness. § 1 7. Secondly, we must consider some of the objections likely to be made to a doctrine involving xh^ pre-existenee of the soul, although no apology should really be needed. For no rational argument in favour of immortality can be devised that will not tell as strongly in favour of the pre- existence as of the post-existence of the soul, and this has been fully recognized by all rational defenders of im- mortality from the time of Plato downwards. It PRE-EXISTENCE AND TRANSMIGRATION. 4 II would in fact, as we saw In § 4, be hard to defend the only alternative theories of Traduclanism and Creatlonism without a high degree of either moral obliquity or Intellectual obtuseness. And in addition to the somewhat negative merit of being the only possible theory, it is one which has been becoming progressively more credible. In early times, while our earth was regarded as the centre of the universe and the only abode of in- telligent beings, the theory of pre-existence and transmigration was liable to be discredited by very homely objections. The limitation of the total number of available souls would either limit, or be refuted by, the Increase of population, while their confinement to a single w^orld precluded the idea of anything like a real progress of the individual souls. They had to be reincarnated in our world, until, as the history of the Hindus and Buddhism showed, the doctrine of transmigration,, with its endless round of purposeless re-births, became a terror such that men eagerly grasped at the idea of annihilation as a release from the vicissitudes of life. But now the knowledge of the plurality of worlds has relieved the doctrine of the first difficulty, while the theory of the ascent which